The Real Zombies of Hollywood

I don't think that humans as a species have been so obsessed with anything as much as we are obsessed with the zombie apocalypse. I don't see why people are in love with the idea of a world full of slow, shambling masses of flesh who walk around on instinct, causing harm to everyone they come in contact with and are incapable of rational communication. We already have those; they're called "Pedestrians" and last I recall, everyone hates them. So why does everyone have such a hard-on for zombies?

There is absolutely nothing interesting about zombies or the alleged apocalypse that society thinks that they are going to bring. If the media has shown us anything about zombies, its that that likelihood of someone to be infected during the initial outbreak is inversely related to their ability to function as a moderately intelligent human being with common sense. Look at the Walking Dead for instance. Those have to be some of the dumbest human beings to ever have plot based around them, the most competent person in their group being a backwoods deputy sheriff who overslept during the end of the fucking world. They routinely hunt for deer and other wild animals too, so if these fucking D-students and a bunch of pigs can survive at least a year, then there's gotta be someone out there who has already started fixing everything.

"I almost fixed everything, but then HILLBILLIES."

Zombies are boring, slow, and they lack the intelligence to be interesting villains. All they have going for them is numbers, and nature can take care of most of those in no time via sunburn or frostbite. They can't use weapons, they can't deliver any witty one liners and, they can't come back from the dead for a last minute scare because that's already their whole fucking repertoire. They aren't any more useful as plot devices, acting only as disposable cogs to the Rue-Goldberg Machine that is shitty Survivor defenses. There are so many survivor burrows ruined because some dipshit decided not to tie his shoes before he died.
Even the Resident Evil series understood by the third game that boring regular zombies can only get so far before someone will wake the fuck up and blow them all to smithereens. They upgraded those zombies to thinking, fast zombies, and they still proceeded to get their asses handed to them by a single man while he babysat a mouth-breathing teenager who tried to block giant monster knight swords with her body. If the Japanese think that super zombies can be defeated without the use of Gundams or summoning Godzilla, I'm pretty sure most of us can make it out alive.

If we come across one of these though,
we're pretty much fucked.

So yeah, zombies themselves aren't all that interesting. So what's the big deal? Maybe everyone likes to see how the world will be for the survivors, right? How they handle the fall of society and learn to cope without all of it's luxuries. Wrong! Walking Dead gave us exactly that in Season 2 and viewers complained about the overall lack of zombies. No! People are literally obsessed with zombies. Zombie paint ball, Zombie obstacle courses, Zombie bar crawls, zombie books, zombie movies, zombie videogames. All we are missing is the Zombie reality show. I haven't quite decided yet if this will be the best or worst thing ever; my distaste for zombies, reality tv, and stupid people, competing with my desire to watch stupid people get eaten on reality tv by zombies.

My biggest gripe is that all of these zombie shenanigans are a deterrence to the real problem; the inevitable cyber-post apocalypse caused by the Robot Revolution. They've tricked us by putting out shitty robot movies and now they're under the radar; plotting, planning, preparing.

First your car keys, then, the World!

Robot's are the opposite of zombies: They're smart, they're not made of meat, and they can do advanced calculations in seconds. Fucking calculus man. Do you know how powerful linear algebra is? So while you morons are drinking your zombie juice, watching your zombie shows in your zombie costumes, these robotic menaces are using your Playstation 3s to find a way to launch all of the nukes on to us. Hopefully Japan will forgive me for all the horrible things I've said about them and loan me a Gundam so I can survive the initial blasts.

Unless it is an Aries. I'd rather take my chances with the nukes.

Love in the Time of Video Games

I am a gamer. I mean a REAL gamer, not one of those fake, "I own all of the Halo and Gears of War Games" gamers or "I play World of Warcraft after my late shift at the strip club" gamers but a "I am running through Secret of Mana for the 15th time" gamer, a "I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons for 14 straight hours, what am I doing with my life" gamer.

Being a gamer, specifically a video gamer, is more than just picking up a PS3 on a whim and posting a facebook status that you can't figure out how to make Lara Croft's top come off. Acknowledging that you own a video game and occasionally turn it on is not enough. That's like someone claiming that they are a football fan because they like to go to their home teams games sometimes. No. You're not a true football fan until you've physically and verbally abused someone for the sake of the game. Being a true gamer is no different. I have seriously threatened to maim a person for standing in front of the TV while trying to finish Goof Troop.

Those switch puzzles can kiss my entire ass.

Gaming is not just a hobby, but a lifestyle. While I love to go clubbing and dancing, drinking with friends and hanging out, I will at a heart beat kick that shit to the curb and curl up on the couch and play through all 3 Uncharted games. Putting aside these social obligations often backfires in the form of angry friends and girlfriend, missed booze, and slight guilt. I think it gets even worse when I blow off friends to play play video games with other friends, and then blow off those friends to play table top games with other friends, just to say fuck it all and play Pokemon in the comfort of my bed. Some people may say that I'm being unproductive and that I'm wasting my time. These people can also kiss my entire ass.

Video Games are one of the best forms of entertainment because it combines all aspects of life. Amazing things such as art, music, and literature has inspired and been inspired by gaming. Listen to this awesome song from Rage Racer, or this one from Sonic Adventure. Are you a fan of art? Check out the highly sumi-e inspired graphics and gameplay of Okami. Even the plot of many games are on par, if not better than that of movies and books. Like the A Song of Fire and Ice series? Then you'll love the political intrigue and the religious background of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Also, the murder. Lots of murder.

There are video games for everyone. There are games where you can create and run your own amusement park. There are games that are needlessly complicated movies in disguise. There are games where you can kill people with your hair. There are even games where you play a deranged man who systematically stalks, kidnaps, and rapes a woman and her two young daughters Why Japan, why?

With such a vast library of fun and interactive games which can stimulate your mind and body, I am proud to say that yes bitches, I am a gamer. I was a gamer when I was born, and i'll be a gamer til I die! And I encourage everyone of all backgrounds to partake in some form of gaming. It is an amazing stress reliever and cheaper than most forms of entertainment.

Plus Boobs. All of the boobs.

And Then There Were Nuns

There's really nothing more highly debated in the world than religion. People live by it and die by it. They use it to make a shit ton of money and devote all of their possessions to it. They remain chaste for it or chase ass for it. What does the word "Religion" even mean?

Oh wait. Internets. Hold that thought. Here we go:

Religion: a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

 -Dictionary.com

Ok, that definition kind of blows. It tries to say too much without actually saying anything. Aren't dictionaries supposed to help you understand a word, not be politically correct? Let's just move on and see what Merriam-Webster has to say on the subject.

 

: the belief in a god or in a group of gods
: an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship a god or a group of gods
: an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group

That one I can almost get behind. I think a big problem is that top definition implies that one requires religion to have belief in God, which I believe is false. I once remember have a discussion with a friend who asked me how it is possible for me to believe in God without assigning myself to a faith? It was honest and genuine question. "Well", I said, as I sipped some of my favorite sweet tea as we sat out on the veranda, "who's to say that God himself is assigned to a faith?

Think about it. Go back and read the Christian Bible, or any other religious texts originating in the Middle East, and think about all of the petty shit their respective wise and powerful deities did to their subjects. Old Testament God, for example, is the greatest troll of all time.

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16

Translation: "If anyone talks shit about me, go fucking murder him to death, then go get your friends and throw rocks at the corpse." Did anyone not think that was an extremely petty request for the powerful creator of all that is and ever will be?

"God is totally going to buy me a new car"

While we like to make Christianity (especially Catholicism) the butt of all our jokes, the other belief structures aren't much better. Look what happened to this poor Jewish fellow, halfway through his game of "1, 2 Buckle My Shoe":

15:32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks upon the sabbath day.  15:33 And they  that found him gathering sticks  brought him unto Moses and Aaron,  and unto all the congregation.  15:34 And they put him in ward ,  because it had not been declared what should be done to him.  {S} 15:35 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'The man shall surely be put  to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the  camp.'  15:36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp,  and stoned him with stones, and he died, as the LORD commanded Moses.   

I used to think my weekly Settlers of Catan games got pretty heated, but the Torah takes the cake. It's like everyone back in the bible days just stood around throwing rocks at each other in the name of their lord. I did a quick scan of a (according to a co-worker) poorly translated Qu'ran, and found that apparently there was a lot less stoning going on for Muslims.

A skill that would have proved effective in modern times, sadly.

I find it hard to believe that a being who is capable of forging and melding the world that we live, bind it to specific set of rules and laws, and then routinely breaks them at his leisure, really truly would bother to ask people to kill in its name. It can do that shit himself.
 
Most of the other faiths don't have a single, whiny deity who craves attention from lesser beings, and they seem to get along ok. Hinduism seems pretty easy going. It guess it helps that the Four Vedas are basically a long love letter to a bunch of magical wish genies as opposed to a handbook on the effectiveness of fixing problems with rocks. I think the problem with Hinduism though is that it leaves too much up for interpretation and can lead to some rather strenuous disagreements.

Shintoism, like everything that ever came out of Japan, is both cool and insane at the same time. At any given minute, there could be a spirit nestled inside your dog or the tree outside your window, waiting to give you sage-like advice or manifest into a physical form and have sexual relations with you.

The baggy hakama allow easy access.

I personally believe that there is a single cosmic powerful being who watches over ALL OF US, and our respective faiths are just our way of interpreting the many messages that he sends to us, and that's nothing worth fighting about. We all believe in the same greater good, just differently. I mean what would the world be like if people fought over their preferred sport team? Wait shit...

Is there any problem in this world not caused by stupid people?

Romancing the Phone

Proper and respectable communication as a whole is slowly being devoured by the collective dinner table of time and wireless media. Snail mail was served during cocktail hour and we're about halfway through our appetizer: the telephone. As more and more people begin to text, e-mail, facebook, and tweet, phones become less and less used to call people, and telephone etiquette is being scraped off of the plate and into the dog dish.

Speaking of phones and eating, why in God's many names do people think it is ok to eat while on the phone? I have absolutely no desire to hear what the inside of your mouth sounds like while you eat bacon. I don't care how busy you think you may be or how important you think your phone call is, both actions require the use of your mouth. Any evolved mammal knows that you don't transfer two things that flow in opposite directions in a single space. That's like trying to pee while you have sex.

Sadly, there are just as many people
who don't even follow that rule.

Speaking of personal waste management, calling someone while in the bathroom is literally a shitty thing to do. Unless you plan to talk about something which immediately halts your desire to pee, poop, or shower, you probably shouldn't be on the phone while you pee, poop, or shower. That's the reason why smart phones have games, texting, and e-mail; so you don't have to call your friend Ricky if you get bored while you drop a deuce. I'm sure he would appreciate not having to hear what the aftermath of your 4 AM Taco Bell run sounds like.

When they make a phone that transmits smell, we'll revisit this topic.

Putting people on extended periods of hold is also an exercise in dickery. I don't think anyone wants to wait while you brush your teeth or masturbate, just call them back. Some people aren't complete assholes and may be giving you their undivided attention while you talk to them. Chances are, they probably don't want to talk to you anyway, so you're saving them the effort of trying to convince you they have to do something which makes them incapable of talking on the phone.

"Your cat blew up? That's ok I gotta go poop so i'll hold"

Speaking of which, when did people become so dense that they don't realize that the other person is trying to end the conversation? Nowadays you have to bludgeon people with the fact that you're done talking to them. Nothing short of telling them to shut the fuck up and hanging up will give them the idea that you're tired of hearing about the food that they made but didn't bother to save you any.

"I just had to tell you about that funny cat picture I saw!"

You may say "Well why do we have hands free sets if we're not supposed to talk while we do stuff?"
Fuck you, that's why. Hands free sets are like attaching an extra asshole to the side of your face. Nothing is more frustrating than having someone walk up to you and say something, only to find out they're covertly talking to their sister like they are some kind of god damned spy. Except not, because they're using their AC/DC-concert speaking voice since they bought the cheapest bluetooth set known to man, so they're walking down the street shouting about how they think Skylar White is a bitch, and it is some how the par for the course these days.

I feel that moving away from using the phone as a primary source of communication is a step backwards in technology. Seriously, we found out a way to transmit the complexity of our individual voices across the planet, and some how "i b late i gotta poop lol" is a step into the future. I would say that video chat on a regular basis would be even more phenomenal, but I just remembered that people like to call and text while they are on the toilet, so no. Fuck that.

Reservoir Uncles

What's the deal with Uncles anyway? Uncles are our go to family members for sources of secondhand knowledge and inexplicable insanity. If you're telling a story which is false and/or embarrassing and need a proxy to divert suspicion away from yourself, you use your uncle because lets face it, you're reading my blog: you don't have any friends. So uncles are the perfect scapegoat for whatever bullshit you feel like telling someone. They're close enough to you for your secondhand experience to be legitimate and distant enough that it would be too much effort for someone to prove you otherwise. Most of the time, mentioning an uncle gives you god-like powers of credibility.

Uncles are always capable of doing all the cool stuff your own dad is too lame to do. Everyone has an uncle who served in a war. Everyone has an uncle who shows up to family gatherings drunker than Churchill quoting Hemingway. Everyone has an uncle with a cool motorcycle. Everyone has an uncle who is secretly a pedophile. Whether they are single, married with children, or mentally challenged, Uncles are not bound by the laws of reality like your dad is, and not even science can explain why.

Despite their reality bending powers, Uncles get such a bad rep, especially in the media. Gotta problem with the government? Screw Uncle Sam! Black guy who sold out? He's an Uncle Tom! Surprised by something trivial? You're a Monkey's Uncle. You got terrible taste in music? Listen to Uncle Kracker! You're getting your ass beat? Say Uncle! Wanna ruin both your rapping and acting career? Make Uncle P!When did we as a society begin to lose so much respect for our parent's brothers?

Why are our cartoons flooded with uncles? Every adult cartoon character apparently has a floozy brother or sister randomly popping out offspring and dropping them off with their relatives. And we never see these siblings. The worse offender are those damned Ducks. Donald Duck is the uncle of Huey, Dewey, and Pop, who is in turn uncled by Scrooge McDuck. Where are all of their fucking parents?? My guess is that Scrooge had all of them murdered so that he can be the legal guardian.

There is no "love" in "deductible"

I have two nieces and for some reason, the only god given uncle rights I've acquired are the ability to spend too much money on birthday and Christmas presents and the uncanny power of baby sitting. I know I have a long way to go in life, but I've been an uncle for at least 12 years and I haven't gotten any of the cool uncle powers yet. I guess i'll have to earn them myself and show up to my Uncle's Thanksgiving party drunk. Wait. That's another uncle perk I don't have. This is bullshit!

The one consolation is that those two fine nieces of mine love spending time with me and bring joy to my heart. I guess at the end of the day, those are all of the powers that I need.

At the very least, the powers of the Pumaman.

Back for the First Time

For centuries, man and wombat alike have pondered on the concept of time travel and it's obvious boons. What will our future be like? How was the world before we knew it? Did the chicken come before the egg? Who ate my left over burrito bowl? But I alone can tell you, without years of study in metaphysics and other made up science lingo that time travel is complete and utter bullshit.

I didn't even need to make any faux-Bruce Willis faces to figure it out

Let's assume that time travel will one day exist. If it does, then me or one of my descendants should come back now and stop me from finishing this post.


Nope. I'm still going. There are only 3 explanations for this obvious phenomenon: Time travel will not exist, I'll never live to see it, or my descendants are useless drains on our future utopian society. You see, for time travel to make sense, the time line has to take into account that it will one day exist and prepare for the fuckery that our future failures will bestow upon it. Most people think that the timeline can be boned by quantum leaping assholes, but for that to happen there would need to be two occurrences of that event: the original version and the David Lynch remix. That's like Diana Ross recording a CD, and then having KE$HA sample it, causing all of Diana Ross's CD's to explode in a big fiery ball visible from space. Actually, bad analogy, forget I said that.

I still advise extreme caution should KE$HA attempt this crime against reality

To better elaborate my point, the possibility of time travel being able to change events that already happened  would cause every era to explode into a chaotic mess of brainternet memes (that's the internet of the future, for you non-believers). People would just randomly pop into existence rocking high top fades and pantaloons. Every week 7 billion people would all have the same Powerball numbers, and white people would no longer exist due to every old black man's desire to reenact Django Unchained en masse. And then in an instant we'd all cease to exist because some dickwad decided to give Adam a box of condoms and/or jizz into the primordial ooze  [OPEN FOR INTERPRETATION]. Any sensible space-time continuum should be able exist on its own and not buckle because some dumbass randomly decided to go to the millennial fair with her magical family heirloom.

Yeah, thanks bitch.

For time travel to exist, it would have to meld seamlessly with our current reality, meaning that me writing this post has either already been governed by someone's time traveling shenanigans or is completely immune to it.  Take Terminator for example. Kyle and the Terminator are sent back in time to bone/kill Sarah Connor respectively. Kyle sacrifices himself to succeed in his goal, becoming  the father of the twice poorly cast John Connor. Kyle didn't go back and alter the timeline by doing the horizontal mamba with Sarah, the timeline was already shaped by the fact that he would eventually do that. Every event leading up to Kyle going back to bone Sarah was governed by the fact that Kyle went back in time to bone Sarah. It gets even worse in T2 when you learn that Skynet was created because the resistance sent the Terminator back to save Sarah and John. Technically, the Terminator time line exists simply due to the fact that some guy in the future invented time travel.

Don't even get me started with all of Tom Baker's bullshit. So yeah, I think i'll go ahead and NOT have my useless grandchildren come visit me from the future, else I end up as Little Wayne's father in law or some shit.

The Outer Limits

The whole point of clothing is acceptance. People wear what they wear because they have to wear something. Sometimes, your work requires you to dress in a certain fashion. Anyone who goes beyond the bare minimum is craving physical acceptance. Men and women. If you are a man, and business casual is your work requirement and you show up in a suit, you're showing off. Women, if skirt or slacks are your bottoms requirement and you wear the shortest skirt you can find, you're showing off.

Why do we show off? To gain the respect and admiration of our peers of course. As men, we like to look good because we want women to be attracted to us, and we want other men to think women will be attracted to us. That's the exact same reason women dress the way they do, to feel like people think they are attractive. But unlike women, men trying to acknowledge that fact are some how equated to eye-raping monsters.

emilywarrenart.deviantart.com

Pictured: Me commuting to work

I don't think anyone should be subject to unwanted attention. The thought that women who dress a certain way ask to be raped is such a uncaring, misogynistic view point. I don't understand how any sane person can think that is a reason for someone to physically assault another human being. Women are raped because there are evil men in the world, not because Bebe uses rulers they stole from 5 year olds to measure their hems. I also have a problem with leering as well. You see someone you think looks good, take a look, then move on. Looking harder wont make her clothes fall off or shrink (despite our best wishes). Everyone should be able to dress how they want when they want (to a certain degree) but you kind of have to face the facts: if your boobs are bouncing around precariously, most people are going to look. But you can't tell me you didn't know you were showing off all of the goodies before you left the house.

I very often see women while commuting to work, pulling and tugging on short skirts and readjusting their loose tops, looking around embarrassed and uncomfortable. I don't think that their clothes decided to randomly engage in battle with physics after they decided to go outside. They knew good and well that their clothes did not fit properly before they stepped away from whatever funhouse mirror they bought in a yard sale.  Women should be able to comfortably wear what they want without worrying about people trying to glare at their partially exposed nether regions, but that's just it: if you yourself are uncomfortable with what you're wearing, maybe wearing it wasn't the best idea.

"I may need to rethink the honey suit."

And that's where my confusion comes in. Not the women who are being leered or harassed for trying to get through the day wearing what they want to wear, but the women who "reluctantly" adhere to the social norm of trying to look attractive but going beyond their own limit of comfort. If you wore heels to work, yet you spend 90% of your day at work not wearing those heels, why in god's name did you wear them? If your skirt is so short that you have to tug it down every time you press a key on your keyboard, perhaps you should invest in a longer skirt, or an extra hand so you don't have to stop typing your TPS reports.

Yeah, I'm going to need that by 3:00 PM

My girlfriend routinely goes through the exercise of finding the right mix of cute and uncomfortable when going through her shoes. WHY? I go to the shoe store and find a pair of shoes and try them on. "Hmm. These shoes look really nice. But I cannot feel my left testicle so I'm going to pass." Not for women. You know the saying "if the shoe fits, wear it"? Apparently not. So my reward for her finding those extra cute pairs of shoes is spending 2 hours with a woman whom already has earned my adoring gaze looking slightly more attractive followed by 3 weeks of rubbing her feet in the aftermath. I'm probably still providing foot rubs from damage done during her Senior prom.

Ladies, is it really worth the discomfort to only look slightly more attractive? There are various ways to make yourself look more attractive and you don't have to be physically or mentally uncomfortable to do so.

Trust me. Most of us can't even tell the difference.