Safe as Houses against those Zombies

By now I really hope that I don’t need to tell you about my weird love of the un-dead. You know like vampires, zombies, revenants, ghouls, the usual sort of stuff for a girlie to be fascinated with.


It isn’t a secret that when the big ‘awakening’ happens I’m going to re-train for a career in necromancy. Realistically, the hours and pay will be better and I wouldn’t have to get up so early in the morning, thus reducing childcare costs. Bonus!

When I heard of the competition run by http://zombiesafehouse.wordpress.com/ I knew that I had to find out more. Amazingly I found out about it via ‘The Economist’ (who says I read trashy stuff eh?) Anyway, Zombie Safe House hosts a competition to design, well, a zombie proof house.

Cool!

I won’t lie to you, it is something that has crossed my mind, you know, survival and that, learning how to make arrows to shoot your undead friends and family, whether or not a zombie virus would affect your pets or could I train my dog to ward off attacks? (Mira Grant's Feed or Max Brooks' World War Z) Things like, how long would it be until electricity ran out & I couldn’t charge my phone…… No idea who I'd call anyway.

I was going to say that the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse is virtually non-existent, but is it really so hard to believe that something, somewhere could threaten the global population?

Lets face it many people completely pooed their pants (as my son would say) over Swine Flu and Avian Flu. However I’m meaning things like global warming, an asteroid hitting the planet, or the possibility of the infamous La Palma Tsunami, you know the sort of thing. Whether that involves Gwyneth Paltrow sneezing or Simon Pegg getting rid of his record collection, who can tell?

Major events that would wipe out a huge chunk of the worlds population that we secretly wouldn’t mind cause it would save us all going into work on Monday and bring about a new, more exciting lifestyle. (If your name is Chuck Norris)

I realise that architects could probably utilise their time a bit better than designing homes for a zombie apocalypse competition but lets be honest, surely architects cant be as dull as accountants? Luckily, there are a few mildly dysfunctional people out there who are looking out for us and designing houses and homes so that when the proverbial hits the fan, we can all be smiley happy people.

But please, can someone make sure that I lift my inhaler so that I can run away from the hoards quicker?

Ta.

Having an Old Friend for Dinner

We all know that I love a bit of urban fantasy fiction. A bit of vampires, werewolves, witches and necromancers, shapeshifters, elves, fairies and zombies. Please note the use of the word 'fiction'.

This brings me nicely (or gruesomely) onto THE bizarre story of last week. The man in Florida who was shot dead whilst eating another man's face off..... Rudy Eugene, for some strange reason, pulled Ronald Poppo out of the shade, beat him up and was in the process of eating the last remaining 25% of the 65yr old's face when police got to him. After failing to stop munching, the police finally shot him.

Then we had the story of Canadian police looking for Luka Rocco Magnotta a 29 yr old self confessed bi-sexual porn actor who has done lots of posting. This included posting body parts to Canada's Conservative Party Headquarters, posting a video, imaginatively titled '1 lunatic, 1 ice pick' where he actually filmed the murder and posting some random blogs on how to kill folk and get away with it. Charming eh?

Then..... We had the story of the man in New Jersey who was intent on self-harming, well himself obviously. When the police broke in to his house to prevent him doing any damage to himself, he ended up throwing his intestines at them. Definitely a bad day at the office I'd say.

Want more? In Baltimore, Maryland, student Alexander Kinyua was arrested for killing and eating the brains and heart of his flat mate, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie. The motive is still unknown.

This ultimately leads to the whole 'zombie apocalypse' headlines appearing in the news followed very closely by the jokes, fake/comedy twitter accounts and hash-tags. I could blame the whole social media thing and say that it has effectively wiped out the traditional period of mourning and shock at something really tragic happening. Everything happens so much faster today than even 10 years ago. It could also be said that anonymity on the likes of twitter and Facebook can add to even darker and more bad taste jokes being aired.

It was only when reading through this blog, that I realised I am totally guilty of the same thing. I can't help it, it's my main defence mechanism in dealing with things that are too horrible to contemplate, especially when they are true and real. I've relayed 4 gruesome stories and thrown in a bit of ironic humour. After all these cannibal jokes are in bad taste (10 points if you got the really awful joke there).

Surely this cant be the future of entertainment? Trolling the news for items of bad taste in which to joke about makes us the zombies, we become immune to humanity and feed on the pain of others. The way I see it is gallows humour is one thing but looking for unfortunate or tragic events to poke fun at isn't humour at all. I admit comedy is about knowing where that line is and dancing across it every so often, but it is a very hard thing to do without offending someone, somewhere.

But for now, there is no zombie apocalypse. Just some disturbed people out there with no one in a position to help them or care for them and no safety net for mentally ill outpatients, unfortunately this could mean that a whole load more people get killed while the world works out what to do with those who are mentally unstable.

In the meantime though, I recommend that you read 'World War Z' and 'Feed' just for some ideas on how to survive.......just in case the CDC are wrong.

Zombies, Run! No Shaun of The Dead

How seriously boring is getting fit? In my opinion it really should be fun and there is no way I'm a gym bunny. Now, this is the case for a few reasons and not just pure, unadulterated laziness.

I have asthma, which doesn't bode well for jumping about daft in shorts and a t shirt while using an inhaler, hell, if the proverbial psycho was after me with a machete, I'd have to stand and fight. Super hero I ain't.

The second reason for not being a gym bunny, is time. If I had time and the lungs to run about daft with my inhaler on a string round my neck, you would notice that I'm way to old for those kind of shenanigans anyway. I mean really!

So, in order to try to motivate myself I thought I'd buy 'Zombies, Run' from the App Store for my iPhone.

That means that there must be something about this app that makes me think it'll get me off my arse and do something to keep me fit?

The way i see it is, well, apart from the obvious, like anything bad happening to my loved ones, the idea of zombies scares the crap out of me. Plain and simple, the idea of them scares the bejeezus out of me.

You can negotiate with a person, you can try to reason with them, but not with a zombie. They just want to eat you and nothing short of being a good shot to their head is going to stop that happening. Jeez, you have to read 'Feed' by Mira Grant or 'World War Z' and you'll see exactly where I'm coming from.

So, yeah, this app covers both, who cool is that? Like a computer game you can outrun zombies in a post apocalyptic outpost/camp type place to get supplies to the other survivors but it combines a fitness element too. You see you actually have to run, walk or cycle, depending on your fitness level in order to get the supplies like ammunition, batteries, medicine and spare parts. (By the way, I'll ignore any comments of pink tents and 'carry on' films).

But this app isn't just running and a computer game with no integration, no! All the blurb about the game/fitness app suggests that it will encourage gamers to increase their fitness or provide runners/cyclists a more fun way to train.

You want to know if I bought it don't you? Well I did, after all the proof of the pudding and all that.....

I'll let you know how I go when I'm being chased by zombies and that is the important bit, cause there is no point in spending a fiver if the thing is worse than useless.