Well, it's been a while since my last post ans a lot has happened. I figured out how to change the kernel using menuconfig, so I updated it without losing my automatic hardware detection. I had to re-install the nVidia drivers with the new kernel, and there was some initial instability, although I attribute that entirely to my roommate turning off poor athena in the middle of a huge emerge. He just decided that he would switch it off while I was gone and hit the power switch in the back. What a jerk. Anyway, the hard drive took a few boot cycles and some tweaking to recover, and I think something was in the middle of being copied over somewhere, because athena actually froze a couple of times! I thought it was the new kernel, especially since the OpenGL screensavers weren't working under KDE, but after a (non-roommate-interrupted) "emerge --sync -avuDN world" (which updates all the software on my computer to the latest available stable version), there was no more instability.
The OpenGL thing it turns out is a problem with KDE 3.4, which I discovered on this forum thread and posted my solution.
I had a movie night at my apartment last friday, and athena performed admirably. She served as the jukebox before and after the flick. We also watched some video files that I have on the hard drive, and used Gaim to mess with poor stephanie's head. Basically, she had no idea who was talking to her using my screenname. We were passing the keyboard around. Poor Caleb got blamed for it at first (he wasn't even there). Towards the end, she finally figured out she was talking to TJ, who had been doing the majority of the typing.
Anyway, I still haven't messed with the TV tuner, or gone 64-bit. One option I'm considering is doing both at once. I'm feeling adventurous.