Funky Remote Desktop Connection Scenario

Hello everyone, I'm a novice at networking... as in I've done it many times in the past for myself, but not often enough for me to remember many of the tricks and techniques. The following is about remote desktop connection programs/networking... of which I have never done before.

What I have (I'd like to avoid buying anything further, this is for fun, not work):

A Win98 Laptop (Compaq Presario 1670: http://www.smartcomputing.com/edito...99/s1009/33s09/33s09.asp&articleid=6360&guid= )
A WinXPSP2 desktop
A WinME desktop
Ethernet cards for all
Ethernet cable
Telephone cable
Wireless router (that I have never hooked up and I do not have a receiver card for)
Crossover Cable
Cable broadband connection on XP and ME computer via Motorolla Surfboard modem (they are "networked" together via the crossover cable)

In short, what I envision doing is:

To somehow use my ethernet cable (or telephone cable would be better, unless that would be too slow) between the two computers (laptop and WinXP desktop) and some sort of remote desktop connection rogram with the ability to control my XP desktop through my laptop which is just a couple rooms away. I'd like to be able to surf the internet from my laptop, and play World of Warcraft type games that are installed on my WinXP desktop.

Why this way?

Because my laptop is old, it has a 4gb HDD and a AMD K6 350ish MHZ processor, and would be very slow to run world of warcraft type games and other programs (if it could at all). So I figured if I could do remote desktoping with it, then it could handle anything my WinXP desktop can. Am I wrong in thinking this? Is there a completely different way I should be going about this?

Thank you in advance!