Well, it's tax time, and if you did like I did and electronically filed just as soon as all W2s were in hand, you've got your tax refund.  I've got mine... well, had mine, and as a result, I've got a nice new pc (thanks Newegg) running SBS 2003 which in turn is running the Virtual Server 2004 beta.  The first order of business once everything was built and running was to get Longhorn, Whidbey, and the SDK installed in a new VM and get down to work.

The installation went smoothly (even the hardware detection didn't seem to take all that long), and I've finally started to dive into something I've been wanting to do - naturally, my own RSS reader.  Yes, I know there already is one, but it's not my own, and besides... coding useful, Production apps for Longhorn is still at least a couple years off, and I need something (relatively) simple to play with.

I'm going to start with the codebase from my current reader of choice (RSSBandit), put a shiny new Avalon front-end on it, drill holes into it for WinFS, and call it a Good Thing™.  At least, that's the plan.

Hopefully this'll also give me a few more excuses to blog more often... turns out I'm becoming that guy that doesn't blog but once in a blue moon, and that makes me a saaaad panda.  We'll see.

- G