Yet more odeak translations.  I seem to have a never ending supply of these.

“Social drinker.” Unfortunately this is a suspiciously vague term.  It can easily mean someone who has a drink while out on a Friday night, or a glass of wine with a nice dinner.  The problem is no one is ever going to put “Alcoholic” in their profile and will usually default to this term, so it can also be a prelude to Leaving Las Vegas.  You will have to dig deeper.

“Love to party!” For a girl this is just what it says.  She gets bored easily and wants to hit a different club every night.  Expect all kinds of fun and exciting adventures of the “and then I wrapped my car around a tree” variety.  The good news is you will never have to have a serious discussion with her about your feelings.  The bad news is she will probably get bored of you pretty easily and run off with a guy with a better car.  For guys, this usually is a code word for alcoholic or drug addict.

“Love to dance!” Most women love to dance, so this is a bit of a catch phrase.  Honestly, don’t read too much into it, unless it is combined with “Love to Party” in which case there is a pretty good chance she is a stripper.  Most men hate dancing, so if a guy uses this it probably means he is kind of a phony and trying to impress women.  If he honestly likes dancing double check to make sure you aren’t actually in the “Men seeking Men” category.  If he is strait and claims this to be honest you are required to test it to the max by dragging him to every dance club within 20 miles to see if he has the stamina and can actually dance.

“Love sports.” If this is a woman, it is very likely she grew up with multiple older brothers and is kind of a tom boy.  This is great, but be aware that she is probably both willing and capable of kicking your ass.  This can also be the phony equivalent of a guy claiming to love dancing, so if you meet her and she seems kind of girly ask her if she knows how many points a touchdown is worth (6, for those of you who don’t actually follow sports).  If this is a man than this guy has burned out multiple women in his dating history by choosing sports over his relationship and is desperately hoping to meet a girl who will sit there quietly watching football with him and get him the occasional beer.

“Love to travel.” For both men and women this is the equivalent of a station identification.  It really means nothing.  Everyone loves to travel.  However, be aware that both men and women who travel by themselves or with one or two friends of the same gender are generally going to other countries to have casual sex with foreigners (or locals, depending on how you look at it).  I would find out what countries the person has traveled to with what people and compare it to this article on Dating Guys and Girls in Foreign Countries.  If a guy tells you he loves to visit Thailand or Brazil make him wear two condoms.  If a girl tells you France or Italy you do the same.

“Very sensual.” I’ve never seen a guy use this description, but this is usually code speak for women that means really horny.  This is great, but be aware that this is often a phrase used by prostitutes and people that want to spam you with sex site emails, so be aware.  Women can more or less assume all guys are really horny.

“Really into my work.” For women this can often be translated into “I work too many hours and am feeling frustrated by my personal life.  My biological clock is ticking away and in order to be a complete person I need to have a child as well as be wildly successful in my career.”  If you date her you can expect a lot of scheduling conflicts and hassles getting her alone, but when you do she will probably jump your bones.  If a guy uses this phrase he is probably married and looking for a mistress.  Expect a lot of booty calls.

“In graduate school working on my masters or PhD.” Find out what field.  If it’s business, law,  or something technical than cool.  If it is something in humanities than expect to have him or her never be gainfully employed.  Also, if this is a second or more post-graduate degree he or she is working on than odds are this person is a perpetual student and in addition to never getting a real job has probably never had a real job.

That’s it for today.  Tomorrow I will talk about specific jobs and careers on profiles and what they translate into.

Yesterday’s question, Sandmen versus Red Shirts, is a puzzler.  The fact is the Red Shirts are actually trained for combat, while the Sandmen are trained to hunt down single people running away with a red crystal flashing on the palm of their hand.  However, Red Shirts are the Three Stooges of combat, and tend to die with alarming regularity.  I will have to bet on the Sandmen.  (Red Shirt image courtesy of the Star Trek Red t shirt category).

Today I will shift from Star Trek and ask what would happen if a squad of Sandmen went against half a squad of Stormtroopers from Star Wars.  Who would win?

More odeak translations.  By the way, I just noticed I have been misspelling translating wrong in the title for two posts.  Thanks to no one for pointing it out to me.

“Spiritual.” This is usually what women put down when they have no real religion but rather kind of drift from one fad cult to another.  Expect to hear about meditaion, Native American Spirits, and other New Age garbage.  For guys, this is what they say when they really don’t care about religion one way or another but don’t want to alienate potential dates who are religious.

“Very Spiritual.” For women this can mean a hard core kook, deep into dancing naked at midnight under a full moon in a toadstool ring, or traveling to Tibet to study with monks.  Don’t let this deter you from dating them, incidentally.  In my experience these women are really entertaining and don’t have a lot of hangups when it comes to having sex.  Just be prepared to discuss your chak’ras with her.  For guys, this is often a code phrase for hard core born again Christians who want to “save” some girl.  Either that or they are just as deep into some New Age cult as a woman using this phrase.  The only difference is these guys are a lot less fun to hang out with than the very spiritual girl and are kind of a pain in the ass to date.

“Christian.” For women this is a typical boilerplate description designed to let you know that she has been to church a few times and doesn’t want to be considered a slut (whether she is or not).  This can refer to any number of specific religions, most of which are relatively inoffensive.  This girl will typically have a marriage and a family on her radar.  For guys it is usually a little more serious.  Expect to see the inside of his church at some point in the first month of dating, but otherwise things should be OK as long as he doesn’t show up on the first date with a Bible.

“Born Again Christian.” Uh oh.  For both men and women this is a huge red flag (unless you yourself are Born Again, in which case please take this person off the market).  Expect dates to be little if no fun, unless you find attending Bible studies fun.  Also, in general you can expect little to no sex, and if you do get lucky be prepared to feel insanely guilty about it up until the moment you marry him or her.  Anyone who talks about their “relationship to Jesus” on their online profile you can expect to be Born Again.

“Pagan.” This is more or less the same as very spiritual, except this person, man or woman, really likes to feel cooler than anyone who is not pagan.  If you want to experience some weird discussions, meet strange and interesting people, and get laid with relative ease and no guilt, than this person is great to date.  I, however, find their pretentious attitude and long track record of past sexual partners grinds on me after a while.

“Burning Man.” Cough cough unemployed loser cough cough.  Ok, that is unfair.  I know any number of employed people who are avid fans of Burning Man.  Generally they are decent people, but once a year they opt to head out to a painfully hot and dusty desert to do drugs, drink, look at naked people, and do irreparable ecological damage while claiming to be free spirits in spite of being involved in a massively profitable circus of self indulgence.  Every year I get asked to go and every year I say the same thing: I enjoy bathing once a day too much.  As for dating them, man or woman, they tend to really want to date people who also “burn” so expect to be dragged out as well.  They otherwise tend to have similar traits to the spiritual or very spiritual people.

“420 Friendly.” Pot smoker, usually daily.  If a good date for you is sparking some bud and watching American Idol on TV before passing out in a Cheetos food coma then this is the person for you.  For women this girl tends to be weirdly cute in a granola sort of way who likes to do really bad acrylic paintings.  For men this guy usually really looks the part, has the same crappy retail job for 10 years, is about 15 pounds overweight, and graduated college with a writing degree.  Also, regular pot use can lead to lots of short term memory loss and reduced libido, so if you are into your partner remembering things like your birthday and getting laid fairly often than this is probably not the person for you.  Honestly, if the person is over the age of 25 and lists 420 as in interest you can count on them more or less being a loser.

Ok, that’s it for today.  More next post, although soon I will get into translating online dating photos as well.

Yesterday’s question, Kirk with a lirpa (the weapon he fought Spock with in Amok Time, with a round blade on one end and a weighted bumper on the other) versus Worf with a Bat’leth, I think I will have to go with Worf on this one.  As much as I love Kirk and want to see him win, Worf has trained with the Bat’leth all his life and Kirk got his ass kicked by Spock pretty easily.  I would only hope that they played the Kirk fight music during the battle.  (Amok Time image from the Spock t shirts category)

For today another Star Trek question.  Who would win, a squad of Star Trek Red Shirts versus a squad of Sandmen from Logans Run?

So this girl that I am seeing (I think.  Things are a little ill-defined at the moment.  I, however, remain ever hopeful) invited me over to play some video games on her 360.  She had a pile of choices but what caught my eye was her brand new copy of Halo Reach.  On my old Xbox I played the original Halo until my thumbs cramped up.  I played Halo 2 as well, but got sidetracked by something else that shall go unnamed but rhymes with Borld of Torecraft and more or less gave up on consul gaming along with most of the rest of my life for a few years.

Anyway, Halo rocked.  Amazing first person shooter with a great story that shifted back and forth from alien military sci fi battle to survival horror game depending on if you were fighting the Covenant or the Flood.  Controls were always very good and extremely intuitive, and a minimum of quick time events to bog the game down.

Halo Reach more or less continues the fine traditions of all the Halo games, except it is a prequel, set prior to the Terran/Covenant war.  Still, you are fighting the Covenant, alien religious fanatics who show up in a variety of shapes and sizes.  That actually brings up one of my few complaints about the game.  The enemies are still the same Grunts, Elites, Hunters, Brutes, and shield guys.  There seems to be some variety in the weapons and there appears to be at least one new Covenant vehicle that is pretty cool, but it’s the same guys all over again.  At one point it looked like we had a whole new huge alien to fight, but then we are told by the omniscient narrator (which is either an AI or one of your squad mates.  I’m still not sure) is a native creature of the planet and after we kill the two they never show up again.  Another complaint is that somehow, while we only finished about 3 and a half chapters, we never once saw a ring world of any kind (the inspiration for the name), so personally I find calling it Halo quite a reach (ha ha me so funny).

Anyway, overall totally fun to play.  I’ll let the stars and black holes tell the story.

First the stars.  First person game play is seemless and really clean.  No clipping or stuttering of any kind.  Of course this is what I would have to expect from an Xbox game of any kind, but still really impressive.  Three stars.  The graphics are are really amazing.  Two stars.  The sound track is really, really good.  Two stars.  The story is pretty good too.  One star.  You can customize the colors of your armor (the girl who I was playing with went, with my encouragement, with all pink, turning into the Pepto-Bizmol warrior) and, if you play enough, buy custom armor.  One star.  Ghosts are still really fun to drive around in.  One star.  The enemy AI is really smart.  One star.  The PvP element (we only played it for a little while, long enough for her to kick the crap out of me.  Not that I feel emasculated or anything) seems really clean as well.  One star.  Lots of cool weapons to play with, with no obvious best choice.  One star.  Total: 13 stars.

Now the black holes.  No Flood.  One black hole.  The Warthog vehicle still drives like a giant Dachshund (wiener dog) on crystal meth.  One black hole.  There is a long, mandatory outer space fighter craft battle that seems to go on forever and is both unnecessary and kind of  mediocre.  One black hole.  Somehow I can be shooting guys through the scope of the sniper rifle at max range and they can turn around and hit me with a plasma pistol with hardly any effort.  One black hole.  Same Covenant mobs.  One black hole.  Total: 5 black holes.

That gives us a total of 8 stars, an excellent score.  They also added an achievement system and game credits that can be used to buy new armor or whatever, but I was torn between calling those a star or a black hole.  Basically, if you see someone online who has all the most expensive custom armor options you immediately know two things: (1) he is probably pretty good and will be wearing your skin as a trophy in a few seconds and (2) he has absolutely no life.  I would highly recommend buying this game and playing it if you are a fan of FPSs and have a 360.

As for yesterdays question, Sulu with a foil against Worf with a Bat’leth, I think this is honestly would end in a draw with both of them dead (Sorry, Gina.  Also Spock would figure out a way to beat Data.  Maybe not directly physically, but didn’t you see the episode where he shut down all those androids by purposefully using illogic?  Spock’s mind is about 1,000 times more dangerous than his physical prowess).  You see, a foil is much, much faster than a Bat’leth, so I believe Sulu would be piercing Worf’s brain in the first second of the fight.  However, by that time Worf would have already started the downward killing stroke and Sulu, with his foil firmly embedded in Worf’s cranium, would not be able to deflect it.  If Sulu did not go for the killing stroke right away I would bet on Worf, as the foil does not have the strength to parry a Bat’leth stroke.  (Sulu image courtesy of the Star Trek T shirts category)

However, what I think would be a more interesting battle also from Star Trek would have to be Worf with his Bet’leth versus Kirk armed with a Vulcan Lirpa.  Who would win?

More fun to be had with understanding online date speak (Odeak?).

“Low maintenance.” For women this always, always means high maintenance.  If she is aware of it enough to deny it that means she has been accused of it in the past.  Guys never use this phrase, but often when they say they are “looking for low maintenance” that usually means they are looking for high maintenance.  When these two people meet it  is one of those weird situations where two wrongs make a right (or two lies equal a truth).

“Great personality.” For men or women, this usually translates into a mediocre personality riddled with massive self esteem issues with regards to looks, often times with justification.

“Type A personality.” Uptight.  Neat freak.  Most likely obsessive compulsive disorder.  Probably organizes his or her skull collection in the basement by size.

“Type B personality.” Trailer trash slob.  Seriously, make sure you have had a recent tetanus shot before headed over to his or her residence.

“All or very natural.” For women, this always means a hippy dippy granola chick.  Ironically, they are among the biggest pains in the ass to date, in spite of how easy to date they claim to be.  Be prepared to find out more about your heart chak’ra than you ever wanted to.  For men, this either means his last girlfriend was granola or he is a massive Burning Man fan.  In all cases be prepared to smoke a lot of pot.

“Easy going.” For women this almost always means a pain in the ass to date.  For men this usually means unemployed.

“Just looking for fun.” For women this means she is secretly afraid she is not fun.  Also these girls are usually the ones who are planning the marriage on the first date.  For men, this ALWAYS means they just want to hook up for casual sex.  Date this guy and you can look forward to “Hey, what are you doing” texts at 1:30 am.

“I oNly TalK lIke tHiS!” For women, this usually turns out to be a Russian mail order bride service.  For men, this is the guy who buys a Honda Civic and spends $20,000 turning it into a street racer and then sells it for $500 less than he paid for it.

“Self employed.” Unemployed.

“Work for a non-profit.” For women, if she is hot odds are she is looking for a rich, altruistic husband.  If not so much than she is probably another granola chick.  For guys, this usually means they are looking for a wife of any stripe.

“Medical professional.” This never, EVER means a doctor.  Usually a nurse, but can also be a receptionist, lab technician, or orderly.  Doctors will usually just say doctor.  (by the way, I have dated a few nurses, and they inevitably only talk about two things; sex, and disgusting work stories usually involving something vile spurting out of somewhere.  If you can stomach the stories go for it).  Also if it is a guy who is a nurse he secretly hates himself and has serious issues with women.

“Recently out of a long relationship.” Do you feel you don’t have enough pain and suffering in your life?  Than this is the person to date.  If it is a woman than be prepared for long, excruciating stories about every conversation she had with her ex EVER followed by a bad case of blue balls when she says she is not ready for intimacy yet.  If it is a guy you will get to listen to all the same stories followed by a ham handed attempt to sleep with you to salve his need for revenge on women where he will inevitably call you by his ex’s name.

“Love to play.” For women, this usually means they are afraid they aren’t sexual enough.  For men, you can translate this into “Super Horny.”

“Love cats.” For women, better find out how many cats she owns before meeting her.  Don’t forget my “more than two cats” rule.  For men, either this guy is trying hard to show how sensitive he is or you mistakenly clicked on the “Men seeking Men” button and haven’t realized it yet. By the way, I have no problem with gays.  In fact, some of my advice may well help them.  Also, every gay man out there means one less guy I need to compete with for the straight women, so more power to you, brothers.

That’s it for now.  More of the same next post.

As for my question from last post, who would win; Spock versus any of the TNG characters except Q I have to side with my man Spock.  Sorry, but there isn’t a character on there who can match him physically or mentally except for maybe Data, and even he would fail to Spocks combined physical prowess and mental acuity.  (Spock image courtesy of the Spock t shirt category)

I am really in a Star Trek mood lately, so for today I will pitch Worf from TNG with Bat’leth versus Sulu with fencing foil.  Who would win?

Before I get into the dating advice, I have to tell you about the greatest online comic book ever: Axecop.  It is about a cop who uses an axe, and is written by a five year old and illustrated by his 29 year old brother.  Truly amazing.

So we are exploring the mysterious and (to be honest) dangerous world of online dating.  I think I will for the next several posts list some phrases that are relatively common in online profiles and then translate them into English.  This is so you know what to look for and also what to use or not use on your post.  To keep it interesting for my female viewers for each post (where appropriate) I will for each listing translate both the female and male usage.  A lot of these will probably by physical and kind of insulting, so please don’t hate on me.

“A few extra pounds.” For women a few can be translated into anything from 3 to 47, but usually ends up in the 15 to 20 pounds overweight.  This is the phrase women use when they know if they really buckled down and ate less and exercised more they could get back to their fighting trim in a matter of weeks.  Men who describe themselves as this weight are typically 10-15 pounds overweight and have been so for the last 10 years.  They usually don’t show it so much.

“Curvy.” For women, this usually means a large bust and a huge ass.  No man should ever use this phrase.

“Brawny.” For women, lesbian.  For guys, fat.

“Rubenesque.” This is a girl code word for fat.  She is hoping the guys are too dumb or ignorant to know what this means, so odds are she has little respect for men as well.

“Husky.” This is less a guy code word for fat so much as it is a guy self delusion that they are not fat.  Guys who call themselves husky are in serious self denial with regards to their weight, and are also inevitably convinced that they are about 80 times more fit than they actually are so some amusement can be had by asking them to run around the block or do a push up or something. (Homer image courtesy of the Simpsons t shirts category)

“BBW.” Ahoy, Captain Ahab!  Your search is at an end.  Actually I have respect for women who are comfortable describing themselves this way, as they are cool with having their own personal postal code.  Not that I would date one.  Note for women, guys who describe themselves as being into BBWs generally have some serious mommy issues.

“Athletic.” For women, this means never ending yoga, running, and a ton of fitness.  Generally these women teach spin classes or something.  All good, but you had better be cut from the same cloth or she will walk out of the first meeting without even giving you a handshake.  For guys, this usually means he played football in high school and still hasn’t come to grips with the fact that he sits on his ass 22 hours a day.

“Fit.” For women, this is very similar to athletic for men.  She played high school volleyball and still does yoga a couple times a week but spend most of her time behind a desk.  Likes to hike on the weekend.  Oddly enough, for men this generally means more actually fit.  These guys tend to run a few days a week and hit the gym regularly.

“Very fit.” Generally very good for both sexes.  This description is one where it means more or less the same for both sexes.  These people tend to be the ones who yell at you for being in the wrong lane as they pass you on their $12,000 road bike on a 50 mile ride.  They also tend to be real type A personalities and painfully uptight.

“Muscular.” Or body builder.  Very rare for women, but if you meet one be prepared for a deep voice and the potential of facial hair.  For men they tend to be freaking huge (except where it counts, if you catch my double entendre).  Regardless of men or women, if you date this person be prepared to be the submissive in the relationship.  Men in particular tend to be controlling roid-fueled rage-o-holics.

That’s it for tonight.  Tomorrow we’ll get into more of the personality catch phrases.

Yesterday’s who-would-win question was Xena versus Buffy.  I think I am going to have to go with Xena, just for build alone.  Also, while Buffy was born to be the Slayer, Xena spent her childhood training to be a warrior while Buffy was training to be a cheerleader.

For today’s question I am going to indulge myself with a simple match up:  who would win-Spock from TOS versus any single character from Star Trek Next Generation except Q?

OK, I admit I have been holding back on seeing this movie because I was hoping to bring a certain girl with me.  Last night it happened and we had fun, although I don’t know where the whole dating thing is going, so I will have to see.  I am sure one way or another it will turn into a future blog post for you folks. I do like the girl a lot so I am very hopeful.

So I saw the Green Hornet last night in 3D.  I normally would have not seen it so as 3D often gives me a headache, but I wanted to see this movie at it’s best potential in hopes that the 3D effect would greatly enhance the experience.  Sadly, it did not.  The movie is, honestly, no better for being in 3D and truly the 3D effects are not really all that great.  I think the producers just went with brand X of 3D rather than the premium brand.  It looks like it was filmed in 2D and had 3D added in post production.

Anyway, the synopsis.  Seth Rogan loses about 80 pounds to play Britt Reid, the spoiled decadent son of a rich newspaper owner.  His father, in the about 30 seconds he was alive and on the screen, is a controlling, abusive jerk who somehow is still cool with funding Britt’s extravagant hedonistic lifestyle instead of cutting him off and making him work for a living like a responsible parent would.  His two interactions with Britt mostly involve telling him what a loser and disappointment he is.  He dies, Britt inherits everything, and Britt meets Kato (Jay Chao), his father’s mechanic and apparent martial arts expert.  They accidentally rescue some couple from trouble, decide to become superheros while pretending to be villains (???), Britt takes over his father’s empire Beverly Hillbillies style, they run across the world worst criminal kingpin (the great Christopher Waltz, from Inglorius Bastards, and the only character in the movie I remotely liked), and chaos ensues.  Guns, explosions, car chases, and every attempt to make the LAPD look like complete morons follow course (I guess Seth Rogans years of ducking the police while trying to score pot played a hand in the script writing).  Cameron Diaz shows up in a completely unnecessary role as the super hot temp worker (how many of those do we run into every day?) who happens to have degrees in Journalism and Criminal Justice and plays yet another comic relief character.

I say another comic relief character but the fact is they were all comic relief characters.  What this movie needed was an action relief character.  Honestly, the super hero in a comic movie should not be the funny one.  His side kick should be.  Instead, Britt was a moron throughout the film showing no ability in any regard to actually be a hero other than having a capable assistant and being freakishly lucky.  His main plan sucked like Hitler’s to invade Russia, and all his lesser plans sucked too.  Kato was supposed to be the straight man, I guess, but he couldn’t help but be funny as well.  Cameron Diaz was eye candy if you are into waifish blond women and was funny too.  Even the villain, who started out kind of serious, got to be a joke by the end when he decided the thing to do to fight a super hero was to become some kind of campy super villain.  Enough with the humor.  Is it so much to ask that super hero movies at some level take the story at all seriously?  I found myself not rooting for anyone in the movie.  I didn’t want to see the Green Hornet fail and die, but honestly couldn’t be bothered to care if he lived and succeeded.

Lets do the stars.  Super hero movie.  One star.  The Green Hornets car is truly amazing and bad ass, even without the machine guns and stuff.  Two stars.  They shot some of Kato’s fight scenes using a cool “inside his mind’s eye” technique that was pretty neat.  One star.  While the story kind of sucked, most of the dialogue was pretty good.   One star.  In spite of wanting an action movie there were scenes and dialogue that made me laugh out loud.  One star.  They didn’t try to baby up the story by having the heroes operate under the burden of never killing anyone.  One star.  Cameron Diaz was pretty hot.  One star.  The fight choreography was decent, and they paid tribute to Bruce Lee by having Kato repeat the famous “One Inch Punch.“  One star.  Cinematography, sets, props, and special effects were all at least good.  One star.  Total:  10 stars.

Now the black holes.  There was no understanding of any single characters motivation at any level.  Britt had no real compulsion to become a super hero.  Kato didn’t need to be his sidekick.  The villain did all kinds of things that made no sense.  Two black holes.  The story had gaping holes in the plot you could drive a Mack truck through.  One black hole.  The 3D was mediocre and added nothing to the movie.  One black hole.  The characters were yucking it up for laughs the whole time.  One black hole.  The “hero” was a spoiled little moron with all the abilities of a hydroponically grown hemp plant.  One black hole.  The whole script was trying to seamlessly merge Batman Returns with the Three Stooges meet Frankenstein.  One black hole.  About half the action strained my suspension of disbelief so much I think it gave it a double hernia.  One black hole.  Total: 9 black holes.

So a net of one star.  Overall I’d say the movie was stupidly entertaining, but only if you don’t expect to get much from it.  You and your life will not in any way be enhanced for having seen it, so if you have two hours and a few excess brain cells to kill go for it.  Otherwise go see the other color/animal movie out there, Black Swan.

As for last posts who-would-win question, prom superstar Carrie versus super hot teen queen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I am going to have to go with Buffy.  While Carrie has great abilities and an awesome dress, the fact is Buffy has beaten any number of villains with similar or greater powers.  Sorry, Carrie (image courtesy of the horror movie t shirt category).

As long as I am in the mode of girl on girl fights, I present the question of who would win, Buffy the Vampire Slayer versus Xena, Warrior Princess?

OK, I know I haven’t posted a lot recently, but the fact is I have spent the last five days fixing mistakes made by other people.  I don’t want to get into it except to say that it really sucked.  Anyway, let’s have more fun discussing the pros and cons of online dating.

Pro: given time to consider your words you can avoid blurting out something really stupid or inappropriate. Most of us have said dumb things without thinking in our lifetime.  I have found I tend to sound better and smarter if I have even a couple seconds to consider my words before pressing send.  Even IM seems smoother that way.

Con: if you are illiterate or like to wRiTE liKE ThiS you will look like a moron. Yes, spell check is great but if you lack basic spelling and grammar skills you can really look stupid.  Also, that wanna be gangster mixed upper/lower case writing is the online equivalent of tying to impress a girl by covering yourself with paste and rancid meat (and being a moron).  I don’t care if you have seen girls do it.  Trust me, you will never get anywhere with those girls, and you don’t have to be a guy to be brain-damagingly stupid.

Pro: you can meet people who share your interests. Yes, if there is a girl out there who shares your love of 14th century bardisches, Snorky from the Banana Splits, or debating the eternal Captain Kirk/Captain Pecard argument (Kirk, IMO) this is the place to find her. Unfortunately, any girl who lists anything remotely nerdish or cool will have her email box filled by other nerds so fast her laptop may melt down.

Con: your specific interests may well repulse the majority of women out there. I play Warhammer and love it.  However, as much as my dream would be to date a girl who plays it this is the last thing I would list on my profile as I know the vast majority of the girls out there would take one look at it and say “What is this guy into?  He must be some kind of dork, playing with toy soldiers.”  There is the cool, sexy nerd (you know, the hipster teck geek.  Die hipster scum) and then there is the just plain old nerd.  You need to seem to be in the first camp to intrigue a girl online.  Try to find a girl who is willing to to help you and tell her what you are considering listing as interests.  If she at any point wrinkles her nose and says “really?”  dump that item.

Pro: you can claim to be into things that you have done once or twice in your life. Ever been on a pony ride at a carnival?  Then you could claim to be into horseback riding.  Completed a paint-by-numbers painting of a kitten?  Then you are both artistic and into animals.  Again, I don’t recommend out-and-out lying, but as long as you are ready to reap the whirlwind when she finds out your passion for ballroom dancing is derived from dancing with your mom at your sisters wedding, then go nuts.

Con: she can (and probably will) do the same thing. Trust me, this plays both ways and if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.  If she claims to match your passion for Star Trek that most likely means she watched a couple episodes with her brother years ago.  Girl Trek fans exist, but unless she lists it on her profile unsolicited she is probably trying hard to match up to your level of geek.

Pro: you can do it from your home. If the burden of bathing, dressing, and grooming weighs very heavily on you, you could theoretically pull it off from the comfort of your desk chair and never have to put any effort into it at all.  This is a horrible idea and I highly UNRECOMMENDED this.  However, it remains a pro.

Con: if you are prone to being anti social, this will only make it worse. If you feel intimidated talking to women trying to meet them online will only aggravate your condition.  The only way to really get over being shy is to force yourself to get out of the house and talk to women.

I think that’s it.  Next dating post I will either get into understanding other posts or writing your own.  Not sure which is better.  I think understanding posts would be funnier, though, so I am inclined to head that way.

As for the whole Wolverine vrs Freddy Kruegar question, it is interesting and boils down to actual powers.  If  Freddy can attack adults and just chooses kids than he would be highly competitive with Logan.  On the other hand, if Wolverines healing powers can fix damage done in dreams than Freddy could never actually kill him.  I think I am going to call this one a draw (Blood and Steel image courtesy of the Wolverine t shirts).

I am kind of into horror movie, so for today I post the question of who would win, telekinetic introverted high school hero (in my opinion) Carrie versus champion of the popular good looking kids Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Ah, the sacrifices I make for you, my beloved reader.  I was all set to go see the Green Hornet and review it Friday night, but the fact is the girl I am seeing kind of likes sci fi and I am hoping to bring her to see it next week.  My next plan was to stay at home and play WOW all night (somehow my WOW character has a more fulfilling social life than I do IRL) and paint miniatures, but it occurred to me that there is another movie out there firmly ensconced in the nerd genre for good or ill, Season of the Witch.  Since I have plans this Tuesday (my normal bad movie night with cheap tickets) I figured what the hell.

By they way, I am one of those creepy guys who goes to the movies by himself and sits there looking disheveled and gives people the stink eye for having friends in the place.  My demeanor and appearance is completely different when I have people with me, but if not you probably wouldn’t want to sit near me, which actually suits me fine.

I was kind of hoping it would really suck in the Ed Wood style so that I could have really panned it in a very humorous way, but it was disappointingly mediocre.  Nothing really bad, with nothing really good.  Definitely not worth the $10.50 I paid at full price, but probably worth the $5 I would have spent on Tuesday.

Nicholas Cage runs either liquid nitrogen or superheated plasma when he acts, and this one is of the nitrogen movies.  I don’t even think it a case of good or bad acting so much as he can really only play two roles, comedic Three Stooges-ish moron like Raising Arizona or sort-of decent action hero with the noblest intentions a la the Rock.  The only roll I can think of that diverges from these two was muscle bound criminal leader in Kiss of Death.  I think I like that movie just because it was different.  The question becomes whether the particular role is suited to one of his characters and, alas, this one is not.

He plays a disenchanted knight who bails out of the Crusades after an argument with a priest about killing a bunch of women and children.  This movie script  bent steel bars in order to be as politically correct as possible, but I would give it a D+ for cultural sensitivity with regards to Muslims as the first 15 minutes seems to be nothing but slaughtering the Moors who fight back with the effectiveness of a minor breaking of wind.  Also, for some reason the fight scenes in the Middle East had absolutely no horses, in spite of horses all over the European scenes.  I suspect that this movie suffered for somewhat limited budget, and when they were on location in the desert couldn’t afford the animals.  There were other examples of limited budget later on.  Anyway, he and his buddy Felson (Ron Perlman, whom I actually like), after a montage of repetitive battle scenes and whore packed parties, bail out and sneak back to Europe.

Once there, they get arrested by the church for desertion but are offered a chance at redemption if they agree to transport a girl accused of being a witch who caused a horrible plague 400 leagues (1200 miles, which he claims to be able to do in four days pulling a wagon.  30 seconds of research is what it took me to find out how long a league actually is.  Lazy screenplay writers annoy me) to a monastery where she can be cured, hung, and drowned in that order.  Cage doesn’t want to work for the church anymore so they throw him into prison where he meet the witch who might be cute if she had a shower but spent most of the movie looking like a wet terrier.  He gets a noble hair up his ass and agrees to transport her if she were to be given a fair trial.  In my mind this is less noble than it sounds as most medieval witch trials involved throwing a girl in water and seeing if she drowned, but he seemed to have the idea that there would be a judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney.

Anyway, they stick her in a cage on wheels and are joined by a priest, an older knight, and a squire (sounds like a bad joke starting) whom I will refer to as Father Abusive, Captain Deadmeat, and Lieutenant Teenie Bopper Sex Appeal.  They also recruit a swindler as a guide, but as he doesn’t really conform to any bad movie stereotype I will not award him a name.  I will point out that he is the sensible one as he comes up with the only plan that really makes sense.  He starts out feeling like he could be the movie comedy relief but manages to avoid doing anything funny or cool.

Medieval road trip hijinx ensue.  Captain Deadmeat, after an abortive attempt to add a much needed backstory about his dead daughter and family, meets his end.  Throughout the trip the script wavers back and forth between the girl being an actual witch or an innocent girl wrongfully accused.  I say the script wavers back and forth, but really it’s Cage’s character.  The evidence that she actually is a witch is so overwhelming that even to OJ jury would have convicted her, yet somehow he is gung ho for a fair trial up until the moment she manages to summon up a possessed wolf pack.  How many teenage girls can catch a girly man and lift him back on a bridge with one hand?  More characters die, and they end up confronting the movie budget limitations again in the form of some really bad CGI.  Seriously, Jar Jar Binks looked more real.  I guess the last couple years of amazing special effects have spoiled me, but i think if they had just dropped a few of the seemingly hundreds of pus-ridden plague corpses they probably could have spent a few more bucks and brought the CGI up a couple notches into the decent zone.  They might have been able to rent horses for the first part of the movie as well.

Anyway, the stars.  Nichols Cage.  one star.  Ron Perlman.  One star.  Very linear story that did not require me to think much.  One star.  Costumes and sets were decent, with no tire track in evidence.  One star.  They didn’t make the girl super hot, which is to it’s credit.  One star.  Physical makeup, in the form of horrific plague victims, was actually really good.  One star.  Zombie-like villains show up towards the end.  One star.  Some of the sword fight action was decent (although I swear at one point I saw Lieutenant Teenie Bopper Sex Appeal swing his sword by the blade.  No joke).  One star.  Total: eight stars.

Now the black holes.  One black hole for each horribly predictable stereotypical character death.  Three black holes.  No character development or backstory of any kind.  One black hole.  No attempt to maintain the language of the time (the language was, for the most part, so modern and American that it might as well have been the Rock, except that Sean Connery had an accent).  One black hole.  Very mediocre CGI.  One black hole.  Bad bridge collapsing scene that defied the the laws of physics as well as failing to fulfill any need in the movie.  One black hole.  At one point Cage is literally deflecting crossbow bolts with a broadsword.  One black hole.  Net total: eight black holes.

So we get a straight zero.  Not horrible, not good.  This one should definitely not even to on your NetFlix list but rather wait until it hits NetFlix streaming.  Something tells me you won’t have to wait long.

I just realized I totally screwed up last post and, while I answered the OCP versus Umbrella Corporation question, did not post a new one.  I’m pretty sure I was in a hurry for something.  If you are one of the few who like them I apologize.  If you are one of the majority who think they are lame, then you are welcome.  For today I offer the Battle of the Clawed Hands.  Who would win, Wolverine Vrs Freddy Kruegar?

(Wolverine image courtesy of the Wolverine t shirts)

So there’s this whole new trend towards meeting people online (welcome to 1999 Dave) and you would think that nerds would take to it like a zombie to a fresh brains buffet.  However, it seems like the whole social awkwardness nerds experience in real life transmits pretty clearly online, so I think it a subject worthy of my attention.

The fact is, I am not really a fan of online dating and am not especially good at it.  Fortunately my best friend is the Grand Master of Online Dating and I will be delving deep into his experience for this.  I don’t know how he does it, but he can post something on any site on the planet and get inundated with responses from cool, hot girls.  He has the talent.  I get all the nutballs.

So I will start off with a list of pros and cons for online dating.  This might take a couple posts to go through so rather than listing all the pros then all the cons I think it will be more amusing if I alternate them (since this blog is mostly for my own amusement I think this fair).

Pro: You get exposed to thousands of women across the country. Yes, this is like going to the worlds largest single party and no one has a drink to fling in your face for having the temerity for daring to speak to them.

Con: You get exposed to thousands of women across the country. If you are not particularly adept at talking to women via email and IM this could potentially be the opportunity for the ego beat down of a life time.  Nothing like being rejected by hundred women a day via email to make you want to suck on your car exhaust pipe for an hour.  If you are especially sensitive maybe you should limit yourself to a few a day and/or treat the whole thing like a training experience.  On the other hand, if you need to build up your tolerance to rejection this could be the vehicle to make it happen.

Pro:  you can mask your obvious defects. If you are grossly obese, or have a weird growth on one side of your face, or are prone to frequent and fragrant flatulence, have bad halitosis, or some other genetic or lifestyle issue you can hide it with clever photography and descriptive prose.  While I don’t recommend you lie about stuff, there is a phenomenon I experience when dealing with sales people (or am doing my day job as a sales rep) known as “Finding the positive.”  In other words, mention your creative streak and love of indy film in glowing terms while mentioning your Richter Scale worthy facial tic only casually, if at all.

Con: the women you are talking about can mask their obvious defects. Yes, if there is one thing I have learned with online dating, it is that all women have some photo wherein the lighting, clothing, angle, and planetary alignment is in perfect synchronicity to deliver an amazing photo.  Later on I will do a post translating Internet Dating Speak into English, but you have to assume no one really looks like their photo.  In my defense, I usually put up a less appealing photo in hopes that the girl will be pleasantly surprised, but it seems no one else feels compelled to do the same.

That’s it for tonight, as it is 8:30 on a Friday night and I want to pretend I have some kind of social life.  I will do more pros and cons next time, although I am planning to see the Green Hornet this weekend and will probably do a review for it next.

As for our who would win question from last post, super evil biotech company Umbrella Corporation verses super evil consumer products company Omni Consumer Products, I think it would be close but in the end I would bet on OCP.  The fact is a single ED209 should be able to kill about 10,000 zombies, even the upgraded ones.  Headshots are not really critical when you more or less can dismember someone from a great distance.  The only chance Umbrella would have would be if they could infect Robocop with the t-virus and turn him into Robozombiecop.  Even then he would forget how to use his gun and would probably go down.  OCP is pretty much it for me (Umbrella Corp image courtesy of the Resident Evil t shirt category).

So Friday a friend of mine emailed and invited me to Midnight Madness at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.  As you can see from the marquee photo I took from outside, it promised to be an epic evening with the Princess Bride, Time Bandits, and Deathstalker, all in 35mm.  Any human with a pulse loves the Princess Bride, and any nerd worth his or her salt loves Time Bandits.  Deathstalker I had never heard of before but was told it was so bad it was good.

I will forgo my usual movie review process, as anyone who has not seen the Princess Bride must be living in a cave somewhere and anyone who has not seen Time Bandits should be reading Oprah’s blog, not mine.  I will say that Deathstalker was more suck than funny, although my opinion may have been colored by the fact that it was the movie that started at midnight and I was in the theater until about 2am (a car wreck on the bridge on the way home meant I didn’t get to bed until 3am, which is late even for me).  It was like Conan the Barbarian if Conan the Barbarian had been written by dog wagging it’s tail against a keyboard while the Conan soundtrack was played backwards to reveal it’s Satanic messages.  Like Conan it did have a lot of gratuitous nudity, which was pretty much it’s only redeeming feature.

Anyway, the point of this story is the remind my readers interested in nerd dating of something I said a long time ago in a post about where to meet women.  The answer is everywhere.  Here’s what happened.  I was holding a bunch of seats for my friends who were running late from drinking at a bar down the street and sitting at one end.  I notice there was an attractive woman sitting by herself behind me.  In most cases this would mean her meathead boyfriend was getting popcorn or something but, given that we they were going show the Princess Bride first you never know.

I started off talking to the couple next to me as a pretense and in a minute involved the girl as well.  Turns out she was there by herself.  She had never seen Time Bandits so I encouraged her to stay for it. By that time I had made the decision to ask her out during the break between movies.  I went to get popcorn after my friends took their seats and they decided to move from the excellent center theater seats I had secured to the far left in order to accommodate a couple more drunken reprobates.  This might have been a good thing, actually.

Anyway, during the break I went back over and asked her out to dinner.  She seemed a little hesitant to give me her number so I gave her my card.  She emailed me the next day with her number and we are having dinner tonight.

Thus is my point proven.  There are single women everywhere you go.  You just have to keep your eyes open for opportunity.

That evening I also learned that my iPhone autocorrects the word Benihana (as in the restaurant) to the word genitals.  Funny.

In answer to yesterday’s question of the MacKenzie brothers versus the Stooges, I would have to bet on the Stooges.  They are just more used to violence and pain than Doug and Bob.  The fight wold be both close and hilarious in my opinion.  (Three Stooges image from the vintage t shirts category).

For today I am going in a different direction: corporate wars.  Who would win, Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil versus Omni Consumer Products from Robocop?