Lazy!: Well, I had LOADS of time off work (basically a whole week).  About all I did was play video games...specifically Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and even more specifically the Bad Gerbil sniper server.  I'm fairly good as a sniper.  I really go for body shots more than head shots.  Head shots usually kill instantly but take way longer to line up.  I can generally crank out two body shots before most people can line up for a single headshot.  As the first one throws off their aim, the only way I can get killed (by them) after that shot is if I miss on the second.

The dead motherboard: or at least, the motherboard I originally thought died with the PSU in my wife's machine, then thought worked, then thought was dead...actually works quite well.  Apparently it's got some issues autodetecting the CPU.  I just have to do the initial CPU setup with the low bus speed jumper in place and then everything's fine.  Sadly the processor that went on that board is flat out DEAD.  Anyway, it's nice to have a spare motherboard.

HTPC back in action: not that it's a necessary machine.  It's sort of a spare, spare.  It also holds the ol' music collection...and it's always nice to be able to show flash animations and various other animation/video formats on the TV.  It also has a way better graphics card and I'm hoping to get some emulators working on it.  I downloaded the Atari emulator and a huge library of software (lol, only about 5meg worth zipped because atari games are generally just 2-4k each).

Websites: still need to get off my ass and fix 'em up a bit.

Birthday: Turned 37 on earthday.  Note to self, maybe modify the earthday logo to show the kilroy guy behind a cake in the background.  Trying to figure out how best to spend my birthday money :)

Gas prices: Stop whining everyone.  Are you all freaking retarded?  We use WAY too much gas...yeah, I'm especially talking to you people driving SUV's.  This has been coming for a long time...you want someone to blame?  Blame YOURSELVES.  Let me explain again why this isn't entirely the fault of the oil companies.

(1) Fuel consumption SKYROCKETED because people started buying gas guzzlers.  That means that the refineries that WERE sufficient...now aren't.

(2) N.I.M.B.Y.  Not in my back yard...nobody wants a refinery near them and environmental laws strictly limit them anyway...It takes a decade to get them APPROVED and years to get them built.  DO THE MATH.  How were refineries supposed to MAGICALLY spring up to give us more gas?

(3) Developing nations...they're called that for a reason, they're still developing.  HOWEVER, China and India (along with lots in southeast asia) are starting to consume oil.  We all knew oil wasn't in limitless pools you could just tap at will and pump out at ANY speed you wanted.  With oil prices high MANY nations have tried to pump out more oil.  Guess what, they can't.  The saudis for example found that if they push production at individual wells much further, the output of other wells drops.

Long story short.  While environmentalists have been predicting some sort of catastrophic crash in supplies of oil (which ironically is only possible if oil/gas prices are FORCED to stay low) .  Businesses and anyone that studdies the such things (as well as MYSELF) have pointed out that what ACTUALLY happens is that as soon as supply is restricted even slightly, the price starts going up and we're forced to switch.  We COULD have avoided this by encouraging more research into alternative energy BUT, we didn't.  Of course, oil companies are going to make a fortune from all this...but that's how supply and demand works.  Maybe you should look into getting your SUV's engine computers chipped so the engines use less gas (and produce lower horsepower of course).