Ordering a New Computer Off the Internet

Michael After my good old 486 computer, imported from Germany (sponsored by Mom!), has now become outdated after four years (four Internet years equate to forty human years), I finally decided to buy a new one, hooray! For those interested, here are the specs: 400 MHz Pentium II, 96 MB RAM, 17 GB hard drive, 17'' Trinitron monitor, 56 Kbps modem.

My good old computer will spend its retirement in the bedroom, where Angelika can now surf the Internet undisturbed. She has always complained that she never gets a chance to use the computer because of my constant typing!

Of course, in the Internet age, you don't just buy a new computer in a store. Instead, you go online, find a manufacturer, select the components, and instantly see how much the whole thing will cost. Then, you enter your credit card number and—bam!—a week later, a huge package arrives by mail, and the fun can begin!

This method even saves money because, as tourists in California painfully learn, you have to pay an additional 8.5% sales tax (a kind of VAT) on top of the listed price. However, when ordering online and shipping to another state, you are exempt from this tax. So, I simply ordered the stuff from Dallas, Texas, and it was flown to San Francisco without any problem! Many people do this, and politicians in Washington have considered imposing a flat internet tax. However, since everyone here in the U.S. sees the internet as the best communication tool and economic booster of all time (rightly so!), they decided to postpone the idea for a few years to avoid artificially slowing down the current development, which can only be described as an "explosion!"

With the new setup, we can now watch the German "Tagesschau" every day: the technology called RealVideo allows us to watch TV broadcasts over the Internet. The picture is only a few centimeters in size and a bit shaky, but you can see everything necessary and the sound is flawless. Due to the time difference, the 8:00 PM Tagesschau airs here at 11:00 AM—if that’s not progress, I don’t know what is!