Thanks! I guess sub $1000 is not possible, the dell 1705 suggested above is a close as it gets, but the removed the T5500/5600 as an option for the E1705.
I ended up spending an extra $300, use a coupon and their 6 month 0% financing, but I think I got a good deal:
Dell E1705 for $1386.00
Inspiron E1705, Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7200 (4MB/2.00GHz/667MHz)
17 inch Wide-screen WXGA+ Display for Inspiron 9400/E 1705
2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm, for Inspiron 9400,E1705
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
80GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9400/E1705
8X DVD+/-RW Drive, for Inspiron 9400/E1705
I decide to splurge on the video card because I want to be able to play games for a while
I decide to splurge on the RAM, upgrading from one gig to two gig of 667MHz DDR2 ram is not less expensive on the street ($200 at newegg) because you need to "throw away" the one that shipped with your laptop since it uses 2 slots already. I really think Vista will benefit from 2G.
The hard drive is small but this is not my main machine, so it really shouldn't need to hold that much data. it's also one of the easiest things to upgrade in the future should I want to. as a tradeoff I went with the DVD writer drive to make it easy to transfer stuff out of the laptop (802.11 is slowish when it comes to moving a few gigs)
This is a whole lot more laptop than I expected to get even though it cost me 30% more than I had budgetted.