I finally--finally ordered that damn laptop this morning. After some thought, a call to my bank to have them temporarily up my debit card limit, and an order cancellation, I settled on the Dell Inspiron 6300.

Yeah, yeah, Dell pre-loads a bunch of crap on their computers, but after all of that's deleted, they, for me at least, have been downright reliable. I was originally planning on buying an Inspiron 9300, with it's huge 17" screen, but that's the same reason I decided against it. I already have a decent, more-than-powerful desktop computer and didn't need another, slightly more portable model. I wanted a laptop I could lug to the bar with me, and the 9300 sounded just a tad too cumbersome for that to be comfortable.

So, how does the new laptop relate to poker? Glad you asked, my fine feathered friends.

My desktop computer is in my room right now, which means that to play any poker whatsoever, I must sit there, secluded from the rest of the house. I don't like it. I'd rather have the choice to sit on, say, our deck in the summer, or up near the couch in the living room while watching a Wild game, or the Vikings JV team get beat down by the Pack. I get bored sitting in my room.

And boredom, for me, is the precedent to lapses in attention. That's not good for me, or sharpening my pokering skillz. Yes, it endz in a "z".

I looked back at the last few months, and I noticed that the lack of desire to sit down and play, and the stagnant state of my bankroll, roughly coincides with the time I made a stupid decision to inspect(read:destroy) my last laptop. That's not a coincidence.

Back in June, I had the luxury of playing in a number of Vegas cardrooms rooms-- the IP, MGM, Alladin, Harrah's, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur--some of which I felt comfortable playing, others, not so much. The rooms I did feel comfortable in--the Alladin, IP--I played well, concentrated without conciously having to talk myself into paying attention, and came out ahead. In the rooms I felt uncomfortable, or maybe just slightly uneasy--MGM, Mandalay Bay--I lost the most money, I was nervous and couldn't concentrate even if I was promised sex, if only I'd focus for 30 minutes.

I don't know why the MGM or Mandalay Bay's rooms had me so uneasy, as they are two of the nicest around. I mean, come on, the MGM is gorgeous in every respect. Gorgeous. It could've been the lighting, the unnssst, unnssst, unnssst of the music in the bar nearby, or the racetrack design tables with the marble inlay, I don't know. Whatever it was, it made me uncomfortable. And I feel that, along with other factors, I'm sure, aided those days becoming a negative in the win column.

I'm hoping the ability to quickly change my surroundings will help me concentrate. If anything, I'll now be able to look porn in the Panera a few blocks away. Nobody will mind.

So here I sit, at work, constantly mashing the F5 in hopes that the screen will update from "In Production", to "Kitting", and really, how long does it really take to pull the parts from a warehouse? I think Dell could hire a monkey to do it. Or a robot. But what I'd really like to see is the collision of those two worlds; RoboMonkey.

Ok, I'm going to open the floor up for debate here--Is your comfort level at the table, or in a particular room, dictated by the surroundings? Or are you able to tune all that out and just play?