Adam and Eve: Bizarre Love Triangle in the Zombie Apocalypse

Dating has become a really weird thing.  Used to be you'd meet a nice girl in a bar, a coffee shop or church.  You'd chat a bit, and hopefully get her phone number.  Then there's that period of agonizing if its too soon to call so you don't come off as desparate as you actually are.  Then you meet and do the whole first date thing in which you try your damnedest not to come off like a complete shmuck and hopefully get her to want to possibly go out with you again.

Nowadays, you meet someone on Facebook.  You chat while browsing their carefully selected pictures, that might not really be them, but gives you the impression that there's someone attractive on the other end typing.  You chat and flirt with texts.  Maybe get your Skype on.  Then you finally sack up and decide its time for that real life meet-up.  That's the state of things, and its a whole horrible ordeal.

It gets much hairier when the real life meet up involves trekking across miles of zombie infested terrain.

Yep, Dan Nokes has been at it again, and this here is a review of ADAM AND EVE: BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLE IN THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Vol 1: "Post Armageddon Underground Bunker Blues".  Dan is, above all, a storyteller and he's always been damn good at pulling me right into his tales.  This is no exception.  Of course there's going to be the obvious comparison with Image's THE WALKING DEAD, because this deals with very much the same notion: "OK, I've survived the zombie apocalypse.  Now what?"

We come in about seven years after the shambling undead nommed their way to world domination.  We meet one Adam Jenkins of what's left of the U.S.A.F. and it quickly becomes apparent that this fella is no Rick Grimes.  I completely buy this guy.  He's not some big stud.  He's a guy who hunkered down and managed to duck the worst of things when everyone around him was getting munched.  So for five years, it was just him, his dog, the A.I. the bunker has installed, and his girlfriend.  Well, ex-girlfriend.  OK, she's dead.  Sort of.  So in dealing with the fact that the only person he has to talk to really only wants him for his brains (literally), the guy buries himself in his routine.  He goes on doing his job and maintaining the bunker.  At first I wanted to think he was nuts, but ultimately how is Adam supposed to cope?

We do get the backstory of how it all went down, and where everything went horrible.  We see how things went with Adam and his dead ex.  What's great is that while expostion is typically pain to get through Dan keeps it interesting and really uses it to paint and fascinating picture of who this character is.  Adam Jenkins is  a completely believable character in an unbelievable situation.  We don't see exactly how the zombie outbreak got started, but we do witness how the bunker got overrun.

Fast forward to our guy Adam, along with Schafer the dog and Groucho the A.I., getting set to go on their big adventure to find love.  Riding their hi-tech segway off to adventure in the wild's of post apocalypse Maryland.  Here's where the real weirdness sets in.  There's such an oddball absurdity to the entire thing and yet it stays just shy of going completely screwball.  This really is fine-line writing because this story could go ff the rails at anymoment and devolve into a goofy comedy or a cliché horror tale.  But it doesn't.

There's a couple of bits here and there that we have get around like there still being power in some areas and food not being a major issue.  We get around this because this isn't the point.  We've done that story a thousand times.  This is about one guy who is all alone in the world and goes out to risk himself to make a meaningful connection with someone else.  There's this vibe that Adam is kinda that guy who lives in his parents basement and doesn't want to go out, but finally finds something worth the risk.

It is a damn interesting take on the genre that's been beaten straight to undeath.

So read it.

And apologies to Dan for being incredibly tardy in reviewing his book.  I suck, but he doesn't.  So go read his stuff.

End of Days!! (Not the Schwartzenegger movie)

Crap. I'm still here.

I had hoped to be off world by now kicking back and dining pleasantly on Hell roasted sinner's ass with fried apples and nice light beer. But it seems I got passed on by this go around. I took a nap and must have missed the big earthquake. I do that sometimes. Used to sleep through earthquakes all the time as a kid. No damage to the property, but I'm still here.

The family is still here too. I suppose that's my fault for not getting us to church more often. The neighbors are still about too, but they're a scandalous lot, so no Rapture for them.

Can't imagine why I didn't get yanked on up. Ah well, can't dwell on such things now. The dead should be rising pretty soon, so I'd best get ready.

That's right, true believers, its Sunday, May 22, 2011, we're a day into the End of Days, and this is The Side.

DOOM!!!

Hurricane season is coming up. It starts June 1. This is of course the annual event when the local weather forecasting type folks get the squeals because they may just get to justify their existences. We get PSAs all summer long telling us to be prepared. There'll be pamphlets in the grocery stores with their pictures on them superimposed over scary looking storm pictures with instructions inside letting us know what to do if a hurricane heads this way. That's the typical procedure.

However, this is the End of Days Hurricane Season. Already the National Weather Service has predicted bunches of named storms and a few of them are sure to be major. Normally when they say that we just roll our eyes because its business as usual, but what with the apocalypse and all, I'd best be taking this seriously.

Fortunately, preparing for a hurricane is a lot like preparing for zombies. Your best bet it still get as far away from them as possible. However, doing things like getting plenty of supplies in the house and boarding up your windows is still a good idea. I'll be putting up the boards later today. I even painted "The End is Upon Us!" on one that's going to face the neighbors across the street. Figure, its best to warn them, that and now I won't have to looks at their house.

I do wonder if the zombies are prepared for a hurricane. I don't imagine the shambling dead being overly concerned with anything that doesn't directly involve the flesh of the living. However the thought of 50 to 60 mile per hour winds knocking zombies over the street is a pretty amusing mental image. The wet pavement under them making them slip would make for extra hilarity. Unfortunately, I'll never get to see it, what with my windows boarded up and all.

NWA, GO GO GO!!!

The NWA (Neighborhood Watch Association) has made its preparations for the End of Days. Of course, by preparations I mean the guys made a beer run. We're not terribly worried about supplies since we have an armored personnel carrier and can fit plenty of beer in the back. It served us well during Snowpocalypse last winter. Yesterday was quiet in the court. We fed the chickens. Fed the fish. Fed the resident wiener dog. There was a bar-b-que. The steaks combusted. This was a bad omen.

Y'know, I try to keep up with these here bad omens, but steaks combusting if a pretty nefarious one. I like steak! Stupid End of Days is trying to deprive my of my favorite noms! Now I'm scared to open up the bag of Cheetos in the pantry.

Then there was the cornholing. Because if its all over there's not better way to wait for the end than to cornhole.

You know, that game with the board with hole in it. You try to toss the beanbags in. Kinda like a sissy version of pitchin' horseshoes.

What were you people thinking?

I didn't take part in it. I was pretty tired what with all the doom approaching. Doom approaching will indeed wear a fella out. So I went to bed early. Figured it would be a pretty peaceful way to go, but sure enough I had to go and wake up this morning.

END OF DAYS DITTY!!

Just a little uplifting number to get your End of Days started.



Y'know, I saw an article that read "Sarah Palin buys house in Arizona, reignites 2012 talk" and wondered to myself how she factored into that Mayan prophecy. Imagine how silly I felt once I clicked the link and saw it was just about an election. That's going to do it for me. If you don't here from me again, when the zombies have risen up, and we lost power so I can't blog about zombies rising up. Pesky zombies.

The Longest Shortest Day

It's Friday, December 24, 2010, Christmas Eve is here, and this is the Side. As you may have realized there was no post on Wednesday, which is the first time since I started doing regularly scheduled updates that I missed one without telling y'all in advance. The reason why is an early Christmas miracle.

As I mentioned at the end of last Sunday's post, my dad was in the hospital. Getting some tests done for a shortness of breath. I was keeping up with things and really thought it wouldn't be anything major. So I got up Monday and typed a bit which I've included below and got ready for work. Here's what was going on in West Virginia.

My Dad was feeling like he couldn't get enough air. It would happen in little episodes and he would be fine. I was talking to him on the phone while he was in the hospital and he sounded fine. He's 62 years old. The doctor asked about his diet, and he eats very well. They asked about exercise, and he's been in Karate for over 35 years. They asked about anything that might be stressing him, and he told the doctor "only that my wife beats me", and actually had the doc fooled for a sec. Then the doctor asked about the family history. His father had had five heart attacks starting at age 42 and his mother had had a quadruple heart bypass operation. The doctor looked at him and told him "You can't win." He was going in with a scope to see what was going on in there.

What the doctor found was a 90% blockage of the main artery which surgeons call, no joke, "The Widowmaker". If that artery goes, it will kill you. They found the blockage Monday morning, and Monday afternoon he was in surgery getting a bypass. My brother and I were heading for West Virginia.

Sound like a miracle yet? Keep reading.

The surgery was supposed to take three to seven hours. He was done in three, because the old man of the mountain does everything with freakish superhuman speed. The hospital up there about 30 minutes from his house is a brand new facility with one of the top five heart surgeons on the east coast practicing there. If this had happened two years ago Dad would have had to have been airlifted to Washington, Baltimore, or Winchester, VA about two hours away. He did not have a heart attack so there was no damage to the heart itself. He knew something in his body wasn't right and he had a good doctor who took it seriously.

By the time we got there my father was out of surgery. My stepmother was waiting on us. It was a bit rough seeing Dad in bed with all those tubes coming out of him. He was on a ventilator, which was good because my brother was gassy. Made the ride up a joy, let me tell you. Still, my Dad's color was really good. I was expecting him to look pale, but he wasn't.

The next day was rough for him. He didn't have much of an appetite which caused the pain meds to knock him for a loop. He was pretty out of it, but by the end of the day he was eating a little solid food and taking a few steps. The day after he was still out of it due to not eating enough. That's pretty common after a surgery like that. Still he was walking all the way around the Cardio-Vascular Unit.

The day we were to leave, my brother and I were feeling pretty guilty. Yes, Dad was doing great, but it seemed like such a long road ahead with his recovery. We had to come home for our families, but were both already planning return trips. We went to see Dad and found him shaving and watching TV. His appetite had returned and after a big helping a french toast and some cream of wheat he was able to handle the pain meds much better. His voice was a little weak from having a tube down his throat a couple days earlier, but he was talking, joking, making the occasional threats, and walking two laps around the CVU. It was amazing how much he'd improved.

There's been a lot of prayers for my father. His church family has been remarkable about everything with their support. All his Karate buddies and students past and present have rallied behind him. His old unit has been fully notified. Even the Karate guys that we split from have been online and on the phone asking how he's doing. I'm fully expecting an Imperial Decree to come from Japan instructing dad to "get well soon".

The "old man of the mountain" has touched a lot of people in his life and those people all responded with prayers and well wishes, and those prayers were heard. Its mind boggling how much worse this entire thing could have been. He's actually due to come home either today or tomorrow.

So yes, my family has been truly blessed by a Christmas Miracle. We get to keep Dad here for years to come.

Thank you God, and Amen.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled insanity, already in progress.

F'N ZOMBIES!!

Zombies continue to be pretty popular. It used to be there'd be a spike in popularity for them. It was the zombie fad that would come around, hang in for a bit, and then head back to its hidey hole until something came along to spark zombie interest all over again. Then came the popularity war with vampires where the pop cultural mindset would ping back and forth between the two. Now its undead-o-rama.

I've gone off plenty on vampires on here and was tempted to do so again since one of my students who is maybe ten asked if I wanted to read the story she was writing about a "half vampire". I suppressed the urge to scream "NOT YOU TOO!" and simply asked "Which half?" Stephanie Meier has much to answer for.

But back to zombies. The zombie/infected genre has been around for years and years starting of course with The Smurfs. Yes, I'm serious. In 1963, long before George Romero started making zombie flicks there was a story in the old Smurfs comic that started the whole genre. Don't believe me? Well, it got adapted into an episode for the cartoon series.



Fast forward to now and zombies are very popular. There's bunches of movies and books. The AMC TV show THE WALKING DEAD broke a record when it debuted. The show is based on a comic book from Robert Kirkman. Its a very good comic and I have been curious about the TV show since I don't have cable and can't watch it. My curiosity comes more from wondering how close the show is the book. From the few clips I've seen, it looks like it departs quite a bit from the book. The scene I saw showed the survivors getting into the CDC and seeing what happens to the brain of someone who gets infected. That never happened in the comic, but it raised even more questions for me. In the comic, if you die for any reason you come back as a zombie unless your brain was damaged enough to prevent it. In the clip they explained how a bite from the zombie spread the infection like meningitis to the brain killing the host which makes me wonder if the only way to become a zombie in the TV show is to get bitten. Very frustrating.

But with the lack of cable I turn to the internet where there's a fun zombie series on YouTube called Bite Me. I say "fun" in that its pretty goofy and funny, but yes the shambling dead still try to kill and eat you so its not all hugs and puppies.

I do like the zombie stuff although the whole zombie apocalypse thing just wouldn't work. The infected thing would in that there could be something airborne to turn a good chunk of people into a serious threat. But let's look at what would happen if the dead really did start rising.

Scenario: the dead start rising and if they bite you, you become a zombie. These are the traditional slow moving dim-witted zombies, not the cheating fast ones.

Outbreak: the main problem areas would be the cities which would have morgues full of zombies. Graveyards wouldn't be a problem as even if the bodies could still function after being embalmed six feet of dirty should hold them. There would obviously be quite a few springing up in hospitals and at accidents.

Spreading: of course there'll be a few people caught off guard and cornered. Then there's the issue of concerned family members seeing their loved one who are now zombies, don't think and get chomped.

Solution: zombies are really only a threat in large groups and confined spaces. Police and military would have this shut down very quickly. Worst case for having this turned around is about 48 hours.

So the main question in these stories is: what went wrong? How could people have screwed up enough that these things managed to overtake us? There's got to be some catalyst. Something had to have gone horribly wrong for zombies to destroy civilization. I have a zombie "apocalypse" story woven into the continuity of my Night Life series, which one day I'll get around to telling in full. I put the quotes around apocalypse because even with the twists I put in to tip the scales in the zombies' favor I just can't get them to the point where they over take people.

MUSIC!!

Tis the season!



That's it for today. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. For those of you who sent some well- wishes and prayers our way for dad, thank you from the bottom of my black, black heart. See y'all Sunday.