I’ve got it bad, bad, bad, bad, baaaad. The craze hasn’t been this bad since I wanted an ipod more than three years ago. I suppose it’s a good thing this particular illness only strikes every few years. I wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.

So, ever wondered what you’d get if a PDA and a laptop had a torrid love affair? Meet the EeePC 8g. (Yay for alliteration!)

It’s small, less than 9″ at it’s widest point, and weighing in at 2 lbs, this thing would fit in my shoulder bag (it’s not a purse, dammit!). It’s wifi-enabled, with a webcam and microphone which, if all the reviews are any indication, are great for Skype and other VOIP/webchat features. While the 8g SSD and small screen size wouldn’t be good for gaming, these little machines would be great for portable computing. They ship with a Linux OS, though they’ll can handle XP, and are apparently lightning fast on boot and shutdown. There’s a huge and thriving user community, so how-to’s and hacks are readily available if you don’t mind voiding the warranty.

With a price tag at $500, the new 8G’s are affordable enough that I plan on getting an eeepc (that’s “ee-pee-cee”) even before I replace my failing ipod. Add to this the fact that it’s upgradable to 2Gb RAM from the 1Gb it comes with, and rumors that the SSD may not be soldered to the board (that thus, be upgradable if you have the know-how), and for my purposes, it’s well worth the money. Three usb ports and an SD card reader will make it easy to up the storage capacity, so the actual hard drive space doesn’t bother me.

My only complaints so far? That they’re hard to find anywhere other than Ebay right now, and the release date keeps getting pushed back.

Oh, and that I’m running out of Ghost In the Shell characters to name my toys after :)