Actually, I did celebrate my birthday this year, by treating myself to a computer upgrade, after using the same computer for two years (that's a record for me--2 years on the same PC). Went from a P-II 266MHz, 160Mb RAM, 4Mb video card, to a 366MHz, 196Mb, 8MB VRAM. Total cost, $0.00, including shipping. The upgrade started out as a co-incidental bit of luck. A couple days before my b'day, I came across a very interesting trash pile along the side of the road. (As I drove by, I noticed a printer and a desktop box on the top of this huge pile, so I went back to investigate). In this pile I found, among other things, a Mac PPC 7200/90, several base units of IBM TP 390E (my G/F's computer), a Micro$oft Natural Keyboard, and best of all, an IBM TP 770X base unit (my computer was a TP 770E). I put some of these items up on ebay, and made about $23.00 off them. The rest I put to good use. I set up the Mac for my little girl, used one of the 390E's to repair G/F's computer. (Someone had broken her USB jack by forcing the plug in upside-down), and used the 770X to upgrade my 770E. The X model uses a different MB & CPU card, which has more base memory, and had an 8Mb video card. I then purchased a faster CPU card off eBay for $11.50, including shipping.
Upgraded/repaired two laptops, and still made a profit of $11.50--not a bad trash pile at all. I just took it as a b'day present from the TrashGods to me.
--T