Preparing for Valentine’s Day! Aww, crap.

Run! Run for your lives!  The great incorporated fake holiday for lovers is upon us! /cynicism

Ok.  So, I love and hate Valentine’s Day.  Love it, when I’ve gotten to celebrate it in conjunction with a special person.  Hate it, all other times.  More so, now that I am directly part of the machine that is Valentine’s Day.

Now that I have some insight, let me tell you this.  As much as women, and especially younger women, say they do not care for Valentine’s Day, when that day arrives, they will be especially elated to find that their significant other has thought of them on that day of all days and just a little more sad when you don’t.

A bare desk at work, will leave you with an empty bed at home.

So, do you suck at Valentine’s Day?  Well, today I will help you suck just a little less and give you my tips for a great Valentine’s Day.

Plan Ahead!

Planning ahead is an absolute must.  Waiting until the day before or day of, will leave you with a Walgreen’s greeting card and some cheap flowers from Krogers, and your lady will notice.  You will score high points for being thoughtful and having things taken care of way in advance, and you won’t be freaking out at the long lines and high prices.

First, you need to decide what kind of Valentine’s Day you want to share with your loved one.  Do you want the classic candy and flowers, or do you want to be daring and gift her a basket of naughty?  In general, Valentine’s Day falls on par with an anniversary, but in my opinion less than a birthday or Christmas holiday.  Decide what level of Vday is appropriate for your current relationship and then up it by a factor of two, because you sir, suck at Valentine’s Day.  I can tell.  Shut up.

“BUT ADAM! I have no monies! Can I haz Vday?” you say.  Absofrickinglutely, you can.  It’s three weeks away, you can get away with a memorable Valentine’s for less than $40, but it will require more work and finesse to pull off, I’ll add the cheap ass tip to the end of each of the following sections.   You should still plan around your budget and always err on the expensive side when deciding how much you’ll be spending.  Ladies do not like a cheap ass and they definitely don’t like someone foolish with their spending.

If you want to go classic,  I’ll be detailing each of the standard Valentine’s Day fare in the following sections:  Gifts, Dinner, & Events.  If you’re going for something different,  I’ll have a section for that at the very end for those daring to walk down that fine line between romantic and stalker.

Society: Revenge of the Nerds

Much of the media over the past 30 or so years envisions your textbook nerd as the awkward,  poorly dressed, social outcast with very little to add to the social gene pool. I think as a sort of societal karma, many of those stereotyped nerds have make their ranks into popular society to reinvent the image of the nerd, geek, and dork. Although, there’s still that guy in your local high school that’s a DM on the weekends and is deep in though over his next D&D party, probably considering LARPing even. Yes, creepy, I know.

But as for me, and a growing number of childhood nerds, we’ve seen the light of popular society, and luckily we’re on the bleeding edge. Many of us laugh from behind hour desks as network admins and IT professionals. “You forgot your password, and your printer won’t print?! OH NOES! Whatever shall you do? I’ll be there in an hour.”

We’re a lucky group now that knows our way around all sorts of gadgets and electronics, but now we’re being outpaced by a new generation even more well versed in modern technology. Such is the life cycle of us nerds, i mean, come on, we have a new iPod ever other year, and my year old laptop is nearly without use.

Trying out mobile blogging, hope this isn’t like twitter.

Alright, so this blogging this may become more convenient with the assistance of my g1.

Mobile Computing

I’ve come to realize that keeping up with a blog is quite difficult when you work full-time in auto assembly with an unpaid part-time position as a floral designer (family work).

My new direction is finding a suitable umpc/mid/ultraportable/small form factor laptop or whatever to handle my blogging duties.

Now my requirements are simple, yet, I’m fairly picky on those and a little stiff to bulge.

Must be small, less than 4lbs in weight and have a qwerty keyboard running some version of a Windows OS, XP or Vista. I don’t have the time or patience to learn Linux. I respect it as an superior operating system, however, I am busy, and I need the larger and more accessible suite of software available for windows.

secondly, I need at least 9″ of screen. 7 inches is a little too small, which rules out the 7″ first gen eeePC and cloudbook. however there are quite a few coming out that are going fit these criteria so far, 2nd gen 9″ eeePC, HP 2133, MSI whatever, and Dell’s unannounced lappie.

third and fourth, minimum of 1ghz processor and 1gig ram, and lastly at least 8Gb hard storage and SDHC slot or minimum 100 Gb hard drive.

and all under $500 plx. =)

Finding Gems on TV

In my free time, the television is on a lot and I try to keep up with primetime as much as I can. Right now, a lot of new shows have debuted and while not all are going to be here more than six months, some still offer great gems.

One of which is a show that plays like a male-centric Sex and The City with CEO’s, called Big Shots. The shows four main characters are each heads of some large corporation, which really doesn’t play much into the actual storyline of the story except that they’re exceptionally rich and surrounded by some incredibly beautiful women, most well above 20, which is possibly to seek a more mature and respectable age group, rather than such reality-dramas as The Hills, centered around some wealthy kids in Hollywood.

After about three episodes having been aired, the die is still rolling on whether this is going to end up a hit or a miss. However, I have to respect ABC, the broadcaster, for their latest trend in featuring great new artists that haven’t quite hit mainstream. Nearing the end of tonight’s episode, the voice of a melancholy young female began to sing a  wonderfully sad song. After a moment’s googling and a bit of quick searching I quickly found a snippet of the track and I’m currently downloading the entire album. 

The group is called A Fine Frenzy and the track is called “Almost Lover” is seems almost as if it could be a Beatles cover, it may be I am not sure, but it’s delightful and with some effort, one can find it easily.

 Here’s a snip of some of the lyrics:

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you
Can’t you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should’ve known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

You must hear it to truly enjoy it.

Good Evening, and Welcome to unNerdly

Welcome Readers, to what I hope will become a great series of blogs about tech, gadgets, style, and all those other grey areas.

I have crap experience in writing blogs or any other sort of professional writing, unless, however, if you count pounding f5 on other blogs I frequent, such as Engadget, Gizmodo, Styledash, Joystiq, and Jalopnik. 

 I hope to bring you current, up-to-date and bleeding edge news and information about whatever my mouse paws can claw up.

Hope you enjoy!

 - Adam H