The instant Thai iced tea: I was kind of ambivalent about it at first, but once it had a chance to get cold enough, it actually tasted pretty good.

AmmoBox: it took me a whole night just to cut out the ports in the back. It was really loud, so I took my stuff up to the apartment complex's little laundromat so I wouldn't disturb the neighbors. Crouching there on the floor, the sparks flying up all around me, I kept waiting for police to burst in. I went through about 25 heavy-duty cutting wheels before I was finally done. (Well, not done — I realized last night as I installed the components that I'd forgotten to cut the holes for the USB/FireWire ports...)

I took a good idea from one of the other "ammo box" Mini-ITX projects, and used industrial-strength Velcro to fasten most of the components to the inside of the box. For the sound card, I straightened out the top of the bracket, drilled a hole through it and the case, and used a heavy-duty nickel thumbscrew to fasten it securely. Some pictures:

• All plugged in
• With the sound card cables connected. Looks messy, but it's worth it!
• A look inside. I really need to find some shorter drive cables...
• Another angle of the interior.

In addition to cutouts for the additional ports (which I guess I'll put under the latch in front), it really needs a port in the top to let the warm air out; the heat does build up when the lid's closed. I was hoping to keep the majority of the box unaltered, but I'm afraid practicality has to take precedence over æsthetics in this case. My one disappointment: because I cut so much metal out of the back, when the lid's closed, the remaining strips of metal bend slightly outwards, so it doesn't look quite perfect.

There's one other catch: this particular sound card (M-Audio Delta 1010LT) makes the motherboard act strangely. In order to get it to cold boot, I have to pull out the power plug, push it in only a little bit so that only the center contact in the plug is touching the post, start the machine and then push the power plug all the way in. I tried three other PCI cards, and none of them caused this bizarre behavior. I pulled the 1010LT out of my desktop computer, which I know is a good card, and it did the same thing with that one too. Well, at least it will boot, I suppose.

Another Nerdvana's coming up, so tonight I'll see how well it works as a Battlefield 1942 server.