Journal Entries

Feb 16, 2006

Facelift

My wife and I are a little more than a month away from closing on our first condominium. We couldn’t be happier to finally have a place that we can call home and not waste thousands of dollars a year. Part of owning property also means that we are able to modify it as we see fit. When suddenly presented with the option that everything can be customized, suddenly everything should, nay, WILL be customized. I want to blame this on viewing too much HGTV, but I believe it falls more on the repressed frustration of a serial renter. (Note to landlords: white and off-white are not paint choices.)

So in spite of being over a month away from closing, my wife and I have already chosen paint colors, decided where new overhead lights should be installed, determined which appliances in the kitchen will be updated and replaced the rug in the living room with a combination of laminate flooring and tile. Cost be dammed.

I relate my experience of first-time home buyership so that you, the reader, may gain some insight as to where my inspiration for my next project is coming from. In honor of my recent site overhaul, and inspired by pathology to never leave well enough alone, I am giving my computer an extreme makeover. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, much of the internal workings have already been extremely made over.

My subject is a PowerMac 8600/300 bought in 1996. This was, and still is, a great computer. It was my first. And I have found it all but impossible to let it go the way of the garbage dump. To that end, I have installed a Sonnet Crescendo G4 800mhz daughter card, a gig of RAM and a USB 1.0 PCI card. OS X Panther is running problem free and my USB peripherals cannot tell the difference. On special days, it runs as a makeshift Tivo with the addition of Evolution TV. The only problem is with the exterior. The casing has taken some pretty big blows and I’ve forgotten where most of the scratches have come from. It’s been colored by the sun and now has that sickly yellow color that screams obsolescence.

The general plan is to go from this…

…to this. Notice the clever rebranding. (Details to follow)

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