Doomsday

Watch out for zombies!

Hungry for Grains

Three weeks ago I went to a zombie/vampire film festival. Among the sponsors was PopCap Games and this advertisement began the short film block:

I typically ignore video game advertisements, but this one took me to awareness, then interest, and ultimately action once I tried the free demo a few days later. I enjoyed it so much I bought it once and then again as a gift. PopCap used an excellent mix of humor, gameplay exhibition and target-specific advertising here that really worked. It doesn't hurt either that they have a history of fun/addictive games to garnish their reputation. Plants vs Zombies is no different in this respect. I feel compelled to warn you not to try the free demo until after finals week. You can also make a "zombatar!" on their website.

Ten Days to Singles Awareness Day

I'd be more tempted to see this if I hadn't been so let down by Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter

I dugg this a while ago, and apparently it happened in Texas. The maintenance worker quoted seemed more concerned about the traffic risks than the false zombie alarm. Clearly, they have their priorities mixed up. Also based on my experience in public works, I don't believe they really locked up the sign.

Still no word from the league btw

This was my Halloween costume. It's not as original as everyone thought.

I missed it. Actually, I didn't know Portland had one. Ugh. I can't say I would have tried to attend had I known. I know I don't want to miss Zompire this spring. I'm also a little disappointed that I can't make it to Live Wire! this weekend. I'd love to see John Hodgman and Jonathon Coulton.

Brain's Up

It will be some time before this reaches theaters, but if possible, I will be attending and I will be taking you with me. I'm still having zombie dreams from going to Zompire. Perhaps I've gone crazy, but I think going to a shooting range could be a fun date activity.

DAWN OF THE DEAD...The Romero Original...Returning Soon To Theaters...In 3-D!?!? -- Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Wired's How-To Covers Zombie Survival Scenarios

I don't have much to say about this (Max Brooks covered pretty much everything) but that doesn't make it any less required reading.

Survive a Zombie Apocalypse - Wired How-To Wiki

The Post That Refused to Die

If you still think zombies are funny you should imagine yourself wrapped in the cold embrace of a putrid ghoul about to devour your brains while your helpless family members look on in a hopeless agony.

Because today is Mother's Day, I spent an inordinate amount of time yesterday shopping for the perfect gift (3+ hours). This could be blamed, in part, on how she is difficult to shop for, but really, I just like to look at stuff. Perhaps I'm just a little naive or sheltered or whatever, but I am always amazed by the sheer diversity of consumer goods. Whoa, they make that? What is that for? Hey, look at that thing! No, that other thing! Oooh, that thing has numbers on it! I don't know why, but I find it highly enjoyable. Plus, I like to roll around on the smooth tile floors. I took some pictures of some of my favorite items for you, the reader! I'll upload these later with some snarky commentary.

I like shopping alone because I can go at my own leisurely pace and take all the detours I'd like without inconveniencing whomever with my impulsive erraticism. I also tend to wander off in stores and that can be a little awkward at times. But I don't really like attending events alone. In my experience events like the Faux Film Festival are enhanced by the presence of a peer. I can recall easily (perhaps painfully so) a time when I won tickets to the Dew Action Sports Tour for being a Glorious Bastard and could find absolutely no one* willing to take the second ticket. Although I try to spin this as a dislike of extreme sports coupled with the short notice I gave the invitation rather than evidence of some hidden and unsavory characteristic(s), I found myself in a similar situation last night (perhaps lending credibility to the later?). While I initially found this quite disturbing, it proved to be a boon as open seats were difficult to find, especially in the dark theater, a trouble which would have been multiplied by multiples (I was able to get an amazing seat during the BMX Park finals at AST because of this issue and a last minute seat at a Blue Man Group concert). I had also been very nervous as I don't usually hold up very well under tense situations or intensely dramatic moments (I stopped watching Desperate Housewives a few years ago to reduce my intrigue intake; also because my then-roommates thought it was too decadent for our sanctuary from sin or whatever). I'm both very jumpy and slightly ticklish; a poor combination (I'm using a lot of parenthetical remarks today) and it is my understanding that horror films are generally best viewed in the company of the fairer sex. So, yeah...

I've written a few times about my fascination with zombies, even writing a rather poor paper on the mythological nature of the undead for an English class (which received the comment "when will they rise???" on a peer review sheet). It is a morbid curiosity and, in actuality, I am rather terrified of zombies and what they represent. Terrified is the wrong word. If I were really concerned with apocalyptic preparedness, I'd have planned and prepared for a Stage 3 Outbreak by now (also probably the whole spirituality thing). Given my Mormon family's emphasis on food storage I think we could handle up to that point although we'd only have melee weapons at our disposal. I've pushed for a domestic firearm for disaster situations, but nothing yet. Maybe I'm more concerned about Z-day than I thought, or it's just a residual affect of scouting.

In any case, once I found out about Zompire, I had to go. Given that my prior experience with zombie film had been Shawn of the Dead, Fido, and the thirty second re-enactment, I wasn't sure what to expect. I know it should be more given how much I liked World War Z (a must read!) and everything, but I believe I've mentioned both the mild stigma I feel watching movies alone (supposing they can hold my attention long enough to finish) and that I'm kind of a huge baby, but not like that. I don't actively avoid watching movies alone, although it is always preferable with company, but I'm not sure I will ever be able to shake the image of my father watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants alone in his room when no one else would join him. It still strikes me as all sorts of weird (even after hearing him ask my mother if a certain pair of jeans "made his butt look fat") and remains a pinnacle of pitiful that sadly remains married to the thought of solo film delectation.

Anyways, I ended up going alone and I staved off my apprehension through compulsive text messaging. So-much-so that my mobile blog was flagged by a security feature meant to prevent blog spam and reduce server stress through use of a captcha, which I can't do from my phone. The timer has expired so I can once enjoy my mobile post masturbation (yay for text message post delivery confirmation!). Luckily, a majority of the short films were lighthearted, comedic, and even satirical. Did I mention weird? They were all weird. A couple were incredibly gripping, and most all were entertaining, though there were a few others which were trying hard to be something, with various levels of success. You can tell from some of the directors' comment on the festival's website how lofty a metaphor they think their zombies can stand, hobble, and moan for. Example:

Burying the Ex is a metaphor for a seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend and the baggage we must deal with when a relationship comes to an end. In Burying the Ex even the grave can't hold a jilted lover who's learned that their ex has found someone new...

That's not fair, because I kind of enjoyed that one (Danielle Harris is a very attractive woman) and it had the kid from Freaks and Geeks. These (figurative) zombies elicited more groans of horror than screams of fright, but that could not be said of the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, which I enjoyed, but Oh God, why are they running? Oh God, they aren't supposed to be running! Make them stop! Ahhh! For the record, I never actually screamed and no one can prove otherwise. My only regret, besides arriving slightly late, was that I was not able to watch the entirety of Wasting Away (stupid public transit schedules!) and it will be difficult to procure.

Anyways, that is why I did not sleep well last night. Also, I didn't get home until 2 am and then Liane Hansen woke me up at the ungodly hour of 6 am.

*That I wanted to hang out with.

How did I not know about this?

A Canadian zombie comedy? Where was I? Although it seems to largely disregard zombie cannon (the zombies appear to have some form of intelligence), it still looks interesting.



Fido (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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This is how the Zombie War begins...

I've just started World War Z, which begins in the same place I've been hearing stories about on the radio and a week after seeing I am Legend. I've made a huge mistake...

NPR : Three Gorges History Drowning in Rising Reservoir

The ancient village of Dachang was once full of picturesque cobbled streets and ancient wooden temples. Now the village had been reconstituted uphill as a sort of theme park. Workers lay new cobblestones, as men dressed up as Qing Dynasty soldiers guard the gates.

"We feel very proud because the government has spent all this money to move the village," says village employee Lei Haoming. "This means that it will not be submerged, but preserved for people to see in the future, and so we feel that our culture has been well preserved."

As is often the case in China, replication is often confused with historic preservation. The main difference, of course, is that no actual residents live here anymore. They've been relocated so as to facilitate the business of separating tourists from their money.

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Zombie Rain

This macro combines several of my favorite things.

I totally watched this

And sung THE FINAL COUNTDOWN in my head the entire time. My sister kept saying "that was a neat trick"; I had to correct her. A trick is something a whore does for money.

I'm near, or over, the threshold for chrifsmas presents. I think all my gifts will be excellent. I do have that horrible tendency to buy things I would like myself, but I don't think it's as bad as everyone claims it is. I use my own judgment as a litmus for quality. If I enjoy something, and you enjoy the same things that I do, which makes sense as we are friends/related, why wouldn't you like the thing I like? Often times, I don't even get to play with the gifts I give, how is that anything less than generous? That said, I had an almost overwhelming desire to purchase many many things at the bookstore today. It was hard, to resist. Ultimately, I didn't, and purchased myself a copy of World War Z, which I am expecting to be excellent as it was recommend by Rick Emerson and the first novel of the author, Max Brooks, changed my life. Also, Amazon is creepily accurate in its predictions of books that I would like, having come across some of its recommendations at the bookstore. If I said anymore I might be embarrassed by the incredible geek held inside me only by the thinest of fibers.

myNetworkTV - Shows - 2007 World Magic Awards

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Best. Wedding. Ever.

Pat, I'd like to buy a pun.

Dead Rising

The troublesome thing about waking up at 3pm is that you miss The Rick Emerson Show. But you can catch the podcasts on AM 970. So everything works out.

I'm still kind of groggy. I slept like 13 hours to augment the 2 I experienced the night before due to that zombie paper. Plus two other naps of about an hour and a half each. It was an interesting day; I'm glad it's over. I still need to go back to return books, but that requires getting a new ID.I don't really care for that. So it'd be this big thing and I could just keep the book because I'll probably only get $20 back and I could still use to the book to help me study for Jeopardy when I eventually go on. The training must continue!

Anyways, for all that work on zombies, I had a dream about a robot apocalypse. It was a neat dream, neater than the one I later had about being Aladdin. At one point I had to pretend to be a robot. I did, I might add, a very good job. Unfortunately, the item I was handed let the GLaDOS like entity track us before I flushed it down the toilet so through her off. The weird part of the dream was the companion I had, which still has me confounded. I'm like, where did that come from? Always confuses me who the girls that show up in my dreams are. I mean, she's attractive, but so far out of my league the thought had never crossed me. Anyways, it wasn't my faithful companion cube, which makes me sad.

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The Living Dead

The Living Dead

In every almost every mythology there exists an avatar for death. Whether personified as the Grim Reaper or Hades, theme of mortality permeates all human consciousness as a necessary part of life. Language denotes a symbolism of death in synonyms such as passing, departure, and laid to rest. However, there often exists an in-between state that explores the ambiguities of mortality where humanity’s fear of the unknown can manifest itself. They can go by many names: the undead, ghouls, specters, and zombies, to name a few. These creatures existing somewhere between life and death, are often connected to another state of being, whether an afterlife or something worse. In this essay we will briefly analyze the meaning of one such story and how it has changed in the annexation into the American culture and the implications of this change. This is the story of the zombie.

The “zombie” originates from Haitian Vodou where it was believed that a bokor, a sorcerer, could trap a person’s soul and turn them into a mindless slave. The bokor’s victim would fall into a coma-like state for days, and be buried under the assumption of death, after which the bokor would retrieve the “corpse” shortly before it reanimated (Wilson). At least one man claimed to have been the victim of a bokor’s “zombie powder” sparking scientific interest in the possible medical mystery, but no conclusive evidence in zombie rites was found (Wilson). The folklore of the zombie was transported to America by authors such as Zora Neale Hurston where it became entangled with other imaginary practices of “voodoo” such as voodoo dolls (Gallaher). America quickly became fascinated, or terrified, by the idea of zombies.

Zombies have since lost most of their connection with their magical origin. They no longer work on plantations at the command of their master but instead hold an insatiable appetite for human flesh (Brooks, 18). The rites of zombification are no longer administered by a mystic, but are instead forced upon a victim through contact and infection, through virus, radiation, or chemicals (Wilson). The infection “is 100 percent communicable and 100 percent fatal” and it only takes one individual zombie to begin an outbreak (Brooks, 3). Films such as Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days Later have cemented the zombie as an object of terror and fascination.

The horror of hordes of undead is nothing new or exclusive to American society. Other popular monsters, including vampires, werewolves, and mummies, all share similarities to the current manifestation of the zombie and analogues to these creatures can be found worldwide. The epic poem Gilgamesh makes mention of zombie-like creatures:

“Ishtar said, ‘Please, Father, I beg you,

give me the Bull of Heaven, just

for a little while. I want to bring it

to the earth, I want it to kill that liar

Gilgamesh and destroy his palace.

If you say no, I will smash the gates

of the underworld, and a million famished

Ghouls will ascend to devour the living,

And the living will be outnumbered by the dead.’” (Mitchell, 136)

The apocalyptic scenario presented here follows the same plot present is most zombie stories with humanity suddenly facing the grim reality that for the first time in ages, they are prey. Often, survivors find that they themselves are a greater threat to their survival than the slow moving zombies as stress and hysteria set in and cohesiveness disintegrates.

In this telling of the zombie story, the zombie no longer represents a supernatural threat, such as vengeful gods or powerful sorcery. The agents that transform them are now the same terrors that we must face: mysterious pathogens, radiation, chemical mutagens, all transmitted by people we used to love and trust. The zombie can represent cultural apprehension and ethical dilemmas in the same way as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which has also enjoyed success in the mythologies of film (Cole). The zombie shows us the incompetence of our governments; heighten the discord of our society, and the inevitable collapse and consumption of the things we love (Cole). The undead terrify us because they are us, transformed into something we scarcely recognize, devoid of humanity (Brooks, 15). Zombies make us face the things we fear most.

A zombie apocalypse is the ultimate disaster. Although it is likely, and hopefully, a completely fictitious possibility, that has not prevented organizations from utilizing the ghoul as a tool for activism. The Zombie Squad, an emergency preparedness advocacy group, utilizes the metaphor of undead hordes to promote emergency preparations, stating,

“Zombie Squad realizes that it is quite possible for someone to live their entire lives without encountering the undead nuisance. However, we hold fast to the belief that if you are prepared for a scenario where the walking corpses of your family and neighbors are trying to eat you alive, you will be prepared for almost anything.” (Zombie Squad)

In addition to the Zombie Squad and survival guides, the zombie horde has become a parade of sorts, with participants being “bitten” by a growing zombie mob, converging on a location, and then dispersing (San Francisco Zombie Mob). Occasionally these events take place to draw attention to a public event, such as a mayoral debate (San Francisco Zombie Mob).

For as long as any cultural malaise exists, we are likely to only see an increase of the undead in our lives ― hopefully only as a hypothetical.

Works Cited

Wilson, Tracy V. . "How Zombies Work." Howstuffworks. 11 Dec 2007 .

Gallaher, Tim. "Zora Neale Hurston." 1996. 11 Dec 2007 .

Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2003.

Mitchell, Stephen. Gilgamesh. New York, NY: Free Press, 2004.

Cole, Liz. "Zombies." GreenCine. 2005. 11 Dec 2007 .

Zombie Squad. Zombie Squad. 11 Dec 2007 .

"San Francisco Zombie Mob." San Francisco Zombie Mob. 30 Oct 2007. 11 Dec 2007 .

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BRAAIIINNSSSSS

Lots of Zombie Pics

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Reruns

The Tom Leykis show was a rerun today, as yesterday, on two very hot days. Though still entertaining, I feel slowly more disillusioned with each episode. His opinions and advice are rebuffed daily by scores of young men such as myself. Am I so different? The truth seems inevitable, and dismal. Perhaps it's the heat speaking, but is that all there is? I'm exhausted.

I've been having weird dreams in my often fitful sleep. Vents in my room have recently become uncovered and I haven't established a sort of normalcy. I dreamed of a slightly anthropomorphic bull named "SmartCow" which walked upright like those from Barnyard and was blue. SmartCow fought for justice in a post-apocalyptic world with his sidekick "FirePig," a firebreathing pig that resembled the pig (Spider-pig!) shown in those previews for The Simpsons Movie. Firepig's attempts to incinerate Smartcow when they first met failed, even though Firepig tried to hard he actually began to rotate mid-air as if placed on some sort of rotisserie spit. It was an interesting night.

What other strange dreams have I had this week? I am trying to recall. I remember noting that they were strange and I should try to remember them so I could perhaps be interesting on the internet. Unlikely.

I had one last night whereupon finding my sister's boyfriend in our house before 12pm I told him it was a bad idea and when he asked why, I kicked him in the face! That was satisfying, although the kick did not connect as well as I would have hoped. I don't care for the guy, as he apparently mocks me when I am away, despite displays of civility when I am present. He quickly found my disfavor when I discovered this, and supposing I have any tenacity left, I might try to make his continued presence as uncomfortable as possible. Unlikely. I'm still limping from the castration my last relationship imparted me. Was I fired or laid off? I want to know.

I have some vague recollection of another dream that involved a friend returning from his mission and me trying to escape the confines of some complex in rexburg involving submarines and torpedos and peter was in it and I think this guy neal who I haven't spoken with in forever and may have knocked up his girlfriend which he was complaining about in my dream. It's all fuzzy. I remember having ninja skills. But that's just a manifestation of my undying passion for ninjas. I can't be certain where the rest of the fog came from. Perhaps the heat.

The ninja comment reminds me. I apparently have a membership at the Sherwood YMCA that I haven't redeemed with the possibility of a 12-week personal trainer. I know, me? A trainer? But am already a specimen of prowess and virility! But the whole breakup thing has had me rethinking my self concept. I'd never felt any desire to exercise before, I haven't a clue about it. My complete understanding of biceps and triceps comes from a middle school biology teacher who was eventually forced into early retirement for sexual harassment, so.. I'm hesitant to start, because, what do I do? I've never been one to jump in. I was thinking of finishing my survival guides and planning something along the advised line. You never can be too prepared for a zombie uprising. Is there any natural disaster that could possibly be worse? Doubtful. Thus preparing for the hordes of the undead is the best preparation possible. Anyways, perhaps I will say I want to be a ninja. I've got nothing to lose right?

Someone was surprised I remembered their birthday today.Why would I have forgetten someone's birthday? I'm not sure why this bothers me, but it does, like I've been written off somehow. I dislike it. It'd be so easy to conform to expectations. So easy..

My hat arrived today. I thought I'd be more excited. I'm not even that excited about dinner, and it's one of my favorites. The highlight of my day is the Rick Emerson Show.

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Zombies

I have a few things to say, but this kid says them better.

Happy Canada Day!

Story time:

I woke up today, dreams of Weekend Edition, and was asked by my father, "Why did you break up with Kirsten?" I blinked. "I didn't" He was confused, as was I by the inquiry. "But Michelle said the opposite." I assured him I wouldn't have broken up with Kirsten. My parents later discussed this startling revelation as I prepared for zombie uprisings. I head my father ask, "If Derek thinks Kirsten broke up with him and Kirsten thinks he broke up with her, how broken up are they?" My mom replied, "If only it had been Amanda and Tom. They made me so sick last night with that lovey-dovey crap."

I'm so bored on the weekends now. I have nothing to do but play with my brother. I need more friends.. My life sucks. It didn't seem as lame before. At least I have lots of mountain dew. T-formers comes out this week! Yay. Brother wants the computer now. Good-night.

Flash » Happy Canada Day

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