I tried rain-meter and all those desktop customization things before I had re-installed my windows, but it kind of consumes some memory and it slows my start up (not to mention it is a bit confusing to use).
The dock is set to auto-hide and I've got a really clean set of icons in use. It isn't Safari by the way, I use Opera but it's the only browser they didn't make an icon for so I use the Safari icon instead.
Adium and Bowtie are always shown at desktop level. Also I opened up my home stack just to show the pretty icons. Biggest change is removing the clock and battery info from the Menubar, it's amazing how distracting and unproductive those two are. I've got alternatives in the Dashboard and I get battery notifications when I reach below 15% via Growl.
Haven't posted mine in awhile, I did have a photograph of a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 R-SV that I had taken at the FIA GT. But I've kind of changed it now. Interweb cookie to whoever recognises it.
I like the Art car one, I appreciate what it's trying to symbolise and I think it's more interesting than some of the other art cars that have emerged from BMW in previous years. Plus I like the back