The new computer that I ordered arrived yesterday, so I was looking forward to an evening of compiling but for one small problem. I cracked open the case, popped in the video capture card and DVD burner, and it didn’t boot up. It froze on the “Detecting IDE Drives” stage, which was pretty depressing. I tried a bunch of stuff, and eventually decided that the DVD burner had died. I tried a “known good” CD drive, and the system came up just fine. I decided that I’d wait until I can get a new DVD burner to do the requisite compiling/setup…I suppose I could have gone ahead with the “known good” cd drive, but it’s slow and loud, and William wanted to play with me, so I called it a night.

Otherwise though, I’m really happy with the system. It seems well put together, and when I turn it on, it’s dead quiet. Granted, it’s not actually doing anything yet, since I don’t have an OS installed, but it makes my old webserver sound like the Space Shuttle is trying to launch with a Rolling Stones concert inside it.

I pulled out some Christmas decorations last night, and we made some progress toward getting the tree up (but it’s not up yet…) Besides that though, not much else went on last night.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Don’t take it so hard lad. I was wrestling wolves when you were at your mother’s teat.” - Groundskeeper Willie