People ask me frequently how to get started with a personal web site. I generally point them to a route that takes them to setting up Apache on a cablemodem connection. But since web hosting is a commodity now and is highly competitive, it's extremely cheap to get a site hosted on professionally run servers and they come with a lot of features. Two that I have seen and would recommend for a personal site:
Dreamhost and Powweb both have plans for $8 a month and include your own domain name, nearly 5G of disk, mail, MySQL and a host of 1-click software packages including blogs, wiki's, forums and other typical website type things. I wouldn't put a business critical or revenue generation website on these low-end services but they work perfectly fine for a personal site. I do see that each of them offer higher end services, but I can't comment on the reliability of those. A friend of mine uses Dreamhost's higher end stuff and it seems to do well for him, buy YMMV.
Funny link of the day: Beef Panties?
"Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef.."