I have never been on a cruise ship, but I'm intrigued by the concept. I enjoy travel, but I'm not so sure I enjoy traveling. My favorite travel generally involves sitting around somewhere new and reading, and generally there's an awful lot of fuss and bother required just to be able to sit and read among majestic glaciers or ancient Mayan ruins.

So you can see why the cruise ship model compels. It's not so much going places as going to a single place, and then that place goes places. It is travel without movement, a Zen koan with a seafood buffet.

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However, the activities promoted on cruise line ads -- sunbathing, dancing, paying ridiculous prices for Central American tchotchkes -- belong to the sort of tanned newlyweds I am not. Rather than paying $1,500 to sit in my room reading, I've started to look into more geek-themed cruise packages. I'd be happy to share my data.

Chess Cruise

I kind of feel bad for not enjoying the chess. I feel like a biker who doesn't like knife fights. (I don't actually like knife fights, either.) However, if you enjoy the chess, and want to be trapped on a moving vessel with dozens of other people who enjoy the chess, and have a bunch of cash to blow on playing a game that's normally free, then the Caribbean Gambit Chess Cruise is for you.

The site says that people who are new to chess are welcome as well, but I'm not sure I buy it. I suspect that the first time you refer to the knight as a "horsie," you're going to find yourself on a lifeboat with no flare gun.

Videogame Cruise

If I were into cruises, but not videogames, I might go on the cruise put together by The National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers. You'd basically get the upper deck to yourself: You could swim and sun yourself all weekend while everyone else was below decks pwning noobs, or possibly noobing pwns.

If you are into videogames, however, you might possibly be enticed by this year's inaugural NAViGaTR Cruise, which offers such entertainment sweetmeats as a Video Games Live concert and an appearance by Cloris Leachman. I can't count the times I've been on Xbox Live and heard someone say, "Man, I love this game but ... I just wish Cloris Leachman were here." We all sigh and agree. Also scheduled: an appearance by YouTube's Hardcore Granny, voted 2006's "Internet Celebrity You Least Want to Look for on a Google Image Search."

Pirate Cruise

Some guy calling himself Captain Cane runs pirate cruises. Mostly they're brief trips, but apparently he also does a seven-day Caribbean cruise sometimes. Captain Cane's Pirate Adventure Cruise, inexplicably, is being billed mainly as a family event. I would think the kids would get tired of the pirate theme by day two at the latest and beg to go on an Avatar: The Last Airbender cruise instead, but I know for a fact that geekfolk never get tired of sea chanteys, mizzenmasts and grog. They're happy to shout "Arr" long past the point where it's novel, clever or tolerable.

Galacticruise

You just missed this one, actually. Galacticruise brought together a bunch of your favorite Battlestar Galactica stars, provided you prefer the original, feathered-hair series. Or, alternatively, soap operas: One of the guests was never on Battlestar Galactica, but was on As the World Turns for 10 years.

I'm as lost as you are. Galacticruise did however, have on board Richard Hatch, an actor on both the original and the good series, as well as the soap opera All My Children, so he should have made everyone happy. At any rate, before I'd go on this cruise I'd want a guarantee that every single piece of paper on the ship was octagonal.

Mac Cruise

There are a lot of computer-themed cruises out there, but I'd probably pick MacMania, mostly because it offers a class in Extreme Googling. You can even become an Apple Certified Support Professional over the course of the 10-day cruise. That sounds like a lot of fun, but at the same time I now feel like I should ask the guys at the Genius Bar how much of their training time was spent with a mai tai in hand before I hand over my laptop.

- - -

Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a bosun, a yeoman and a quarter-gunner.

The air is turning cold and crisp and the sun is becoming a recluse, which herald the subject of our next photo contest: Fall.

Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best Fall photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. The 10 highest-ranked photos will appear in a gallery on the Wired.com homepage. Sure, the fiery leaves are always a crowd-pleaser, but we want to see more. Show us the legions of our greatest resource headed back to school. Show us giant gourds, ghouls and ghosts, and hay mazes. Uncanny headless horsemen amongst skeletons of trees, and autumnal feasts that stretch as far as the eye can see. Fit Fall into a frame and show us what it means to you.

The photo must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc.

We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you login will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg).

Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions!

Also, check out the winner's galleries from our previous contests: Holga, Red, Self-Portrait, Night, Macro, Transportation, and Black and White.

Vote on fall photos submitted by other readers.

Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your Fall photo.

Submit your fall photo.

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Back to top

While a portrait can be one of the most difficult types of photo to do well, our readers have once again demonstrated their superior taste by selecting these 10 photos from our portrait photo contest. Jason Lee takes home the gold with his photo "Kayla" at left. Mr. Lee will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk.

Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Portrait Photo Gallery.

Our next twice-monthly photo contest is fall. As the world packs up shop for winter, we want to see what signifies fall for you. Check out the contest page for more information.

Left:

Kayla
Submitted by Jason Lee

Photographer's comment:

"Just a simple portrait of my younger daughter.”

Building Contractor
Submitted by Shane Knudsen

Photographer's comment:

This man stopped by while I was visiting with my friend, Sajid. I remember that he was a building contractor (and a rather busy one considering the 2005 earthquake), but I never caught his name. This is just one of those faces you absolutely have to photograph. Fortunately, my friend was able to translate posing instructions for me, since I don't speak Pari or Urdu.”

Under the Overpass
Submitted by Anonymous

Photographer's comment:

"On the streets of Houston."

Sam Stanley Kubrick
Submitted by Richard Penny

Photographer's comment:

"Portrait of my middle son in the garden riding his toy bike whilst wearing my motorbike helmet. Looks very 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Marble Mayhem
Submitted by Tyler Klemp

Photographer's comment:

"She's wearing a really soft Russian rabbit hat."

Filthy Habit
Submitted by Ciaran Whyte

Photographer's comment:

"A smoker in a pub doorway, in Dublin."

smoke'n hot...
Submitted by Max Trombly

Photographer's comment:

"My friend kriss and I were hang'n out and she was in need of a light …. This photo was taken using the natural light emitting from the molotov.. no added light from another source ... 1/80 f./5 1600 iso shot with a canon 20D in my driveway."

Commute
Submitted by Kent Colony

Photographer's comment:

"Nikon Digital"

Rafa
Submitted by Chyett de Landròn-Smith

Photographer's comment:

"I took this image of Raphael, my nephew. We were quite bored, and decided to take some photos. The little guy is so photogenic."

The Dream
Submitted by Joe Russo

Photographer's comment:

"A photo project for JieXin, the dancer you see in the photo. Somewhat of mid-night dream sequence. Colours by Lightroom. No photoshop. Nikon D300, 50-mm 1.8, natural light."