I make no attempt to hide my love of ThinkGeek here on the blog. Every time I get the newsletter, there is always something cool to report. This month was no exception, giving us the amazing Tac Bac – Tactical Canned Bacon. This is amazing, you can stockpile it up and it will last for 10 years. Well, it won’t last for 10 years, because you’ll eat it, but maybe in your hunger to get at the bacon you accidentally knock a can back behind the shelf or something and find it 9 years later…it’s still good! Why would you need to stockpile bacon? Well, for tactical purposes obviously (if you read the webpage closely, you’ll notice that they specifically mention the zombie apocalypse…I’m just saying)
But wait, there’s more! Special bonus ThinkGeek product, the Force Trainer. This thing blew my mind, basically you can train your Jedi skills in the use for the Force, like, for realz. You clamp this headgear on, which measures your brainwaves. Depending on how hard you’re concentrating, the ball will go up or down in the tube. I think this is probably as close as we are ever going to come to actual Force usage.
For those of you who ever doubted the zombie menace, then I give you irrefutable proof of the danger, as performed by actual scholars. Who said Canada never contributed anything on the world stage? I believe this officially makes the University of Ottawa the world’s leading research center on zombies. And what was the brilliant conclusion of their study?
In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often.
Well, erm…yeah, I guess that was sort of obvious. But look, they used charts and equations and Matlab and stuff! Let me just give you a taste:
It follows that the characteristic equation always has a root with positive real part. Hence, the disease-free equilibrium is always unstable. Since all eigenvalues of the doomsday equilibrium are negative, it is asymptotically stable.
That’s some heavy stuff. And how can you doubt it with excellent, scholarly references like Simon Pegg, Danny Boyle and Zach Snyder?
I would like to call your attention to one other part of the paper. One of the authors is named Robert Smith?. Yes, that question mark is legally part of his name. According to his profile, he changed his name so that he would be distinguishable from the Robert Smith that is the lead singer of the Cure. Too bad though, I think I might believe this paper even more if it WERE written by the guy from the Cure, who may or may not actually be a zombie himself.
Remember those old school public safety announcements, like the famous “duck and cover” campaign? And now, of course, when you watch those things (or even old T.V. shows for that matter) they seem so ridiculous and dated. Well, how would a saftey video for zombie attacks have looked? I’m glad you asked!
For some reason things come together in a perfect storm such that I get a bunch of links pertaining to the same subject all at the same time. And in this case, the subject is zombies.
First things first, I we have a possible zombie attack on our hands, and thanks to technology we have been given advance warning. In this case it is the twitter account of the Boston PD:
INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.
Twitter user willcady used the opportunity to ask the police a burning question:
@Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?
The police, setting the gold standard for government transparency, answered him:
Second off was the zombie movie news that was all over the place last week. Apparently someone threw together a zombie movie for $70 and it is getting rave reviews. Now, to be fair, the $70 thing is kind of a white lie. Sure, maybe he only spent $70, but (for example) they had special effects leftovers from the set of Wolverine donated. It’s not like I could go out and make the same movie with only $70. Nevertheless, it was a very, very cheap movie. What did they spend the $70 on?
“We bought a crowbar and a couple of tapes, and I think we got some tea and coffee as well — not the expensive stuff either, the very basic kind,” Price told CNN. “Just to keep the zombies happy.”
Always a good idea.
Finally, I will leave you with two zombie related games.
The first, Plants vs. Zombies, combines two of my favorite things, zombies and tower defense. I saw a review of this pop up in several places, so it seems to be somewhat popular. The only problem is, it costs $20. But they do have a free trial you can download and install that lets you play the regular game for 60 minutes. And it was a lot of fun! I was extremely disappointed when my trial was up.
If you don’t feel like actually playing the game, you can watch a preview instead:
Finally, I leave you with a free game, Zombie Hooker Nightmare. The title should give you a clue about this one. Basically, you play a ::ahem:: lady of the night who is just trying to make an honest living if only these dang zombies would leave her alone! I find it kind of ironic, since she doesn’t seem to have a lot of brains to tempt them.
In other news, go ahead and mark your calendar for the Chicago Zombie March on June 13th!
You’ve been waiting a whole year to dress up like a zombie and hit up the city… so let’s do it again!
You know the deal… meet up at the field at Millennium Park at 2:00 pm on June 13th in your best zombie get-ups.
Remember: Haunted House Rules apply! No touching strangers, don’t make a mess, mind your own business. Just use your common sense — every zombie-style event this city’s seen has gone well, and the police have noticed — let’s keep up the good rapport!
Shane Halbach 