[ale] Ping times, LAN

[Emil P. Man]

ALErs,

I have two machines plugged into a LAN router and I am pinging one machine to 
another like so:

PING 192.168.0.104 (192.168.0.104) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.104: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.194 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.104: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.167 ms

from the same machine that I pinged 192.168.0.104, if I ping yahoo.com for 
example... :

PING www.yahoo.akadns.net (66.94.230.35) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from p4.www.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.230.35): icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=91.6 
ms
64 bytes from p4.www.scd.yahoo.com (66.94.230.35): icmp_seq=2 ttl=47 time=92.5 
ms

so I am getting a lower ping on the internet than I am on LAN. 

What is the problem here? Lol.... Transfering data from one machine to the 
other, is slower than through the internet. Did a traceroute, and its going 
directly from machine A to machine B.

Should I invest in a switch and just plug up the router to the switch? Right 
now, the machines are all plugged into a four port router....

Emil