What Do You Mean, You Unleashed A Plague Of The Undead?

"Oh no! The dead have risen and they're voting Republican!" ~  Lisa Simpson

"To eat, or not to eat brains, that is the question." ~ Zombie Shakespeare

"Fourteen score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all zombies are entitled to brains." ~ Zombie Lincoln, the Second Gettysburg Address

"Braaaaaaaiiiiinssss!" ~ Malcolm Porter, Rapid City zombie district commander, January 4th, 2021

And so we return once more to the genre of the brain eating slow-witted undead today (no, not the cast of Dancing With The Stars). The zombie. As I've shown you before, the zombie is a strange beast in the horror genre, muttering incoherently (mostly about brains) and shuffling about in large numbers in a post-apocalyptic world, while a small group of humans race to prevent themselves from being the next blue plate special at a zombie smorgasbord.

Okay. Let's say the impossible has happened. You wake up, find yourself in a world where most everyone around you has become a zombie. They're out for brains (if you're still a living breathing person, they'll be after yours, and no, it doesn't matter if you two used to play golf together). So they'll be out for you. I can't imagine that being torn apart by a horde of zombies will be a pleasant death.

What kind of world will you be facing? Well, obviously a bad one. Zombies will be the majority, and they'll get themselves organized. They might even run for elected office.

Of course, that doesn't count out the enemies of the past rising up from the grave and causing their own problems in the world, does it?

 What kind of world will our zombie counterparts carve out for themselves? When they're not carving out the inner organs of the Ludlows down the street (sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow, but you did have it coming; the pink flamingoes on the lawn really are tacky).

Zombies will, eventually, want to experience some form of culture. So inevitably there will come the rise of zombie movies. Such as Indiana Jones And The Feast Of Brains.

Obviously this idea would have to be taken out by surviving humans post haste. No more of that, thank you very much....

We can't forget the comic books that will rise up in the new zombie order....

Zombie children must be entertained too....

And tween zombies will want their Bieber for some reason. Wonderful. Is it too much to ask for a post-apocalyptic world that doesn't feature the Biebertwit?

Is there room for romance in the lives of zombies?

Well, the zombies do like their pin-up zombie girls....

And there'll also be the zombie pet problem to cope with.

Obviously religious rites will take on a whole new meaning. Communion, for instance...

We can hope it doesn't happen. We can hope that the zombiepocalypse that's foretold in sci-fi and horror never comes to pass. If it does, however, I suggest some things. First, get used to shooting zombies who used to be people. Yes, I know it goes against your nature to shoot your neighbour (at least it should), but Zombie Phil doesn't share your hesitation, and only wants to feast on your grey matter. And your intestines. Your heart too. So suck it up and start shooting. Aim for the head while you're at it. Second, if you've got a weak stomach and are sickened when you see blood, you might as well just give up and cover yourself with barbecue and honey sauce. A patrol of zombies will be along shortly to finish you off. Because if you do have a weak stomach, you're not going to last long in Zombie World.

Lastly... if zombies are chasing you, make sure the guy running with you is slower then you are.

Hey, it's about self preservation!

Cataclysm

Palin Wins Landslide Victory And White House; Vows New Era In White House

Washington, D.C. (AP) ~ Republican Presidential candidate Sarah Palin shocked the country and the world by winning the 2012 Presidential election, soundly defeating President Obama in the popular vote and the electoral college yesterday. In an election campaign that has polarized the United States, the one time outsider took the mantle of the Presidency despite the predictions of pundits and pollsters, who had her well back of the popular Democrat. Supporters of the President-elect across the nation came out in droves, voting and gathering in rallies. Palin herself was with her husband and children in Wasilla, Alaska, watching the returns through the evening. She addressed a gathering of supporters in her home town after media outlets began to call the election in her favour.

"Gosh, golly, I feel good," the President-elect started. "We went out there and we got the vote out and we rigged the election and we came out on top, you betcha! Now I'm the President! Wooo! You know, all those people who are in disbelief right now, God love 'em, well, they'll just have to get used to hearing those three magic words: President Sarah Palin. And in my first order of business, I'm going to have Levi Johnston arrested and thrown into Guantanamo for fifty years. Knock my daughter up, will he? Not when the Mama Grizzly is running things! Then I'm going to drop some nukes on Moscow and China and Paris and Iran and Syria, show 'em who's boss, God bless 'em. Then I'm going to have Congress disbanded. Then I'm going to have myself named Benevolent Supreme Empress of the United Sta... wait, my staff is saying something to me, you betcha... what do you mean, I can't tell them that yet?"

Scared you, didn't I?

Don't worry, it didn't happen.

Yet.


And with luck, it never will.

Does that prospect rate as a cataclysm? Of course it does. Which was a nice way to dovetail into the subject for today: disasters.

Awhile back I watched a documentary on Yosemite. It featured climbers on El Capitan, making their way up the rock face of the granite monolith. El Cap is a 3000 foot tall monolith of granite, its familiar sheer rock face rising up above the valley floor in Yosemite National Park. It's a dream climb for mountaineers... and a nightmare for anyone with a fear of heights.

El Capitan

Halfway up is a slab of granite called the Texas Flake. It's a block that's slowly detaching from the main face due to the forces of erosion. Climbers use it as one of the routes up the face, hoping that this isn't the day that the block gives way. If it does, well... they're screwed.

There was footage in the documentary of a similar slab of rock elsewhere in the Yosemite valley. In 1996, 75000 tons of granite fell over 2000 feet from Glacier Point. It reached a terminal speed of 250 miles an hour before crashing into the valley below. One person was killed, more were injured, damage was done to some buildings below the crash zone. Dust was kicked up by the compression of air beneath the falling rock. The air blast from the crash toppled over a thousand trees.

Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point

Glacier Point, Yosemite

Someday the Texas Flake will do the same thing. And like I said, if anyone happens to be climbing that day, they're screwed.

at the top of the Texas Flake

The documentary reminded me of a story I'd first read years ago, and yet another documentary on the subject itself. In 1958, an earthquake triggered a rockslide into Lituya Bay, Alaska. The wave generated by the crashing of the rockslide into the bay scoured the bay up to a height of 1720 feet. That's far more then what the typical (and catastrophic) tsunami generated by an undersea quake is capable of alone.

Lituya Bay

Geologists have been looking at this issue since the Lituya incident, researching where other problem spots in the world might be that could generate what they call megatsunamis. Hawaii is one spot, where evidence on the ocean floor shows massive pieces of the island that have broken off in ancient times. The Canary Islands are another; a section of one of the islands will one day slide into the sea, triggering a wave that will cross the ocean and devastate the American coast from Florida to Massachusetts. And there are places where the continental shelf itself is unstable, and the backwash of an undersea landslide would wash back on the land behind it. The West Coast of North America is prime for this sort of thing.

Why bring this up?

In future writings, I've got an idea for an opening to a novel, which I'd have to do some serious consultation with geologists about, to get it right. In short? The complete annihilation of Los Angeles. Granted, it helps that I don't like Los Angeles, and always wanted to destroy it in a book, so...

Come on, would you really miss it?

You wouldn't miss this nitwit, would you?

And the same goes for these two wastes of oxygen....

Aside from anyone living in Los Angeles itself, of course, who might object to being the subject of fictional massive casualties as the opening of a book, who would really miss it?

I think the angle I'd take with that book would be two fold: how does a nation deal with the destruction of an entire city and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people? And what kind of adversary would take advantage of that situation?

Disaster itself draws us in. When we've seen footage of the 2004 tsunami or Hurricane Katrina, we've been horrified. Earthquake, flood, or tornado damage shock us. A volcanic eruption in one part of the world can have an effect thousands of miles away. It's the sort of thing we can't look away from.

And whereever there's a disaster, Anderson Cooper will be there, seemingly before the rescuers themselves, looking grim. It's in his contract, don't you know?

Revenge Of The Inappropriate Ringtone

Well, I had such a time writing the last installment that of course there had to be more. No doubt this may become an ongoing feature.

Some days ago I heard the trilling ringtone of a cell phone, with an abomination as the person's preferred ring tone. It was, unfortunately, this infestation.

That song, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most irritating songs of the last fifty years. And now that you've clicked on it, it's stuck in your heads for the next few hours.

So, let's continue on with the theme of inappropriate ringtones that we left off with yesterday.

Let's say you're a defendant in a trial (innocent until proven guilty, except in Texas). Or, for that matter, you're a lawyer or judge. Either way, this tune might not be a good choice for your ringtone.

For that matter, if you're a straight woman or gay man, and securely comfortable in your preferences, you might want to avoid using Katy Perry's breakthrough as your personal ringtone. Your guy might look at you strangely.

Visiting someone whose family member was killed by the Manson gang? Don't have helter skelter as your ringtone.

Going back to my notion of bad ring tones for therapists from yesterday, there's this classic that ought to be avoided. Your patients will thank you for not having that start to sound when they're on the couch in your office. They don't need to hear about maniacs, thank you very much.

What if your therapy is directed towards a group of people with fear of flying? Obviously, this Chantal Kreviazuk tune is not an option for your  personal ringtone. Neither is Tom Petty's opus. The title alone will get them thinking about falling out of planes. And forget this one too.

Are you a white guy? Forget using rap for your ringtone. Just forget it. You look supremely silly. If you do, well, I'm gonna knock you out.

Let's say you're the head of the DEA. Or a politician known for being strictly anti-drugs. There's no excuse for using Hendrix or this stoner classic for your ringtone. It'll send all the wrong messages.

In Alcoholics Anonymous? Well, as infectious and fun as this song is, you can't use it for your ringtone.

Attending your mother in law's funeral? Delete this song  from your ringtone. That's the last thing you want interrupting the funeral. Your spouse will want to kill you.

Let's say you're in the military. Well, you might like John Lennon, but these sentiments  might not go over well at work, so avoid using it as a ringtone.

On trial for arson? Got a taste for being a firebug? Well, you don't want to incriminate yourself, so this is out of the question. So is this.

Attending the Louvre? Want to make an impression that you're impressed by the culture and the history? Want to avoid being seen as a heathen? You might want to avoid having Shania saying she's not impressed as your ringtone while standing in front of the Mona Lisa. The French will not like you for it.

Are you a bomb squad member? You might want to avoid using this Britney Spears song as your personal ringtone. After all, Oops is a word that we don't like hearing coming from a bomb squad technician, so....

In fact, if you use any of her music as a ringtone, I'm sending the hounds after you.

Live in Vancouver? London? No doubt you're used to the rain. Well, veryone else lives with it too. And they hate it. So, for your own sake, avoid using this Amanda Marshall song  for your ringtone. You might get slugged by someone sick and tired of rain for the twentieth straight day.

Let's say that you're a Bond Girl. You've managed to survive until the end of the film. Well, after James ditches you, you really ought to refrain from using this Carly Simon classic as your ringtone. Unless your future boyfriend or husband is a spy, it's going to get to him. He'll always know that the best sex you ever had was with that suave British agent you spent a couple weeks with, running around the world in exotic places and battling supervillains, Tea Party leaders, and Alaskan mama bears (yes, they're all the same person) in hollowed out volcanoes.

Finally, I submit to you this future scenario. It's the year 2029. A dystopian, dark future for one side. A glorious future for the other. In Washington, D.C., President Chelsea Clinton resides in the White House, her heart heavy. Her nation has just fought and lost a war with Canada. It's a war started when her daddy, still a skirt chaser in his wheelchair, pinched the bottom of Governor General Avril Lavigne three years ago.

Canadian troops occupy every state capital. The Canadian Prime Minister (yours truly, by the way) sits smugly at her desk in the Oval Office, victory in his grasp. She wonders how a country with a population tenth the size of her own could defeat her military so soundly. Now she must sign a negotiated peace, signing over Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and New England to become Canadian territory. Her Republican arch rival, Senator Bristol Palin, is somewhere cackling with glee.

Right about now would be a really bad time for her cell phone to go off. Even worse if her ringtone is Blame Canada.

Reality Bites

In another sign of the decline of western civilization, a reality show mouth breathing bottom feeder calling itself Snooki released a novel in recent days. That is, she and her ghost writer released the book. Let's face it, she doesn't appear bright enough to even approach grade one literacy, so you know she needed help writing the book.

For those of you lucky enough not to know, Snooki is a cast member of The Jersey Shore, a so called reality show in the tradition of The Hills, yet another show about vacant headed idiots living together Once upon a time, MTV used to play music videos. Now it runs reality shows. I've only seen brief clips, but what I've seen leads me to shake my head in dismay. This dreck is what passes for entertainment?

This bubble headed moron is Snooki herself.

The other day, Ellen DeGeneres read a passage from the book on her show. Apparently the passage she read (how'd she do that without breaking out into laughter?) featured a naked guy with a strategically placed cloth... that started to move.

Well, from the brief clips I've seen, I would suggest that the reason the cloth started to move is simple: pubic hair lice. These wastes of oxygen on that show seem to fit that part.

I have, however, had the distinct pleasure of seeing the entire Jersey Shore cast mercilessly skewered. South Park did a tremendous job of that this season, writing Jerseyites as obnoxious louts, and Snooki herself as an animal in rut, shagging anything that crossed her path. I think that latter notion is spot on, by the way.

What is it about reality television that makes it infest the airwaves? For years now, we've been subjected to show after show of d-list celebrities (emphasis on d-list) in rehab or living together under one roof (Celebrity Rehab or The Surreal Life). We've seen shows like Survivor, Big Brother, and the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchise hog airtime. There are shows about large families with cameras in the faces of little children all the time while parents gradually start sniping at each other (balding Gosselin and angry Gosselin, I'm talking about you).

And it never ends. Shows about bridezillas, baby mommas, teen mothers, non celebrity interventions, bounty hunters, d-listers desperately trying to salvage their careers (Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Hasselhoff, I'm talking about you prats, even if one of you bit the dust). Shows about people who are famous merely for being famous (the Hiltons, the Lohans, the Kardashians)... let's face it, this one is surely a plague on all humanity.

There are signs of hope. After all, Sarah Palin's reality show (who launches a presidential campaign in a reality show?) hasn't been picked up for a second season, and so much the better. She'll just have to launch Phase One of Operation Empress Sarah, Supreme Majestrix Of The Americas another way.

I even count the so called competition shows that never seem to end and clutter up the air waves. Dancing With The (Has Been) Stars. America's Got Talent. So You Think You Can Dance. And the worst of them all? American Idol and its various counterparts.

How many of these so called Idol winners can you name? Exactly. The only one who might have a lasting career is the one who went right into country music instead of sticking to the tried and true Idol formula.

Idol panders to that impulse so many people have to become famous. From my point of view though, the music acts who last, who make an impact, are the ones who do the work themselves, who pay their dues, who rise to the top based on their own talents.

Idol contestants, on the other hand, fit into the nice and neat package set up by studio producers who drop interest in them after the first album, thus resigning them to the oblivion they came from. That's not how you make a mark in the music world.

Reality shows are a pestilence. A plague. Indeed, I'll leave you with this thought. Take the story of Exodus. Had ancient Egypt been equipped with televisions, there would have been no need for plagues of locusts, bloody rivers, frogs, fires, or death. God could have inflicted a plague of reality shows on Egyptian airwaves. The Pharoah would have been summoning Moses to his palace within twenty four hours.

"Moses, buddy! Listen, you can take all of your people, leave Egypt. You're free now. Just tell that god of yours to please stop airing Goshen Idol and Giza's Got Talent and The Alexandria Shore. It's driving our people out of our minds! Come on, Moses. I did that favour for you, remember?"