Christmas lists last year were topped by requests for clothing, followed by peace and happiness. The least popular answer was computers. But the past year has brought many changes. Today the No. 1 thing people want is computers. Peace and happiness now comes in second, followed by big-screen TVs, clothing and money. Computers sales tend to come in waves. One of the last great sales surges was in 1999 when people bought systems that were Y2K compliant. On a side note, Clark recalled all the millennial hysteria surrounding wide-eyed predictions about planes falling out of the sky at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. Clark was in the air on New Year's Eve at midnight Greenwich Mean Time doing phone interviews with various radio and TV stations. Some people thought it would be the last time they ever heard from him because they expected his plane to crash! Fortunately it didn't. But those people who bought computers in 1999 now have systems that are the end of their life. That partly explains this holiday season's computer craze.

Folks often ask Clark what they should spend on a computer. Clark believes you can get a nice desktop for $300 and a good laptop for $450. But now a Taiwanese company has announced plans to sell a basic notebook model for the low $200s. The cheap laptop is being called the eee PC and should hit stores within a few months. Meanwhile, the Black Friday shopping sites have begun popping up with their predictions about sale prices on the day after Thanksgiving. According to some, Sears will be selling 32-inch hi-def TVs for $300 and 42-inch plasma TVs for $600. We'll have links to various Black Friday shopping sites for you as we get closer to Xmas.