Before I get into this post, I should say this for everyone who doesn’t know me: I’m an idiot. Seriously. Maybe the occasional flash of what looks like genius, but by and large I’m an idiot. I’m the kind of guy who puts barbecue sauce on an omelette, is afraid of spiders, loves to ski but is afraid of heights and will often make you wonder what the hell I’m talking about.

Most of my “occasional flashes of geniuses” (as someone said today) aren’t intended as such. They are generally borne out of laziness or a completely fried brain looking for an outlet.

Included in this list is:

- blogging
- Ensight
- the eBay auction
- selling my blog
- starting InsideBlogging
- my free laptop

Honestly. They are flights of fancy. Me leaning over to my wife and saying “I’m an idiot, look what I just posted” and her agreeing.

However, each of these things has turned out well. Very well, even. And I assure you, it’s not because of some master plan. It might be because I “think outside the box”, but it’s never because I intend to. I’m sure that’s how most great ideas happen, but that’s not the point. I feel like if I don’t work hard at an idea, then I don’t deserve credit for it.

So, my free laptop.

I’ll be picking it up tomorrow. Two companies stepped up and both offered to pay for it. Jason from Recruiting.com and Jennifer from SilkWare.

It was actually a hard call to make. In the end, I’ve worked with Jason on several projects, I respect and trust him a lot and, in a way, feel like we’re friends. SilkWare’s offer was very generous, and would have helped InsideBlogging in the long run, but at the end of the day I felt like “put good people before a good deal” was something I should live by.

Not that Jennifer and SilkWare aren’t good people. She was incredibly nice yesterday – not just in terms of the offer but also the conversations we’ve had over the last 24 hours.

Definitely the kind of person, and company, I want to get to know.

But, I couldn’t exactly take 2 free laptops (unless, of course, Jennifer is willing to give it to someone else … What do you think Jennifer? Contest / PR stunt?).

I’ve made my choice and I’m happy with it. I feel bad that I don’t get to work with the SilkWare crew – yet – but I am happy with how this has turned out.

In spite of my idiocy.

So, what am I getting, tomorrow during my lunch hour?

Toshiba Satellite
17″ screen
P4 3.4GHz
2GB RAM
80GB HDD
nVidia GeForce Go5700 (was hoping for a 5800, but ah well)
All the bits that come with a high powered, desktop replacement laptop

I’ll also be picking up (on my own tab), a nice case, wireless networking for my desktop, notebook and XBox (for Christmas from my wife), a travel mouse and some portable speakers for those occasions where I want to watch a DVD and don’t have a TV nearby.

Funnily enough, the laptop comes with Windows XP Media Center Edition. I’m not sure I want to keep that, but I’ll likely try it out for a few weeks to see how it feels.

I’ll see if I can nab a digital camera over the next few days to snap some picks.

What’s the end of this story? My thanks to Jason and Jennifer of Recruiting.com and SilkWare respectively. Thanks guys. And thanks to my readers for not calling me on my idiocy ;-)