Zombie Me

I’ve been a big fan of No More Kings from the moment I heard Sweep the Leg.  Even bigger once I’d seen them live and listened to the entire first album.  Then bigger still after getting my copy of their second album and listening through that.  Both albums are always on my MP3 player and I love every song.  That’s pretty rare, to love every song by a band.  Even some of the “best bands in the world” like U2 or The Rolling Stones have a few songs I can’t tolerate.  But No More Kings has joined Better Than Ezra and Seven Mary Three in the short list of “can do no wrong” for me.

They don’t have a new album out (though I’m hoping for one), I haven’t seen them live recently, nor do they appear to be coming to town anytime soon.  So why am I talking about them?

Because it’s Zombie Wednesday here at Aim for the Head, I didn’t have any other zombie news to post, and I love this song (not the video so much, it’s not done by the band, but it lets me hear the song, so it has that going for it):

All of their stuff, in my opinion, is worth a listen.  Many of his songs are just awesome as I’ve written about before.  And for just $16 you can get both albums.

The Walking Dead: Season 1

A couple weeks ago, the season finale of AMC’s The Walking Dead aired.

Overall, I am very pleased with it.  Who am I kidding?  This was just awesome!  It is the epitome of everything I love about the zombie genre.

First off, it isn’t about the zombies.  Frankly, I hate movies or shows where people try to protect the zombies (or love them) or where the undead are just not living but go around talking and stuff.  Here, zombies are used the way I feel they are best used, as a setting.

The only real complaint that I have about the show is a similar complaint I seem to have with many movies and TV shows these days: poor communication of time passage.  When you sharply cut from one scene to the next, my brain assumes that either these events are happening at the same time, in succession or that one is shortly after the one preceding it.  If you have a character say, “I’ll go do this.” and then sharp cut to a scene taking place in the same setting as the previous one and the guy who said he was leaving is still there, my brain assumes he has not left yet.  The Walking Dead did this once only it was supposed to be that the guy had gone and come back and a couple of hours had passed.

That issue aside, The Walking Dead on AMC was just fantastic.  I look forward to owning this on DVD or Blu-Ray, and to seeing season two next fall.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

The Nightmare is nearly over

WARNING: This post is going to contain spoilers for both Red Dead Redemption and the Undead Nightmare DLC.  Continue at your own risk…

I really enjoyed playing Red Dead Redemption.  The world was really well crafted, and the story of the game was top notch.  I had issues with the game play, or more specifically the game controls, a few times, but it was minor complaints that were far overshadowed by the awesomeness of the rest.  The game even threw me for a loop when (and I’ve already warned you about spoilers, but here is a second warning – stop reading if you don’t want spoilers … ) John Marston died saving his family and then the game picked up a few years later with you playing his son.  One of the biggest complaints I heard about the game from many people is that they didn’t want to play the son, they wanted to keep playing John.  For me, however, it made playing John special.  I can only be him for the duration of the game.  I can’t play him in multi-player, and I can’t play him in the sandbox world that extends after the story is done.  Despite Jack Marston having a few annoying phrases he seems to repeat endlessly, I don’t mind playing as Jack, trying to carry on his father’s name and keep it clean to honor his memory.

Then along comes Undead Nightmare.  This DLC is single player and it puts you back into John Marston.  The story is set after John has gone home to be with his family, but before the government men have him killed.  A zombie plague has fallen across the land, his wife and son have both been bitten and turned, and John sets off to find a cure.  Much like the original game, the story here is extremely well done.  You meet most of the characters from the original game in this new twisted reality and it just works (unless you are the sort of person who simply cannot stand to have zombies in your westerns).  Once you complete the story and set everything back right, John is back where he needs to be to complete the story, as if this whole thing were a true nightmare and it never happened… well, almost.  Because they put in challenges that you might not complete before finishing the story, they decided to do like the original game and allow you to continue playing in the sandbox.  You get a cut scene that explains how a few years later, someone triggers the undead plague again and John Marston rises from the grave, retaining his soul because of a thing you did during the original nightmare.  This is where the game loses me…

In pretty much all my forays into things dealing with the undead, one bit remains constant: I do not want to be a zombie.  As much as I love zombies as a setting and zombies as monsters, I despise zombies as main characters.  And while I found Jack’s whining in the original game to be irritating, Zombie John’s groaning and other noises make me want to play with the sound off.  I hate it.  I really, really hate it.  Zombie John practically ruins the game for me.  I still want to play, do the challenges and whatnot, but I’d really prefer to not do it as a member of the undead.

Anyway, unlike the original game, which I still mess around with now and then, once I’m done with the last couple challenges I doubt I’ll ever fire up single player Undead Nightmare again.  Multi-player, on the other hand… I might be playing this forever…

Dead Set

Dead SetSometimes when you buy stuff on Amazon, they give you some free money to use on their Video on Demand service.  Normally, I might not use it, but I managed to sock away enough of these at one time (the free money always has an expiration date) and used it to watch 2008’s Dead Set in the only way legal in the US.

Dead Set is a zombie horror mini-series that was produced for the BBC in England.  Beginning on eviction night of the popular Big Brother TV show, the outbreak happens and quickly spreads, leaving only scattered people and those safely locked inside the Big Brother house as survivors.  It is two and a half hours of fast paced zombie action that is a perfect juxtaposition to The Walking Dead currently airing on AMC.

I simply cannot recommend this series enough.  It was fantastic, although Romero purists might hate the faster moving zombies.  Absolutely worth seeing for any zombie fan.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it already.

A Week of Tweets on 2010-11-14

  • When you hear rumors of layoffs, is it poor form to ping people you know to find out if a) it's true and b) they got hit? #
  • There is nothing wrong with being wrong. You make it wrong by pretending you aren't. #
  • This is the beginning of the end of the second half of the fourth quarter of the middle. Now if I can just figure out "of what?" I'll be ok. #
  • I wish people would stop linking that Cracked article about why a zombie apocalypse can't happen. It has so many flaws… #
  • Good bye, Mr. De Laurentiis. You made so many films I love. Thank you. Rest in peace. #
  • 7483. Still way behind, but it feels great to finally have my congestion cleared and to be writing again. #nanowrimo #
  • Friday is upon us! Rejoice! #
  • Rejoice? But I have joiced yet! I am disgruntled. I'm not sure how I got gruntled in the first place, but now must regruntle. #
  • Why am I awake at 2:50am on a Sunday? #

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A Week of Tweets on 2010-10-31

  • Yippee Ki-Yay, Mr. Falcon. #
  • I'm sitting at work, doing my job, but thinking about getting home to play Minecraft. So addicting. #
  • I week remains until NaNoWriMo… need to get my shit together… #
  • @Scopique As a F2P it means I'll actually try it. in reply to Scopique #
  • @Critus Hopefully not an omen. in reply to Critus #
  • For the first time in weeks I'm not itching to get home and play Minecraft… RDR: Undead Nightmare is out! #
  • How many times do I have to turn of Lexulous' turn email notification off before it stops sending me emails? I'm over 20 so far… #
  • @Krystalle I'm still Minecrafting, and waiting for the Halloween update. Dead Rising 2, Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare DLC… in reply to Krystalle #
  • @Critus Don't know what you are talking about… *goes back to playing Left 4 Dead 2* in reply to Critus #
  • @lexulous They come from a facebookappmail.com account, but are signed "The Lexulous Team". There is a link to disable emails, they are. in reply to lexulous #
  • Nice! http://sears.com/Zombies #
  • @sera_brennan Congrats on the new job! #
  • Dumping an HTML formated report into a spreadsheet is not a data export. What it is is useless! #
  • Dragon*Con needs to set up a room with this. http://artemis.eochu.com/ #
  • I finally know what I'm doing if I win the lottery. http://www.castle-forsale.com/ #
  • @Krystalle That page is distracting me today. I keep taking breaks from work to look at the photos and daydream… in reply to Krystalle #
  • @jehuthehunt That's much better than the flying car with the folding wings. in reply to jehuthehunt #
  • Due Date screening tonight. (@ Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Stadium 16 Theatre) http://4sq.com/3eNDxk #
  • After yesterday's drooling over that castle, from now on I will refer to the Lottery as "Castle Money". #
  • I'm thinking of leaving my NaNoWriMo region not because I moved but because at some point they decided to call us "Pandas". #
  • Run Like Hell, finished, 53 minutes flat. (@ Oakland Cemetery w/ 9 others) http://4sq.com/4Ack5R #
  • Google, once again you punish me for keeping a clean inbox. Just because I always delete them does not make them junk. Please stop. #
  • Happy Halloween! #

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Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse

Atlanta Zombie ApocalypseIn recent years I’ve been reluctant to go to haunted houses because, frankly, most of them suck. The majority of them have “no contact” policies, and they constantly remind you that you will not be touched. So you wander through a bunch of scenes inspired by horror films and every once in a while someone will jump out and try to scare you, predictably at certain corners. I’ve enjoyed the Netherworld Haunted House before for its design and artistry, but since it is so popular the trip through is usually like driving in rush hour traffic. Lots of stop and go movement, and sadly you get lots of people pulling out cell phones to text or use as a flashlight.

This year, however, I went to the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse.  It was great.

The first thing I liked about this place is that they broke the line up into groups of around eight to twelve people.  We waited in lanes for our group’s turn to go.  Once it was your group’s turn, you got pulled ahead and the situation was explained.  The military has been fighting the undead for days and are losing.  Survivors are being rounded up and escorted to a safe zone.  Your group will have two escorts, one in front and one bringing up the rear.  They don’t have enough guns to give you any, but they promise to protect you.  You get a quick run down of safety procedures and then you are off.

The path takes you through a couple buildings and an outdoor expanse (where you have to jog/run to keep up as it is dangerous out there) and back through a couple more buildings.  The design of this haunted house, with the military escorts, actually solves one my major issues with haunted houses: no contact.  Yes, the zombies still don’t touch you, but here it is plausibly explained by your military escorts and other random people shooting the zombies.  They still jump out at you, and they can still get a rise out of you, but then they are put down before they can actually get you.

In my opinion, the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse is worth the price of admission ($20).  Well, the haunted house part anyway… the zombie shoot where you get to shoot paint balls at zombies was kinda lame.  $10 for 20 paint balls to shoot at guys wearing protective head gear, eh… lame.  But go for the haunted house.  Since this in their first year, if they return, I can only see it getting better.

A Week of Tweets on 2010-10-17

  • It is a b e a u tiful day. #
  • Mellow Mushroom for pizza for my birthday. Sweet! #
  • Got 4800 Microsoft Points for my birthday… what should I spend them on? #
  • http://www.cubo.cc/creepygirl/ #
  • The wife makes good chili. #
  • @BenRacicot Due to a typo and a budget incapable of reprinting, the 4th of July will be held on the 5th next year. in reply to BenRacicot #
  • Work day is done… only made three infinite loops today. Hooray for test environments! #
  • How fast? I'll get it done so fast that I'll have to take a short break to make sure my parents dance at the Enchantment Under the Sea. #
  • Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse tonight! It approaches me slowly, just like a horde of Romero zombies… #
  • I'm at Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse (4215 Thurman Rd, Mistflower Rd, Conley). http://4sq.com/a8CKys #

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