So I have not kept my promise about more dating advice, instead doing a couple movie reviews.  I feel bad, and in spite of the fact that I have a great movie related thing to talk about from Friday night that actually contains a dating related story, I will instead assuage my readers who are here for my dating advice and continue with my list of things you can do to after getting rejected.  I’ll do the other story later this week.

5.  Hit the gym. Work out your frustration while pumping some iron like Arnold here or riding a bike.  This has the added benefit of making you look better, which will help a lot when it comes time to replace your ex.  Also, the best revenge available when you get dumped is to lose 20 pounds so the next time you see her you look 10 times better.  This is a trick women have mastered, which is why the first thing they usually do after getting dumped is lose a ton of weight, get a hot haircut and makeover, and generally look really good next time you see her.  Really makes you question your reasons for dumping her, and if  you tell her you want her back she can either make you crawl through hot coals and broken glass or get the last word in by rejecting you entirely.  Turnabout is fair play (Conan image one of the many nerd t shirts images on my other site).

6.  Buy some new stuff. Nothing helps you get over a certain period of your life (the period wherein  you had someone and were happy) like a change of venue.  While moving to another building or town may be unfeasible, sometimes all it takes is a new couch replacing the rotten old pile of wood, cloth and metal that has been festering in your living room since college to help you put your head into a new space.  Again, this may help you actually get a new girl next time around, and if you ex happens to drop by to give you something back she may be impressed with the improvement.  Also, a new TV might be a dramatic improvement in your ability to mindlessly entertain yourself, and TV shopping is super fun.

7.  Buy some new clothes. Like new stuff, new clothes may help you reinvent yourself as a sexier, more datable human.  Go back to the earliest posts on the dating advice on buying clothes and spend a few bucks.  Try to bring a friend along so you can regale him or her with all the gruesome details of the fascinating tale of love found and lost you have stuck in your head.  I swear there is no way your friends are sick of hearing about it.

8.  Create a blog where you bitch about your dating life and give advice to other people. Yes, misery loves company and sharing your pain with the world wide web will indeed help ease yours.  If you can use the blog to do movie reviews and schlock t-shirts even better.

9.  Revert to your childhood. Bust out those old Legos or GI Joe dolls and spend an afternoon pretending you really don’t care about women again.  Buy a bunch of comic books.  Go to the movies and sneak into another showing afterward.  Ride your old skateboard.  Get in touch with your inner child because, while you might be inclined to beat yourself up over the whole thing, no one wants to beat a child.

10.  Get wasted. Drown your sorrows in alcohol.  Your goal should be to not remember anything from the evening.  If you feel like total crap the next morning odds are you will forget your heartache while you are barfing up a lung.  Also, you could end up with a new friend sleeping next to you, which should be at least entertaining as you try to find a way to extricate yourself from a weird situation.

If I can think of any more tonight I will do more tomorrow, but I think that’s it for this thread.  Remember, there was a time when food had flavor and the sun was a warm, loving life giver not a burn ball of garbage shining a harsh, scum revealing light on a cruel world.  Things will get better over time.  Your best plan is to learn from this and try not to be such a moron next time.

As for our question from last post, Freddy Kruegar versus the Scooby Doo gang, I am going to have to bet on Freddy.  The Scooby Doo gang are experts when it comes to ghosts, have access to all kinds of performance enhancing drugs (what is in those Scooby snacks, anyway?) and drive a bad ass lime green sex wagon, but they are essentially kids and that is Freddy’s meat of choice.  As soon as they run out of speed and have to sleep Freddy will get them.  If Freddy were facing the Ghostbusters I would bet on Venkman and the rest, as he never seems to do much to adults.

For today, I offer up the question of who would win; the Three Stooges (with Curly) versus Doug and Bob Mackenzie with their dog.

So I thought we were going to see Highlander the Quickening and then a reel of some of the horrible planet Zeist stuff, but it turns out that my friend actually found a laser disk copy of the original release with all the scenes placed properly in it’s correct place.  It was an evening of agony, and I have to write about it.

Here’s the deal.  I saw Highlander the Quickening it it’s abridged version back in 1991 in a theater and thought it kind of sucked then.  Age has not softened my opinion about it.  However, it turns out that when the movie was being filmed in Argentina the company that financed it (insurance, I guess) was really worried about losing money on it (a legitimate concern, based on the final edited product) and somehow, in the worst contract in movie history, gained creative control and forced in an entirely different sub plot into the movie involving a failed rebellion on a distant planet called Zeist.  Let’s just say the movie, which already sucked like an undertow, took a turn for the stupid surreal.  It’s like the plot died a horrible death in its first incarnation and the the evil scientist (played by the insurance company) resurrecting it as a zombie to stumble around the screen spewing bile and embalming fluid all over the screen before stumbling off to suck somewhere else.

Here is how I picture the movie in my role of King of Analogies.  Back in high school I used to get a two pack of twinkies.  I would take a straw and suck all the filling out of one of them through the holes in the bottom.  Then I would fill it back up with ketchup.  I would go up to one of my friends and start eating the good one while saying “Hey man, want a twinkie?”  This movie is like getting the bad twinkie, but instead of ketchup it’s filled with a mix of Ex-lax and epecac, so you end up spewing chunks out at both ends.  Not really so much painful as just disgusting and disappointing.

Sigh.  Here is the plot summary.  It is the far off year of 1999 and the ozone layer is more or less destroyed.  Connor MacLeod, with the help of a guy who looks like an escaped garden gnome without the hat, invent the Shield, which covers the entire earth and protects it from the ultraviolet radiation.  Flash forward to 2024.  The earth is now super hot and wet all the time for being trapped inside the Shield, which is under the control of a multinational evil company call the Shield Corporation which apparently generates profit just by existing.  MacLeod is now a decrepit old man but still has the Fabio-style haircut.  He goes to an opera and during a scene falls asleep (or has an acid trip) and suddenly we hear his old headless buddy Ramirez’s voice and see the words “500 Years Ago on Planet Zeist.”  No joke.  Really, that is what happens.  Ramirez and Highlander are the leaders of a revolution against the evil General Katana (wait a minute!  Didn’t MacLeod carry a katana in the last movie?  Was this an tribute to the first movie or just really lazy writing?  I would bet on the latter).  They get captured, mainly because they seem to be fighting against an army that has heavy artillery and are themselves carrying swords.  The rest of their friends get killed, but for some bizarre reason rather than just executing them Katana allows the local priesthood to transport them to Earth and make them immortal.

Wait a minute.  Their “punishment” is to be immortalized and transported to Earth in order to compete from “the Prize?”  Also didn’t the first movie start off with MacLeod as a young man with the Clan MacLeod with relatives and everything?  Also, at one point Katana calls him Highlander, which in the first movie was pretty clearly a reference to being from the Scottish Highlands.  Does that mean he was from the Highlands of Zeist and then coincidentally landed in the only place on earth also called the Highlands with no memory of his extraterrestrial life?  Also, he and Ramirez were friends on Zeist but had to reintroduce themselves to each other in Earth?  Bear with me, gentle reader.  It will all make sense in the end (not).

Anyway, in a move ripped straight from the Evil Villain Handbook of Stupid Moves, Katana sends two morons to try to kill MacLeod, who is more or less content to grow old and die.  MacLeod kills one, gets young again, and kills the other in a really stupid battle in spite of the fact that it involves a hoverboard.  Meanwhile, there is some sub plot about how the ozone layer is back and the Shield Corporation (with evil CEO played by John McGinley from Scrubs) is just keeping it up to maintain their profits.  The romantic love interest is fighting against the Shield Corp (ever heard of a subpoena?), finds MacLeod, and they hook up.  Ramirez (yes, played by Sean Connery.  I don’t think it coincidence that the two movies that I have despised the most on this blog have both starred him) is resurrected in Scotland through the magic of the Quickening and the Shield, where he steals a prop sword and trades a single pearl earring for something like $40,000 worth of clothing, transportation, and I guess a fake passport.  Sword fights happen, security mooks from the Shield Corp prove to be Stormtrooper accurate and die by the bushel, and General Katana (Michael Ironside) appears to be the villain behind a plot that has no reason to exist.  He also wrecks a subway car full of children by having it go in excess of 500 mystery units per hour into a brick wall while channeling Ozzy from Crazy Train.  It all boils down to a final sword fight that looks like it was actually an edited down version of two different fights, since MacLeod’s sword keeps going from evil looted blade to Ramirez’s old katana and back again.  Ramirez also sacrifices himself to save MacLoed and the chick from the operationally critical “Crushing Fan Room” with magic powers(?).  Good triumphs over evil (sort of, unless you consider bad writing, direction, filming, and acting evil) and the world is happily released from the prison of the Shield (sorry if that was a spoiler, but if you want to go out and see this garbage after this review you probably enjoy pain and should be thanking me for helping to make the experience worse).

Anyway, the stars.  They kept the original main character actors, Connery and Christopher Lambert.  One grudging star.  The romantic interest girl was kind of cute, in an 80s beehive haircut sort of way.  One star.  There was a hoverboard.  One star.  Every scene was at night, so we didn’t have to see how cruddy all the sets probably were.  One star (get the feeling I reaching here?).  Four stars total.

Now the black holes.  The story made absolutely no sense.  It couldn’t have been less confusing if it had been in a foreign language and run backwards.  Five black holes.  The sword fighting was awkward and badly choreographed, although everything else sucked so I don’t know why this wouldn’t suck too.  Three black holes.  In spite of being 8 years in the future all the cars were somehow from the 60s.  One black hole.  The acting from everyone, even Connery, sucked.  Two black holes.  Planet Zeist.  Three black holes.  Every guy except the corporate CEO had bad Fabio/Meatloaf style long hair.  One black hole each, so three black holes.  MacLeod’s Scottish accent, which seemed cool in the first movie, made all his painfully long monologues seem even more forced and insincere than they actually were.  Two black holes.  It more or less ruined my positive memories of the first Highlander.  Four black holes.  The writers felt they had to create an origin of the Immortals that made zero sense.  One black hole.  Total: 24 black holes.

Grand total, 20 black holes.  Truly awful.  Rumor has it that the director walked out of the premier 15 minutes in, which would put it about the time the words 500 years ago on planet Zeist would have appeared on the screen.  Also, there is a story that Christopher Lambert had a finger severed during one of the sword fighting scenes and had it reattached.  If they had shown that I think I would have given them another star.  Michael Ironsides is also supposed to have had his teeth chipped in another scene.  Face it.  The gods of film did not want to see this thing get done.

As for yesterday’s question of Dwight Scrute versus Egon Spengler, I think it could go either way.  Dwight is generally better armed and has studied martial arts, and once maced a guy at work.  However, Spengler has faced the undead and other horrors.  I think in a regular fight I would have to bet on Dwight, as he seems eager for the violence.  I do know I would definitely want to watch this fight.  It would be entertaining.  (Ghostbusters image courtesy of the science fiction t shirts category).

For today, I need you all the think outside the box a little, as this next one is less a straight up fight and more about a long story.  Here it is.  Who would win: the Scooby Doo gang investigating the mystery of Freddy Kruegar?

So another Tuesday night, and regular readers will know that is $5 movie night at the local Regal Theater.  True Grit looked like the only movie I was interested in, as I had heard good things about it.  This was pure self indulgence, in that I think I need to see something really bad in order to produce a truly funny review for you, my cherished reader.  That’s why next week I think I will see the Season of the Witch.  The suck is just oozing off the trailers for that one.

That being said, I expected this movie to be pretty good, and was not disappointed.  I actually read the book as a kid and liked it.  I don’t have a great love of Western stories  like I do kung fu, zombie, or science fiction, but I have an appreciation of it.  I also saw the original with John Wayne but don’t remember it much.

The story is of a young girl from Arkansas who’s father is killed by a hired hand.  She travels to the town of his death to avenge his death.  She hires a grizzly marshal named Rooster Cogburn who is a drunk with one eye.  Along the way they run into a Texas Ranger also after their man with the solitary name of Leboeuf.  The girl is super stubborn, which turns out to be her defining trait.  Horses get ridden, whiskey gets drunk, and guys with bad teeth get shot.

I enjoyed this movie a lot.  Watching Jeff Bridges play a grizzled drunken lout actually really helped wash his recent performance in Tron Legacy out of my mind a bit.  I think this is the first movie I have seen him in wherein he does not play the Dude, although he can’t seem to get away from movies that involve substance abuse.  Let’s get into the stars and black holes.

Stars first.  The story is good and as far as I can remember follows the book closely.  Two stars.  All the characters are both believable and pretty cool, especially Rooster, and the acting was good.  One star.  Everyone is armed.  One star.  They managed to avoid crowbaring in a romance story to appeal to the 15 year old girls.  One star.  None of the stars are particularly good looking, apparently believing that a good story and good acting negates the need for eye candy.  One star.  In a big F you to current American culture and our mediocre school system the language is very formal and authentic, not “modernized” for the morons.  One star.  The story and character motivations are clear and understood.  One star.  It’s a cowboy story.  One star.  The action is both cool and and frequent without being forced.  One star.  They did not try to hide any of the old West racism (the one black guy was a servant, the one Native American with a line was more or less abused).  One star.  Total: eleven stars.

Now black holes.  The girl’s stubbornness gets old after a while.  One black hole.  They do that movie thing where they keep talking about how ugly she is when she is kind of cute in a young Melissa Gilbert-Laura Ingalls sort of way.  One black hole.  The characterization of the head of the outlaw gang the villain joined up with, Lucky Ned Pepper, seems to drift from outlaw rogue poet to psychotic dirtbag.  One black hole.  For all the opportunity out in the open for really amazing shooting and cinematography, the photography  seemed kind of up close and less than panographic.  Honestly, bad cowboys-verses-ninjas movie the Warriors Way did better.  One black hole.  Total: five black holes.

Net total: six stars.  A very good score.  I would highly recommend this movie to anyone.  However, given the week photography I don’t know if there is a massive motivation to see it on a big screen.  If you are OK waiting for it to come out on DvD just NetFlix it.  I would put it in my top ten Western films along with Tombstone and Unforgiven, but honestly I don’t know if I have watched enough cowboy movies to really make that kind of assessment.  If any of you have suggestions on movies I should see to help me round out my Western experience I am open to them (or, if you want, find some movies that sound Western but are actually really horribly bad as a joke on me, I would do it.  Should be good for a laugh) I’ll try to track them down.

By the way, I warn you now that tonight is Bad Movie Night at my friend Brian’s house and he is planning on showing both Highlander 2: The Quickening AND the original 500 Years Ago on Planet Zeist.  I have seen the first and regretted it but if the second is as bad as it sounds I might have to do one of my bile enhanced bad reviews tomorrow.

Still working on the Solomon Grundy/Deadpool question.  For today I would ask who would win: Dwight Shrute from the Office versus Dr. Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters (Shrute Farms image courtesy of the TV show t shirts category).

So you’ve been rejected and all of a sudden all food tastes likes mixture of paste, bile, and Satan.  Life seems to be a cardboard, washed out low rez black and white version of itself.  The good news is you’ve avoided all the potentially self destructive and/or illegal activities that guys often resort to in a pathetic attempt at making themselves feel better and get the ex to pay attention to them.  The bad news is now you need something to fill up the long, dark hours that used to be spent with your significant other or at least thinking about her.

Ah, now we are definitely in Dave’s corner, because this on level I have mastered.  Here we go with some excellent suggestions (in my experience).

1.  Video games. Nothing helps alleviate the pain in your heart like bringing some electronic pain to some noob from across the country, or killing that giant space caterpillar.  You can feed your inner alpha male without hurting anyone in the real world.  My recommendation is to load up on caffeine and junk food and play until the sun comes out again.  I recently re-activated my WOW account and it is doing wonders for making me feel like I actually have a life.  (Undercity Gravediggers image courtesy of the WOW t shirts category)

2.  Clean your apartment. This is actually pretty cathartic.  I liken it to shedding my crusty crystalis  and emerging a beautiful butterfly as opposed to the disgusting caterpillar that just got rejected.  Also, if you are into self delusion (and really, which of us isn’t?) you can fantasize about how, once your apartment is clean and pretty, you can bring a new girl over for romantic potential (and while we are at it, let me tell you about the porcine flight school I am developing).  Overall, I find projects like this are pretty good for taking my mind off how much I hate being rejected and on how much I hate scrubbing toilets.  Also, it is a good chance to collect items for the next big thing to do (see the next item).

3.  Collect anything she gave you or left behind, take it to the beach, and burn it all in a bonfire. By fire be purged! Yes, everyone loves a good fire, and here is a chance to show the universe how you feel about her dumping you with a volatile chemical reaction.  Be sure to bring a few friends along.  If you do this by yourself you will just be a creepy weirdo.  Also, you can probably use this episode to elicit more sympathy from your friends.  That sweater she gave you for Christmas?  That toothbrush she brought over?  That mix CD she made for you?  That pair of underwear she left at your place (by the way, what is the deal with this?  Every girl I have ever dated for more than a couple months manages to leave some kind of personal garment at my place.  I can count on zero hands the number of pairs of boxers I have accidentally left somewhere.  Yet another female mystery)?  That self improvement book on how to be a better boyfriend?  All fuel for the fire of your pain.  Note, however, if she managed to leave something like her laptop, college diploma, or the urn containing one of her parents you should probably return those.

4.  Channel your emotions into something useful. The two emotions you will most likely be feeling are depression and anger.  The first will make you hurt yourself and more or less act like a girl, while the second will make you hurt other people and act like a man.  You will probably feel both at different times.  If you are depressed try writing some depressing fiction (or, if you are so inclined and own a lot of black clothes, some poetry).  Paint a depressing picture.  Replace you room carpet with black shag.  Trust me.  Six months from now when you are completely over it you can pull out whatever project you did and it will provide endless amusement (for your friends).  If you are angry don’t hit anybody.  Instead do some manly stuff.  Chop some wood.  Find a gym and punch the heavy bag.  Join a local rugby league (props to my friend Johnny).  Do all the stuff that no girlfriend in her right mind would ever let you try.  Ironically, if you handle these two emotional states properly you will end up hurting others with your depression (nothing is more painful than having to listen to depression based poetry) and yourself with your anger, which is some weird way is better than the other way around.

Incidentally, the other emotion you will probably feel is soul crushing loneliness.  However, since this is a fairly normal state for most people including me, just do what you normally would.  The only real way to cure it is to find someone else, so once you are done with all the depression and anger go back to the beginning of my dating advice posts and start all over.  In dating you have to be like Wile E. Coyote.  No matter how far he fell, or how large a boulder crushed him, next scene he was in the Acme catalog working on his next attempt.  He only needed to succeed once, and so do you and I.

I will list some more activities tomorrow.

I’m still collecting answers to the Deadpool versus Solomon Grundy question.  They aren’t exactly flying in, so I guess either I’m deluding myself on how many people are actually reading this or how many people really care about these questions, but I have fun doing them and really, it’s not all about you my friends.  So I will continue to indulge

So I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve.  I did, and am anticipating a great 2011.  I am by nature an optimist, but my experience has trained me to be more of a pessimist.  I am trying to get past that.  I like to tell everyone my attitude is like my blood type: B+ (it really is).

Anyway, I am going to celebrate New Years Day as only a nerd should; I am going to spend the day painting miniatures for my new Warhammer army and playing video games.  Later on I am going to an unwind party at a friends house in San Francisco.  Should be fun.

Sorry for the short, subjectless post, but if I did any more it would smack of work and I am trying to avoid that.  I hope you all have a great holiday, and that 2011 is a vast improvement over the dregs that was 2010.

I will answer the who-would-win question, as those are more fun than work.  In the fight between Mad Max and Alice from RE, I think it’s pretty circumstantial.  If Max met Alice on the road in cars, Max would kick her ass.  If they met on foot, Alice would probably win, especially with Max’s gimp leg.  She has better combat and acrobatic skills.  Notice Max did not even try to go toe to toe with the acrobatic Wes in the movie on foot, but had no problem beating him while driving a vehicle.  It’s all about fighting in your best element.  (Umbrella Corporation image courtesy of the Resident Evil t shirt category)

For today, I will ask one that I really thing could be hard to figure out.  Who would win in a fight between Deadpool and Solomon Grundy?  By the way, I am going to let this one go for a while and make a contest of it.  Send me your answer on this one and why and the person who comes up with the best response will get two free buttons of your choice, including the very cool Marvel or Star Wars buttons.  Email your responses to david@nerdkungfu.com.