Hey, believe it or not I got a killer deal from circuit city recently. I know they went bust but they got bought out and now trade online only at circuitcity.com I got a brand new Acer with a reasonable HD and 3 gigs of ram for $299. They sold out of that model pretty quick but you might check and see what they have at the moment. Buy.com seems to have pretty good prices sometimes too.
Good luck shopping and BTW, that new laptop wont help any, I'ma still gonna fuck you up.