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: Making the call Part 5
I have purposely save the worst for last. The worst is when she actually picks up the phone and you have to talk to her. This sounds good, but really it is horrible. First of all she has not yet given you any secondary sign that she likes you. Also it puts her off her pace, and for most women the response to that is to turtle up and adopt a defensive position that usually results in getting rid of you as soon as possible. Occasionally you might get a girl who can have a fun conversation with a relative stranger, but don’t count on it.
The other reason this sucks is it can really throw you off your game. These days people are always expecting voice mail and are usually surprised when they get an actual human being. Let me give you some basic guidelines for this unfortunate circumstance.
First of all, remain calm. Don’t get over excited, and don’t run at the mouth. Keep it simple like you would for voice mail, but be ready to chat a bit. Definitely have something in mind to do on a date with her. In fact, have a couple ideas, as I have yet to have a girl agree to do the first thing I suggest (I suspect there is some woman out there writing a guide for girls to date guys who tells them to always shoot down the first idea the guy comes up with as a test). Make a couple jokes if possible, but some women respond well to a short and quick conversation.
However, there is one critical rule you have to remember when actually accidentally talking to the girl, and that is YOU must be the one to terminate the conversation. In other words, do not let her tell you she has to go and end what is going on. You want her to think you are busy and have a lot going on. The best conversations with a girl will have her thinking you are doing her a favor dedicating five minutes of your busy day to here and leave her wishing for more. If she ends the conversation than you just let her show you that her time is more valuable than yours, therefore reducing you value to her. Don’t mess this one up. It is easy to let your enjoyment of the conversation suck you in and letting her nuke it.
Keep your conversation like Catwoman’s outfit: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting (image courtesy of the comic book t shirt category, and quote courtesy of my 12th grade English teacher).
A Guide to Nerd Guys Meeting and Dating Women: Where to meet them
Finally some real content. You’ve showered recently, cut your hair, groomed in all ways possible, bought new clothes, and are twice the man you were before you started reading my blog (all things being relative). Now, where can you go to meet some girls?
This is the question most guys use an an excuse to not do any of the self improvement things I have suggested. “I never meet girls and don’t know where to find them. Therefore, I shouldn’t put any effort into dressing better and bathing.” This is a sadly self fulfilling prophesy, as if you don’t put in the effort required to meet women you won’t meet them and will therefore lack the motivation required to actually put in the required effort. It is a snake eating it’s own tail. However, remember that the surest sign of psychosis is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results. Time to break that chain.
The fact is there are single, attractive women everywhere. I guarantee that unless you are living in some Unibomber style shack in the middle of nowhere there is a single women within 1000 yards of where you are sitting. You could run into one at any moment of any day (yet more motivation to bathe and dress well every day. Nothing will annoy you more than putting in all the effort six days out of the week and meeting a hot girl on the seventh where you opted to not shower or change your underwear. As we used to say in the Boy Scouts, Be Prepared). You have to be open for it and you will be shocked at what drops into your lap.
That being said, obviously there are places where you are more or less likely to meet girls. Let us start off with a list of placed where you are very unlikely to meet any.
1. Your apartment-fact of the matter is, a lifetime of romantic comedies and bad porn has lied to you. The girl of your dreams is not going to be delivering pizza, installing your cable, or banging on your door in a desperate attempt to get away from a zombie horde any time soon. 
I can promise that you have a better chance of finding a pristine Action 1 comic pressed in a stack of old magazines than having a hot single girl at your apartment without a great deal of effort on your part (image courtesy of the comic book t shirt section).
2. Your favorite comic book or game store-yes, I know these fabled women exist out there, but it has been my experience that any girl “into comics” has actually been brought into this world by her (most likely) current boyfriend and will lose all interest as soon as she dumps him. With the exception of the odd rogue planetoid there are no single women in these places.
3. Comic book or gaming convention-oddly enough there are women at these in almost workable numbers. The problem will always be that for every single woman present there will be at least 100 single guys, an unhealthy percentage of whom will be celebrities of some kind (comic artist, etc.). This ratio (hereafter referred to as a “sausage fest”) will just frustrate you.
4. Bars and clubs-yes I know these are the “traditional” place everyone thinks is where to go to meet women, but in truth it will suck for you as well. If you had the ability to pick up a girl at a bar and hook up with here you wouldn’t be reading this. Anyway, even if you were to learn how trust me when I say you will never get anything long term from these places except a social disease. The goal of this blog is to see you embark on a relationship, not hooking up with Bimbozilla at the local dive bar.
That’s more or less it for places to avoid on your quest to find love. I’ll get more into better places in Part 2 on my next post. Keep the nerd faith!
A Guide to Nerd Guys Meeting and Dating Women: Accessories
Accessories is actually pretty simple for guys. We don’t have the jewelry options and requirements that women have. As a matter of fact, DO NOT ASSUME the accessory requirements women have. As a rule, stay away from rings, necklaces, and earrings (unless you are into piercing or are a rock star). Honestly, while some guys can pull these items off, for the rest of us it is like jumping out of a plane and hoping the thing on our backs is a parachute not a knapsack.
Unless your ring can give you powers like GL’s, stay away (image from the comic book t shirts)
The main accessory item for guys tends to be your wristwatch. The two things all women notice (remember those near-instantaneous evaluations women can make? A lot of it is based on these two) are shoes and watches. All guys should own a watch, and if you tell yourself that you just use your cell phone know that you are immediately stuck into the “loser tech geek” by a lot of women.
There are any number of watches out there, so here are a few guidelines. First of all, your watch should be metal or metal and leather, not plastic (nor a gift from some kind of meal. I don’t care how humorous it is. You might think you are being quirky and weird but what you are really transmitting is broke loser). It should not calculate anything. The more features it has, the weirder you look. Stay away from diving watches unless you actually dive. In general less is more. Simple is good. Personally I am a huge fan of Movado and love my Movado watch.
As for how much you need to spend, I would say at least $350 and as much as $1K. Sounds like a lot but a good watch will last you at least five years, so not so much over time. I have no proof of the validity of this, but a theory I cooked up is you should probably spend about 1% of your annual salary on a watch. In other words, if you make $35K drop $350, $100K drop $1K. I know this is just my thought process, but I can’t help but imaging this is the kind of equation that pops up in a woman’s head.
Other accessories include wallet, business card holder, keys, and cell phone.
Your wallet should be leather or leather-like (if you don’t do leather) and black. That simple IMO. DO NOT do Velcro, canvas, anything with writing on it (yes, we all saw Pulp Fiction and the Bad M-F-er wallet. Not as cool as Samuel L. Jackson made it seem), or anything with a chain attached, unless you are a biker (motorcycle) or a mailman.
A business card holder is something I highly recommend. I go with stainless steel. I also can’t stress the importance of having business cards on you at all times. Only losers don’t have business cards. Also, business cards are the perfect item for the “Hail Mary” pass at a girl (more on that later). If your job does not give you cards have them printed. Vistaprint does a great job dirt cheap. If you don’t believe me about how cool business cards and holders can be check out this scene from American Psycho.
It might seem weird that I include keys in this post, as we all have keys, but this is one item that nerd guys screw up all the time. Basically, your keys should be as small as possible. Guys who have huge rings of keys always end up looking like weird conspiracy nuts. Your keyring should consist of one small fob of some kind (go nuts on this. Personally I have a miniature Death Star on mine), car keys, house keys, work keys, and that’s about it. If you are a big beer drinker add a church key, but your keyring should always be as minimum as possible. Also, NEVER, EVER hang your keys on your belt for any reason.
Finally, cell phone. It used to be another item where smaller was better, but now bigger is better. Honestly, if you don’t have a smart phone capable of sending complex and fast texts and emails you look like a loser. I don’t know about the validity of this survey, but there is an article floating around the internet to the effect that women are more likely to give their number to a guy with an iPhone than one without. Whether or not this is true, there is a perception that iPhones equals more success and stability, so why not?
That’s it for appearance (although I might throw in the odd blurb as they occur to me). Next post we get into more actual meeting women with Where to Go to Meet Women! OMG! See you soon.
A Guide to Nerd Guys Meeting and Dating Women: Underwear
We’ll start on the inside with underwear. Like I said before, underwear should be worn at all times (unless you are bathing, swimming, or being lucky in other ways, if you know what I mean). Of course, that begats the question, “What kind of underwear?”
Your choices are threefold. Boxer, briefs, and the hybrid boxer/briefs. The choice to make in my opinion is boxers. Briefs and boxer briefs should only be worn by guys who could actually be in an underwear ad. Boxers have any number of reasons to endorse them.
First of all, you don’t have to have a great ass to look good in boxers. You can comfortably take off your pants for whatever reason even in semi public. If the opportunity to hit the hot tube (optimally with a girl) arises they can make a decent swimsuit substitute (note-never actually try to swim in boxers. The chance of showing too much is dangerously high). Boxers tend to be more durable and last longer.
Briefs are just bad karma waiting for a place to happen. You look like either an eight year old or a creepy old man. If you have to take off your pants (caught fire, torn off your leg by dogs, erotic moment with a new girl, etc.) you will feel like a tool. Also, in time most guys come to like the feeling of freedom boxers give them.
The next big question is what color and the answer is any color but white. For reasons I don’t want to even think about white underwear, even when laundered frequently, tends to look dingy and shabby pretty quick, which is just all around gross. Also, if you are subject to certain restroom issues (thankfully nothing I have to deal with) there is no hiding it.
I consider underwear a chance to be creative, and look for funny and weird pairs in dark colors. The thing is if you are with a girl and reach the point that your are taking off your clothes the fact that you are wearing a pair of boxers with Spiderman on them becomes funny and cute rather than nerdy and lame.
Yes, I do have a pair of Spiderman underwear not dissimilar to this shirt from the comic book t shirts.
I also have a pair with cows all over them, a pair of Spongebob Squarepants, an Oscar Meyer Wiener pair, and a pair with “Home of the Whopper” on the front. All good for a laugh. Of course, I have any number of dark blue, black, striped and other color pairs.
Incidentally, underwear also includes undershirts. If you find yourself wearing a dress or buttoned shirt, wearing a t shirt of some kind can make the shirt look better and be more comfortable, as well as extend the life of the shirt and help absorb sweat should you be unfortunate enough to be wearing it in the heat. Just don’t make the mistake I used to make all the time and wear a shirt with something printed on it under your dress shirt. It will show through. Also, if you have to wear a tie for whatever reason do yourself a favor and buy a couple v neck undershirts. Much more comfortable.
Next post: Pants!
A Guide to Nerd Guys Meeting and Dating Women: Grooming Part 1
Whoops. Forgot to publish this one. A little out of order but pretty good IMO.
This part of the presentation was both surprisingly well received and needed. If you think I am off base even presenting this information, I invite you to attend any comic or Star Trek convention towards the end of the day. The funk can be overwhelming in power, volume, and variety. The sad fact is that a symptom of certain types of nerds is a belief that grooming is something that happens to other people. I have a few theories as to why this happens:
Theory 1: They don’t smell their own funk, and therefore assume no one else does. WRONG. The fact is you can get used to anything, especially something that creeps up on you like body funk (this, by the way, was my excuse for not bathing through most of high school). This belief also tends to expand to the belief that a shower every few days is sufficient. Believe me, it isn’t. Incidentally, I have found about 100 articles about how women have a much more sensitive olfactory sense than men, so what might be a slight odor to you could easily bowl a woman over. Note-never ask women their opinion of your body odor. They will ALWAYS lie. This is one thing they seem incapable of giving their honest opinion of. They perceive being honest in this realm as cruel, but at the same time have pretty much decided they aren’t going to date you. If you must, ask a guy, or better yet, just assume the worst and take a fraking shower.
Theory 2: The nerd believes that he will not be in a circumstance wherein he will be meeting girls. WRONG. As we will expand later on, you are surrounded by women. You could be stinking up your local comic book store 
in your favorite Punisher t shirt and run into a girl who happens to have a Frank Castle thing. If, on the off chance this miracle happens, do you really want to push off your one chance to date a comic book chick because you haven’t bathed in three days? You never know when you might run into her.
Theory 3: “I am a wild, crazy barbarian that some woman will dig.” Yeah, this plan sucks. There may be women out there who dig grubby, smelly guys, but for every one out there I can promise there are at least 100,000 other women who like clean, non-smelly guys. Also, women who dig grubby guys generally look like they dig grubby, smelly guys if you know what I mean. Granted, there are situations where a guy looks dirty and women feel like he is sexy, but what women generally like is guys who look dirty after doing something (changing oil, putting out a fire, etc) but who will then shower and look clean again.
Theory 4: The nerd has more or less given up all hope of meeting someone and has more or less said “To hell with it“. This is the saddest case, since it is a very strong self fulfilling prophesy. If you believe you will never meet someone, and therefore stop grooming or doing anything else to enhance your chances, odds are you will not. At least you will have the satisfaction of feeling like you can predict the future, but that sort of self gratification is destined to leave you lonely for a long time. You have to believe it is possible, and if you can’t believe it then lie to yourself until you do. As you believe, so shall you achieve.
Anyway, those are my main theories behind why certain nerds don’t like to bath. If, on the other hand, you bath frequently, remember this is not directed at any one person. I am sure you are the fragrant delight of your workplace.
Anyway, I’ll boil bathing down to a couple simple rules. They are:
1. Every morning. This is pretty critical
2. After doing anything that causes you to perspire. Exercise causes BO. For the more advance students we can talk about masculine pheromones caused by perspiration being attractive to women, but lets face it. If you produced those pheromones odds naturally odds are you would not be reading this.
3. Before any kind of social interaction that may or may not include women.
Bottom line, if you ever find yourself asking the question “Do I need a shower” the answer is always 100% yes. There is no gray area in this matter.
As for the mechanics of bathing, you should have learned this at age 4 or so, so I will make it short. Bathe every inch of your skin with soap, paying particular attention to the feet, groin, and armpits. Shampoo your hair, and then use conditioner (this is actually pretty important. More on hair later). Get out, dry off completely, and then immediately apply deodorant! I cannot stress the importance of this. A stick of deodorant might cost $1.50, but the value of not stinking is priceless. While buying it go nuts and get a deodorant with an antiperspirant.
That’s it for now. Next post: Grooming Part 2 (shaving)
A Windy Wednesday in Niles, CA
So I am looking for store fixtures to use at our next comic book show and saw a listing on Craigslist in Niles, Ca. I’ve never been there, even though it’s only about 20 miles away. I drive down there and it’s like teleporting into another dimension. The street I was on had three dive bars, a bead store, a few other oddball shops, and at least twenty antique stores.
No joke. They all seemed to be about the same size, shape, and inventory, all with shy, mousey employees. I stopped by a candy store and got a huge chunk of fudge. The weather was very cold for California; windy, and raining like hell, but I was so fascinated by the surreal nature of the town I walked all the way up and down the main street. It was like being in the Midwest maybe eighty years ago.
I also saw the local Merchants Association, which was located in an old streetcar (again, no joke). There was a record store that only sold vinyl, a roach coach taco wagon, a pizza place, and a nice looking Italian place. In spite of being there at lunchtime, the whole place was sleepy.
I met a guy at the store I was visiting who was interested in my site. He was a big Justice League fan so I told him about this new JLA shirt I uploaded last weekend to the comic book t shirt section. I hope he checks us out.
New infant creepers
So I uploaded a massive 43 new shirts over the weekend. Of course, a lot of them still don’t have descriptions but I will be working on that this week. Most importantly are the new baby creepers. I think they are really cute, and perfect for nerd and nerdish parents.
At the show this Wonder Woman creeper sold great from the comic book t shirt section. Actually I created a whole new infant section, but most of these ended up on other sections as well.
Actually, the best selling creeper was the Green Lantern one, to the point where I sold out completely and don’t even have one to photograph. I’ll be placing the refill order today.
Anyway, long weekend of work, although I did play a great game of Warhammer on Saturday against a friend of mine with Dark Elves. While I lost, once again I took on a much tougher list and made him work for it. More importantly I can feel my game play upping.
Kick-Ass does indeed Kick Ass
Yes, I went out and saw this movie on opening night. I am one of those dorks. However, it was entirely worth it. This movie is great, and surprising bloody considering one of the main characters is an 11 year old girl (who really kicks ass).
They also showed a trailer for Iron Man 2. It looks pretty good. As long as they don’t Hollywood it up too much it should be great. I had the opportunity to order Iron Man 2 t shirts the other day, but have found that the shirts from the movies kind of all suck compared to the classic ones like this Tetsu Punch t shirt from the comic book t shirt section.
Of course, that could be my personal bias, but to be honest the new ones really don’t sell that well. My gut tells me that these are the shirts that they make for Walmart to sell to the inbred morons who comprise the bulk of the American movie going audience, while the true fans (including, I hope, most of the visitors to my site) are shopping for the classics and “true” comic t shirts.
Anyway, I just wanted to blog about that movie while it was fresh. I’ll probably see it a second time soon.
How to paint rusty metal and the Dark Knight
So I painted my first Skaven using my new stippling technique to simulate rusty metal. Basically you start off painting a red brown (I used GW dark flesh) on the metal bits. You then take a round brush and cut it off flat. Then you stipple on (like dry brushing, but instead of brushing you dab it on) with first black, then bright orange. After that you stipple on a metal and do a hard line metal on the sharp edges. Brown ink and good to go.
The results are impressive, but I have to ask myself if I am willing to go over my entire army with this labor intensive technique. I think I have to, as my new army is based around maximizing soft points and that includes paint. I’ll go unit by unit I think.
I played the Dark Knight while painting on DvD. Great movie, but if I had the remote control in hand I would probably fast forward to all the parts with Heath Ledger in them. He really carried that movie. I am a huge Batman fan but Christian Bale doesn’t really do it for me. Plus I heard him bitch out that poor lighting guy on the set of the most recent Terminator movie and he sounds kind of like a D-bag. I will stick with classic Batman as featured in this Batman hoodie until the next movie comes out.
