Just a step away from being a droid, really

So recently, my laptop has been acting... funny. And by funny, I don't mean "ha ha" funny. No, instead it has taken to... well, crashing. Sometimes it crashes a program, sometimes the entire computer locks up, sometimes (sob!) there's a kernel panic and I get a friendly message saying I need to turn the computer off. Now. Naturally, when the kernel panics, I follow suit. I have a Mac, and Macs don't crash. They just don't. So I knew something was wrong. While I started wondering if I needed to shell out money for a whole new laptop, John wondered if the RAM had gone bad. We ordered new RAM, and waited for its arrival. I had two choices: use my current laptop, and hope like hell that it stopped crashing, or use my old laptop which is slow as molasses and has none of my research on it. I opted to use my current laptop, and counted no fewer than 10 crashes, of varying degrees, between Tuesday and Wednesday morning. When I finally had to shut it down after the last kernel panic yesterday morning, I was at a loss. What could I do without a laptop?!? My laptop is my means of communication, my means of research, my means of employment... I finally opted to clean the house, and was just a few minutes into that task when the FedEx guy arrived with my new RAM. Whew! I'm happy to report that my laptop is working like a charm now, and I'm breathing easier again. Though I have some suspicion that Steve Jobs has a plan to get us all completely dependent on our Macs, then unleash us on the world to do his evil bidding...