I'm opening this space up for guest commentaries for an extremely limited time.
Topics considered will be computer-related, online or old school gaming and the catch-all topic of random geekery.
Of course, submitters will get their own byline as well as all the fame and fortune participation in Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng brings a person.
You can submit articles to geek_AT_prettygeekything.com. If you want, you can even have your own "@prettygeekything.com" email address, if you want two gigs of space to manage all the fan mail you are certain to receive.

1. I'd love to see fiction (or fiction based on actual events) about anything nerdy in just about any format.
2. Be sure to provide back links to your own space on the Interweb, so that readers may follow your work home, if possible.
3. Vampires, zombies, ninjas and pirates all rule, for the purposes of this exercise.
4. The high standards of this enterprise must be maintained. Good luck trying not to exceed those in a way that embarrasses me.
5. Have a piece of hardware or software you have strong feelings about (positive or negative)? Surely you might have a few words to say about it.
6. Submissions containing nudity will not be given special consideration.*

In other news, after extensive research I present this:

Reduced Sugar Cinnamon Dolce Flavoring Recipe

50 ml. Splenda
30 ml. Splenda Blend Brown Sugar
100 ml. water

Boil for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Boil longer for thicker syrup.
Allow to cool 15 minutes.
Add 3/4 tsp cinnamon extract and 1/8 tsp butter extract and stir well.
Pour into dispenser and store in refrigerator.
For about 10 oz. of finished syrup multiply all of the proportions in the recipe by 3.

* Submissions containing nudity will be given special consideration.

Okay, listen:

Holy crap!
Both gaming magazines, Dungeon and Dragon, are closing shop in September!
I've read those since I was a kid!
Wizards of the Coast (Hasbro, now) plans to offer an online version with a paid subscription.
Holy crap!
Who wants to lug a computer to the gaming table?
So now I have to pay and print everything?
I'm all about saving trees, but Dungeon and Dragon (I'd assumed) were printed on sickly trees. Or trees that were depressed. Or maybe trees that the other trees were a little bit sick of being around.

As if I weren't disgusted enough with that bit of corporate nonsense, Coke "revitalized" the rewards program.
This apparently means they add a few products, remove a bunch, and jack up the prices.
As if my kidneys didn't already pulse with agony.
I have no choice but to ramp up the project yet again just to keep them from getting away with it.
I'll show them. Oh, yes. Revenge will be mine as soon as I stop crying when I try to go #1.
I did manage to find a couple of bottles of Diet Coke Plus on my way in this morning, which should at least stave off scurvy for a few weeks.

But wait!
In a bit of good news, Starbucks has fled the field of battle since I exposed their conspiracy.
Cinnamon Dolce has vanished entirely from the menu, both online and in every store I stopped in.
I'll celebrate my victory as soon as the last of it leaves my system -- probably at the end of one of these weird shakes I've developed.
Perhaps next time they will think twice before tangling with an angry blogger.

I'll gloat when I next order a quad-shot venti breve no-foam latte. Probably later today.

Maybe twice.

I'm so very thirsty.

I've mentioned them before, but I have to repeat:

If you haven't tried the Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte -- DON'T!
They are highly addictive and a core element of the corporation's latest plot of global domination.
I have tried them, and tried to resist them since. Even my iron will crumbles at the sign of an open Starbucks drive through. Friends, do not fall into their trap.
I've come to realize that this could easily become a $30 per week investment in Starbucks, with no return on my investment save for my own sanity (such as it is).
I have even accidentally contributed to it in more serious ways. Once, after I had apologetically completed ordering a "quad-shot, venti, breve, sugar-free cinnamon dolce latte", the barrista shrieked.
"That's the perfect drink!" I was horrified as she wiped the "Grande Americano" from the "This is your drink" board behind the counter and began to copy my order from where she had scrawled it across the side of my cup.
I knew something needed to be done, and quickly.
I also knew we have our own cappuccino machine at home. Sure, we've worn out a few gaskets so it leaks and it no longer quite heats right, but I'd been given the motivation to attack those issues with the tools at hand (hot glue and a mitre saw, to be specific) to be able to craft our own sugar-free cinnamon dolce lattes at home.
Before beginning the project, I visited Starbucks.com to order a bottle (case) of the flavored syrup. My chest tightened as I came to the realization that while a person can order aprons, grounds dumpers, impossible-to-find coffee plumbing parts and Starbucks-branded toilet paper dispensers, the cinnamon dolce syrup is glaringly unavailable.
I tried to not freak out.
I went to my back-up source, DaVinci syrups. They have everything, the Splenda-based stuff is awesome and they are, arguably, the source for all things flavoring-related.
No cinnamon dolce flavoring there, either.
I even looked under the "new" heading, hoping their web guy was just lazy.
How could this be?
I turned to Google and frantically searched.
Google led me to a forum post by a past (or current) Starbucks barrista who claimed to know the secret.
Cinnamon Dolce flavoring is a combination of cinnamon flavoring (a no-brainer and common enough even in grocery stores), brown sugar (slightly harder to find in liquid sugar-free form, but not impossible) and butter flavoring. Butter is impossible. It doesn't exist as a syrup (because, like, gross) and real butter would congeal and/or rot in the bottle.
Someone on another message board suggested replacing butter flavoring with caramel, but also suggested that this was "not the same".
I've called attention before to Starbuxitol, the secret, highly-addictive non-nutritive additive Starbucks adds to their drinks.
Cinnamon Dolce syrup is that substance, made bold enough to leave out in plain view.
I know I have to solve this riddle, and I know I can do it using DaVinci syrup.
The answer to this mystery, this secret, this "DaVinci Code" is the only thing that can free me, free all of us.