I’m a big fan of instant messaging - I find it the most efficient communication tool. It’s instant (obviously), share files and links, and I can do other things at the same time (which is harder on the phone). I’ve always over analyzed proper manners when IMing someone, and just when I’m getting the hang of it, Facebook comes along and messes up the whole rules system.

Facebook released their own instant messaging service two months ago, built into its social network, meaning if you have a Facebook account, you have Facebook IM. Unlike AIM or Google Talk, you just have to sign into Facebook and all your also signed in friends are shown as available in a taskbar. There’s no need to trade addresses, it’s all simple and automatic.

As a result, I don’t know who wants to use it and who doesn’t, making it hard to know who to IM and when.

Facebook Chat comes readily available on Digsby, my favorite IM client, so I can use the service just like any other instant messenger. Most of my friends use the taskbar on Facebook pages, requiring they keep the page open so as not to sign off. It also makes it hard to see when you get a new IM since your browser doesn’t flash announcing the new message. I’ve often tried sending messages to people who never saw them - they just closed their browser.

Thus even friends I ask about IMing miss IMs. And people I didn’t check with in advance is such a crap shoot - I never know if they saw my IMs and were so offended they ignored me, or if they just never saw them. That’s very stressful on my fragile social psyche.

The other challenge with Facebook Chat is simply knowing who you want to talk to. I have so many friends from high school, camp, and college that I lost touch with on purpose, not to mention the people I’m friends with just because. All these people show up on my friends list. I don’t necessarily want to de-friend them, but I certainly don’t want to talk to them. At least on Facebook they were buried with the other faceless faced masses. On Facebook Chat, I have a constant list (Facebook says they are working on this feature). Unfortunately, not being able to block specific people leads to people IMing me I don’t want to talk to. And since I use an IM client, I always see the IM.

Facebook Chat is still young. Hopefully as more people discover its features and value, it will become a great way of connecting with people, above poking them (which is still fun). But until Facebook Chat becomes valuable, we all need to learn how to use it. Starting with answering your IMs.

There are many dates only geeks are geeky enough to suggest, and some of those are amazing even for non-geeks. But some geek dates aren’t welcoming to the non-geek crowd. But this doesn’t have to ruin the experience. These risky ventures to geek havens can be made enjoyable for anybody with some skill.

Sci-fi and comic book conventions

The sight of women dressed and aliens and fat men in spandex will scare any person, but those less familiar with our culture will be particularly put off. Make sure you dress normal, maybe even a little up (we’ve talked about sport coats as casual wear, this is the perfect event to wear one with a comic booky shirt). This way you show your fun and mature side at once. Spending your time will be challenging - you have to let your date pick what to do based on your suggestions. There should be no waiting on lines of any kind except for food or the bathroom. Unless your date is dying to meet Storm Trooper #6, make your way to the retailers and treat it like a geeky flea market.

Comic book store

I always consider it a right of passage for my serious relationships to see my comic store, mostly to see if it scares them away or worse, if they think Rob Liefeld art is good. If your comic book store is having some big event, like Free Comic Book Day, bring your date along for an innocent afternoon of pizza and geekery. Let them pick something out and buy it for them to try out. No pressure, but leaving a store with something always makes the experience more rewarding.

Gaming tournament

There is no way to make a date fun if you are competing, but if you’re just there to watch, the company can be welcome. Whether it’s tabletop or video games, watching anyone of skill can be impressive and this is the perfect time to talk down your skill and make your date feel better when they play games with you.

Geek movie

Can’t wait to see the biggest sci-fl flick of the weekend? I’d avoid bringing a date. You want to pay attention to the movie, not your date. That’s spells trouble if your date wants to pay attention to you. This is why I had to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow twice.

Playing video games requires intense concentration, physical exertion, and mental strain. Being interrupted by hunger can ruin the experience or worse, your high score. Keeping a stash of efficient and fulfilling snacks can be the key to successful, marathon gaming. Important factors to consider are the food’s greasiness (no slippery fingers), healthy (the worse, the better), crumbliness (less is more), and the fullness factor.

Bagel Bites

Filling and bite-sized, Bagel Bites give you the awesomeness of pizza on a bagel. And when pizza’s on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime.

Peanut M&Ms

They melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Plus, the peanut makes them healthy.

Pringles

The least greasy and best tasting (in this blogger’s opinion) potato chip. Stick with original over other flavors to limit finger discoloration.

Oreo’s

They can crumble and are better with milk, but if you solve lots of problems by keep them in the fridge, then eating each one in one mouthful. It’s challenging and fun.

Wheat Thins

A little healthy, but these cracker treats provide some fiber to offset the other crap you’re eating.

Foods to avoid

Buttery popcorn

Grease, messy, and it gets stuck in your teeth

Anything with a wrapper

Sadly, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, Rolos, and other bite-sized candies lose out

For the second week of organizing your geek life, I’m tackling RSS Readers after last week’s look at personalized homepages.  These helpful aggregators of all you love and enjoy can quickly become and overbearing chore.  You want to read everything, but all these damn bloggers just write too damn much (sorry).  I subscribe to more than 200 feeds, flooding me with posts by the minute and leaving great, but infrequent bloggers lost in the shuffle.  Here are some pointers on controlling the insanity.

The struggle with RSS readers is how to stay informed but also have fun - don’t stress about unread items and such.  The problem is I don’t want to have to mark each feed read, but I also don’t just want to mark everything read.  This is why organizing feeds by topic becomes unwieldy - it doesn’t prioritize reading.

The other challenge is preparing my reader for ideal mobile viewing.  I don’t want any partial feeds or aggregating sites like Digg.  This led to my somewhat complex tagging system that you can of course tweak as needed.

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You might be dying to see the new Star Wars convention or check out the opening of an anime store, but not everyone shares our love for standing in line to see CGI or crazy hair. But you can use your geekiness to impress your date by thinking of common interests the average Joe (or Joey) might forget about.

Laser tag

It’s immature, frantic, energetic, and might include little kids running around, but that just proves it’s an excellent first date. It’s casual and lets you interact with your date, while creating good conversation material for the hot dog dinner afterward about who kicked who’s ass (looser buys, and you always let your date win…at least until the third).

Movie/music festival or convention

As long as it doesn’t feature anything called Star _____ or cartoons from foreign countries, this is a great date. The best kind are all day events, found in most cities (scheduling can be a chore) where you can walk around looking at salespeople’s displays of old movie posters, costumes, and other hilarious trivia. Plus, with tons of screenings and shows, you give your date options.

Arcades

Girls and even some guys scoff at arcades, and while they’re hard to find, everyone ends up having a good time because, let’s be honest, video games are awesome. It sucks to spend the money at an arcade when you have every system at home, but for a first date, this is a casual way to have fun and get to know your date. We respect members of the opposite/same sex now don’t we.

Bowling

Take a break from Wii Sports and try the real thing. Maybe you’re game’s improved.

Following up my Fashion Every Geek Should Have post, I decided to take the opposite route and help rid geeks of some fashion faux pas you might realize you’re committing.  Here are the biggest violations of true Geek Chic.

Cell phone on the belt

Popular among BlackBerry enthusiasts and other techies who are trying too hard to pretend their phone is a tricorder.  Even the most fabulous phones, even your darling iPhone, should be heard but not seen.  And frankly, I don’t even want to hear it.  Keep your phone in your pocket or bag when it’s not in use.

Clothing that doesn’t fit

I worked for a week at Express (oh college) and had to convince many skinny guys under 6′ that they weren’t largest.  To get them to wear a medium was a challenge even though it looked much better.  Even if you don’t have a great body, clothing should fit you.  For skinny geeks, wear smalls or, occasionally mediums.  The slimmer fits make the clothing look more stylish even if you aren’t at the forefront of fashion.  And if you are large, find clothes that help your body image like vertical stripes and darker colors which have slimming effects.

Inappropriately worn geek fashion

I’m a big advocate for wearing comic book and video game shirts when appropriate.  Clothing professing your love for Spider-Man and Batman are fun and personable, but can also be off putting in the wrong setting.  Make sure you wear these shirts to fun, casual events paired with something more serious like a sport jacket or sweater to show you’re styling, not just slumming.  And make sure the shirt fits!

Avoid shorts

Unless you have calves to make David Beckham jealous, don’t wear shorts.  Your legs will look almost as stupid as mine.  If you can’t take the heat, try khakis shorts over jeans.  They legitimize the silliness a little.

This does not apply to girls, I will note.

Glasses too big for your face

Sleek and slender doesn’t just apply to polos and mini-skirts - it even applies to glasses. Check out Prodigeek’s look at Geek Chic Glasses and you get the idea that the glasses your grandparents and parent wore at out and cool, clean frames are in.  Even those like me with window pane sized lens can find smaller frames to compliment the shape of our faces.  And if you’re really struggling, spring for contact lens.

The traditional dinner and movie date is a safe if not boring attempt at romance.  I suggest an alternative, the Video Game Date.  Gamers love discovering games their girlfriends are willing to play with them (enter the Wii), but why wait until you’re in committed relationship.  Here you have a unique trait you can share and, let’s be honest, even the biggest Luddites end up enjoying most video games even if they suck at them.  And the biggest benefit is you easily get your date into your apartment (and maybe even the bedroom).  So here are the ways to make the Video Game Date the most enjoyable (I can only get you so far).

Make it a safe place

This is not for a first date.  For your third or fourth date, invite your girl and guy to your place for pizza and video games.  Make sure your place is clean, your controllers are charged, and you have an assortment of munchies.  Keep things casual especially if your special friend has never played games before.

Offer a wide selection

Having the cliched Wii games is a plus, but provide real choice will be the key to success.  Try to gauge your dates interests - do they like cartoons, movies, sports?  Don’t be afraid of competitive games, only don’t get excited when you win (you have more experience) but feel free to joke about your anger that you were beaten (it’s beginner’s luck).  Have some cooperatives games around as well like some simple beat ‘em ups.  Super Smash Brothers games are great especially when you play on the same team.  Hack ‘n slash games like Marvel: Ultimate Alliance or Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance can work for edgier dates.  The key is to be open to your dates interest and offer the least stressful experience.

Have a back-up plan

It’s possible none of your video games will engage your date, so you’d better have a back up plan - and making out isn’t going to happen if the first half of your date was a bust.  Have a selection of movies prepared - have some already downloaded on your 360 or PS3 to really impress.  Cooking dinner also works, but if you already ordered pizza, that won’t work.

Running for president in the 21st century calls for a different kind of politician and especially, new forms of political geeks.  From all the blogs, commentary, stats, videos, websites, and news shows, a political junkie can get quickly overwhelmed.  With the election still churning along, here are some ways geeks can best support and learn about the candidates.

Social networking

Facebook and MySpace haves several groups, some official, some not, dedicated to the candidates.  You can be friends with all the candidates, receive updates about events, and meet other people who share your views.  Most impressive has been Barack Obama’s creation of his own social networking site, My Barack Obama, where you can create your own profile, blog, groups, etc. all dedicated to the one candidate, allowing the common voter to help organize other voters in their neighborhood as well as provide the campaign.

You Digg them

Ron Paul would be president right now if it was up to voters on Digg and Reddit.  The internet sensation had an army of loyal social bookmarking power users who propelled any news story about him to the top of popularity.  Didn’t do much to help his campaign (he did raise lots of money), but having fans who care that much has got to matter for something.  They even…

…Hold virtual world parties

Yes, Ron Paul would also be voted president of Azeroth.  On New Year’s, World of Warcraft fans held a rally for Ron Paul, the only candidate on the Azeroth ballot, I believe.  Several candidates like Obama and John Edwards created spaces on Second Life, but since there was no porn or gambling there, popularity didn’t ignite.  Nevertheless, dedicating the next raiding party of a candidate has got to be the best show of support.

User generated content

Blog from events, show off pictures, post videos on YouTube.  Instead of doing their own research, mainstream news networks love using user-generated videos and research (or lack there of) to mull over for hours on air.  This means you could get your 15 minutes of fame while supporting John McCain.  That’s my rap.

Sure the iPod is great for listening to music and watching movies on a really tiny screen, but why limit yourself.  The iPod is a powerful tiny computer and you might try using it as such.  Most of these tricks take some advanced computer skills, so if your iPod explodes, blame Microsoft like everybody else.

Install Linux

What free games and programs for your iPod?  The open-source miracle worker Linux has been developed specifically for the iPod and its handy click-wheel.  iPodLinux allows you to play more media files and you can still load the regular Apple firmware.  Unfortunately the newest iPods and some older ones are not supported.

Wikipedia on your iPod

If you get into a lot of discussions about the House of Burgundy but can’t remember the order of the monarchs, try carrying Wikipedia with you.  With no need for the internet, you can install almost 2 gigs of Wikipedia goodness onto your iPod for anytime viewing.  Now you always have something interesting to read on the train.

Change the iPod theme

For very advanced users (Windows only), use the iPodWizard to change the visuals of your iPod OS.  Tweak the colors, fonts, and maybe make your music sound better as a result.

Read a book

With a slight of hand, you can upload ebooks to your iPod.  Simply paste any text into a simple text file (.txt) and load it into Notes or Contacts on your iPod.  Files must be less than 4kb so novels need to be broken up between several files  Programs Text2iPod X and iPoDoc can help simplify the process.

You can even buy software

I know, who buys software these days.  Depending on if you want to learn a language, create flash cards, or listen to some female robot read your notes, you can find software for your iPod.  We are not here to judge.

Geeks can spend the majority of their salaries/allowances on collectibles often associated with kids toys. Comic books, action figures, and even video games do not scream mature adult the way we want them to. This does not mean you have to get rid of your geeky treasures. Instead, use them to your advantage and create some impressive displays.

Wall decorations

Instead of hanging paintings of scenery and fruit, hang some original comic art or even the comics themselves. Keep your best comics bagged and boarded and put them in some flattering frames (simple black from the art store work perfectly). Sparsely layout the comics in your living room and brag about their value, both financially and spiritually. This validates the thousands of comics neatly organized in your bedroom.

Shelving

The simplest of displays, shelves obviously hold things. For our geeky needs, the more shelves the better and the more stuff to put on them the better. I keep my almost 300 action figures on a large bookshelf. Even my mother (who threw out my first action figure collection) was impressed. Video games work just as well: replace those bookshelves of books you never read with all those video games you never beat.

People at first scoff at the childish display, but at quickly impressed by the size of the collection. Lesson learned: size does matter.

Things to avoid

Remember that some close-minded people might not be able to look past stereotyping our love of geek culture.  If you entertain lots of business folk in your apartment or house, keep your geekier paraphernalia away from more common areas.  Keep your living room clean, but your office is your domain.  Also, if you plan on entertaining a great deal in members of the opposite, or same, sex, limited the shocking geek gadgets from your bedroom.  You don’t want a giant Balrog action figure breaking the moment.