A couple months back I told my buddy William Chiu that I intended to build my next computer instead of buying one from a major manufacturer like Dell.

"It's cheaper that way," says I.

In true bullshit artist economist fashion, he responds(in what I can only imagine is outrage, it was over AIM) "Did you draw up a cost-benefit analysis of the time you'd spend assembling the thing instead of buying one built???"

It made me feel better about my own Geek-ness.

Well, three weeks ago I finally had all the parts here(well, all the ones needed, soundcard came later). When finished, my system looked like this:

Antec 900 Case
2GB OCZ DDR2 800 RAM
WD 300GB 7200 RPM SATA HD
Windows XP home edition(Bite me, I'm using the restore disc from my laptop)
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB
650w-ish Antec PSU
LG 18x DVD-ROM/Burner
Samsung 21.6" Syncmaster monitor
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
ASUS P5N32-E Mobo

Despite a few hiccups I managed to get it up and running, and I learned the difference between owning a computer, and Computer Ownership. After building it(it was my first new-build, despise years in the Navy and DoD in IT) and I became immensely more confident, to the point of me setting up a Ubuntu Duel-boot(no reason, just because) and farting around with the settings in BIOS. It is one kickass rig. And to top it all off, the LED behind the front fans scare the hell out of one of the cats.