This was a triumph!
I knew it was coming, but I didn't expect it today -- Still Alive by Jonathan Coulton was released today for the 360 version of Rock Band FOR FREE. I would have likely mortgaged our home for it, should that have been required, and they give it me without cost.
 What a precious gift.
If you aren't familar with the song, you haven't played Portal, and you owe it to yourself to at least rent the Orange Box.
$4.95!
Good news everyone! Prey is available on Steam for $4.95 through tomorrow; I played through it when it came out, and loved it. It's no Bioshock, but still a really great game at an amazing price.
Router re-flashing
I can't recommend enough the combination of Linksys's WRT54GL router & the open-source DD-WRT software for it. After the $60 WRT54GL has been reflashed, it hs functionality for which you would normally have to pay well over $100 (hundreds of dollars, really, depending on how you're using it).Â
In my case, I'm using it to bridge one of my homes existing wireless networks to a second wired network, thereby granting net access to my xboxs and workbench.
 Net result? Buying more songs for Rock Band. Time for my Boston 6-pack...
Chill
Good news everyone! I have finished the radiator(/thermostat/overflow bottle) install on the car, and it seems to be holding together!
GHIII
Good idea: Buying Guitar Hero III (bundle with controller, now $80 at Frys)
Bad idea: Hiding it from the wife
Good idea: If hiding it regardless, discarding enormous Amazon shipping packaging on the sly
Bad idea: Leaving the receipt in the living room.
Doh!
Wow, that took forever
My server's power supply failed last weekend; subsequently I've spent pretty much every spare moment in the last week repairing/restoring the system.
It was particularly spectacular (read: atrocious) because it didn't completely fail, but stopped supplying suffcient voltage to the hard drives, causing them to spin down intermittendly (RAID degradation!?) This finally crashed the system early Saturday morning, but eluded specifc trouble shooting for some time (I am now the proud owner of an ATX power tester.)
While it exhausted me over the week, it did have its upsides:
- It gave me the excuse to upgrade the power supply; the new one is more efficient.
- I was able to more cleanly configure the server; far fewer cludgy hacks.
- It justified the work I had done of setting up automated backups. My new backup routines are even more thorough.
It will happen to you too someday. Just as every other geek has ever told you, make sure your data is backed up. Your hard drive will fail, and it's likely just waiting until the data you have on it is important enough.
...of course, if you'd like my assistance in setting up a reliable backup system, my services are available at quite affordable rates 
EDIT: I failed to import all of the (legions of) previously registered users; my apologies for having to re-register.
Not just obligations, but fulfilling them none-the-less
My son is freakin' adorable. I'm just saying.
I don't think his mother thinks so right now; he just broke one of her keyboard keys again. Oh man; thank goodness only one of us wants to kill him at a time.