I spent basically the entire weekend building my latest dream computer, which is meant to be integrated into our developing home theatre system. The hardware part wasn't too challenging, but even just the basic software installation (WinBlows, MB drivers) was exhausting. It isn't easy putting the original XP on a brand new hard drive (the formatting alone took an hour), upgrading it through the service packs, only to have the whole thing combust when I ran the motherboard driver installation disk. Had to do the entire thing again. There were actually many interesting adventures and puzzles--both hardware and software--along the way, but I am too tired to write it all down. And you are probably glad for that.

I still need to connect the multimedia wonder to the other components in a meaningful, useful way, but that is going to have to wait for at least a week, as I am going to deliver two talks at a conference in New Orleans this Thursday.