Update: appparently, today was the day to write about this. Nedjo Rogers submitted a handbook page that shows a different method of achieving the same end.

For the most part, Drupal 4.7's block system is underutilized. This is a shame; with the proper templating, drupal's block system can become a valuable workhorse. In this tutorial, you will learn:

1. How to override default functions in the phptemplate.engine
2. Create new regions to place blocks
3. Pass a block region into node.tpl.php

By the end of this tutorial, you will have the ability to place blocks into node's like a so: