THE WEEK IN GEEK IN THE SOUTH SOUND ... AND BEYOND >>>

And we're back! Nerd Alert is the Spew blog's recurring events calendar devoted to all things nerdy. I myself am a Star Wars fan, mathlete, and spelling bee champion of long standing, so trust me: I grok whereof I speak. Did I steer you wrong with my recommendation of Cabin in the Woods? Well, did I?

Record Store Day!

Holy crap in a Cracker Barrel, Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 21! Once a year, artists unite with independent record stores to offer music you simply cannot buy online. This year's selection is incredibly diverse, offering live sets from the Black Keys and Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, 7" vinyl from Foster the People and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, a limited-run, 180g vinyl from Death Cab and hundreds of other items. Participating stores in the South Sound include Phantom City and Rainy Day in Oly, plus Disc Connection and Rocket Records in Tacoma. For the full roster of swag for sale, visit RecordStoreDay.com. Then show your local disk pushers some love. They deserve it.

While you're shopping, pick up a Blu-ray or DVD copy of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. This Tom Cruise blockbuster, directed briskly by animation genius Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Incredibles), was my favorite movie of 2011, and I'm in no way ashamed to say it. Did Moneyball or A Separation have an action scene set on the side of the 2,716-foot Burj Khalifa tower in Abu Dhabi? They did not.

Friday, April 20

My fellow theater critic Joe Izenman can barely contain himself about Terminus, a verse play by Mark O'Rowe about a woman who falls off a construction crane, gets saved from certain death by a worm demon, and then has sex with said demon. So yeah, same old, same old. For those of you who don't follow the 21^st century playwriting scene - which, let's face it, is most of you, so listen up! - Ireland is where the magic is happening. O'Rowe is one of a handful of Gaelic dudes penning brutal, foulmouthed, shock-a-minute masterpieces. Harlequin staged The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, Riot to Follow just closed Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, and now director David Domkowski has his filthy way with Terminus. Don't take your grandma ... unless, of course, Grandma is a huge William Friedkin fan. That'd be weird.

[The Space, Terminus, $14.50, 729 Court C (Opera Alley), Tacoma, http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/235270]

Saturday, April 21

At 5:30 and 9:30 p.m., the Seattle Cinerama will screen a gorgeous 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey. "My God, it's full of stars!" You know, like Keir Dullea. Still ... trippy.

At 10 p.m., Patton Oswalt has a new hour of standup on Comedy Central, called Finest Hour, followed by new Paul F. Tompkins. "Wackity, schmackity doo!"

Sunday, April 22

There are otherwise button-down, Wonder-bread, vanilla South Sounders who lose their ever-lovin' shizz over Wayzgoose. We're talking full-on fanboy meltdowns. Tacoma's "Letterpress and Book Arts Extravaganza" might seem an odd choice for this column, but I've never met a geek yet who didn't have at least some appreciation for the siren song of an artfully published book. Did you know that a wayzgoose is the annual feast thrown by a master printer for the staff of his or her press? And did you know this year will mark the third Wayzgoose appearance of C.L.A.W., the Cartoonists' League of Absurd Washingtonians? And did you further know that Jeff's Ice Cream will be there, hawking frozen delights from a trailer on the back of a bicycle? Bicycle ice cream, people. The man sells bicycle ice cream!

[King's Books, Wayzgoose, free, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.8801]

Until next week, may the odds be ever in your favor, the Force be with you, and your dialogue be written by Aaron Sorkin.

LINK: Past Nerd Alert! columns