Today I caved and made a few big purchases.  First, after all my printer woes around here (none of my three printers work at all), I bought a new Brother HL-5170DN for $300 from Staples.com.  It should be delivered on Monday - I'm so excited.  It has built-in duplexing (two-sided printing), great print resolution, network ready (ethernet), etc.  I hadn't found the duplexing and network support in the same printer for under $600 until yesterday when I found this one.  All the reviews I've read indicate that it's a great printer too, so that's not discouraging.

I also purchased a dual-layer DVD burner.  I haven't yet had a chance to give it a whirl, but I'm very much looking forward to using it - especially for backups!

Let's just hope this equipment doesn't, as have their predecessors, fail on me within the first several months.