Before I got married and had two kids and had a bond to pay off and still lived with mommy I could afford all these nice shiny cards

.
EGA
Saw Wing Commander 1 in VGA and bought a ****ty noname VGA card and monitor the next day
Dumped ****ty card for a top of the range S3 Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM
Then saw TombRaider at a Creative booth and bought a Rendition Verite powered Creative 3D Blaster the next day
Then saw OpenGL Quake I at a mates house and ordered a Diamond Monster 3D from the USA the next day
I then got married
Eventually upgraded to a rather ****ty GeForce 5200
Saw screenshots of HalflLife 2 and Doom 3 and begged and pleaded with the Mrs for permission to blow my 13'th cheque a new rig and donate the old one to the kids
Permission was obtained but on condition that she got a Nikon D70 digital SLR out of the deal (so there went my P4 Extreme Edition with a watercooled His Radeon 9800Pro).
Played HL2 on the ****ty 5200 on my new PC until I got to the water channel slowmo level

.
Bought a 5900XT the next day

.