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Your Valentine's Day Plans for 2003?
Nos. writes "Valentine's Day is rapidly approaching, and though some of you Slashdot readers will be spending the day alone, there must be some of you out there who won't. So, what are you doing for that someone special this Feb 14th? My fiance is not a geek, and so wouldn't appreciate a 'geeky Valentine's'. Instead, I'm thinking a nice quiet dinner in one of our favourite restaurants. However, I recently got the 'You don't do anything romantic anymore' speech, and quite honestly am out of ideas. Can slashdot help? Obviously slashdot isn't the best place to ask, but I'm sure others are in a similar situation."
More often than not a geek knows how to treat a lady better than a lot of guys. Or so it seems at least. Must be because the typical geek is not a "manly-man." Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. You'll also find that a lot of geeks like poetry and junk - expect that from the Apple folks. They're typically creative people. ;) Maybe one of them will write a love poem for you to give her.
For me, my wife is not a geek but does play an awful lot of DAOC lately... She says she wants a keyboard without a "stupid windows key", I guess it must be a DAOC thing.
Here's what you do - get her an appointment at one of those beauty spas on the 14th, in the evening. Make sure she'll be there for a while, maybe an hour or two. Ya know, the oil treatment, the massage, the whole nine yards. Then, when she gets home - you've got dinner waiting for her. Not any Taco Bell dude, make some spaghetti or something simple - yet not too simple. Make sure to get the red wine, if you can't cook you'd better get her drunk...
Women love this stuff and it's very much worth it - the rest of the year she will always remember this day and you'll NEVER get the "You're not affectionate" speech again.
If you didn't blow your wad on the oil treatment when splurge for diamonds. Doesn't have to be huge or expensive - just a little nugget of love that will always remind her of you (and the great Valentines day you gave her!)
Ah, I see you need education, Grasshopper. Speaking the language of love and romance is vital to successful geeks. First, to be successful, you must put aside the thought of "just one day a year". It may be difficult, but plan on starting to do something romantic *at least* once a month. Better is to have a date night *every week*, without fail. Let your parner help plan the dates, and even if you don't get enthused about their hobbies at least learn enough to discuss them intelligently. Some of you may ask why this is necessary for a geek. It is simple, so simple. You can expect yourself to want something throughout the year. If you have treated your partner well, they will be much more inclined to treat you the same. If they feel they have to scrape to get anything from you, they will probably not easily give in for anything you want. I have found this to work over the last 12 years of marriage, and I plan on continuing the cycle.
It echos my thought exactly.
Back when we were dating and then engaged, living in New Orleans, my wife and I would always go out to a romantic restaurant on Valentine's Day, like the amazingly popular Mona Lisa. Now that we live in the Northeast, we prefer to avoid the restaurant rush -- especially since Valentine's Day is on a Friday this year -- so we're staying home and having a meat fondue.
There's hardly a more fun and social meal than a fondue. The basic concept of a meat fondue is quite simple -- you cut a couple of pounds of good beef into approximately 1" cubes, skewer them on long fondue forks, and dunk them in a pot of boiling oil. We build a big fire, light candles, and have the fondue accompanied by a variety of sauces, French bread, good cheese, and of course a bottle of two of good red wine. Yes, it's amazingly decadent and terribly unhealthy, but it's a lot of fun, requires minimal preparation, and, because you're always pausing to skewer a new chunk of meat to dip in the oil, the meal is naturally unhurried and gives plenty of time for enjoyable conversation.
My wife and I have banned Valentines Day from the relationship. Since it's a faux holiday anyway - brought to you by Hallmark - we decided that we would be better off expressing our love for each other on every other day of the year, forgoing the pricy sentimental pap that comes around every February 14.
And yes, I am blessed to be with a woman who shares my point of view on that issue. In fact, it was her idea.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
I have tickets for two to a[n off-Broadway] show in NYC. Dinner, show, greeting card, a small token of my esteem (Buffy DVDs!) and I'll get off for about $150.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Second that suggestion.
GET A REAL CORKSCREW. Pocketknife/multi-tool corkscrews don't cut it. At the VERY least get a proper "winged" wine corkscrew, they're only a few dollars.
Brookstone has some REALLY nice corkpullers. Push a lever down and it automatically twists the screw in, pull it back up and it pulls the cork out. Insanely easy, and it's a flashy way to open a bottle of wine too. I'm sure you struggling to get the cork out of your bottle of wine with a crappy pocketknife will kill the mood. Plus I don't know how many times substandard corkscrews have resulted in small chunks of cork ending up in the wine for me... (I have one that is not a Brookstone puller, but is 99% identical to the ones they sell. It is GREAT.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Sushi. It's easy to make, it keeps overnight in the fridge, and you can eat as much or as little as you want. Perfect really. Do something light, like California Rolls, with maybe some roasted peppers and smoked salmon. £5-worth of rice, sushi-nori (seaweed to wrap it in) and assorted other veggies makes about 70 Cali Rolls - you will need about 20.
(Posting as AC as ppl who know my partner and I read /.)
As a geek guy...
Personally I really like a massage, followed by a tasteful lapdance/strip which my partner is very very good at. I also really like it when we go for walks along the beach and have dinner at a cafe on the edge of the sand (I live in Australia so no option for northern hemispherians for V day). I also really like it when my partner dresses up v sexy and we go out to a dance club.
But my partner impresses me right throughout the year by cooking and doing the washing 80+% of the time. Admittedly I get home at 6:30pm and she at 5pm but that means a lot to me. Oh and I really like it when she wakes me up in the morning by giving me head. Other things I like is when she says I'm really handsome and the best lover she's ever had and she wants to marry me and stay with me forever. I've no idea if this is true but it feels great to be told this!! I also really like holding hands when we walk together through the city. I also like it when she sends me lewd SMS messages. Oh yeah, I really like the way she shaves herself because I know she's doing it just for me, makes me feel special. I really appreciate her dressing up when we go out and the way she likes to touch me - I guess it's just the way she shows that she appreciates me that makes the best impression.
DeBeers doesn't have the proudest history in the world. I'm always shocked by what people spend on sparkly little pieces of rock anyway. I offered my girlfriend to think it over- if all the rock I can buy is what she wants, that's OK- but consider the equally priced options of a small diamond or large cubic zirconia, plus a week in a four-star resort in the caribbean for each winter for the next five years, or a stocked wine cellar, or an opal necklace that will nock your socks off. The DeBeers lobby has some girls so brain-washed they think you're trying to rip them off if you suggest anything other than a big lump of sparkly carbon, so as stated above, know your girl. My girlfirend thought it was a good offer, even if it's not romantic to make an offer. But I'd rather risk being unromantic to acheive clarity on this than be eternally in the doghouse for buying a small ring, whatever else she got, or throw thousands into a ring she doesn't care so much about.
f ault.ht ml
And about diamonds; if you want one, DeBeer's Monopoly had fallen significantly- it's easy to buy a non-DeBeers diamond if you just look. If you want one from Canada, look at these guys:
http://www.foxfirejewelers.com/diamonds/de
The Wall Street Journal had an article about a startup US diamond mine about two years ago, but I couldn't find it online.
Trivia- did you know Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, made the money to found the prize primarily by selling dynamite to DeBeers?
Here in the Netherlands a lot of people totally ignore valentines day. It was introduced here by shops and such and now everybody that can get a bit of money of it (TV, *shops, magazins, blah) acts like half our country does something to celebrate valentines day while we don't:) It's a bit the same with christmas - until TV was invented nobody had thought of the possibility of putting presents under a tree in the living room (we did have the tree though). Instead we put presents under the chimney with Sinterklaas (5 december) but since everybody got a TV and TV got controlled by money more and more people don't celebrate Sinterklaas anymore and have all started to put presents under a tree to celebrate a religious holiday from a religion nobody even remotely believes in anymore. Though many people think "Valentines day? One big commercial" and totally ignore it. The same for christmaspresents.
0x or or snor perron?!