or, "How Zack Snyder Drained The Enjoyment Out of Every Geeky Thing I Love."

You know how we all have that voice in the back of our head that tells us when we're about to do something stupid, like take up freerunning or order the chicken alfredo or go to that keg party down in the granite quarry?

Well that voice was screaming at me, "DON'T GO SEE SUCKER PUNCH."

I didn't listen, even after I read some less-than-enthusiastic reviews and despite the fact that, unlike 90% of my nerd brethren, I hated "300".

I kept coming back to that trailer: Hot chicks with guns kick ass against clockwork soldiers and red dragons fighting B-52 bombers! How badly could you screw THAT up??

Bad enough to make me blog about it a week later.

Let's break it down, element by element.

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This week marks my fifth year in LA.

I've had my successes and my disappointments, but overall it's been an interesting journey -- partly because I don't know what I'll be doing from day-to-day, or for that matter, hour-to-hour.

To give you an example, here are some actual breakdowns from the past five years for various roles I've auditioned for.

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New Year's Eve, 2010.

My flight's been delayed 40 minutes, the air is thick with the grumbles of holiday impatience, and as we taxi up to the de-icing station the captain tells us the tanker trucks are low on fluid and they might just drive off and leave us there for 20 minutes.

By the time we get airborne, I resign myself to the inescapable clutches of Delta Airlines. Really, what more can they do to me, their tired, beaten-down captive on this, the last night of 2010?


Well, they can run Eat Pray Love as the in-flight movie, that's what.

I watch it with the sound off.

What follows is a reconstruction of what happens when "a married woman realizes how unhappy her marriage really is, and that her life needs to go in a different direction" -- with the sound off.

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I've read a lot of books - starting with the complete adventures of Tom Swift Jr.

I've played a lot of video games - starting with Chopper Command on the Atari 2600.

And after all those hours, I'm still waiting for video game technology to catch up with ink printed on the processed pulp from a dead tree.

Video games suck, books rock, and here's why:

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The great thing about advertising on the web is that it's really cheap to run an online ad and there are almost no barriers to entry. (Do you have a copy of Photoshop? Can you write 18 words or less? YOU CAN RUN AN AD!)

The worst thing about advertising on the web is that it's really cheap and there are almost no barriers to entry. (Are you a 14 year-old boy with stunted English skills and one-dimensional ideas of feminine beauty? YOU CAN RUN AN AD!)

Sometimes, people make an ad so bad, it's genius.

These are not those ads.

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I get a lot of ads for online dating. I mean A LOT of ads. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

If so, the universe really needs to refine its message.

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This weekend I went to three terrible movies.

Why?

-So you wouldn't have to.

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Recently, Southern Comfort announced it's ditching cable tv and magazine advertising and spending it's $10 million ad budget on Facebook and Hulu.

I hope they are smarter about their online ads than these people were.

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It recently occurred to me that, despite my lengthy nerd pedigree and fervent interest in Dungeons & Dragons, I do not own a sword.

Lead goblins? -Check.
Aluminum space pistol? -Got it.
Replica borg cube? -DUH.
Plastic lightsaber handle? -Yes, BUT that's not a sword. Everyone knows a lightsaber handle isn't any good unless it's secretly stashed inside a droid you plan to have captured and turned into a mechanical bartender aboard the sandbarge which will be conveniently parked nearby to witness your impending execution via excruciatingly slow digestion/starvation.

(I don't get why Jabba didn't just hang the guy by his toes, brush him with vinegar, and not feed him - it's the same effect. But Jabba clearly had a flair for the dramatic. It turned out to be his undoing, but it also gave us Princess Leia in that slave costume. Win-win all around if you're a jedi and/or horny 13-year-old boy.)

All of this points to the fact that not owning a sword is a severe oversight on my part. There are times when you NEED a sword.

Can I borrow yours?

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