This is the one that is written after a five-day weekend.

So I took a few days off to move and get settled into my new place.  Today is the first day back to work after a five-day weekend.  Bleh.

Since I’ve been gone (cue the Kelly Clarkson music now, please) I’ve moved 100% of my things into the new place, and I got a little promotion on Foursquare too:

My new roommate was a really good find.  I think we’re going to get along really well.  And even though I’m sleeping on the floor for the time being (my new bed is coming next paycheck) and we don’t have wi-fi in the apartment yet, this is the happiest I’ve been since I’ve moved to Arizona.  Things are looking up.

This is the one where I become the mayor of your mom.

I’m moving. On October 1st I’ll be in my new place, and that comes with a few hard choices. Some of the decisions are easy…things like what color my new bathroom should be (answer: earth tones with one strong accent color…probably orange) or what to do with all the money I’ll be saving on gasoline since my commute will be almost 80 miles shorter each day (answer: buy all the Bosom Buddies DVDs).

And then the harder questions…one of which I’m soliciting your help with.  What should I call my new apartment on Foursquare? This is a serious question with serious consequences.  When I become the mayor of my place, it will be broadcast on Twitter and Facebook, and I want to make a real splash.  So I could go with something funny:

Or I could stay serious:

But I feel that that’s too boring.  I need something witty to counter my dry personality.  Maybe something like:

Or perhaps:

Or maybe I could use the location to pimp out my web address:

Or is all of that too personal?  I know some people are critical of Foursquare and other location-based games because it gives strangers access to your comings and goings.  Would this be crossing a line?

I blurred out my social security number so all you blog readers can’t steal my identity.

So…what should I do?  Anyone with a clever suggestion?

This is the one with 1 paragraph updates.

First off, I bought a Speedo.  Don’t judge.  I just put it on in the locker room, and prance out to the pool.  Nobody has time to see how I’ve inelegantly squished my junk into it.  This does, however, call for some serious manscaping.  And since I’ve started seeing results at the gym I’m not all embarrassed to be seen in the speedo.  The one area that really needs some of my attention tanning.  Why are gay men so superficial, btw? (There was a lot of TMI in that paragraph…sorry.)

Since my guest post on SixUntilMe.com, I’ve received a lot of really supportive emails, tweets, comments.  Thanks to everyone that read it and sent me support in any form.  Additionally, I should mention that I wrote the post soon after we hit splitsville and just posted recently – so I’ve done some serious healing since then.  And if you liked the post, you might also like the comments that people posted (at the time of this writing there are 31 comments).  The majority of them are supportive, but there’s also a few criticisms of my diabetes v.s. cancer comparison.

I’ve been pretty religious about the my gym routine.  Sure there is the obvious benefits…I use less insulin in a day after I’ve run a couple of miles, my energy level is higher, etc.  Those are all really great reasons, but the main reason I’ve gone six or seven times a week is to keep up the foursquare mayorship.  Since the last time I obsessively blogged about foursquare, I have earned a Photogenic badge for checking in at three locations that have photo booths (?!) and a Bravo Newbie badge when I ate dinner the other night at Fez…which, like Bravo, is clearly gay but straight people don’t always realize it.

My reading has slowed down a bit.  I blogged about the bizzaro couple of days where I was starting books and then deciding not to reading them.  If I’ve ever made fun of you for starting books and never finishing them, I take it all back.  It’s really not something that I do…and it has kind of ruined some of my momentum.  But then I found a James Patterson book (so?!) that gave me my mojo back, and I’ll be posting about the 22nd and 23rd book I’ve read this year pretty soon, I’m sure.

I’m listening to a lot of podcasts now.  A lot.  Like close to a dozen.  Since I’ve last updated y’all on my podcast listening, I’ve added The Big Gay News Podcast (daily gay-related news), Democracy Now! (daily political talk show that I used to listen to on Pacifica when I lived in LA), Johnjay and Rich (it’s a cut up version of their local radio show), Jordan, Jesse GO! (nerdy weekly podcast by two straight guys), NPR: Fresh Air (daily interview show), Pod Is My Copilot (weekly shoot-the-shit podcast), Stuff You Should Know (they pick one topic and break it down so even us stupids could understand it), The NerdistThe Q Cast Connection (which is Chris Hardwick’s podcast), (a bunch of homos from Florida sit around and talk).  My iPod has basically been turned into a podcast-listening device.  Music is for emotional people.

This is the one where I steal it back.

This happened this morning:

I stole this mayorship back from Fadi.  And for the record, I don’t appreciate all of you perverts salivating over his douchey picture that I posted here.

He is the enemy.  Don’t forget that.

From twitter:

I know that this is getting serious, because this morning on the drive to the gym I started thinking about how I could squeeze in a workout on Sunday so he wouldn’t get an extra check in like he did last week.

God, I need a life.

This is the one where I’m in a fight.

I’m at war.

Well, it’s a FourSquare war.

This douchey-looking guy named Fadi keeps stealing the mayorship of my gym.  When I started working out, he was the mayor of La Fitness.  But then I stole it from him last week.

The only problem was that Fadi worked out 7 days last week…and totally stole the mayorship back from me on Sunday, my day off.

Doesn’t he just look like a douche?  Seriously, who takes a picture like that?

We’ve never actually been at the gym at the same time.  But this stupid FourSquare war has chased away that little voice that says “you can take one day off…you’ve been doing so good.”  So take that, all you FourSquare haters.  I guess this could be a negative thing if the location wasn’t a gym.  Imagine, for example if I had a similar mayorship war over a Burger King or a donut shop.

In unrelated news, I’m taking photos all day, and my 12 of 12 will be posted tomorrow.

This is the one with misc. updates.

I wanted to blog today, but couldn’t think of something substantial enough to fill an entire post.  So instead you get pieces of me:

* I finished my 20th book in 2010.  I read A Good And Happy Child by Justin Evans – it’s the story of a crazy kid that thinks he’s possessed by demons.  Or is he a kid possessed by demons that everyone thinks is crazy?  Kind of a long read…about 100 pages too long.

* I received my latest a1c results, and I’m quite happy with myself.  Approximately one year ago my a1c was 12.3.  Seriously.  And this week it is 6.2.  Seriously.  If you’re not diabetic, these numbers might mean nothing to you…but to me it shows that I’m on the right path.  Regardless of how bad some people make me feel about my chronic illness, I’m getting closer to control.  Sure, it might not happen over night, and there will most definitely be mistakes…but I’m not a bad diabetic like some lead me to believe.

* Mother’s Day is on Sunday, and I really want to make my mom a blog as a present.  I doubt that she would have (a) the discipline to blog regularly (b) the technological knowledge to do anything creative with the blog and (c) the brain power to remember a username and password.  But a boy can dream.

* In one short week I accomplished all of my Foursquare goals…additionally I became the mayor of my gym, and I’m battling it out with some guy named Fadi and I can’t let him re-gain the mayorship.  Now I need a new Foursquare goal.

* I’ve downloaded about a dozen new podcasts that I’m auditioning.  So far I absolutely love Pod Is My CoPilot and the iTunes Celebrity Playlist podcast.

* Have a good weekend, bitches.

This is the one where my life is (more) complete.

Wow.  Two badges in a week.  This just happened:

This is the one where my life is complete.

This just happened:

This is the one where I’ve become the mayor of your face.

Are you using Foursquare?  You know, the location service-based social network game.  The gist is that you “check in” when you arrive anywhere and it lets your friends know where you’re at.  Imagine Google Latitude knocking up Twitter.

The fun part, for me anyway, is that you get points for checking in.  The points aren’t really good for anything (yet), but you can gain badges for different check in combinations.  For example I received a “BENDER” badge for going out four nights in a row.

And then there’s the mayorships.  All you have to do is be the person that has checked into a location more than anyone else and you’ll receive the crown of mayor.  So gratifying.

At the time of this writing I’m the mayor of five location:

• Dan’s House
• The North Tempe Multigenerational Center
• My Work
• My Work’s Admin Offices
• My paren’ts house

There are two badges that I’m really dying to get (oh my god I’m a nerd).

I need the Gym Rat badge.  Yes, I said “NEED.”  To get this badge you have to take ten trips to a location that is tagged “GYM” in a thirty day time span.  This is important to me because I’ve made a recent decision to regain control over my health.

I also need the Super Mayor badge.  To get this badge you need to hold down 10 mayorships at the same time.  And it can never be taken away from you!  I kind of suck at mayorships right now…I’ve only got five.  I just need to get better at checking in at the bizarre places I go where people don’t have smart phones.  For example, maybe it’s time to go visit my friends next door in the senior center.

I’ll keep you updated.  I’m not one of those super-annoying Twitter people that broadcast every god damn location they visit.  I only broadcast when I win a mayorship, or when I unlock a new badge.  So if you want to follow me on Twitter, go here.

I’m sorry if this is super-nerdy…I feel as obsessed as a World Of Warcraft gamer nerd – but at least with Foursquare you’re out in the real world.