Zombies!

I love zombies. Way better than vampires or werewolves. Though I do agree zombies tend not to rate very high on the sexy scale. I just finished World War Z from Audible.com. The production was really good - each story was told by a different actor. Hearing the different accents and voices really reinforced the global nature of the book. The story is an interesting shift from the normal small band of survivors that typifies so many zombie tales. WWZ shows the actual collapse of the modern world, including government and military responses. Some stories are hauntingly real, and casts the idea of the pending zombie apocalypse in a new light. Much more hopeless than even a dwindling ragtag band of survivors. If you like zombie lore, definitely read or listen to this book - it provides a brutally clear look at aspects of zombie apocalyptic life I never thought of before. Or just wait until the End of Days for the Brad Pitt movie release.

Contagion didn't catch

The new movie Contagion received great reviews, and we were excited to go see it. The 'chillingly real epidemic' and 'breakdown of society in response' sounded too good to pass up. Despite a renowned cast and obvious scientific background, there just wasn't much to the movie. We were never shocked, disturbed, scared, or awed.  Later on we weren't afraid to touch common surfaces like doorknobs. After the movie someone coughed in front of us and I wished I'd felt a little thrill, an impression carried over from the movie. Did you ever watch The Mothman Prophecies or any other movie where the phone rings as part of the plot? Imagine watching it on DVD and having the phone in your house ring midway through the movie, feeling that quick jolt before you convince yourself it's ok to answer it in real life. That's what was missing from Contagion. It had the chance to really shock and scare us with The Truth, and yet failed to deliver. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I think the movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman did a better job scaring people with an infectious disease than did Contagion. Alas!

Speaking of the CDC and a different kind of contagion - have you checked out their page on preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse? Seriously, it makes you appreciate the CDC even more to know they have your back for when Zombies strike. Unless it ends up like The Walking Dead (season 2 starts next month!!) and the CDC is the last place you want to be. Their Zombie Preparedness page has all sorts of useful information like:

"Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast."


I've realized in the past few months that I really like zombies. I don't care how sexy or sparkly or glamour-ous a vampire might be, I'm definitely on Team Zombie.

Maybe the snow slowed down the zombies

I traveled to Atlanta this week for work, the week after their Snowpocalypse that shut down the city for 3 days. This is shocking when you think that ATL is the busiest airport in the world, and when you know this disaster was caused by all of 6" of snow. There were still HUGE piles of snow a week later.  Well, huge for them, rather modest in more northern eyes. Thankfully there was no snow or bad weather while I was down there to delay things.


Do you like zombie films? I love them! My favorite has long been 28 Days Later, which introduced the modern fast-twitch zombies (as opposed to slow plodding Land of the Dead type), and the idea that zombification starts from a highly contagious virus. And if you like silly zombie movies I highly recommend Dead Alive, a Peter Jackson film from New Zealand, where the main character tries to hide the fact that his mum is a zombie with hilarious results.

But my new favorite is the series The Walking Dead which recently aired on AMC. It had great zombie effects and did a really good job creating the zombie storyline without any holes. It also had several shocking twists that kept us guessing. And by this point I'm sure you're wondering how this ties in to my trip. Well, it's filmed in Atlanta and in the previews they head down an empty highway into the city, and it turns out it's the highway we were driving on. I also drove past the CDC to see if I could get a pic from the same view as an episode, but the front entrance is kind of behind another building.

We went to a variety of hospitals in the city, including the famous Northside Hospital, where every Atlanta native is born. I was shocked to see a McDonald's in the main hospital. Not only is it there, but the overhead directions signs to find places like radiology and cardiology always included the McDonald's too, and you knew you were nearby when you could smell the fries in the waiting rooms. We stopped in to get a bottle of water and kill some time, and there were signs up indicating the Weight Watcher's meetings take place in the McD's dining room.  Here I am at one of the entrances: