I'm bent on buildling my own PC from pieces. A few things I discovered:

• Shuttle makes very cool SFF cases to hold your PC.
• Putting together a PC from components these days is much easier than in the past, due to standardized ATX cases, and the popularization of integrated components, ie mother boards that already have sound and video cards.
• After years of hearing them mentioned on Slashdot, Tom's Hardware and Anandtech finally come in handy, especially their reviews and tutorials on putting together a PC.