GeekSugar

The Kiss-o-Meter Tells You If You Have Kissable Breath (or Not)

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:30:38 -0800

Who will you be smooching this Valentine's Day? Make your decision based on a very scientific measurement with the Kiss-o-Meter ($30).

Even though it sounds like it's judging your smooching prowess, it's actually a tiny bad breath detector. The lights tell you if you're good to go, or conversely, if the person you're about to lock lips with is. But the secret's out; if someone whips this out to use on you, try not to be too offended.

It's definitely better than someone whipping out the super-obvious Halitosis Detector.

Pink Hearts Laptop Bag by SupremeLoveStory

GeekSugar — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:40:53 -0800

Valentine's Day is only two days away, so I've got to get all this heart and pink stuff out of my system. Not saying I'd carry it, but I cannot help being charmed by this
laptop bag by SupremeLoveStory.

It's ultra girly, and at any other time of year, I'd roll my eyes at all that pink, but today, on the 12th of February when all I want to do is eat cupcakes and conversation hearts, I'm telling you I like it. This is the kind of thing I'd buy today in a moment of weakness, carry one day, and then shove it in the back of my closet.

But sweetness isn't all this bag has to offer - it comes with a matching clutch, mirror, and removable laptop sleeve, which kind of justifies the $165 price tag. Maybe you want to buy it for you for Valentine's Day!

View 4 Photos ›

Love 2.0: Anil Dash and Alaina Browne

GeekSugar — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:10:19 -0800

As part of our Geeks We Love series, I caught up with a few couples that, through the beauty of the internet and technology have influenced both our lives and each other.

There are plenty of couples that both blog, but Anil Dash and Alaina Browne are in an elite club of longtime bloggers that have been around the blogosphere for years, but are still humble about their success, influence and accomplishments. Anil, is Vice President at Six Apart, a blogging software used by millions of people across the world, but he describes his occupation by saying "I help people start blogging." Alaina is the general manager at Serious Eats, a website filled with video, blogs, photos and feature stories all geared toward the foods people love. What geeky things do these two love about life online and each other? read more.

Geeksugar: So, let's lay it all on the table. What do you think is the "geekiest" thing about yourself?
Anil: I'm probably a little bit obsessive over weird little technical things, like the order of icons on my desktop, or the way my songs are tagged in iTunes. I've even gotten hundreds of people to tell me how they use Excel to organize their personal lives. So probably the most geeky thing about me is that I really, really love software and consider myself a student of software culture.
Alaina: I won my school’s Computer Science Student of the Year award in 7th grade.

Geeksugar: Tell us a bit about your background.
Alaina: I’ve been a web geek pretty much since the beginning, working with MindSpring (later Earthlink) and puttering around with websites and later blogs for about ten years. I had a personal site for a long time, and then when I moved to New York City in 2002, I started NYC Eats, which later became A Full Belly. It was one of the first food blogs, and I was very lucky and happy to meet a lot of people and discover a lot of new things through the site, though I don’t update it much anymore. After we moved to San Francisco in 2004, I started working for Mule Design, a great web design shop run by some friends of ours. While there I got to work on a diverse mix projects for Six Apart, CNET’s Chowhound, and a lot of other great clients. Then late last year I got the chance to help get Serious Eats off the ground. Combined with the chance to come back to New York, it was an irresistible opportunity and one that I’m very excited about. The community on Serious Eats is already something really special.
Anil: I work at Six Apart because I've been a blogger since 1999 (at dashes.com) and I wanted to help people get started blogging. I was the first employee, so I've been at it for about four years. These days, I get to go everywhere talking about Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJournal and Vox, and it's the best job I've ever had. You could say I got into it because I couldn't not do it.

Geeksugar: What about the geekiest thing about your significant other?
Anil: Hmm, that's a tough one. Alaina is very adept at masking her geekiness around others, so that I am the only one who gets to see how funny and clever she really is. It's like being married to a geeky J. Frog.
Alaina: His blortal.

Geeksugar: How and when did you meet eachother?
Anil: We were introduced by a couple whom I had met through my blog. In late 2001, they set us up, and 5 years later, we're married!
Alaina: We met in December 2001 thanks to an introduction from a college roommate, dear friend, and master matchmaker. Before we met, she sent me the link to his blog which I’d seen before. Its tagline at the time was “New York, New Media, New Funk,” which made me go “blech” but I trust Shannon so I kept an open mind.

Geeksugar: What are your top 5 favorite gadgets?
Anil: I really love my Nintendo Wii and covet Alaina's DS Lite. (I have a regular DS, so I can't complain.) I have an iPod Nano, which works well enough, but I love the form factor more than the device itself.
Alaina: iPod Nano and accompanying Nike+ sport kit, white DS lite, Macbook, Fuji F11 digital camera, my pink Gameboy Advanced SP.

Geeksugar: Top 5 luxury gadgets you really want?
Anil: Oddly, I don't covet very many gadgets. I got a chance to see the new Nokia NSeries phones because they work with Vox, and the video camera in the N93i looks awesome.

Geeksugar: Your first computer was a...
Anil: A Commodore VIC-20. I had pretty much every Commodore but the Amiga, including a VIC-20, a C-64, a C-128, and even a Commodore Colt, which was a PC clone.
Alaina: Commodore 64.

Geeksugar: What are your favorite websites?
Anil: Well, seriouseats.com, of course. And I am pretty proud of what I've done with dashes.com over the past several years. I think the web page I visit the most is my Vox neighborhood at anil.vox.com. But I'm inspired by some of the really great blogs I read - Overheard in New York, Ftrain, Rebecca's Pocket.
Alaina: Seriouseats.com, Flickr.com, Vox.com, Kottke.org

Geeksugar: What are your Valentine's Day plan?
Anil: Well, we like to eat well, so I think a nice dinner somewhere and then returning home for a date to play Wii Sports and Wario Ware might be pretty nice.
Alaina: Not to have a Valentine’s Day plan.

Geeksugar: Who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?
Anil: Actually, we almost never even have discussions about this. We're fairly moderate in our gadget purchases, so we can each pretty much get whatever we want. It's always a nice surprise to come home and find that the other person has something shiny to show off.
Alaina: We’re pretty in sync when it comes to gadgets and our finances and trust each other to make these kinds of decisions. If it’s a big ticket item, like the flat panel tv we just bought, we’ll discuss it together first so there are no surprises when it comes time to balance the checkbook.

Geeksugar: Who solves tech problems at home?
Anil: I think it depends on the nature of the tech problem. I tend to do most of the CSS troubleshooting and wifi wrangling. Alaina is more adept with hacking blog templates and making DVD/TV/web video go. It's a pretty balanced relationship.
Alaina: I try to solve tech problems myself and if I get stuck, I call in Anil.

Geeksugar: Are you going to buy an iPhone?
Anil: Probably not. I love the idea of a common platform for portable hackery, but I hate phones and phone carriers, especially. I tend to be a late adopter with iPods anyway, which is fine by me.
Alaina: No. No. No.

Geeksugar: How do you feel about people calling you a "geek"?
Anil: I'm very comfortable about that. I like that, when I'm in a room full of normals, I'm the geeky one, but when I'm in a room full of geeks, I'm seen as not geeky enough.
Alaina: It’s an accurate description I don’t object to.

Geeksugar: What do think are the greatest things you guys have contributed to the blogsosphere?
Anil: I've helped promote the good work that other people do in creating the social web. I'm very proud to be friends or acquaintances with a lot of the most talented people in the world of blogging and social media. As far as Alaina's accomplishments, I think she has been phenomenally influential in the world of food blogging and in food community online in general - A Full Belly (originally NYC Eats), was a seminal food blog and informs the spirit of a lot of food communities today, including Serious Eats.
Alaina: His ability to effectively communicate about technology with the non-geek majority. No one does it better.

Geeksugar: How many hours do you spend online a day?
Anil: Roughly 24? Actually, in all seriousness, I pretty frequently spend 14+ hours a day online, and sometimes 18 hours, since I don't sleep much and you could count watching a DVD on a laptop or playing video games as "being online."
Alaina: 16.

Geeksugar: How many hours does your partner spend online a day?
Anil: Less than that. She actually does other things like running marathons and eating good dinners at nice restaurants. I should learn from her example.
Alaina: All of them.

Geeksugar: What is one geeky habit you're trying to quit?
Anil: Obsessively checking things like stats, RSS feeds, and email. Nothing that important is ever in there, but sources of stress often are.
Alaina: Reading scripting.com.

Geeksugar: Are you the "Beauty" or the "Geek" in the relationship?
Anil: I think we're both a lot of both in our marriage! Even though I'm definitely a geek, Alaina's had a personal website a lot longer than me, and really gets a lot of geek culture at a gut level. On the other hand, I dress a lot better since I've had Alaina's help, so while I can't quite come to her level of beauty, I'm at least not looking like something the cat dragged in.
Alaina: I think we’re both beautiful geeks.

Love 2.0: Lauren Smith and Derek Fagerstrom

GeekSugar — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:00:51 -0800

As part of our Geeks We Love series, I caught up with a few couples that, through the beauty of the internet and technology have influenced both our lives and each other.

It seems a bit of geekiness comes with the territory of owning your own online business, no matter what your background. If this is true, Lauren Smith and Derek Fagerstrom, who happen to be the owners of hip online store Curiosity Shoppe, wear it well. The couple abandoned their “kinda crazy lives in New York City” and came home to the San Francisco Bay Area to start up the Shoppe for the simple reason that they are obsessed with beautiful things. What makes them so geek chic? read more

Geeksugar: So tell us how you got into the business…
Derek: We launched the Shoppe in October of last year. I’ve been a magazine editor for nearly 10 years, first in New York at magazines like Esquire and Interview, and now here in the lovely Bay Area.
Lauren: Our site just launched in October, so we're fairly new to this. We also have a blog called Smarts & Crafts. Before moving to San Francisco, I worked at a design studio in New York City for 7 years.

Geeksugar: So what’s the geekiest thing about yourself?
Derek: I own, and have actually played Settlers of Catan.
Lauren: I am obsessed with time management! I read all the self-help books and blogs, and am constantly making lists.

Geeksugar: Now what’s the geekiest thing about your significant other?
Derek: She often beats me at Settlers of Catan.
Lauren: He can recite all the dialogue from the movie Weird Science.

Geeksugar: How and when did you meet your significant other?
Derek: We actually met in the computer lab during our freshman year of college.
Lauren: We met freshman year of college, in the computer lab of all places.

Geeksugar: What Are Your Top 5 favorite gadgets?
Derek: Our iMac, iPod (when it’s actually working), our digital camera, PSP and TiVo.
Lauren: Digital Camera, iPod, TiVo, FireLite external hard drive, where we store all our music and my Wacom tablet.

Geeksugar: What about the top 5 luxury gadgets you really want?
Derek: Digital projector, TO:CA 'wood' LED clock designed by Kouji Iwasak, HDtv, PlayStation 3 (just so I can play Guitar Hero) and an iPhone.
Lauren: Flat screen TV, Tivoli Audio M1CLA Henry Kloss Model One Radio, Leica D-LUX 3 10MP Digital Camera, Wireless Headphones and a Swiss Army Knife with built in USB Flash Drive.

Geeksugar: Your first computer was a…
Derek: Apple IIe
Lauren: I always used Derek's computer until we finally bought a first generation iMac together a few years back.

Geeksugar: What are your favorite websites?
Derek: Cute Overload, NY Times, Design Sponge, Library of Congress
Lauren: Technorati & Google Analytics, to see who is talking about us and visiting our sites. Designsponge, for the latest and greatest in modern product design and other must-haves for the home. 43 Folders, for all things productivity related. Make It for great resource for people with craft-related small businesses. The Purl Bee from my favorite yarn and quilt supply store in NY - it's a great source of crafty inspiration.

Geeksugar: What is your Valentine’s Day plan?
Derek: Why do you ask? Is that coming up?!
Lauren: We'll probably rent a bunch of movies and make a nice dinner at home.

Geeksugar: Who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?
Derek: She does.
Lauren: I always think I can live without them, but Derek manages to convince me otherwise.

Geeksugar: Who solves tech problems at home?
Derek: She does.
Lauren: It's usually me!

Geeksugar: Are you going to buy an iPhone?
Derek: Ugh. Probably, though I may try to hold out until they work out the bugs. And if it performs as shoddily as my iPod, well, let’s just say I hope it comes with Applecare.
Lauren: Probably not, although I am seriously coveting one.

Geeksugar: How do you feel about people calling you a “geek”:
Derek: It’s a term of endearment, no?
Lauren: Geeks rule! I've been discovering that all my friends are closet geeks - we can talk about Photoshop tricks for hours.

Geeksugar: What has been your greatest contribution to the online community?
Derek: Well, I think our shoppe is lovely. And Smarts & Crafts (our web journal) inspires a couple of readers now and again.
Lauren: I think our online shoppe is pretty cool! People seem to be liking it so far, and it's been a lot of fun putting the site together with Derek.

Geeksugar: How many hours do you spend online a day?
Derek: Lord. 8? 9? Is that a lot?
Lauren: 8 or more hours- all our business is conducted online so I'm constantly checking on the site all day.

Geeksugar: How many hours does your partner spend online a day?
Derek: According to iChat it’s a lot of hours.
Lauren: Probably the same.

Geeksugar: What is one geeky habit you’re trying to quit?
Derek: Checking my work email the second I get home from work.
Lauren: Checking my email as soon as I get home, especially if I've been on the computer all day at work.

Geeksugar: Are you the “Beauty” or the “Geek” in the relationship?
Derek: I’m the Beek.
Lauren: I hope I'm a little of both! Although some days I definitely feel more geeky than beautiful.

Love 2.0: Pete Mortensen and Kimra McPherson

GeekSugar — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:00:59 -0800

As part of our Geeks We Love series, I caught up with a few couples that, through the beauty of the internet and technology have influenced both our lives and each other.

If loving the internet, pop culture and Macs is wrong, Pete Mortensen and Kimra McPherson don’t want to be right. He’s an innovation strategy consultant, and renowned Cult of Mac blogger and she is an editor on the world famous BuzzSugar team. When the couple isn’t playing Wii sports or hiking Half Dome they can be found in their San Francisco apartment making messes while learning to cook, building up their netflix queue and keeping their two cats off their keyboards. And of course blogging, lots and lots of blogging. What geeky things do these two love about each other and life? read more

Geek-ground
Peter has spent the last two years covering Apple freelance for Wired and on the Cult of Mac blog. He also works for Jump Associates, a firm that helps clients unlock growth and create cultures of innovation. "I broke into blogging by sending Wired a blind cover letter with pitches," says Peter. "I’d been a Mac obsessive for about a decade before-hand, though, so I had a few things on my mind in advance." Kimra made her first Web site when she was 15 and has been on the Internet in various ways ever since, most recently as an editor for Buzzsugar.

Geeksugar: Let's start simple. What’s the geekiest thing about yourself:
He says: I was complaining just the other night that my experiment to learn twice as much on my morning train commute by listening to podcasts while reading books seemed to be failing, because I wasn’t retaining information from either source. Read that sentence again. Then get me some help.
She says: I’m currently chronicling the year between my 25th birthday and my 26th birthday by taking a photo every day and posting them all on flickr. If you ever wanted to know what the inside of my purse looked like on January 26, well, now you can.

Geeksugar: What’s the geekiest thing about your significant other:
He says: I think Kimra has actually got every personal blog on the internet as part of her RSS roll. I like to believe I get a pretty rich survey of everything the web has to offer, but then I see what she’s reading and recognize how small my world can be.
She says: The amount of information he knows about Apple is, frankly, a little scary. He might not remember shopping lists or flight departure times, but I’m sure he could tell you the names and personal histories of every key person who worked on the original Macintosh. He also “accidentally” impulse-bought a Nintendo Wii on eBay, so that’s a close second.

Geeksugar: How and when did you meet your significant other?
She says: We met in college, when he was my editor at our weekly campus magazine. We were also both college radio DJs, which is geeky enough in itself.
He says: This is 100 percent true. Though we didn’t start dating until well after we were both out of school.

Geeksugar: What are your top 5 favorite gadgets:
He says: My iPod shuffle (clip style, of course! I really want an orange one, now). My HDTV. Its picture is great, and it’s a Westinghouse, which makes me feel like it’s 1956 in the living room. My Nintendo DS Lite. My Powerbook G4 12”. His name is Malimikigio, which is Esperanto for “You are the enemy.” I got the name from liner notes of Radiohead’s “OK Computer.” Hmm… that might actually be the geekiest thing about me. Except that my iPod shuffle is named “L’il Malky.” That could be. Kimra’s dustbuster Scorpion with the extender nozzle. It almost makes cleaning up kitty litter fun. Almost.
She says: My 80 gig iPod, my iDog, my Blackberry Pearl, Pete’s Nintendo DS Lite (Brain Age has the best Sudoku game ever) and my iMic, for transferring my old high school mix tapes to mp3.

Geeksugar: What are the top 5 luxury gadgets you really want:
He says: The iPhone. Someone else can handle the service charges. A MacBook Pro, though I probably want the next generation of processors to roll through before that. If you’re paying, though, the current version’s fine. Noise-canceling headphones. Sennheiser makes some good ones. A Toyota Prius. Though what I really want is a hybrid Mini Cooper, if they’d ever get around to making it. A USB Missile Launcher. For attacks. Stealthy ones.
She says: Some really nice earphones, the iPhone, the Nike+iPod kit. I know the kit’s cheap, but I count it as a luxury because I don’t already have a Nano. I also don’t run, but that’s beside the point, right? Clocky! I can’t really justify spending $50 on an alarm clock that doesn’t also play music, except that it would run away from me when I hit snooze. A Nabaztag rabbit. Maybe my iDog’s lonely, OK?

Geeksugar: Your first computer was a…
He says: A Kaypro II. I swear I didn’t make that name up. It had a built-in green screen and couldn’t render graphics other than letters and numbers. We had an awesome fake Donkey Kong game called Ladder for it where you were a capital P that ran away from lower-case o’s and hopped over vertical carrot characters. My brother was way better at it than me. Thanks to the internet, I can play it again now. Check it out!
She says: An Apple IIe that my family kept many, many years past its prime.

Geeksugar: What are some of your favorite websites?
He says: yourmomsbasement.com, thevhive.com, daringfireball.net, core77.com, track50.com, crooksandliars.com, www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html
She says: televisionwithoutpity.com, shelterrific.com, flickr.com, 43things.com, tomatonation.com, track50.com, catsinsinks.com, postsecret.blogspot.com

Geeksugar: What is your Valentine’s Day plan?
He says: We’ve got a reservation at one of our favorite restaurants, Sauce. They’re doing a pretty amazing price-fixed four-course menu for the occasion. It’s awesome. It’s a Wednesday. Then, on a weekend not too much later, we’ll head down on Saturday to Big Sur – site of one of our earliest really significant dates, and an area we haven’t visited in almost two years.
She says: All of that is completely true.

Geeksugar: Who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?
She says: We pretty much decide together while braving the piles of merchandise in Best Buy.
He says:Yep.

Geeksugar: Who solves tech problems at home?
She says: Oh, he does. Definitely. He networked everything and thus must deal with my phone calls asking inane questions about how to work the VCR.
He says: It’s cute that she calls the AV set-up a network. It’s not, but the fact that I could explain why it isn’t is way too geeky to even cover here.

Geeksugar: Are you going to buy an iPhone?
He says: If I start making a lot more money, I’d love one. HINT. I also would need to leave T-Mobile, which I’m not actually eager to do.
She says: If I can ever get out of my Sprint contract, I would; they own my soul for several more years.

Geeksugar: How do you feel about people calling you a “geek”?
He says: It’s fine. I think I bristle a little bit at nerd, though. I could be wrong. I have a close friend who thinks geek is more insulting than nerd. But then, he’s not really a geek. I think the only reason he uses a computer instead of a typewriter is that I tricked him into it.
She says: I definitely embrace it. Life just wouldn’t be the same without my Dashboard widgets and my Wired magazine subscription.

Geeksugar: What has been your better half's greatest contribution to the tech/blog industry – don’t be modest
He says: “She helped bring the BuzzReel into the world.”
She says: He, his Cult of Mac readers and Claire Danes raised $15,000 through Donors Choose so teachers could fund Mac-related classroom projects. He also put his body on the line to taste-test the Jones Soda Holiday Collection so we don’t have to.

Geeksugar: How many hours do you spend online a day?
He says: I’m not even sure how to measure this anymore. Even when I’m not online, I have GMail open, and I read each message as it comes in. Let’s call it a good 10 hours and not probe too much more.
She says: All of my working hours, and a large number of my leisure hours. Probably 12? Wow, I feel kind of dirty now.

Geeksugar: How many hours does your partner spend online a day?
He says: As much as I do. Possibly more. My day job sometimes requires me to put the computer down, which is both a blessing and a curse.
She says: He uses the computer as much as I do at home but slightly less at work. So 10 hours sounds about right, I suppose.

Geeksugar: What is one geeky habit you’re trying to quit?
He says: Hitting refresh on sites I like that are just not actually going to update in the next five seconds. I probably waste a good hour a day just revisiting sites and message boards I’ve already skimmed in hopes they’ll offer me something new. It’s sad.
She says: I’m way too easily distracted on the Internet. For example, I started answering this question 15 minutes ago, but then I decided I needed to go see if some of my old favorite Web sites that I hadn’t visited in a while had RSS feeds, and then I started following the links on their blogrolls, and suddenly I was reading the entire archives of a blog I’d never heard of before. So yeah, that.

Geeksugar: Are you the “Beauty” or the “Geek” in the relationship?
He says: I’m totally the geek. Kimra’s really beautiful, and, crucially, is nowhere near as dorky as I am when it comes to understanding how technology works, not just what it can do for her. Plus, I know the name of the woman who created all the icons for the original Mac. (Susan Kare! She’s great!) Um…yeah.
She says: Not that Pete’s not attractive, but I’m going to have to claim the title of Beauty here – I can only dream of someday reaching his level of Geekiness.

Geeks We Love: Jason Chen of Gizmodo

GeekSugar — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:04:54 -0800

Shows like Beauty and the Geek give male geeks a bad rep. I have news for you folks, not all geeks think pocket-protectors and worn corduroy pants are trendy. In fact, I know plenty of fellas that showcase the very best of geekiness: smarts, passion, chic clothing, success in their field and the ability to program your TiVo, computer or Blackberry when you’re not in the mood. In an effort to celebrate this month of love, I have put together a series of interviews with some of the most interesting geeky guys out there to prove that geeks are just as lovable as A-list actors.

When it comes to guy gadget sites, Gizmodo.com has earned a reputation as a go-to source for all things geeky - combining breaking news, gadget reviews and a saucy grown-up nerd attitude you can’t help but love. The site’s cool content and buzz is created by a team of geeks that are dedicated to keeping the rest of the world updated on the inner-workings of the gizmo world around the clock and not afraid to admit how many hours they spend playing Xbox or cruising the internet. Among these fearless techie leaders is Jason "JC" Chen, a technology writer/associate editor for the site, who is known to make a "Wii in my pants" joke now and again. While Jason is happily attached, he agreed to share some of his secrets with us. So what makes Jason such an alluring geek? read more

GS: So, tell my few readers that haven’t heard of you a little about yourself…
JC: I've been a freelance tech writer for Gizmodo.com for about a year. Before that I was a software engineer working at various startups in the Bay Area, two of which were an online music startup and a network appliance startup. I got in to the business because I love technology, I love writing and I love comedy writing, and after seeing Gizmodo I thought that was the perfect intersection of the three.

GS: Tell me the geekiest thing about yourself:
JC: Getting tickets with a buddy for and then attending the grand opening of the Star Trek ride in Las Vegas. It was pretty awesome, I have to admit.

GS: And what’s the geekiest thing about your significant other:
JC: Other than dating me? Probably being more obsessed than me with World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI when we were playing that.

GS: Wow, sounds like you’ve met your match. When did you guys meet?
At work, about three years ago, back when I was a software engineer.

GS: And now for our High Fidelity moment, what are your Top 5 Favorite Gadgets?
JC: MacBook Pro, Cingular 8525, Xbox 360, iPod, and the Zune

GS: What about the Top 5 Luxury Gadgets You Really Want:
JC:Mac Pro, 30-inch Dell or Apple Cinema Display, iPhone!, Sharp's 108-inch LCD, TiVo Series 3

GS: Your first computer was a:
JC: I'd probably have to say a 286 if we're talking PCs, but I had one of those top-loading Nintendo Famicoms back in the early 80s when I was a kid.

GS: What are your favorite websites?
JC: Penny Arcade, pbfcomics.com, Boing Boing, Digg, TV Squad, Fark, Lifehacker, Kotaku, and of course Gizmodo.

GS: What is your Valentine’s Day plan?
JC: It's still early, I need to have a plan already? No seriously, I have no idea.

GS: Okay, now the age-old question - who makes the final decision when it comes to gadgets for the home?
JC: I do, but she has a lot of say - but can be overridden with a veto!

GS: Who solves tech problems at home?
JC: Me, again. She's not all that technical despite being a software engineer. Once I have something set up the way I like it, I don't like to fiddle around with it for fear of causing me hours of work again.

GS: Are you going to buy an iPhone?
JC: Definitely! I'm going to buy a Zune Phone when it comes out as well. I love smartphones (I have a Windows Mobile smartphone now) so the iPhone looks great. I love not having to carry around two devices when one will do.

GS: How do you feel about people calling you a “geek?”
In my teens I didn't like it so much, but I've come to be comfortable with the fact that I'm a geek. Geeks are becoming kinda cool now, so it's actually working out quite well. No delusions of grandeur though - I'm still a geek.

GS: How many hours do you spend online a day?
JC: I'm pretty much wired all the time with my phone and my laptop, so I'd probably say all the hours that I'm not sleeping, I'm most likely online. I'm probably going to have my face melt off from radiation before I'm 40.

GS: How many hours does your partner spend online a day?
JC: About eight hours a day, and all of that is at work. She doesn't do much online stuff at home.

GS: What is one geeky habit you’re trying to quit?
JC: Playing so much Xbox 360, I'd have to say. My nearly 24,000 Xbox 360 gamerpoints shout to me that I need to play less.

GS: So, are you the Beauty or the Geek in your relationship?
The Geek, for sure.

GS: What has been your (or your significant other’s) greatest contribution to the tech/blog industry – don’t be modest.
JC: Well I did break exclusive Zune images and stories before its release, but I'd have to say the greatest contribution to the tech industry is sticking a Wii, a PS3 and a Zune down my pants.

Want more Jason Chen? Check out his archive at Gizmodo.com! Want access to other Geeks We Love? Check out Om Malik of GigaOM!