Nerd Dating: What to talk about on your first date pt 5
Blah blah blah. I know, it seems like I am dragging this subject out. The fact is the conversation part of the date is the longest, most dangerous, and unfortunately potentially most boring part of any date, so it seems appropriate that I drone on ad nauseum on the subject (I can expect any number of comments from my female fans and readers on the order of “If you are bored you aren’t doing it right, or are yourself boring, or are just some kind of a worthless jerk.” Sorry, ladies, but dates where the guy doesn’t get bored are on the order of Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster sightings; in theory we know they could possibly exist, but don’t really believe we will ever see one).
Anyway, it still falls upon you to maintain 50-99% of the conversation, so we are going to keep going over more stuff until I feel we have covered enough material to get you through a complete date.
This post we are going to talk about current events. This is a great topic, assuming both you and your date keep up with them. A good friend of mine is dating a girl who apparently doesn’t have a TV, internet, radio, or read newspapers. I can’t imagine what they talk about, but the few conversations I have had with here have either been painfully boring 
or devolved into me telling stories from my fascinating childhood.
(Growing up in Southern California this tongue on the pole thing never actually happened to me. However, had the temperature ever dropped low enough I guarantee it would have been me stuck to the pole. Shirt image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
So current events are great, but you have to be selective. Remember last post when I talked about the danger of getting into religion and politics? Talking about current political events may give her the crumbs of information she needs to make a determination as to where you really stand (or worse, to completely misinterpret where you stand). Same with anything religious.
Honestly, the best thing to talk about in current events is going to be celebrity gossip. Not only is this non-confrontational (unless she is a freaky fan girl for whoever you are talking about, but those are pretty rare) but women love talking about it. Do yourself a favor and spend some time on Radar Online or TMZ and pick up some juicy tidbits on the latest celebrity scandal. Also, be sure to do a little background research on whoever the celebrity under discussion actually is. Nothing will make you look like an ass more than saying something like “Did you see that thing on Britney Spears claiming abuse?” only to find that your date is an expert on all things Britney and you look aren’t even sure why she’s a celebrity (“She sings songs? I’ll have to check her out”).
So current events are a fertile parcel of land upon which to grow a long, time filling conversation. The best you can hope for is saying something like “How about that Snooki arrest?” and having her go into a 20 minute diatribe on Snooki wherein you merely have to nod, make the occasional witty or incredulous comment, and think about something else. Works like a charm.
Of course, once in a while you might meet a girl who thinks celebrity gossip is a huge and inane waste of time, but these girls inevitably fall into the category I like to call “Huge pain in the ass to date” so better that you find out early. Also, a lot of girls will claim to think they don’t follow celebrities but will then spend an hour talking about how lame they are in excruciating details.
I don’t think I am done with this topic yet, so expect more discussion discussion tomorrow.
Nerd Dating: What to talk about on your first date pt 2
OK, you’ve let her blab for an hour or so, and a novice dater will let her go all night and think they are doing well. The problem is, after any date most women get together with a friend or two and go into play-by-play analysis, kind of like one of those post game shows you see after sporting events but actually more like a live vivisection. They will go into every nuance and detail. She might have enjoyed the date while she was talking the whole time but will come to the conclusion that “He was easy to talk to, but I still don’t know a lot about him. I wonder what is is hiding?”
Women are naturally suspicious of men in most circumstances, and honestly unless you look like Brad Pitt they are looking for any excuse to drop you like a bad habit (Fight Club image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). I have said dating is like moving across a mine field, and in many ways it is, but I also see your date as occasionally chucking grenades at you. Not in a malicious, actually-trying-to-kill-you sort of way, but more if you aren’t paying attention you will get blown up pretty bad.
So you are now required to tell her something about yourself. The best thing you can do is try to boil your life down into some amusing, self-depreciating anecdotes. Tell her about where you grew up (as a rule, try to make it sound as much like Mayberry as possible. You will seem cooler coming from bucolic small town America than some kid growing up on the gritty streets. The weird part is she will want you to seem kind of gritty and street wise, but in general I have found that women don’t like to hear about a gritty and street wise childhood), your family (whom you love a lot, but who all have humorous habits that drive you crazy, making it OK to only talk to them once in a while, except your mom, whom you speak with at least a couple times a week), your job (which you enjoy and are upbeat about, but are looking to move up to something else. Be specific), the neighborhood you live in (more on that in a second), and your friends.
I want to get into more in depth on each of these little sub-topics, but for this one lets discuss the neighborhood you live in. No matter how you spin it, it will fall into one of three basic categories in her mind: bland suburban hell hole, urban ghetto, or upper class whatever. If it is an upper class neighborhood than no spin is necessary. She will be duly impressed. Of course, if you live in one of those areas I don’t know why you are even reading this. You should be getting hooked up on a regular basis with that kind of scratch.
So how to spin the other two types of neighborhoods to seem less lame or dangerous? If you live in the suburbs you need to emphasis how close to the nearest decent metropolis and how much time you actually spend there. Go ahead and lie about it, as odds are unless she lives in the metropolis she will lie about how she spends every weekend in the city rather than cruising strip malls out in Antioch. Talk about how you used to live in the urban environment (anywhere. You must have lived in a big city at some point in your life) and got tired of the traffic/crime/phony people. The only really good excuse for living in the suburbs is if you bought a house out there, but if you don’t own then do your best.
If you live in the city odds are it is a crappy neighborhood (mine is). This is bad in that many women don’t like to feel like they are in any kind of danger, so be sure to not tell any stories about the crack dealer across the street or how many cars were burned in the last set of riots. Instead, play up all the wonderful cultural experiences available just around the corner. Be it ethnic food, a local club, an independent theater that shows artsy films, or a non-Starbucks coffee house decorated to look like the inside of an alien spaceship (this was a place I used to frequent in Los Angeles. They made great peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. If you haven’t tried one I highly recommend them), make sure you talk about how cool it is and how often you can be found there.
That’s really the best you can do. Just know that either living situation has it’s down points for most women and try to ameliorate the damage. Also, know that most women will be inclined to prefer one of the other, and inevitably you will live in the wrong one. Thus is the nature of dating life.
More topics later.
Dating for Nerds: Dating Etiquette Part 5-conversation no no’s
It’s now time to impress your date with your wit and verve, or at least not weird her out to the point that she runs out into the night screaming. This is harder than you would think, and honestly even if you are good at it is probably the most onerous part of the date. However, once you get into the swing of it you can have a lot of fun and still not freak out your date.
When we spoke about opening conversations I stressed not actually talking about anything actually about you or her. You were supposed to discuss observational things from around you. Unfortunately, at this point you are now obligated to actually tell her stuff about you, which is a trap on the order of the Hellraiser cube.
(image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
As always, however, before we get into what we can safely talk about I have to go into what you cannot talk about. Here is a partial list:
1. Any issues or problems you have. This is all stuff you discuss on the third date.
2. Any ex-girlfriend.
3. Religion or politics unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure you totally agree with her.
4. Anything medical.
5. Your horrible relationship with any of your family members, especially either parent (this one has bit me on the ass many times. The ghost of my father haunts me to this day).
6. Your nerdiest habits, unless she is a true nerd too. It’s OK to tell her you like Star Wars, but don’t go into a diatribe about how TOS is far superior to TNG. Never admit you go to any kind of convention that supports your bad habits. Don’t talk about anything you collect, unless it’s money. Eventually she will learn about your comic book collection and weird obsession with Farscape, but honestly I would wait until you get her into your bed. If she is truly the one for you she will accept your nerd habits eventually, but you don’t have to unload both barrels into her fact in the first hour. Let the pressure build over time instead of hitting her full bore.
7. Yourself all night.
Again, this is a short list. Next post we’ll get into what you can actually talk about, but if you can avoid most of these you will do a lot for you.
Yet more celebrities from the Star Trek con: Cindy Pickett
The celebrity next to Vernon Wells was Cindy Pickett. She was in St. Elsewhere, Guiding Light, and, most relevantly in my mind, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She played his mom. She turned out to be super cool too, and put some of my Ferris Bueller shirts on her table and directed people over to me.
She loved this Abe Fromen shirt from her movie (image from the movie t shirt section) and bought one for her son. She is kind of a soccer mom, but still into acting and very cool. She bought a couple other shirts and I think they were all gifts for other people, which makes me feel good.
By the way, as an aside as to selling t-shirts as a job, let me say that I seem to sell a ton of shirts to people as gifts for other people, which I think is extremely cool. It reaffirms my faith in humanity when I see that over and over again all day long.
Anyway, Cindy was a lot of fun to hang out with. Smart and cool
Back from Vegas; Vernon Wells is really cool.
OK I have been seriously remiss about blogging ever since I left for Vegas. I got back on Monday night and have been up to my rear in trying to reconcile and re sort the inventory, not to mention pay bills and order replacement inventory.
Also, my day job dropped a painfully bad yet critically important project in my lap, and I have a big Warhammer tournament next weekend and have to do a lot of work to get ready for that. Plus I am spending another two days in Las Vegas for a trade show I go to to look at some new t-shirts. Just when I think my life can’t get any busier, I somehow find a new, previously unknown higher gear on the gearshift and go into another level of crazy busy.
Wah wah wah. Enough whining about my ridiculous life. Lets talk about the Star Trek Convention.
First of all, it was amazing. 15,000 hard core fans, all of them extremely cool. I got to see Shatner wandering the vendor area (trailed by about 300 fan boys), hung out with some minor celebrities, and met my future wife dressed as an extremely cute Vulcan. Unfortunately, she lives on the other side of the country, has a boyfriend, and really didn’t show any real interest in my, but heck, she was dressed as an extremely cute Vulcan.
One of the minor celebrities I met was a very cool Australian named Vernon Wells. Hopefully we all remember him as Wez from The Road Warrior. If not, he was the scariest man to ever wear a Mohawk, and if you knew some of my friends from my punk rock days you would understand what level that statement puts him at. We was also in Commando. He is a great guy with an awesome sense of humor.
Turns out his wife is a big Evil Dead fan and he wanted to get her this Necronomicon shirt from the horror movie t shirt category. He was such a nice guy that I traded him the shirt for an autographed photo. You have never seen a look so intense.
By the way, Vernon reprized his roll as Wez in the movie Weird Science, which was a big part of my teenage nerd days. Really cool.
Anyway, I’ll post more about the show later this week. Overall it was a wondrous experience and I highly recommend you all attend next year. If you do stop by and say hi at our booth.
Viva Las Vegas
Just about packed up for the Star Trek Convention. I spend a lot of time in Vegas for assorted work things but I can honestly say this is the most excited I have been to travel out here in my life. This is going to be so cool IMO.
I don’t have a lot of time, as the Enterprise guy just called to tell me he is coming to pick me up. Sufficed to say I will be in Star Trek heaven, and selling great t-shirts like this Vulcan Nerve Pinch one from the Star Trek t shirt category. Wish me luck. I’ll try to post from the show if I get a chance (go go superphone!)
The four hour sunset, or what a long, strange trip it’s been
So I just got back from a trip to New Hampshire. It may surprise you to learn this, but I do not subsist solely on the sale of nerd shirts and giving dating advice to the socially challenged, although one day I hope to be in such a position. I have, for lack of a better term, a day job that actually pays my bills and pays a lot of the bills associated with my fledgling business. I won’t get into the details, except to say that I do work for a company I can reasonably assure you that you have heard of, in spite of the fact that they only have about 40 employees in the US.
Part of the job requires a certain amount of travel, and once a year they require us to travel to a conference. In spite of my and the other West Coast guys desire to not fly all over the place, inevitably they make us come out to the East Coast.
This trip wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good if you know what I mean. I have had worse, but not a lot of them. There were no flights capable of getting the West Coast guys there in time for the first meeting (which was, by tradition, a bunch of masturbatory self congratulations and hand shaking) so I had to fly out the day before and kill time at the hotel. The meetings were generally good and productive (even marketing, which is normally a bit of a personal challenge to stay awake). Another tradition is we do something outdoorsy as a team building experience (in spite of the fact that for 99% of the year I work alone or with a single customer service person, who opted out of the trip) and this year I enjoyed a near death experience when the kayak (not sure how rowing a single kayak builds teamwork) I was in capsized in the only water that was more than two feet deep we found on the whole river. It was kind of a worrisome experience, and I think my next activity will be to take some swimming lessons. I can tread water, but that is about the limit. Also, I would like to point out that I was the only guy to flip a boat, and had the rest of the crew calling me “Flipper” for the rest of the conference. Bastards.
Actually, I seem to have a near death experience every time we do our outdoor experience. Just once I would like to see us set up a LAN party and play Counterstrike East Coast vrs West Coast. That would actually teach us some teamwork skills and not involve me making sure my insurance was paid up ahead of time.
Anyway, the meetings were productive and have me kind of excited for the next year. The hotel was nice (although my assigned roommate seem particularly gassy this year) and the food really good. In general I had a good time.
The flight home sucked like the pool drain in Final Destination 3D. I had a layover in Chicago. It started out pleasantly enough, with me getting to talk to a really cute girl who it turns out is an opera singer. No joke. But there was a rainstorm going on that turned into lightning at the airport. Apparently the policy of the FAA is if there is lightning they don’t allow the ground crew outside in to keep them safe from being struck (a 1 in 750,000 chance). Incidentally, while they are in a rush to get everyone inside they think it’s perfectly cool to leave my luggage outside in the rain. Ironically, that morning I scrambled around looking for a plastic bag to put my wet clothes into (remember that whole kayak tipping indecent?) only to find when I got my clothes the stuff in the bag was dryer than anything else.
So we had about a 45 minute delay. I finally got on board and took my favorite seat in the very back (I have my reasons, and won’t get into them here). It was looking like I was going to have the whole row to myself (one of my reasons, although not really a main one) when I was joined in my row by a guy who I will refer to henceforth as Smelly Hippy. Smelly Hippy epitomized every aspect of that descriptive. Long hair, grungy bear, small little wire frame glasses, dumb hat, and a collection of clothes that looked like they were rejected by the buyers at Buffalo Exchange. He smelled of BO and cheap patchouli oil (guys, for dating purposes patchouli oil is a clear statement that you don’t bathe every day) until he opted to take off his shoes, at which time he smelled of BO, patchouli oil, and feet. He was probably headed to Burning Man (patchouli oil Hell) or something equally obnoxious.
I spend a lot of time in Berkeley, and have had my fill of hippies. In general they are selfish bastards (if you don’t believe me try shopping at the Berkeley Bowl. Ever had a foot rolled over by a shopping cart twice in one trip? I have). The one thing they all share is they are for the most part desperate for people to notice them, and Smelly Hippy was no exception. First thing he did was about 20 really loud yawns in an attempt to show the whole plane how tired he was. We get it, dude. Then he took his boots off (a level of rudeness and selfishness that goes beyond most human behavior and lands you firmly in the lower primate category) and tried to find a comfortable position, which apparently involved rolling around over and over again until the guy in front of him had to ask him to ask him to not kick the seat anymore. Smelly Hippy apparently can’t do anything without being a pain in the ass, as the flight attendant found out when he asked for iced tea and then hot tea and a cup of ice when they didn’t have iced tea (I know it’s not such a big deal, but is it so much to ask for something that is already on the menu?). The net result of this is I had a god damned science experiment going on next to me.
Also, he kept opening and closing the window, which sucked while the sun was out and then sucked when it was night as I like to see the ground as we land. By that time I was watching Master of the Flying Guillotine on my laptop and blatantly ignoring him.
(By the way, this is the closest thing I have to a martial arts t-shirt, but I have a line on some great Shao Lin and Wu Tang t-shirts. This shirt is from our movie t shirt category)
Fortunately by the end of the flight he was doing his sleeping thing, to the point that he pretended to sleep through the very rough landing (no doubt trying to prove to the world what a free spirit he is. Freaking hippies). I was also surrounded by any number of other obnoxious people, including a party of like six people who more or less drank the airplane bar dry. They weren’t super obnoxious, just noisy.
Anyway, the title of this piece, and the coolest part of the trip, was the fact that we left at sunset and flew west, which means the sunset stayed with us for most of the trip. It had some amazing colors, and when I would get sick of Smelly Hippy thrashing around I would look out the other side of the plane and enjoy them. Kind of cool.
My review for the Last Airbender
Yesterday I reviewed a great movie, Inception. I guess today I have to do the other side, The Last Airbender. It would be fair to say watching this movie was a painful experience, in the same way getting kicked in the balls by a mule while someone pours gasoline all over your body and sets you on fire is a painful experience.
The part that sucks for me is I am actually a fan of Avatar, the Last Airbender (I guess James Cameron had an issue with them calling this movie Avatar. Good call, James). I loved that show and watched it back to back.
I don’t know who thought M. Knight Shamalan would be able to do a credible job with this, except for the idea that as a person descended from an Eastern culture would have an interesting approach to the martial arts aspect of the movie. However, last time I check he is Indian, which, while definitely an Eastern culture, is not well known for it’s martial arts. Also, M. Knight has done exactly 1.5 good movies (the 1 was Unbreakable, not the Sixth Sense), so why do they expect him to do anything worthwhile in this one?
Anyway, I waded through this cinematography sewer. They basically took 22 episodes of Avatar and compressed them into one horrible script. Instead of concentrated goodness, all the bad was squeezed out and covered the entire surface with an oily, brackish, smelly veneer. Then the director proved that he is incapable of casting anyone remotely good. Honestly, if you are going to look for new actors for a movie, there is such a huge pool of wannabe actors in LA (I used to live with a few of them. We always called them Wactors, as in waiter-actors (or Wactresses)) that there has to be someone remotely talented who would be desperate to prove themselves in something like this. Instead it looks like he just hired the first 8 morons who wandered in off the street and the kid from Slumdog Millionaire and knocked off for an early lunch. Truly horrible.
Also, in an impressive display of cultural sensitivity he cast the entire Southern Water Tribe as strait up Inuit and the two main characters as white as humanly possible. Seriously, they looked looked like whiter versions of PeeWee Herman.
The one thing that unified all the actors together was their inability to deliver a line without sounding like they were reading stereo instructions aloud. The kid from Slumdog Millionaire was the only one who did anything that sounded remotely human, but even his talent was obscured by Shamalan’s inability to direct.
The only person I felt had a worse experience watching this than I was the poor girl I dragged along. As a fan of the show at least I had an idea what was going on. She must have been in the movie equivalent of the 7th level of Hell. I owe her a nice dinner I think.
I will say the CGI special effects for the water and fire bending was pretty good, but the martial arts choreography was amateurish at best. 
It’s fairly obvious that they didn’t hire Bruce Lee (or, for that matter, anyone who really knows anything about martial arts) to set up the martial arts (shirt from the movie t shirt category).
Finally, the kid who plays Ang is really annoying. I’ve never wanted to beat a kid who looks like he has been undergoing chemotherapy before, but he managed to push me to that level. Also, in the cartoon I thought the arrow tattoos were part of being the Avatar, but somehow in the movie the were Airbender tattoos. Kind of cool looking though.
My review for Inception
I know I keep promising to write more on dating, and I will, but honestly I am not feeling it at the moment. Maybe because it is summer and I am feeling lazy, maybe it’s because I have about a million other things going on, mostly about the Star Trek convention we are doing next month in Las Vegas (“I like to call it lost wages”-name that reference).
Anyway, I will get back on track soon, but last night I saw the movie Inception and felt compelled to write a review for it. In a nutshell, freaking awesome. I normally approach anything involving Leanardo DiCaprio with the same enthusiasm I would approach a dead, radioactive skunk rotting in the center of a toxic cactus patch. I saw the trailers and more or less decided to pass, but then my best friend saw it and told me I had to go. I am very glad I did, and in the course of two hours became a DiCaprio fan.
The story is amazing. Clean, makes sense, doesn’t try to oversimplify in order to pander to the grunting masses that comprises most of human society, didn’t throw in some dumb hot chick for no purpose other than to show cleavage, and ends entirely appropriately. All around great plot.
The acting was superb from all participants. I especially like the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun (a great show) in his first adult roll. The young hot chick (Juno) actually delivered the weakest performance, but really that is only in comparison to everyone else. She did a great job. Just everyone else did better. I also like the fact that Nolan did not over play her to gain teen sex appeal. He seems to understand the concept of supporting actresses just supporting main actors.
Christopher Nolan is great as a director and writer. He did the Dark Knight and I guess it made enough money that he was given free reign with which to prove himself and he did. I guess every Hollywood director isn’t a complete jackass who lets creative freedom turn into an opportunity to gratify his own overblown ego.
I realized after seeing this movie that I have been remiss in not featuring more Dark Knight shirts in my comic book t shirt section. In fact I will definitely keep an eye out for Inception t shirts and put them up as soon as possible.
The thing I love about this movie is when a great, intelligent movie makes a lot of money (as this one is obviously making) it encourages the production of other great movies. This summer has been pretty horrible, movie-wise. If I see one more sparkly, shirtless, body-hairless, homo-erotic teenage vampire heart throb I will vomit. By the way, anyone who wears a Team Edward or whatever t-shirt needs to go shopping for a life and then neuter themselves in order to keep from passing their genes on to the next generation. This summer also has more talking cats and dogs, and the ruination of a great cartoon series, Avatar. In fact, I think tomorrow I will write a review of the Last Airbender, which I was unfortunate enough to watch last week.
A Guide to Nerd Guys Meeting and Dating Women: What to do Part 2
So we now have an idea what to avoid in general. This, of course, begets the question of what to actually do?
Creativity helps, at least when it comes to suggesting something. The weird thing is I have come up with some great ideas that always seem to impress the women, yet somehow we always seem to end up just having dinner and maybe a movie. It’s like they want to be impressed with whatever you come up with, but when actually faced with doing it they end up not really wanting to put in the work. Dating can be a lot of work, and I guess women, in their own way, are generally as lazy as guys.
With that in mind, feel free to come up with all kinds of wacky stuff. In general, first dates should be something physical and preferably outdoors. Hiking, ice skating, and bike riding are good if she does any of those. Bowling, roller skating, and pool is OK for the right girl, but in general you want to save that for a later date. Whatever you do, make sure you have room for a meal, preferably beforehand, as once they have been fed I have found a lot of women like to blow off the physical activity and just hang out.
If she is not inclined towards physical activity (or you are just not capable) get creative. Museums are great, especially if you can find some really cool exhibit. One of the best dates I ever did was I took a girl to a pottery class and we made really bad bowls. It was a ton of fun. A first date should allow plenty of time for you both to talk (although, in general, let her talk more), be somehow stimulating, be safe (avoid areas where you could get mugged. Nothing turns a girl off more on a first date than watching you cave in to some thug and hand over your wallet and her purse), and hopefully scenic (if you are taking her on a bike ride or hike make sure the view is spectacular).
Again, these are just the super creative things you need to suggest. Odds are after being impressed with your ideas she will steer the date into dinner and/or a movie.
Ice skating is fun! (Blades of Glory shirt image courtesy of the movie t shirt category)
