Shit! I forgot one of the entrants! If you already voted, please vote again. My apologies.

( Geeks are sexy in Analogies )

( Geeks are sexy in photos: (all safe for work, sadly) )

Poll #1150492 Voting Round - take two (sorry, sorry, sorry!)
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

Best Geek/Sex analogy

Best Geek/Sexy photo

I had a couple requests for more time to promote the "Geek Sexy" contests. Also, to clarify, multiple submissions are allowed. We'll vote Friday on both. Since I'm extending, I'll have to think of a prize of some kind. *ponders*

This morning, on my way to work (woo-hoo!) I came up with the geekiest metaphor for sex EVAR. I thought to myself "Sex is like Thud, because I have to play both sides to win." However, if I know anything about geeks, I know they're competitive. Give it your best shot (secretly) and we'll vote for a winner tomorrow. Comments screened to allow non-LJ users to play.

Also, if you have a "geek sexy" picture you want to enter, I'd love to have a contest for that, too. I'd offer my ( pi hotel room photo ) as an example of what I'm looking for here. (Link in comments or email to me) Let's say.... Wednesday we'll vote on Geek Sexy pictures. Tell your friends.

Poll #1148065 Geek Sexy
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 5

Sex is like...

Yeah, like everyone else in Boston, we are curled up on the couch, looking at pictures of stuff we could see by looking out the window. Ain't technology grand?

Edit: Mr. zogathon reminded me today that I never actually said that I was looking at Google Maps Street View. Whoops.

( page-breaking voice post under here )

Yesterday, I made a dozen miis to populate my little wii world. Then we spent an hour watching Youtube on the big TV with the Wii browser. I am so pwned.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, I'm going to Vegas next week. dabunny and I usually go to Vegas every Xmas, but this year we weren't able to, having just purchased the Unnamed Condo (debates for a name are well underway, but suggestions are welcomed). However, an unexpected windfall made it possible for us to go, and so we're flying out a week from tomorrow. Expect more photo posts like I did last June.

However, that leaves me with at minimum 5 Difference Blogs and 1 Content-Free Friday where I won't have computer access. I'm prepared to get them written ahead of time, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to get them posted in my absence. Other blogging services (besides Livejournal) let you post-date entries and bring them public when the time comes, but LJ doesn't have this option. Bringing a laptop on vacation with me is very much a Last Resort. I can post by e-mail if I can figure out a way to send scheduled emails. chrestomathy2 suggested doing this via Unix commands from my work computer. I'm not exactly sure how to do that (he gave instructions which I promptly forgot) but I can probably figure it out.

So to sum up:
1. What should dabunny and I call our Condo?
2. How would you post pre-written entries to Livejournal when you were away from the computer?

Who doesn't need an extra poll today? [edit]: This poll is in response to my suspicion that a gender trend I'm noticing re: internet privacy expectations is partially, if not completely, confounded by employment in IT.
Poll #961604 work poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54

Are you a geek?

Do you have a geek job?

If you don't mind saying, what industry do you work in?

Your presenting gender

typical presenting gender in your field

Based on the ratings from the Sex Checklist (still working on next draft), I have determined that Silliness is a +5 for me. Unfortunately, saying this feels like it's a Role Playing Game stat: "I have a +5 to my sexual silliness rolls!"
Poll #954949 Silly sex
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 83

Which of the following silly activities do you enjoy during a sexual encounter?

Laurenhat asks about ( the nature of love, hindsight, geekdom, graffiti and more... )

This post is to catch up with all the things I meant to blog about this week and never got around to it. Sadly, I'm just going to combine it. Feel free to skip around, skim, etc.

I seem to be pretty bad about taking vacation. From a game theory perspective, since my employer allows "vacation debt" (having used more than you've accrued) it seems like it would be optimal to stay close to even or maybe a little in debt, since otherwise it seems like overwithholding for taxes. There's an 8-week cap on how much vacation an employee can bank: excess is lost, not paid out. I am currently at 5.9 weeks banked, so I still have slop, but I don't feel like I'm using the system optimally. Last week's CFF-poll results said that over half of you get paid vacation time. Do you find that it's easy to take enough, or hard to use it all up? Does it even make sense to think of it as similar to withholding?

( Dan fails to take vacation )

I'm such a silly monkey.
( 12 Days of LJ meme )
I actually generated Livejournal Interests so that I would have something for the "Twelve Days of Livejournal" meme to work from. I cut and pasted the "top tags from Dan4th" from my technorati profile. This profile includes differenceblog, so it's a little wacky.

I had no interests for months, and I was fine with it. But there are so many toys based on your interest list, and I always get disappointed when I realize I can't play. I wanted to base my interest list on the real interests meme, but it's difficult to get it to cough up the words, and I can't exactly list pictures.

You know what? If this is the shit I complain about, I'm doing really well.

( My most-used tags, and current interest list )

I'm fond of saying "I'm just cool enough to know how uncool I am." By which I mean, I am aware enough of the "coolness curve" to see how far it's gone by the time I hear about any trend, which is usually on the downslope. I will still indulge in Monty Python and Firefly references in public, but I have the good grace to look embarrassed about it. bemusing reminded me to do this poll by pointing out she was "ahead of the curve" on tongue piercing, whereas by the time I got my nose pierced, it was already passe. I've met someone on the other side of my subsection of cool at work. He's just uncool enough to get my geek references, but he looks distinctly embarrassed that he recognizes them. I've decided he's just uncool enough to know how uncool I am. How cool are you?
Poll #829647 Coolness
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

How cool are you?

People who have reason to believe they are pie rate themselves as 49% more attractive than those who do not believe they are pie. There are no significant differences in self-reported social mobility or intelligence. However, those who reported themselves as having fallen in social class since childhood rated themselves higher on attractiveness (+13%) and intelligence (+11%) than those who had remained the same or gone up in social class.

I have to plug this into some real statistical software, because I suspect a correlation between rating me more intelligence and rating yourself as attractive.
( Check out this table )

The thing I think I hate most about dieting is how much of my time is dedicated to planning, analyzing, and obtaining food. When we were just eating what we felt like, the routine was for dabunny and me to come home, choose a menu, and order something to eat. The rest of my energy could be spent on more important projects, like tagging my Flickr pictures or coming up with a topic for Content-Free-Friday. Okay, maybe those weren't more important, but they were more fun.

I've become a numbers junkie. We've been tracking since June 26th, and I'm just now starting to feel like I can eyeball an ounce or a cup of food -- I have a mail scale at home that I've been using to check up on myself. I'm way off often enough that I still feel like I need it. dabunny has just been tracking calories. I've been keeping more detailed information because I'm nervous about shorting myself on nutrients. ( Graph of Dan4th's Calorie distribution for the past 4 weeks )

The change in my shopping habits bothers me too. I buy low-cal, low-fat, and artifically sweetened. I avoided artificial sweeteners for years. They tend to make me feel ill. However, having something sweet to drink is an effective way to fend off boredom-related eating. So, for the past week, I've been sucking down Splenda-sweetened beverages (4c Tea2Go) like they were water. Yesterday, it finally caught up with me, and I spent the afternoon fighting a headache and nausea. I have this theory that artificial sweeteners trick my body into preparing for sugar that never comes, and it's unused sugar-processing chemicals that make me feel like shit. Wonk science at best, but since my reaction to too much artificial sweetener feels a lot like my reaction to unused adrenaline, I'm going with it.

I liked eating takeout. I liked avoiding artificial sweeteners. I liked not counting calories. Now I'm going to the grocery store multiple times per week, worrying about every little thing that goes into my mouth, and choosing low-cal substitutes for what I would have called "real food." I even almost signed up for Boston Organics last night (but decided there was too much chance of crates getting stolen off my stoop. Martini said a week or two ago that this calorie counting bit just wasn't me. I'm worried that he's right.

(edit) I also hate the disparity between the "calorie needs" figures on various sites. Some tell me I need 2500 calories per day, and others say I should be around 1200. And don't even get me started on the difference between whether I tell them I'm male or female. grrr...

I do tend to read my webcomics in fits and spurts. I like having several of them to read at a time.
Poll #711641
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

First, read this. Then, answer this:

So, I know I use tags a lot. I make them up as I go, and I figure there's a curve involved. However, there is a use for the tags that I've used only once, because tagged entries are searchable on LJTags.com. I've also read that Technorati is getting a touch swamped with all the tags coming from Livejournal.

Of course, if you don't like having your entries searched, you can keep Google's Blog Search from Indexing your Livejournal.

And so now I must change calendars. Oh well. At least I hadn't had much set up on the yahoo one. Now, we need Google Fantasy Sports and Google Groups, and I can completely abandon my yahoo account. Hey, bemusing, look! I have brand loyalty!

edit: heheh. I can export Yahoo Calendar to csv and import into Google. Done and done.