I just reached an all time geek high. Seriously. I need help. I got all excited to see Chris Pirillo (aka Lockergnome) show up on my Trillian list. Yes, excited with glee. I asked him if there was a 12 step program for geeks like me. He informed me that “it’s 11 steps. AOL is blocking the 12th.”

Free Wireless Networks at Airports are being set up. (Such as the one in Minneapolis.) Why is it that these are ok and won’t mess with the plane’s systems, but on the other hand you can’t use a cell phone or even a radio on a plane? Or run your laptop during takeoff? Wouldn’t the wireless system have an impact too? I know my wireless set-up at home messes with my cordless phone pretty bad sometimes. I just think this would too. Then again, you can use a cell phone in the airport… ok, what’s up with that? Hey! [via Chris Pirillo]

Side note: I am still sleep deprived. I am feeling a bit punchy today. Sassy. And easily confused. Please pardon the fact that the these simple facts are boggling to me right now.

Happy “other” Anniversary wishes to the Girl & Geek! (Just look at their “about” in the sidebar… you’ll understand!)

When adding photos to the Pixelog I have been setting the dates to the date the photo has been taken. That’s ok at the moment because there aren’t that many pictures in there … but soon the most recently added photos will be considered “old” because they have dates of last summer, and they won’t show up at the front of the Pixelog. Which leaves me wondering how to handle it. I’m thinking that I should just add it initially with today’s date. Then when it rolls off of the 10 most recent list (which is how the thumbnails across the top are generated) I will modify the date to actually be the correct date. Would that make more sense then? So you don’t have to hunt for the newest things I have added? Or the alternative is to just place below my notes on the photo the date the picture was taken. And leave the MT generated date as the date I added it into the site. Is any of this making sense to anyone besides me?

I also changed the “Next” and “Previous” navigation around, so it’s more intuitive. Jennifer had it set up … well, similar to how it is now, and she was right in thinking it should have been that way. So now when you click “next” you are really seeing the “previous” image. Clear as mud, right? Trust me, it’s better that way.

According to Duhhhbya, “If people want to fight terror, do something kind for a neighbor.” Yes, you two can help fight terrorism in America by devoting two years to voluntary service. Service which will “harness the power of citizens to help prepare their local communities for the threats of terrorism.” All that kept flashing through my mind as I read the article was visions of Hitler’s Youth. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. What does helping my neighbor have to do with fighting terrorism? Am I supposed to suck up to them so I can work my way into their home and make sure it’s not a bomb factory? And I get his political agenda of ” ‘compassionate conservatism’ in which volunteers at all stations of life would reach out to struggling citizens”. Matter of fact, I agree with it to some extent. But I don’t see what that has to do with stopping terrorism. Just seems to me like using a national tragedy to get his agenda passed. And it bugs me. Another thing to add to my long list of things about him that bug me. Yes, it is Duhhhbya specifically; I am about 70% Republican in my thinking, although I don’t vote based on party lines. He, on the other hand, grates on my very last nerve. “A moment we must seize to change our culture”. Uh huh. Whatever.

I keep looking, I keep waiting … they said 10pm EST … OH LOOK! The Bloggie winners have been announced! Off to see who won!

Well, I am happy to see some of the winners and … others … well, I voted for someone different. Either way, I am sad to see that Robyn, Dawn, The Mighty Geek and Hoopty didn’t win. I was very happy to see that MovableType did win, and I can honestly say that out of the 3 blogging systems I have used I will be sticking with this one. I have no complaints at all about it.

A *big* congratulations to BluishOrange who is also “from Houston, Texas, where they poison the water and the cockroaches eat small children” She won the “Best Designed Weblog” category, which I chose last night to sponsor with a prize. I have read her off and on over the past year (no reason for the “off” time other then there are a lot of blogs to read!) and have always enjoyed it. It’s nice to see a “hometown girl” win it. Congratulations, Alison!

It’s been a long day at work and it isn’t over yet, but I needed a little break. I started to peek at the blogs that I haven’t had a chance to even look at all week, and then I look at my stats. In there I discover that So Very Posh has made the Pixelog her Aortal of the week! THANK YOU Lynda! I have never been an Aortal pick, ever - so it totally made my day!

While following links around, I came across CD’s site. It’s beautiful. I love the layout. I love how the image flows into the page. I love that it made me laugh hysterically when I opened it full screen on my 1600×1200 resolution monitor and it says on the side of the image, “your screen resolution is way too high”. Completely cracked me up.

Should I be excited that on the blogdex I sit there at 401, with Matt Haughey 2 lower down the list? And where are you?

Thanks to the Hip Hop Name Generator, I am now known as “Queen Vanilla Cube of the underground”! w00t! [via PromoGuy]

I watched Call For Help again last night (plus caught the tail end of Screen Savers) and heard Chris Pirillo mention that they would be discussing managing your e-mail and spam today. It reminded me of a pretty cool tool that I have used many times, MailWasher. Not only can you delete mail right off the server without downloading it, great when the worms are going around in e-mail and you don’t want to risk getting one, but this little gem actually lets you “bounce back” their e-mail so it looks like your address has been closed down! Oh … and it’s FREE! (I’m all about free stuff…)

The Heidelberg Castle skin, while I love the colors, is simply too hard to read on some monitors. The perk of skins of course is that you can pick what skin you like, but I prefer to make sure that the opening skin is one that works on several browsers and is pretty easy to read on all of them - so I did some rearranging and made the Venice skin the default. If you want to change back to the Heidelberg Castle skin (or back to Venice if that was your default before this morning), visit the Skin Selector page.

Chris Pirillo mentioned that he is currently sitting at the #3 spot for “Chris” in Google, out of 13,900,000 results. While that is quite impressive, I have to add that I am NUMBER TWO for “Christine”! Number two! Out of 3,320,000 results! Dude, get OUT! Yes, I have my screenshot for the memories…

For the people that asked about the castle in the image on the latest skin addition, you can visit the official Stadt Heidelberg site (City of Heidelberg) and see more beautiful images of the city. And they even offer an English version for those of you - like me - that don’t speak German. There is also more tourist information here and specific information on the castle and the castle gardens.

If you have a chance, can you give me feedback on the Pixelog? I want to make sure that the navigation is intuitive, that you can tell where to go to see all of the albums (ok, there are only 2 there right now, but there will be more soon!) and that you can see where to change the background from white to black and back to white again (yes, I could play with that for hours…) Basically, if you have any usability feedback, it would be really helpful. Jennifer and I kept it under pretty tight wrap before it launched, and basically only 4 people other then us saw it before last night. So … let me know. Thanks!