Zombies part 1

I love a good zombie movie. Actually, I love a bad zombie movie as well. But people just don't seem to get the stories or the fascination with them and think they're all about blood and gore, which is anything but the truth. The blood and the gore are just a bonus! :D

There are three types of zombies;

1. Necromancy - magic
2. Voodoo - putting people in a daze that's totally controllable under the guise of magic
3. Viral - has to fit three qualifications
1. Has to have been a person at one time
2. Must be dead now but typically alive at the time of infection
3.  Must have been brought back to life via the virus

It's amazing how many times one of the three qualifications get left off of an infection. If a "zombie" doesn't fit all of the qualifications of a viral zombie, you're dealing with something else entirely. Hate to break people's hopes and dreams here but Zombieland doesn't actually have a single zombie in the film, and neither do the 28 days/weeks later films. Both of these films have greatly influenced zombie films since they've come out, but unfortunately they aren't zombie films.

Whenever I'm talking about zombie movies I'm talking about the viral form, which is what 99.9% of all zombie movies consist of. Despite what people may think, running zombies are actually not contrary to the idea of a zombie film, at least by the definition (the definition is from the head and founder of the Zombie Research Society, Matt Mogk, who's work is even revered by zombie experts such as Max Brooks, Robert Kirkman and George Romero).

So why do I watch zombie films? Because they are a genre of horror all their own. Some directors are as mindless about it as can be and their films are strictly about blood and guts, which is cool. But still others use it as a means to tell a story or to make a point, like Romero's "of the Dead" series which seem to slowly highlight a point about humanity originally put forth my one of my favorite author's, Richard Matheson.

As it turns out, zombie's have vampiric roots. Richard Matheson wrote "I am Legend" as his first big-time novel after a fairly successful career as a penny novel writer in the 1950's. For the first time since Dracula came out it's sales were beginning to dwindle, but "I am Legend" inspired author's everywhere to return to the idea of vampires in their own works. Except George Romero took the idea and created a monster all his own that didn't even have a name at the time. He began filming "Night of the Living Dead" in 1964 (I think) and people by the buttons* flocked to the movie theaters to watch this film. It's still considered to have been the greatest box-office zombie film of all time. Zombieland definitely made more money than Night of the Living Dead, but tickets for Night of the Living Dead were much cheaper so it's still assumed that more people went to go see Romero's film despite not making as much profit.

Romero's second film, "Dawn of the Dead" was release internationally with a new score and a new name. It's said that Romero wasn't the one behind the name change and didn't want his creatures to be known as zombies because there was already zombie lore (voodoo and necromancy), but it was released regardless and was a huge hit internationally and the name "zombie" stuck to Romero's creatures. Zombie movies internationally did the best in Italy which inspired a new genre, Spaghetti Horror films, that would prove to be some of the most extravagant, gory, and creative films in the zombie and horror genres.

That's part of what I know about zombies.

Cool Story, bro.


*To understand why I used 'button' to describe a flock of people see my post "Meet Chad! And the Pregnant Watermelon Incident!"

ASMR. The way I sleep at night.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

ASMR is a tingling sensation that occurs in the brain whenever you're exposed to specific triggers via one of the five senses. Youtube can only provide for two of the senses, sights and sounds, but often times certain triggers will cause you to believe one of your other senses are picking up sensations that aren't there.

Fun fact; Our sense of smell is the sense that is most connected to our memory.

ASMR isn't about that at all, but it's kind of cool. For instance, I used to sit by this girl in one of my classes in high school who poured an entire bottle of perfume on her body everyday (that's the only explanation I could conjure up at the time). Several years down the road and I pass by a girl in one of my other classes who wears the same perfume (you never forget a scent after that much exposure to it) and out of nowhere my mind goes back (almost against my will) to that class in high school; where I sat, who the teacher was, who I talked to, etc.

ASMR is not even close to that. It's about that tingling sensation though, that I don't get but every once in a while. I still listen to it anyways because it's some calming stuff regardless and the people who do it can be pretty informative at times. One person whispers Russian lessons, another sings songs from the World War II era, some people do art work (a la Bob Ross) and yet another just says a random collection of words just because their voice is that soothing. We always joke about having Morgan Freeman reading us the phone book until we go to sleep but I now found out that if I go long enough without sleep I'll actually do it!

True story, bro.

P.S. I don't listen to guys who do this stuff because the sound of guys whispering creeps me the freak out. It's typically just girls because they don't make me want to sit in the corner in terror in the fetal position.

I'm hungry. The reality of eating right.

I woke up on Wednesday to my mother asking me if I wanted to eat out for lunch with friends. That's how I was going to start my diet. I wanted to go running, but eating at a restaurant works too...I guess.

I avoided anything that wasn't poultry (as any good Mediterranean dieter would do), despite my desire for a cheeseburger by 2:00 pm. We at at Souper Salad instead of McFatty's and it was a bit of a disappointment. My mom and I both thought it would be healthier than what it was. The only thing worth mentioning there was the Vegan "A-Maize-ing corn bread" that tasted as if it was made out of pure unicorns and crack cocaine. I won't be going vegan in this lifetime but mad props to them for making some delicious food.

Then I had to do stuff, but the only thing that really ended up getting done was ordering a new debit card. I just didn't have the mental capacity for anything else, and I honestly think it's because the food I ate messed with me. Man was not meant to eat unicorn. Experiencing that "adulthood" feeling of getting stuff done was pretty cool, though. Unfortunately, the rest of the day I had about as much energy as this guy...

So I took a nap till about eternity. This is typical for people going on this diet. I will have extremely low energy for the next three weeks, according to sources. Most people end up looking like the squirrel in the picture, except without that sweet tail.

Dieting is frustrating. That's my segue. It doesn't help that I've given myself a short attention span by constantly spending time on the internet and forcing myself into the habit of expecting instant gratification on whatever it is that I do*. Even though I know it's stupid I want to see quick and significant weight loss, just like anybody else who's ever started this quest. Don't lie, you know you've done it too.

I love watches, I hate time.

Time, being the ficklest of friends, can go die.

Here's my frustration; I don't have anything to do and so time decides to drag this summer out as long as it can. The reason I say time is a fickle friend is because it's always working against me. If I am enjoying myself, time flies. I want to kick life in the shorts like the Gremlin it can be sometimes, time decides to take things slow and milk my frustrations for as much enjoyment as it can.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Last Saturday I went to see the new Spiderman movie with my mom and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. We are walking back the car and this conversation happens.


     MOM: "Don't forget that you're playing a song for Mass tomorrow."  

     ME: "Since when do we go to daily Mass (a Mass that ironically happens at an ungodly hour of the morning) and why am I playing?!"

     MOM: "AwkwardSon, tomorrow is Sunday. What day do you think it is?"

     ME: "...Thursday."

     MOM: "No, Thursday happened like, last Thursday."

     ME: *MIND. BLOWN.*

Does anybody really care? ABOUT TIME!!!

My week looks so much like my weekend that I don't even notice when it's Saturday anymore. And Friday? Shoot, Rebecca Black is alone on that one. I'd have to say that the only time of the day I look forward to anymore is my daily "Mess with my dog" hour that occurs in the afternoon. He naps, I poke him. And we laugh and laugh and laugh...okay so I do most of the laughing.

We've all got time enough to cry!

And thus my day ends with a rousing game of WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW? (By Parker Bros).  The game usually ends with me reading humorous blogs or playing video games and no matter how hard I try, WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW? is a game I've just never been able to win.

We've all got time enough to die!

Meet Chad! And the pregnant watermelon incident.

Chad is the greatest evil to happen to the world since Yoko Ono.

I had just moved into a new place, the place I am living now, and this place was good except that it was too hard to find. All the entrances were either back alleys or dirt roads that were overgrown with brush and my roommates and I came to the conclusion that we were living in that one house that the pizza guy would never be able to find. I've lived in "that house" before and it isn't fun. You go hungry on pizza days.

I decided that if we are going to have people over we should make the place a bit easier to find so one day I went out with clippers, saws, knives, and a can-do attitude and started removing the brush that not only scratched up our cars but hid our existence from the world. This is when I met Chad.

Chad didn't like me removing the brush. In fact, he drove up to the dirt road that led to my house and he told me so himself.

                Chad: Hey, stop that.

 Me: lol no.

     Chad: Please stop that.

 Me: Thanks for saying 'please' but I'm afraid you can't change my mind.

     Chad: What if I told you I was related to this guy who's really photogenic?

     Me: GREAT SCOTT! WITH A FACE LIKE THAT ONE COULD SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR! LITERALLY! Are you actually related to that guy?

     Chad: I'm not actually related to him. :( But yes, he is photogenic.

His request was that I should stop what I'm doing and reconsider my efforts of being accessible by the pizza guy or the fire department/police department/ medical emergency vehicles/ Ice Cream truck. I love pizza too much to comply and I told Chad that I was going to continue to remove the brush. I made an enemy that day.

Here's a picture that represents Chad's facial expression when I told him I would continue my rebellion against the Chad empire and his bushes.

Although he had his poker face on, I'm sure this picture more accurately describes his emotions.

Chad walked away and never spoke to me again but his wrath is still present. For the past year I have paid for my encounter with Chad dearly. You will not believe everything that I'm going to tell you about Chad on this blog but I swear that it's real.

Anything that has ever gone wrong in the house that is totally inexplicable is Chad's fault. It has to be. Disappearances of beloved dairy products (yogurt, ice cream, milk) is common, our thermostat has formed an alliance with the Chad Empire, and even our fruit are in danger of facing Chad's wicked wrath.

This brings us to the pregnant watermelon incident. Last September one of my roommates (who shall thus forth be known as "the Aggie Roommate") decided to buy a watermelon. My roommates and I all agreed that this was a good idea however we were confused as to why he bought the watermelon. He had the intentions of eating it, but we ended up keeping it as almost kind of a pet of sorts. Some people have pet rocks, we have pet watermelons. Don't be gel.

Then one day, nine months after the purchasing of said watermelon, I had a butt ton (not a button, a butt *space* ton) of people over to watch a movie and while we were watching "UP" a soda exploded in the kitchen freezer...or so I thought. I rushed to the kitchen with the speed, tenacity and purpose of some unknown Marvel Avenger and I saw that a soda did not explode. After nine months, my watermelon broke. The green shell encasing the delectable pet we once knew now had a crack in the side of it and was spewing watermelon juice all over the kitchen. Chad had struck again.

I don't know when these attacks will end, but know that this is not the last we have heard of Chad. Oh no. He is not yet done extracting vengeance upon me.


Also, I will buy dinner for the next female I see wearing these shoes in honor of my lost yet beloved pet.

Also also I'm considering using "button" as a unit of measurement for people.

Gastronomical Mardi Gras part 1!!!

I'm starting a diet on Wednesday. Not one of those "I'm just gonna not snack and watch what I eat diets" but one of those "So long, sweets. It's been real" diets. The reason for said diet? Another day, another blog post. I'll answer that question when I find it to be relevant.

I want to start this diet on Wednesday, or at least start easing myself into it. Until Wednesday, however, I've been in the process of eating anything that even remotely looks like food (except for watermelons. I'll explain that later). Clearly the smart thing to do when attempting to lose weight is to first gain a bunch of weight. That just makes the process of losing it seem that much more epic.

FUTURE ME: "I gained 250 lbs!"
FUTURE-R ME: "I LOST 300 LBS!"

In order to lose enough weight to impress anybody you have to have a bunch of weight to lose. So gain weight. It'll make your victory that much more glorious. Also, I won't be able to eat ice cream again until the 12th of Never so I might as well gorge myself on sugar. It's my last chance. 

My one rule though is to allow myself to indulge a little bit at events like parties and such. 

My other one rule is to also not be totally strict about the diet on the weekends. I don't eat that much on the weekends anyway. I'm more of a weekday fatty.

My last one rule is that I am not going to let this diet cost anymore than how I live now. If tuna wraps and Chicken Pot Pies start costing me more than sandwiches and frozen pizzas, it's over. I have no wiggle room, financially. You're probably wondering what type of diet this is to be eating tuna wraps and chicken pot pies, and we'll get to that. Later.

WALLET: "Can't I wiggle just a little bit?"

ME: "NO, YOU STUPID PIECE OF DEAD COW HIDE! THERE'S NO ROOM THAT. NOW GET BACK IN MY POCKET BEFORE I DO TO YOU WHAT I DID TO THAT EXPIRED DEBIT CARD!"

I've decided that since tomorrow (Tuesday) is effectively my last day of this...

I should attempt to utilize the last without with junk food to the best of my abilities. (Thank you Allie Brosh for the meme and for being epic and may you recover from your depression and return to blogdom soon. You are missed.) Therefore I have found it necessary to start something that shall henceforth be known as...

GASTRONOMICAL MARDI GRAS!

I will be creating a schedule of all the food that I shall be consuming and I will stick to eating it. If I have to throw up to make room to finish this schedule...I will do it. But let's be real, I spend most nights holding it and telling it everything will be okay while R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" plays in the background so the purchasing of mass quantities of food is not gonna be all that likely.

That's my life, I guess. It's time for me to begin the wallet cradling process now, actually, so I will be signing off and starting my night time rituals of procrastinating getting ready for bed only to be forced to do everything when I'm desperately exhausted. 

P.S. I think I'm going to have to start using a paint program to draw my own pics for my blog. All the pictures that I happen to use have been borrowed from other people's blogs. The first picture is from Allie Brosh's Blog: Hyperbole and a Half. She says this, "Copyright 2009-2011 By Allie Brosh strictly enforced by the copyright monster." I'm scared of copyright monsters almost as much as I'm scared of cockroaches (long story) so no copyright intended.

The Wallet is from a blog I only just discovered (after having Googled "Sad Wallet") and her name is still a mystery to me. Her blog is called "Purple Cheese" and I'm kind of excited about it. Also, she says this. "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Please don't steal my shizz. Kthanks!" Because the last thing I want to be is a shizz stealer, I'm going to say that no copyright was intended. Suck it, copyright laws. Purple Cheese's author is a lawyer so hopefully I didn't just do something illegal...

Bear with me for a second.

The other day I thought I'd see what I'd find if I just typed in random words into Google images and see what comes up. I ended up searching "depressed bear" and these are the fruits of my labor. I hope you find that these distract you, like me, from that nagging thought inside of you urging you to consider being a stand up, contributing member of society.

Being a contributing member of society is, in fact, no fun at all. Don't fall for it. You will end up like these bears (depressed and hairy). Society may attempt to trick you with cake, but it's a dry cake with gross icing made of...lies. They actually compounded the concept of deceit into an icing. You may be wondering if this icing has a flavor. Is it chocolate or vanilla frosting? Nope. IT'S SUBTERFUGE FLAVORED!

Woes of a Catholic Man

I love being Catholic, I really do. The traditions, the scripture, the Sacraments, the secret meetings held on Thursday nights where we get informed on the progress we're making on taking over the world, and so on and so forth. If we being honest, being a Catholic is one of the things I enjoy most about myself. It makes me interesting.

But we Catholics have our very own set of problems nobody else would even think twice about. For instance, old Catholics. The number of elderly people within a congregation will determine if your parish is 'hip' or 'needs a hip'.

Elderly Catholics, specific old women, like to be thorough with their reconciliation and they also like to go in flocks. Seeing these groups of old women in line at confession make me think that the old lady Catholics are all in some sort of Irish/Mexican/Italian Mafia who's Bingo games on Thursday afternoons are actually a front for illegal knitting needle trades and dealings. Each of these 20+ ladies take 15 minutes for confession. 20 x 15 = "I'm sorry, AwkwardBlock. I've been in confession for 8 hours and I need to sleep". I understand, father. I completely understand.

One thing that I find frustrating as of late is one particular part of the Mass that was changed last December that we still haven't quite figured out. "For our good and the good of all his HOLY Church." HOLY church. Not just his church, people, but his 'HOLY church'. 8 months after we've made the changes to the Mass and you can't remember to include this one word? Really? That's just a lack of effort.

But today, Mass was different. People forgot that God's Church was Holy, again. That's not going anywhere anytime soon. But, I found myself utterly amused at the fact that the priest's microphone malfunction and my ear infection have rendered me totally incapable of understanding a single word the priest said today and it sounded like the muffled mumblings of those cheap speakers at the drive-thru.

     PRIEST: alskldfnauiuehfasnkasjdfkjh
     ME: Yeah, I'll have the number 5.
     CONGREGATION: And with your spirit
     ME: Oh, and that too.

The best part of Mass today? Communion. The next best part of Mass today? When in total confusion as to what was happening during the Mass from an inability to hear the readings, I figured out that the words to the Gloria, the Alleluia, Amen, the Mystery of Faith, and the Lamb of God ALL happen to fit the tune of the Halo video game soundtrack. Thus, while the rest of the congregation of Catholics who had the capacity to hear were paying attention to the homily (which based on people's laughter I'm assuming was quite enjoyable), I was sitting there in my own little world singing the Halo themes with religious words in my head. I can only imagine the size of the stupid grin on my face. I can only imagine... (cue MercyMe).