So a couple days ago George Lucas did an interview with SlashFilm in which he stated that it was always been his intention to show Greedo shooting first and missing badly from a distance of two feet in an effort to paint Han Solo as something other than the criminal drug smuggler he was.  Oh, sorry I meant to say spice smuggler.  Anyway, he lays the blame firmly on the poor editing techniques they had back in the 70′s.  This Star Wars logo is from the Star Wars T Shirts, by the way.

The thing is he never had any of the same issues in any of the other scenes involving blaster battles or complicated angles, and that shot didn’t look all that difficult to shoot.  The real thing, however, is that as a kid I was really into Star Wars and would buy anything I could afford with the Star Wars logo on it.  In one case I bought the book adaptation from the movie and in the book Han shot first without Greedo even pulling the trigger.  This book was licensed and approved by George as well.  Is he going to tell us that due to the 1970′s book writing techniques he couldn’t accurately show that Greedo shot first?

The very fact that he expects us to by this line of crap is conclusive proof that he actually has no respect for the fans of Star Wars at all.  It would have been a lot more acceptable if he had just said something like “Look, I wanted to clean up Han Solo’s image a little when I had the chance.”  Instead he is going to lie to us and expect us to buy his bull.  For shame, Lucas.

Jason

So George Lucas has announced Feb. 10th as the day of evil as he rereleases his horrible movie The Phantom Menace, now in 3D.  I am calling on all nerds and, for that matter, all Americans to boycott the entire series.  As everyone knows the prequels were crap, and post production 3D is crap.  Why would you spend money to support crap?

This Empire logo comes from the Star Wars T Shirt category.

This goes beyond mere dislike of what Lucas did to his franchise.  We need to take a stand against the raping of cherished movie franchises.  Hollywood needs to realize that they don’t have carte blanche with regards to good movies just for a fast buck.  In case you were wondering what the inevitable conclusion to this ugly trend I have one thing to say to you: Highland 2, the Quickening with 500 Years Ago on Planet Zeist.  You think I’m kidding?  How about a Alien prequel that has Ripley in flight school but somehow involved with aliens?  A remake of Weird Science starring Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith as “geeks” who can’t get girls?  How about a remake of the Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith but mistakenly set in China?  Oh, wait.  That one happened. How about On the Waterfront but make it about MMA?

So do the movie world a favor and don’t go see any of these.  This goes well beyond my personal desire to see Lucas fall on his face.  Don’t take your kids to see these films.  You know the new ones will just damage their soft brains and the older ones will be so full of extra worthless crap that you will want to scream.

Jason

Ha ha ha Lucas you fail again.

All you regular readers should have figured out by now that I have a very large axe to grind with George Lucas for ruining a cherished childhood memory of mine, Star Wars (Stormtrooper image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category).  If you don’t understand how he did this, or are to young or dumb to realize how much of an amazing epic the Empire Strikes Back is, then I suggest you spend some time at Red Letter Media checking out the Plinkett Star Wars review for Episodes I-III.  I have come to the conclusion that while Lucas has claimed responsibility for Episodes IV-VI, the talented people who actually made the movies what they are were fired after EOS was made, leaving us with freaking Ewoks as a predecessor to the eventual doom manifested in many ways but mostly in the form of Jar Jar Binks.

So it would be fair to say that I went into this movie looking for reasons to trash it, but fortunately for me I didn’t have to look hard.  The suck reasons are varied and many, and we will get into them in detail shortly, but while this movie may or may not be a commercial success it is definitely riding the short bus to movies.  What gives me even more enjoyment of this failure is Lucas had all the elements to make a truly amazing film: a star studded and talented cast, an amazing true story to work with, and stunning CGI effects.  All this and the movie still sucks.

Before we get to much farther into this dog let me say that I am a big proponent of civil rights advancement, and have great admiration for the men of the Tuskegee training program.  Theirs is a truly amazing story, and one deserving of a truly amazing film.  Unfortunately their story fell into the hands of George Lucas, who is to good movies what thalidomide is to pregnancy.

The movie is, of course, the story of the Tuskagee airmen the first group of African American pilots during WWII who fought with honor and pride against the Germans.  It tells of Col. A.J. Bullard (Terence Howard-Iron Man, Hustle & Flow, Four Brothers) struggling with the brass in the newly built Pentagon in the face of rampant racism and negative stereotypes.  Meanwhile unit commander Maj. Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.-As Good as it Gets, Men of Honor, Jerry McGuire) leads the gang as they start out flying regular patrols well in the rear with outdated aircraft, eventually getting to support a landing and finally flying bomber escorts.  He and his crew are punched out of the stereotype paper doll book: there’s the squad leader struggling with alcoholism (Nate Parker-The Great Debaters, the Secret Life of Bees, Felon), the hotshot rogue pilot who can’t obey orders and is constantly on the prowl for women (David Oyelowo-Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the Help, The Last King of Scotland), the younger pilot struggling to prove himself to the veterans (Tristen Wilds-the Secret Life of Bees, 90210 (2008), Half Nelson), the religious nut, the joker (named Joker-anyone remember Full Metal Jacket?), and a couple of country bumpkins.  They each have a sub plot and story that does nothing, goes no where, and actually hurts the movie (especially the romance story so worthless and crowbarred it felt like a big weighty dumb story forced into a movie.  Hey, I can’t be the king of analogies every day).    Each one is an anchor even heavier than the one preceding.

It has been often said that George Lucas is not an actors director, and I don’t think it has ever been more apparent than in this movie.  In spite of working with some of the most talented professionals in Hollywood he somehow managed to get them all to act like they were each passing a golf ball sized kidney stone.  This combined with dialog that compares favorably only to a flesh eating virus makes each non flying scenes feel like being smothered under a burning mattress. The antagonists were even worse.  A blatantly racist commanding officer (Bryan Cranston-Malcolm in the Middle and one of my personal favorites, Breaking Bad) was so over the top it was laughable, and the evil German pilot (Lars van Riesen-A Brunette Kiss, Private Peaceful, the Parachute Ball) was laughable cartoonish with lines taken from the Ming the Merciless catchy one liner phrasebook (“Die, you foolish African!”).  I guess Lucas can’t do a movie without a goofy fake character with dumb lines.

As for the racism, it was painfully drummed into our heads for the first half of the movie and then somehow just evaporated in the second half.  I know Lucas is trying to do something for African American (possibly to make up for all the heat he got for racist stereotype Jar Jar) but Spike Lee he is not.

I will say the time spent showing the action in the air was exciting in the same way the dog fights in Star Wars were fun.  The CGI was flawless and only once did I see a flight sequence I know for a fact was literally impossible.  The one thing Lucas can do is CGI, and he does use it here.  However, for every minute spent in the air with exciting combat you spend like five on the ground grinding through some god awful character development.

The stars.  I’ll give one star for the cast, especially Cuba Gooding Jr., although he spent the entire movie with a big dumb pipe in his mouth like he was Gen. Douglas MacArthur.  What exactly was that supposed to add?  One star.  The story of the Tuskagee airmen is one that deserves to be told.  Two stars.  Decent fight sequences and CGI effects.  One star.  WWII movie.  One star.  Total: five stars.

The black holes.  Acting ran like a chewing the scenery contest.  One black hole.  Dialog that made listening to drunk guys debate politics sound good.  One black hole.  Characters so flaccid and ill developed I really didn’t care if and when any of them died.  I wasn’t hoping they would die.  I just couldn’t worry about them.  One black hole.  Each sub plot that slowed the story down.  One black hole.  Very few of the sub plots actually had a conclusion or, for that matter, a point.  One black hole.  A bonus black hole for the romance sub plot, which pretty much led to the most obvious ending in the history of war movies.  One black hole.  Pacing and editing from hell.  Stuff jumped around in a fast/slow/fast method that made me want to scream.  One black hole.  At one point Lucas felt the need to channel Hogan’s Hero’s and include a POW escape plot that did absolutely nothing but add in some more worthless ground crap.  One black hole.  While the African American pilots were heroes of the sky, the portrayal of the Caucasian pilots make them looks like a bunch of undisciplined cowboys, not really reflecting well on the Army Air Corps.  One black hole.   The scar faced German pilot turned the movie into a comedy.  One black hole.  The instantaneous reversal of bigotry in such a pat and worthless manner (not so much a resolution as Lucas got bored portraying it and decided to drop the whole thing).  One black hole.  The film suffered from the war movie “We bought a tank, we are going to show a tank” syndrome.  In other words, every scene’s background was so packed with jeeps, trucks, tents, planes, and more jeeps you couldn’t see the ground.  One black hole.  Some fairly grievous plot holes (If the guys were flying patrols well behind friendly lines, how then did they come across a German train?).  One black hole.  Total: thirteen black holes.

So a grand total of eight black holes.  I feel pretty good about that.  The movie, in spite of the great subject matter, was out and out dumb.  Of course, the theater was packed and apparently it did pretty well for it’s opening weekend.  Odds are very likely that the film will do fine and Lucas will never read this review or if he did even care.  He is still rich beyond my biggest dreams.  Still, I do feel a bit of satisfaction for this piece of tilting at windmills.  I can see why Don Quixote did it.  Should you see it?  If you like airplanes and combat sure.  If you want to somehow support the cause of 1944 Civil Rights sure.  If you like good acting, direction, and story telling or want to join me in not supporting Lucas in any way then you should not (incidentally he plans to re release the entire Star Wars franchise in 3D one at a time.  I am starting a campaign to not go see any of these and ask you all to join me.  Don’t support this.  Besides, we all know post production 3D sucks.  Don’t fall for the hype)

By the way, Lucas has announced after finishing this dog he was going to retire from film making.  I am of two thoughts on this concept.  On the one hand I found myself singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” while doing a little dance in my office chair.  On the other hand I kept thinking to myself “Why didn’t the house fall on the witch fourteen years ago before she made the Phantom Menace?”  I do wish him a happy and relaxing retirement, with lots of sitting a beach somewhere not working on any of those pesky scripts or anything.

Thanks for reading.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  By the way, you will be seeing a lot of smaller posts by my guy Jason, who works for me and is going to be looking for interesting nerd stuff to post about.  Basically these long blog posts actually don’t serve the purpose this blog was created for and I need him to make it actually work.  He seems sharp enough.  Look for my Underworld review tomorrow.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

OK, I have been flaking a lot on my blogging lately, but the fact is I have been super busy getting ready for this Warhammer tournament.  I am sitting in the bar at the hotel in San Antonio and had some time to kill, so I thought I would crank this out.  I have been working on this list for a while, and like it a lot.

The weird thing is I checked a bunch of other lists and they don’t exactly have a lot in common with mine.  I guess I have a different perception of what is cool in a chase scene.

10.  Bullitt.  Great scene all around as they tear ass through San Francisco, my second favorite city.  Ever wonder what it looks like when you manual a car?  This movie can show you (that was a skateboard joke).

9.  Ronin.  This one, Bullitt,and the next one on my list are pretty standard for best chase scene lists, but it’s obvious this one is on it for a reason.  This movie is like a huge single chase scene across Europe, with occasional pit stops to load up on food, fuel, and ammunition.  They destroyed over 80 cars in the shooting of this flick, and even hired an F1 driver to do a lot of it.

8.  the French Connection. Yes, I guess I am slowly turning into one of those snooty movie jackasses who feels the need to reference “the classics”, but I can’t deny this one is pretty epic.  There has been a rumor around for years that they filmed this one in New York without permission from the city,  but I have my doubts.

7.  Bladerunner. I never said this was all car chases.  I have always liked the scene where Deckard chases down Zhora, the replicant girl with the snake.  Great foot race, and she takes a header through a plate glass window, only to have Leon almost choke him to death.

6.  the Blues Brothers.  Hey, they wrecked a mall and a bunch of cop cars.  That mall was scheduled for demolition, but it must have been a ton of fun to film.  Just thinking of driving through all that plate glass makes me all tingly.

5.  Smokey and the Bandit.  This movie was nothing but a chase scene.  Great film, with good humor.  Unfortunately it introduced us to the incompetent hillbilly sheriff who plague films for about 15 years afterwards.

4.  Terminator 2.  Motorcycle to helicopter to big rig hauling liquid nitrogen, this scene had it all.  The best line was Arnold saying “This is the vehicles maximum velocity” as they ripped along at 5o MPH.

3.  Last of the Mohicans.  Another foot race, but one of the best.  To be honest, this movie kind of drags for a long time, but the final chase scene with Hawkeye, Uncas, and Chingachgook chasing down Magua makes it all worthwhile.  Even more amazing was the soundtrack for the scene, which to this day rocks for me.

2.  the Empire Strikes Back. Yes, I’m a fanboy, but the Millennium Falcon running through an asteroid belt chased by six TIE fighters only to hide in a cave that is actually the gullet of a giant sock puppet and eventually escape by attaching itself to the outside of an Imperial Star Destroyer is in all ways awesome.  Watching this movie over and over again sometimes makes the pain of Episodes I-III feel more like a severe bowel obstruction rather than getting punched in the balls over and over again for six hours.  (Empire logo courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirt category)

1.  the Road Warrior. The final chase scene makes this movie, which is great anyway.  An interesting fact is from the moment Max starts the engine until he crushes Wes on the grill of the Humungous’s car and lays the truck on it’s side the camera never stops moving.  Another interesting fact is they did stunts in this film you will never see in another film.  The reason is they didn’t hire stunt drivers.  They hired guys off the Australian demolition derby circuit, and those guys would do anything.  The differences are subtle, but if you pay close attention you will realize that, instead of the standard “car gets hit and crashes because the driver is planning it or not even in the car” they would do stuff like have the car get t-boned by the truck, straiten out, and keep on driving.  It doesn’t sound like much until you think about it, but once you do it kind of blows your mind.  Watch it again and understand how the lack of huge crashes and explosions is actually an improvement over the standard Hollywood pap.

I also like the fact that Max didn’t really start kicking ass until after all his helpers were killed.

That’s it.  I have to get to sleep.  Big day of Warhammer tomorrow.  I will be seeing a bunch of movies this week and will try to write something every day.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKung Fu.  Thanks for reading.  If you disagree with this list or think I missed something feel free to post a comment.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

100% a good film.

I have been looking forward to this film.  I am a Joseph Gorden-Levitt fan ever since he was on 3rd Rock From the Sun and thought he was excellent in Inception.  Seth Rogan I enjoy a love/hate relationship with; love for Superbad and Pineapple Express, hate for his active participation in the cinema abortion known as the Green Hornet (Knocked Up I have mixed feelings about.  Good in parts, but possibly a case study in the worst relationship in human history).  Anna Kendrick I don’t have a real opinion about, although I liked her in this one.  She still carries the stink of Twilight about her, however.

So last night I went and was not disappointed.  The story was real, with some funny moments and a lot of scary, depressing moments.  I was honestly touched at several points, and while I hate admitting I am becoming more girl-like as I get older actually felt myself tearing up at a few moments (some people might call that maturing emotionally, but I refuse to walk down that path).  What was cool was the emotional response was honest, sincere, and built up over time, not the hamhanded “let’s kill the one character you like in the movie” approach I suffered through in One Day.  The director (Jonathan Levine, who has done nothing I have heard of but whom I expect to see a lot more from) and writer (Will Reiser, who’s only real credit seems to be the Allie G Show) managed to make the audience connect with every character on the screen, but most closely with Adam, the protagonist.  You really end up identifying with him and his situation, and I spent the last 30 minutes of the movie praying that he wouldn’t die.

I don’t know who to lay the laurels on for this one.  Honestly, I really think it was a near perfect storm of great acting, directing, and story writing that led to such a good experience.  Of course, the last film I saw before this was Taylor Lautner’s lamentable and horribly misnamed Abduction, so it could be that the part of my brain responsible for movie appreciation has taken one too many hits to the head.  This film was like a man dying of thirst finding a full water cooler in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

Anyway, the story is of Adam, a young Seattle urbanite who, in spite of his extremely cautious and healthy lifestyle, develops a rare form of cancer on his spine.  His best friend is Kyle (Seth Rogan), a lackadaisical, unhealthy slacker.  The story goes through the drama of Adam dealing with his selfish and self centered cheating girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard, the hot blind girl from the Village, but she also played in Spiderman 3, Terminator Salvation, and the Lady in the Water, so she doesn’t exactly have a great filmography) who is super hot but such a reprehensible person you want to cheer when Adam boots her out.  He has to also deal with his extremely engaging worrywart mother (Angelica Houston, looking better than I have seen in years), his Alzheimer father (real trend towards Alzheimer dad’s this year), and his own emotional stress and stages as he goes through the suffering of chemotherapy and eventually surgery.  He is aided by the very young councilor in training Katherine (Anna Kendrick) who comes to play a bigger part in his life, but his rock throughout the movie is his friendship with Kyle.  Kyle shows what true friendship is about.  I don’t want to give this one any spoilers as I expect you all to see it, but when you do look for the scene where Adam finds the book and you will know where I really started to tear up.

The stars.  Extremely well acted.  Two stars.  Good story, if somewhat linear and kind of predicable, at least in parts.  Two stars.  Some really funny moments.  One star.  It managed to pry a real emotional response out of my cold, dead heart (odds are it will have most of you crying like a little baby, so macho am I).  One star.  Anna Kendrick was looking heartbreakingly cute throughout the movie, and can actually act.  One star.  The Adam shaving his head scene was really fun and cool.  One star.  All the interactions between the characters, especially Adam and Kyle, were extremely real.  One star.  A generally good movie experience.  Two stars.  Total: eleven stars.

However, as any of you who have read a few of these knows, the movies without any black holes are extremely few and far between (and for the record, they are The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner Directors Cut, TWOK, and Fight Club.  Boba Fett image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirts category), and this movie is not one of them.  First of all, the trailers I saw made this movie look about 10 times funnier than it actually was.  I know, how much can they do with cancer, but still there were some great lines in the trailers that got cut out of the film entirely.  One black hole.  While well written, a careful analysis of the story shows a decent percentage of cliche-sium.  One black hole.  Finally, again while the movie was overall great, the shift in tone from humorous buddy movie to emotional tear jerker was jarring at times.  I’m not sure how they could have gotten around that, but still.  One black hole.  Total: three black holes.

Total of eight stars, and I do highly recommend this film.  If you can convince a girl to go on a date with you it is a great date flick.  See it in the theater in order to support good movies, but honestly you won’t miss much if you wait to see it at home.  In fact, this might be the perfect movie night at home date movie, if you know what I mean.

Thanks as always for reading.  I think tomorrow I will see Dream House even though it looks like it will creep me the hell out.  Actaully, if I can find it nearby I want to see Machinegun Preacher.  On the other hand, if my movie partner joins me tomorrow I will probably have to see something tamer, like I Don’t Know How She Does it or What’s Your Number.  God save me.  Anyway, follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

Like the US Marine Corps likes to say, Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.  You actually have a human female (to the best of your knowledge) coming over to watch a movie at your place.  Don’t screw the whole deal up before she even arrives.

You have hidden away most of your nerd stuff and other things that could potentially embarrass you in your living room.  However, there are plenty of things to screw you up in pretty much every other room in your place.

First, the kitchen.  Make sure there is actual food in your refrigerator, not just beer and condiments.  Salad makings, some meat and cheese, maybe even some kind of food that requires preparation.  I won’t go as far as to suggest you actually cook something.  I mean, we’re not trying to stop the world from spinning on it’s axis here.  Just make it look like you subsist on something other than fast food and Cheetos.

Then the bathroom.  Assume she will at some point glance into your medicine cabinet.  Get rid of anything medical, especially if it is for an embarrassing affliction.  Preparation H, rogaine, viagra, anything skin related, or for that matter anything that could be used for something weird (Vasoline) needs to go away.  Your medicine cabinet should contain toothpaste, floss, deodorant, a comb, some hair gel, and maybe some Q-tips.  Then, go out and by some good, super soft toilet paper and be absolutely sure you have a full roll on your holder AND a spare roll somewhere handy and visible.  You have no idea how much toilet paper some women can go through in a given day, and running out of TP and having to ask you for more (or go without) will really piss her off.  Hide the plunger, but make sure you have a toilet brush in a holder.  Even if you are not in the habit of washing your hands after using the bathroom (and really, if you aren’t, why don’t you just go out every day and eat a bucket of sewage?  Also don’t shake my hand) have some hand soap next to the sink in a dispenser.  If you had to buy some for this date make sure the seal is open and dump about 1/3rd of it out.

Finally, the bedroom.  This is where you hope to end up, if not tonight than some point in your lifetime.  Don’t make the huge mistake of getting rid of all your contraband by dumping it into the bedroom and hoping she avoids it.  Get rid of the weird stuff.  Make sure you have clean, high thread count sheets, a duvet for all your cruddy blankets, a bed frame (no mattresses on the floor), a minimum of two pillows, and a nightstand with a lamp.  Assorted other bedroomy stuff is cool, like a dresser or a mirror.  Keep the decorations to a minimum.  You don’t want her to think you like to go to sleep looking at your Empire Strikes Back poster every night (Empire image courtesy of the sci fi t shirts).  If there is something in your bedroom that a 10 year old would think was cool, get rid of it.

Now, it’s time to clean.  Yes, everything we have done up until now was just to get your place ready for a complete cleaning.  Honestly, I hate this and when I have the money I like to pay a housekeeper to come do it for me.  However, it has been a couple years since I have had that kind of scratch, so I am back to doing it all myself.  If it has a flat surface, dust it.  If it folds, fold it.  Make your bed.  Scrub out your bathtub, sinks, and toilet (actually pay particular attention to the bathroom, as most women are really sensitive to that sort of thing and will get really skeeved out by a dirty toilet).  Scrub your linoleum.  Vacuum your carpets. Open your windows and get some fresh air in.  Throw down some air fresheners and spray Fabreeze likes it’s a fire extinguisher at a four alarm fire.  Don’t miss window sills, the top of your TV, under the couch, or the inside of your refrigerator and microwave.

Odds are you will spend hours and still do a mediocre job of it, but this is the minimum you have to do.  The vast majority of women can’t feel comfortable in a place they think of as dirty, and more than anything you need her to feel comfortable so she will want to get closer to you or at least come back some day.

OK, I’m seeing the new X-men movie tonight, so tomorrow will be a movie review.  More on this subject Sunday, I think, although I am done with the cleaning stuff and will get into some other movie related specifics, like what kind of movie to recommend.

This post I will translate what people claim to do for a living into real language, as well as comment on what you can expect if you date this person.  Before I get into this understand that, at least for men, people with high paying jobs or who are wealthy really have no need to go to a dating site to meet women, so if there is someone claiming to be a doctor or stockbroker probably has some serious issues along the lines of lost his fact in a tragic belt sanding accident.  If you are looking to meet a doctor, go to a hospital.

Teacher. For some reason I have dated a lot of teachers (what did your mom do for a living, Dave?  Thank you, Dr. Freud), although not so much lately.  They tend to be pretty stable, with few annoying habits and plenty of free time on weekends and summer.  They also have no gray area when it comes to kids; either they love them or hate them.  When a teacher posts online it typically means they are sick of dating other teachers, so if you are one best you should move on.  For men, this guy usually falls into the hates kids camp.  However, they tend to be pretty reliable, loyal, and while they don’t have a lot of money coming in should be able to one day buy a house and retire.  For women they also tend to be the same, except they all inevitably “love to travel” and once in a while you will meet one who is a freak in bed.  Something about having to be so proper all day, I guess.

Medical Professional. This is a term people use to try to trick you into thinking they are a doctor.  They are not.  Doctors say doctor.  This person is at best a nurse, probably an orderly of some kind or at worse the guy who mops up the bio-hazardous waste or works in the kitchen.  Sometimes pharmacy.  The thing about being in the medical profession without being a doctor is you tend to get your ego punched in the stomach every day by pretentious, overbearing doctors, so if you are looking for someone  you can dominate in a relationship this might be the person for you.  Also, most of them hate doctors, so whatever your lame job is it will probably look more appealing.  For women this person is usually a nurse, so you can expect to talk a lot about either sex or disgusting work stories involving having to clean up something truly repulsive or changing an adult diaper or bedpan.  On the other hand, they tend to be pretty horny.  For guys this is more often an orderly, which is the medical equivalent of a pizza deliver guy except they don’t make tips.

Medical examiner. The one exception to the no-doctors-online rule is the medical examiner.  I’ve never met a female one, so I will not comment on what it is like to go out with one.  From what I have seen second hand male mortician actually tend to know some of the funniest jokes you have ever heard, especially if you like gallows humor.  If you have a darker side, love vampires or zombies, and/or want to creep out your friends by all means date this guy.

Lawyer. Lawyers are interesting.  Usually they are so busy with work that you will be lucky to see them one evening a week, if that.  They also, for the most part, hate their job and life but spent so much money on school that they cannot afford to do anything else.  For women this seems especially true, as I have dated a few and they all feel frustration about their life.  They also tend to have little interests outside of work and working out, so whenever I date one it tends to be a painful struggle to find something to talk about beyond the whole trying-to-remain-true-to-your-nerd-self-while-talking-to-a-woman thing.  For men this never, ever means a rich corporate law guy.  This is usually a public defender or ambulance chaser.  I don’t date men, so I can’t comment too strongly on this, but from what I have seen these tend to not be the most loyal on the planet.  On the other hand even a poor lawyer can afford a nice evening out.

Business owner. Take it from a business owner, this is never a Fortune 500,000 company.  For men, the best case scenario is a guy who has his own tech service fixing computers and networks.  These guys tend to be pretty geeky and therefore fun to date if you are a geek, but they also tend to work a lot, especially at night.  At worst this guy owns a failing Play it Again Sports and is a few months away from going back to work as a sanitation engineer.  In either case the problem with these guys is there will be good months and bad months.  One month he will be rolling in dough and the next eating Top Ramen.  For women this somehow always ends up being owning a bead shop somewhere.  Don’t ask me why.  They tend to be kind of fun and have more free time than guys who own shops, but they also tend to be pretty uninclined to hit the gym, if you know what I mean.

Of course, it goes without saying that if the business owner happens to be a guy with a website that sells nerd t-shirts and writes a hilarious dating advice blog than he is not only fun and entertaining, but also sexy and virile as hell.  You should probably sleep with him as soon as possible.

That’s it for now.  More tomorrow.  By they way, I just reread my last post and think it’s one of the best I have written, so if you didn’t read it go back and do so.

For the last posts who-would-win, I would have to bet on the half squad of Stormtroopers beating the full squad of Sandmen.  Better combat training (although Stormtroopers seem to be missing the part of their training that would teach them to hide behind cover or maybe even duck down), better weapons, and better armor.  Not to mention they are about 1,000 times cooler.  The numerical superiority of a full squad of Sandmen would not make up for that.  (Stormtrooper image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirt category)

For today the question I cross genres to ask who would win, Donkey Kong versus Mecha-Godzilla?