My home computer is hanging by a thread. As far as I can tell, the actual computer is more or less okay--it's quirky in the way that well-loved computers tend to be, but it works--but the cord seems to have stopped carrying electricity from the wall into the computer. I think. The screen is flickery, and occasionally blacks out, only to shut itself down and restart like nothing happened. The battery isn't so great, either, and I'm scrambling to back everything up before it dies.

So now I'm looking for a new power adapter, which I hear are model-specific. Power adapters, it seems, are weirdly expensive. Ninety-nine dollars for a cord? How is it possible that Radio Shack doesn't have this for seven bucks? I'm also trying to figure out a back-up scheme, because I am smart (as in, S-M-R-T) and therefore have no back-ups of anything.

I guess I'm at that point where I need to decide how much money I'm going to put into my computer before I move on. Two hundred dollars for a new cord and an external hard drive seems like a lot of money to put into an old computer--especially if Vista's taking over the world--but it's cheaper than the $1200 for the shiny new Mac I'm eyeing.

What to do, what to do?