Causality

It could be observed that we create problems to solve, the devil makes work for idle hands - or in contemporary terms Parkinsons Law states Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

So I think its worth taking time to nod at causality. "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...". With a sense of purpose and all the resources I could muster I wanted to sit and watch a movie - the are echos of a HTPC blog after all. Of course, this meant building a PC with components and drivers and whatnot that would provide 1080p playback and after the dust settled from a few false starts ended up with Ubuntu. Then I really needed storage space for my existing DVD collection and for new HD media as I get hold of it, which led to constructing and configuring a file server.

"Swallowing a spider to catch the fly..." Lets re-iterate that the goal here was to sit and watch a movie.
Well of course I'd pre-upgraded to a gigabit LAN for this, re-buying cables and switches to be able to move that data around as much as I'd need to. However running a cable down to next to the TV proved to be too much, so I moved from 54Mb Wireless-G to 300Mb Wireless-N, getting a new wireless router and a USB wireless adapter for the media player machine, which was soon replaced with a pair of Ethernet-over-mains network adapters.

"Swallowing a bird to catch the spider..." By now I'd lost sight of my goal.

But, I've got a new BSD fileserver with a ZFS storage pool that has 6TB of disk and an HDMI media machine capable of putting 1080p on the screen. Oh, and I bought a new LCD TV for all of this of course, which was the catalyst for the process. With a gigabit LAN and 300Mb wireless and Ethernet-over-mains for maximum connectivity.

"Swallowing a cat to catch the bird..." By now I'd gained so much momentum I didn't need a goal.
And bought a hammer drill to mount the TV on the wall, and hit stone while I was drilling because the chimney breast was ~of course~ solid, so that became a chore in its own right. And squared it with a plumb line because I couldn't find my spirit level and just refused, at this point, to buy a second spirit level.

"Swallowing a dog to catch the cat..."
Since I'd robbed the video card from my PC to use in the media machine, it was time to buy a new fanless 9800 GT. But there is no sense buying a fanless card when I'm still using a stock CPU cooler so a peltier-effect water-cooling unit and an acoustically padded case justified a silent video card.

I intend to stop before buying a horse.

There is probably a lesson in causality here. Would it have been easier to quit half way through? Maybe, maybe not. Am I navigating the path of least physical resistance? Least psychological resistance? Perhaps I just didn't know what 'Done' looked like so have just carried on making changes.

Second to that, do I own a Home Cinema or am I the servant answering its beck and call? I'm starting to fear the latter.