A rose by any other name

The police call it bath salts. The girlfriend calls it voodoo. The internet calls it the zombie apocalypse. Media calls is cannibalism. No matter the name one thing is clear, all is not well in the state of Florida.

Now the third case of cannibalism in Florida, not counting the initial outbreak. The media is never `100% clear about these things and the only way we ever know something for sure is by experiencing it for ourselves. But the case of Charles Baker, looks just a little bit too much like a slow transformation to me.

No matter what it's called, bath salts, cocaine induced psychosis, zombie virus. No matter what the reason, synthetic drugs, aggressive mindset combined with heavy drugs, voodoo, re-animation. The fact is, there is a plague in Florida and it's spreading. In just three weeks since Rudy Eugene ate the face of Ronald Poppo, there have been three other incidents of cannibalism in Florida, the latest with Charles Baker eating part of Jeffery Blakes' arm before being tazed and shot with a stun gun multiple times before finally being taken down with physical force. It may not be the T-virus and they may not be the walking dead but whatever is happening down south is definitely not a freak accident and any drug that can turn a person into an extremely violent cannibal immune to pain is a zombie drug.

Those in the Florida area be exceedingly careful. Obviously things are being hidden here and there is a big puzzle piece missing. While it is possible this is all due to drugs or unrelated events, we know the media is not trust worthy when it comes to giving the whole truth.

On something a little closer to home, and a little more old news. Independent film makers in Edmonton are excited over our own possible zombie invasion. Good old DEdmonton is finally putting funds toward indy film in the city. This means more jobs for artists who are trained here, want to live here, but have to go to Vancouver or Toronto to get work. Over the past few years Edmonton has seen the largest EXPORT of educated youth in Canada. Most of these youth have been artists. All across the country the same story, went to Grant MacEwan or U of A but there's no jobs in Edmonton, Alberta doesn't support the arts. Well I won't say this is a cure all but it definitely helps take a step in the right direction. Edmonton has been known for it's heavy horror-cult community and now the city is finally standing proud behind the name DEdmonton instead of trying to shove it under the carpet. So on the off chance any Edmonton artists are reading this but haven't heard about the new funding, now might be the time to watch how things are going and if you're lucky grab a piece of the pie.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Confirmed Class 1, Miami, USA

It's all over the news, probably the most public attack of this kind we've seen in a long time. First thing of note here is that reports are all over the place. Some reports say both men were naked, some say multiple officers were on site, no one agrees where the bullets actually hit on the body, different accounts on what the two men were doing prior to one of them eating the other's face. Be here's what we know for sure:

Police in Miami found a naked man crewing on another man's face. Police verbaling warned the man to which he responded with "growling" and continued eating. Police shot the man once, he didn't even seem to notice. Police continued to fire until the man died. Those are the facts.

Now what else is interesting? The wounded man was "eventually taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital" but the videos that have been leaked through the internet show paramedics completely avoiding the wounded man well after the attacker has been killed.

Not too odd that police have taken all recording and surveillance devices in the area but only certain videos of the event are still being allowed to be posted or kept online. Also both men are claimed to be homeless and their identities are not being released. The names of the paramedics and other onsite staff are also being withheld.

Finally, police are trying to say this is a fairly normal case when it obviously is not. Saying the naked man was suffering from "cocaine psychosis" and they face cases like this all the time where LCD is claimed to the cause.

I could find no further evidence of what became of the man who had been attacked.

UPDATE: the man attacked is currently in hospital police say and the community is raising funds to rebuild his face. But more importantly there were no drugs found in the attackers system besides marijuana. Last I checked marijuana doesn't turn normal people into pain-immune cannibals. Something else is definitely going on.

Details Breakdown-
Location: Miami, USA
Time: May 26, 2012
Infected: 2
Response: Local
Media Coverage: High but contained

My suggestion: To me this appears very clearly to be an attack that got public to widely and too quickly so cocaine and LCD are a quick cover-up. If you live in the Miami area be extremely cautious.  If this is truly a cover of some sort than similar events have definitely occurred before and may well again.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate,Mike D.

Space Zombies part 6

In the future mankind has finally come to peace with itself, now being called the Alliance. Many other alien races have been found and they all have a sort of co-existence that is led by a counsel of representatives from the most influential races. However all cannot remain peaceful forever. A robot race known as Geth wage war on all bio-organic life, led by God-machines known as Reavers. This is the world of Mass Effect.

The Geth use a particularly nasty weapon against the organic species: their own dead. The Geth capture creatures and impale them on large alien spikes dubbed "Dragon's Teeth" due to the Dragon's Teeth Jason sows in the ground to produce skeletons. These Dragon's Teeth are Reaver technology which converts all the organic material in the body to cybernetic material. The body is then reanimated with an electric charge and set loose to kill all organic life.

The husks have no intelligence, no fear, no emotion of any kind unless counting the look of frozen pain and horror on the face of the person they once were. They cannot use weapons that are not built into their bodies, husks created from different races have different abilities but all have the same simple minded, single goal, destruction of the nearest living creature.

Any attempts to domesticate or revive husks has ended in horrific failure and lose of life.
Cause: Alien Technology
Undead: Yes
Body: Humanoid (augmented)
Freewill: No
Infectious: No
Fear: No

Well survivor I present to you another true space zombie. The husks are mindless killers with no intelligence or motives. As a bonus they are even undead, although a futuristic version of such. They only thing that could make these sad creatures more zombie-like is if they were infectious. And as Mass Effect shows zombies in the future pose a similar threat as they do now. Little to none if encountered in small numbers but potentially the biggest threat of all if faced in overwhelming numbers.

Stay vigilant, may the indoctrination never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Zombie Play-by-Post

Survivors allow me to present you with a place to test out your survival strategies and perhaps have some fun in learning how to deal with situations you may not have thought of before.

http://zombie-forum.com/zombie-roleplay/index.php

The site is not fully up and running yet but you can join, create a character and the site be ready soon.

I also recommend this forum as it is one of the few zombie forums which actually does not dismiss the notions of zombies and discusses them as an actual possibility and real ways to deal with the undead threats.

On the forum you will find indepth discussions on the biology of the undead. What weapons to carry with you, what equipment to leave behind. Discuss exact strategies of how to survive different situations. Many of the members of the forum are from the armed forces of different countries and offer a wide range of view points.

Note that not everything said there is 100% true though. For instance one person on the forum swears by the good ol' double tap to the chest. Even though many have told him otherwise, he insists this is the best way to defeat a zombie. It is that sort of misinformed confidence that will kill many people who believe they are prepared and might have made great survivors had they not stuck to false ideas. Some people ask how the zombies could still be a threat when so many people know how to deal with them, but this person is the answer, the Zombie Survival Guide is the answer, people who look to resources like this person, like video games or gun enthusists with no live experience, like Max Brooks' book and get false information that may cost them more then a couple wasted bullets.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Zombies in film: Zombi 2

"The dead are among us."



Film: Zombi 2
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Written by Elisa Briganti
Produced by Variety Film Production
Year: 1979

Story: A group of four travel to an island where one of the group's father has gone missing (also the owner of the island.) On the way the group takes a little pit stop to do some shark spotting. They make it to the island and slowly members of the group begin to meet grisly ends as they meet up with a doctor who is trying to find out what the cause of the pandemic is an how to cure it. All the while the radio depicts how all of the USA is falling to the zombies. The final stand of the group has a lot to be learned involving setting up layers and layers of barricades to hold the zombies every few feet. Fire is also used to great effect in this last stand, it also shows the disregard that must sometimes be given to material things, even to the extent of your own safehouse. Finally the escape from the burning shelter was performed quick well until one character makes the fatal flaw of so many in the world of the undead.

Zombies: These zombies are what I compare zombies against. No idea how they came to be. They are slow and nearly indestructible. They have unbelievable (but not superhuman) strength. It is kind of a constant surprise through out this movie however when someone actually gets killed by one of these zombies.

Survival Lessons:

• Change your name to West.
• Body shots do nothing, even if you really want them too.
• Don't put your head against obviously weak boarding to listen for zombies.
• Don't pause for even an instant when you inevitably face a turned loved one.
• Headtshots! Come on!
• Wearing less clothing makes it easier to slip out of a zombie's grasp.
• Zombies beat sharks.
• Don't go looking for sharks if you don't want to find sharks.
• Fire is your friend.
• Sometimes you have to sacrifice your safehouse, if it's been overrun it's no good to you anyway.
• You can NEVER have enough barricades.

Warnings: It's a scary film. There are sharks.


In the end this movie showed me many things. But first can I just point out how many people named "West" survive zombies. Peter West, Herbert West, Frank West, I'm sure there will be more now that I've caught onto this trend. Ok, seriously this movie is a classic and for good reason. It was right there with Night of the Living Dead as one of the first zombie movies and has one of the greatest zombie fights known around the world, the shark vs. zombie also one of the most gruesome deaths of any horror movie even to date. It is one of the zombie movies which set the stage for everything we know today: the BJC, the safehouse, the group of survivors, and of course, the slow but inevitable hordes of walking dead.


If you'd like to have this movie for yourself click here.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Give them brains

In the last decade there has been an increase in zombie activity. So much so that in the last couple of years zombies have become so much of a craze that everyone wants to sink their teeth in. Right up to having a major TV series based off one of the best books series ever, The Walking Dead.

Where did this sudden increase come from? Why the sudden Class 4 outbreak of undead culture? Well many reasons factor in. For one vampires have been taken about as far as they could go and then ruined for generations to come. The ruining of vampires is an entire article in itself but I will go into it here only to express another reason society has fallen head over heels for zombies. Quite simply vampires were a darkness people are not allowed to tap into. Vampires are former humans who have become monsters, creatures of evil with the power to do and take whatever they want. Vampires offered all the advantages of undead believes and culture combined with an actual desire to become one. This is the vampire's fatal flaw, while the question "werewolf or vampire?" has been one every person has had to answer at one point or another and many have a hard time choosing, the question "zombie or vampire?" is an easy choice. No one wants to BE a zombie. There is no romance in it, no glory, to be one of the mindless horde. The question "zombie or dead?" is one that suits this particular monster much better and why they will not fall into the trap of the vampire. That is the trap of becoming a teenage dream with no flaws. Of course people are playing with the idea of zombies thinking and zombies having memories, things that the zombie community fights against harder then the vampire community fought against vampires sparkling. But zombies have two more very strong advantages in this category, zombies are real, the evidence will always be there to show zombies are not to be love interests and zombies are ugly. While a vampire is a picture of twisted human perfection, a zombie is a picture of the most disgusting thing a human can become. Vampire's flaws are what made them so great, the weaknesses made them tragic and mysterious combined with all the advantages. But once those weaknesses were taken away by the popularity of teen girls, the idea of absolute perfection is a lot less appealing to people than one would first believe. So society can't use the seductive creatures of the night as their undead of choice anymore; another must take it's place.

But why have undead at all? That goes into the fear we all have buried somewhere inside or possibly just resting on our sleeves. The fear of death; more specifically the fear of what comes after death. The undead are something we can really latch onto and stare in the face. It fulfills our natural morbid desires to find some comfort in death, even if that comfort is just knowing what comes next or comparing what comes next to what could happen if we don't pass on! So few choose to become a zombie once bit, the majority would rather die and find some sort of peace then become an abomination. Humans love to think about death in the same way they love to think about God. That is to say some people love thinking about it and other people would rather just be shown something solid and reliable or even just ambiguous and open ended. Thus so many turn to agnostic instead of a religion or atheist. In the same vein people get wrapped into zombies instead of facing finality and some unknown end. Zombies are the physical representation of inevitable death. Slowly but surely it will come for us all. But it can be fought, it can be avoided, it can possibly even be beat!

Zombies also represent something much more rooted in our generation. Zombies represent freedom. Not the freedom previous generations fought for the freedom the current generation does not fight for. Freedom from society. The vast majority of people, even though all logic and knowledge say society is correct and the ways you have been taught are safe and true, something somewhere in the mind wants to be free. Knows that things are not as good as they could be and wants to push back against the corporations and societal norms that demand everyone stays in-line and accepts this is as good as it gets. Zombies represent freedom from society. The freedom to do as you please and only be responsible for the people and things that you choose to be responsible for. Zombies are all the wild west of the future. A Class 4 outbreak would bring about a world where each man's moral compass was his law and his skills and abilities meant more then his cheque book. This sort of anarchy where every family and group has to survive on their own is a world many people secretly desire. To let go of the stress of money and a job is a very common desire and a more politically correct then wishing for the end of the world. Also consider at one point or another everyone has expressed to some extent the desire to just hurt something or the world would be better without certain jerks: the undead are a perfect outlet for this kind of thinking. Not only will most people die off anyway but the lack of law enforcement allows for aggression to be freely taken out on the undead who are, in all fairness, trying to eat you. It also will inevitably lead to bandits and certain unsavory types surviving as well, that instead of putting up with their crimes and physical attacks; survivors will finally be able to fight back and properly protect themselves without fearing consequences from law enforcement or lawyers or the joke that is insurance. Most importantly will be the freedom from money, from having to have a job and a boss, to be able to spend time in whatever manner we choose and to know that every moment of survival is a moment of victory. This is a freedom and a sense of accomplishment everyone wishes to have, and we search for it in escapism, movies, theatre, TV, games, books etc. And few things present this strange desire for freedom by any means necessary -even the end of civilization- as a zombie apocalypse.

Stay in touch, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.

Thy will be...

Sarah is the only survivor left in the conclusion to the short films.

Stay vigilent, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate,
Mike D.