(This is a sponsored post! Really fun to write, too.)

Oh god, here comes that cat again. She sniffs at my mouse, then steps on me, pushing my keys and making me beep angrily at her. For a moment she stands, hair drifting down between my keys, and then flicks her tail at my monitor and jumps to the floor. I'm used to this by now; in the eight months since I came here, I've had my keyboard tromped on by cats and even the smaller of the dogs, who seemed to be examining her fuzzy reflection in the shiny white side of my CPU tower.

Still, it's not bad. I spend my days napping, except for a couple of times in the morning and afternoon when my operator's fingers fly over the keys, typing blog entries and Facebook updates. Then it's back to sleep in the evening, most days, until she gets home from work. This is when I do most of my work, visiting websites and running word processing files; checking email and playing music. It's easy work, not strenuous; I've caught a couple of quickly cleared viruses, and there was a recent Windows update that made me blue out a lot, but other than that I'm still in perfect health.

But sometimes ... sometimes I wish I could be one of those fancy high-end machines, displaying dizzying game graphics or winnowing my way through shadowy internet paths. Other times, I wish I could be new and fashionable instead of sturdy and dependable--like the HP TouchSmart IQ800t series. Everything in my tower is integrated into the monitor panel of that--tres chic.

At the end of the day, though, my simple quiet life is enough. I'm still young; not even one yet, and have many years of satisfying web surfing ahead of me. But for any of my friends out there who're looking to retire, you might let your operators know that HP has some impressive new specimens, and is offering $30 off orders $150 or greater at HP Home Store (Use coupon code SV2132. Valid through 10/31 or while supplies last. Restrictions and exclusions apply).