Zombies: The Perfect Movie Monsters

The wretched decaying bodies.  The dead.  They come back to wreak havoc on the living.  The mangled and the twisted.  The stench of death is enough to make one sick and although they can't truly capture that smell on film, they certainly have the guts, literally, to make you sick just watching.

That is of course their intent.  If you love horror or movie monsters, nothing can be better than to watch people survive an apocalyptic scenario such as a zombie outbreak.  You ask why are they the best?  But maybe you'll tell me why they are the worst.

First the typical zombie is weak.  They are slow and although they have one weakness, they can be taken out quite easily.  Well, a simple blow to the head can knock their brains out.  And that is a small part of their brain that does all the work.  Where we use all of our brain.  The zombie uses very little.

But what they lack in ability, they make up for in numbers.  The more there are the more dangerous they are.  Also, some can be quite quiet.  Don't let them sneak up on you.

The scariness of a zombie comes from the scenario itself.  The spread of an incurable disease that no one can stop.  The loneliness that comes when all of the people around you are dead and/or undead.  Having to find shelter, survival tools, food, and water.  Then there are the people that you have no idea that you can trust.  In this scenario there is every possible nightmare.  Like I said, loneliness, possible betrayal, starvation,  exposure to the elements, dangerous people, unexpected noises, and changing into someone you don't want to be.

Oh yes, you will become someone else when zombies are around.  If you were a giving person, expect to be betrayed, unless you make good choices.  Choices you would wish you have not had to make.  You might become uncaring.  You might start to care only for yourself.  You might be a monster.  You may kill innocent people just to get what you need.  When something occurs that changes everything around you, that changes your situation, you will become someone you weren't before.

So what are the best zombie movies and shows to watch?  Well, of course, there's "The Walking Dead."  Of course you may be already watching that or know someone else that does.  "Zombie," which is one of the more gory ones out there is a great choice.  There's a scene in which a woman has her eye pulled into a wooden splinter from her door by a zombie that's after her.  Later, her body is being eaten by zombies and you see almost every detail.

In video games, there's the ever popular "Left 4 Dead."  There's a good first person survival RPG called "Dead Island."  But look them up, there are more coming, they never end just like the zombies.  They keep coming.

But what do I like about zombies?  I like that they don't die in more conventional means.  You can blast them about, pound them, and cut them up, but they still live.  They're just like Jason Voorhees.  Jason only bests them, because he himself just keeps coming back no matter how many times you kill him.  Stabbing right in the head doesn't even kill him.  So, if it wasn't for him, zombies would be the best, but I guess he's just one guy.  Zombies are millions.  Yes, it's that they never end.  Jason's just one dead man, but zombies are many and forever.  So, just be careful of the super zombies.

Now there's a "what if" scenario for you.  What if the virus in question that turns the dead into the undead were to evolve or to mutate?  What if zombies got faster and stronger?  What if they became just like us?  Anything just to make them scarier.

Sony Press Event 2013

As you know by now, It's official Playstation 4 will be available.  Not only that, but it won't be next year.  It will be this year during the holidays.  My guess is that it will be soon before black Friday.  Unfortunately I did not hear the official pricing on the stream.  Rumor has it that the costs will be $429 and $529 depending on which package.  What that includes will likely be hard drive space or maybe in even included peripherals.

The new controller will include all the same that was on the Dual Shock 3, but in addition will have a share button for sharing videos of your gaming with your friends online.  A touch pad will be at the top center.  Also a light bar to indicate which player you are.  This light bar will also be used with another peripheral that is a new enhanced camera, that looks much like Microsoft's Kinect.

Again you will be able to share footage of your games with your friends.  There will be more emphasis on community, you could say.  Your Playstation 2 and 3 back library can be accessible through the cloud.  My understanding is that with today's high speed internet, it will be much like playing OnLive, a service which feeds you video, while your console does little work.  This is Sony's answer to backwards compatibility.  You WILL be able to play all your old games in this fashion.

The games they showed were quite impressive to say the least.  First of all just to show it's capabilities, the rendering allows for full expression and high textures to give a more realistic feel and be much more the quality of a CG movie you might see.  The games that I am most interested in are inFamous: Second Son and Watch Dogs.  I'm a big fan of the inFamous series, so this game is a must for me, so I guess that even though there wasn't much in the way of gameplay to be shown, I might be biased here.  Watch Dogs is great.  I want to say it may be a little like Grand Theft Auto on a grand scale with Sci-Fi.  You hack into anything, people's phones, cameras, ATMs, and any known grid that runs just about anything in the city.

I hope this wets everyone's appetites for E3 this year.  I will try and save what I can for a PS4, but it is likely that I'll stay away from it for quite some time as there are still plenty of games on the PS3 and shortages will be likely, if not inevitable.  That and I'm saving to move out within the next 6 to 9 months.  Peace!

"Bully" A Documentary...My Thoughts

When I got only a little ways into the film I saw Alex's story and that made me angry and I felt all the stuff that happened to me come back and seeing all that he went through, I felt even more.  There's no question that this is a problem.  Now I was mostly verbally abused in High School, but that's bad, no matter how you look at it.  The simple answer to many people is to ignore it and move on.  But how does it feel to have to hang out with the "loser crowd?"  How does it feel to hang with others that are being bullied just the same over and over.  Sure getting together helps and I felt for them just as much, but that group sense isn't enough.  The bullying had to stop.  And also unlike Alex I lashed out and was referred to as "psycho,"  Because of it.  Alex just pretended to laugh and enjoy it, just because he wanted friends.  And it wasn't just verbal.  it was physical for him.  Stabbed with pencils, punched, and choked.  The bullying on him escalated enough for the film makers to show his family and finally have them know and get into the picture.

It feels sickening to watch much of this go on.  So one problem that the school goes through, because of this bullying is that they could be seen as bad for letting this go on, of course in this movie, it was for them to show the world and get some help with this problem.  The school took the right step.  Here's some other things that can happen.  In the movie there was a father talking about his son that was only 11 when he committed suicide.  A black athletic girl was bullied so much that she took her mother's gun onto the bus.  No lives were taken and no shots were made, but she held the students hostage.  Pointed the gun at many of the students that picked on her.  She threatened and yet at many of them.  "You made me do this," is what she says.  One thing that doesn't really come into play in this movie are lawsuits.  I've heard school staff being sued for their irresponsibility in taking care of these problems.  Suicides, bullies beating, school shootings, and lawsuits.  I'm sure no school wants these, but when a parent puts their kids in the care of others, they expect them to take care of them.  The schools, by not doing anything, invite these things into their buildings.  Then they sometimes punish.  Hypocrisy is what I call this.

I was on GetGlue.com and made the comment on my situation.  I'm on medications such as Xanax.  I have been out of school.  I learned to forgive, but forgiveness doesn't just start at one day and you move on.  Forgiveness is an everyday thing.  The feelings and thoughts come back all the time.  I may even have to forgive it all over again.  Forgiveness is an everyday thing.  You don't just do it one time and it's over.

Now I don't have kids of my own, so you'd think that It's over for me, but I relive it.  I don't do this on purpose.  I wish I had that kind of control.  Maybe someday I will have a son or daughter.  I don't want this to happen to them and if it did, you better believe all hell will break loose.

I would love the opportunity to share my experiences.  I would be open to anything to help kids get through this today.  Though I do have some crowd fear and such and being single.  These things would make it hard to get into helping kids.  But I feel so angry or empathetic that I wish I could do something.

From the movie, Alex is in a new school.  He has friends.  He gets along well.  He even seems more outgoing.  The change in him was great.  What do you think made the difference in his mood and has behavior?  The atmosphere and the fact that he's not being bullied and has friends.  For a brighter future, we must end the bully epidemic.

The Sandy Hook Shooting "Conspiracy"

Ok, so recently some paranoid trolls on the internet, worried about their gun rights thanks to a presidential douchebag, started posting messages, blog articles, and youtube videos saying that the Sandy Hook shooting never happened and that it's all a big conspiracy to take away peoples guns.  Now I have no problem whatsoever with people owning guns.  I just have a problem with psychos with no seense of empathy for dead people and their family and friends owning guns.  Those are the ones I'm worried about.  If you don't feel for their families and just use the news of their deaths as a way to say the government is taking your gus, then you my friend, are a psychopath.  You have no feelings for your fellow man and woman and you don't deserve your guns, because you'll probably go shoot someone and not feel a thing.  I mean, if you don't feel for those families and are more afraid of losing your guns than you are worried about someone losing someone, then you have more feelings for your guns than the people you pretend to say you are protecting with those guns.

Where did these conspiracy theories come from?  Who wrote them?  Do you know them?  How credible are they?  So you have some minor evidence, but no proof?  I don't know you, but I'm supposed to believe you when you say that it's a conspiracy?  Ok, suppose I take your word for it.  Suppose I'm convinced by these tiny little supposed discrepencies that may or may not exist in your videos of the families.  I would look like the biggest most paranoid douchebag ever. 

And what if I believed that this story was true.  And I do.  It's on the news.  Can the news be bought?  Can they possibly be behind the spreading of a conspiracy?  How likely is that?  Ok first, yes money is a big motivator.  How much money would that take to convice that many people to report a lie?  Where would the money come from?  How much "acting" would it take to push this story as true?  You say some of them smiled in the news videos?  So what?  Any psychologist would tell you that a smile or even a little light laughter is normal from certain individuals.  Yeah, I know that's weird, but I've given a small smile during my biggest pains.  It's just a psychological reaction to get your through a big mess.  An extreme example would be someone that went mad with laughter, because they saw something miserable.  Most people, yes, would believe they thought it was funny, but not a psychologist or therapist.  They know more than most people do about the human mind.

So, there have been shootings in the past and at the same time there was talk of gun control.  I don't remember any conspiracy theories, do you?  Suddenly d-bag Obama wants to talk big gun control and people go nuts, so they use what they can including dead people to say "no."  Oh no.  Messages to the government that you're not happy about this.  Essays on why taking guns is a bad idea with references to credible people.  These aren't enough?  So instead you go all psycho and lose all empathy for the dead and their friends and family.  You go that far to say gus are a bad idea.  WOW!

That's minor compared to a huge controlled and well thought out conspiracy by the government.  Do you even know how unlikely that is?  I mean that's just way out there.  Why not go a step further to say the Obama is Osama Bin Laden's second cousin twice removed and that on top of that he was injected with alien dna from the planet Smoo.  That's about how unlikely that conspiracy theory is.

If you believe this is a conspiracy and not a reaction, then this is my response...

Was Asperger's to Blame for a Recent School Shooting?

It's been said on numerous and almost countless news sites.  The shooter had Asperger's Syndrome.  And repeatedly the same source posts article upon article that the shooter and his Asperger's were not related.  I normally don't even feel the need to bold face or underline things, but since people need to be reminded time and time again that they aren't related, I felt the need to.  I could probably even justify myself if I highlighted them, circled them, and pointed arrows at them.  Instead let me point out perhaps 3 sources that you could read before I carry this any further.

Leave autism out of mass shootings (CNN) by Alex Plank

Is autism a link to violence (NBC News) by staff, KSBY News

No Link Between Asperger's Syndrome And Violence, Experts Say (Huffington Post) STEPHANIE NANO

Ok, so I hope you at least read one of those and have a clear enough picture, if you didn't before.  People with Asperger's syndrome have problems with social queues.  They have problems showing empathy.  And yes sometimes they do reactively lash out.  They typically do not strike back with plans thought of ahead of time.  Not to say that 1 out of 1 million won't.  It's just very unlikely.  As a matter of fact, someone with no problems with psychological or in this case neurological background is more likely to do such a thing.  I said it in a previous post that anybody could do something this horrible.

So, you might ask about the lack of empathy shown by autistics.  Well, certainly they don't show it much, but the thing with autism is that a person with autism quite often feels more than what they show.  It's a type of communication that they have a problem showing.  It may not feel normal to them to express it.  It may not feel comfortable for them to show it.

As for me, it is very hard to show my emotions.  However when they do they, come pouring out all at once.  Sometimes in tears, by myself or in front of people.

But they lash out reactively.  Yes, unfortunately many of us do or have in the past.  This is more typically in our younger years.  When we get older we learn how to manage our impulses.  Those that react, react out of fear and pain.  There's always a reason for it, whether necessary or not.  The ones that do might hit someone or push someone.  That's about the extent of it.  Later, we learn not to do that as we grow up.  Still there are temper problems even into our adult hood.  Many have learned to manage this as well.

As for me, growing up I have hit or shoved people in my younger years and mostly in my youngest years.  My impulse to hit a bully turned into hitting solid objects.  I have hurt and somewhat skinned my knuckles on walls, in the past.  Yelling?  Yeah, I have yelled in the past, too.  This is still an on going thing, but it's exceedingly rare for me to be in a situation where I feel enough of or the right kind of pain to yell.  Ok, I yell at my video games, but who hasn't?  They're out there.  Show of hands.  :)  The last time I yelled I was in a room with people I knew well enough.  The first and main ingredient is something to be be outraged about.  So if I feel someone did or said something that I'm completely outraged by then that's the number one ingredient.  That's not all.  Without the rest of these ingredients I will not lose my temper.  It must be a room where I feel no very easy way out of.  I must know many of the people in the room well enough otherwise I'm more apt to walk out or cry.  No open spaces.  I'm more likely to walk away, if someone displeases me at Wal-mart.  Not many strangers.  People are scary.  I don't know what to expect.  So to summarize it must be in a place I normally feel comfortable in or rather be very familiar with and that goes for the people, too.

Another thing about Aspergers is that people that have it follow a certain moral code.  Many people have their own, but typically follow what our teachers brought us up with.  We're more likely to follow the law when we can at all help it.  We don't like to stand out.  I don't speak for all autistics or aspies when I say the following.  When I was growing up and even some now, I'm more likely to socialize or get some understanding from people older than me.  I was more able to be myself around authority figures or those that are in a position to help me with services or jobs.

So is it any wonder why we sometimes do get mad and show it?  After all, we're typically the victims of bullies of any form.  We're the ones that don't seem to fit in.  We're the ones that are lonely.  So to add to that, now we're being stigmatized by people that read one story on a shooting and now believe there's a correlation, because the media messed up and later admitted it.  But many people read the one story and stick to that.  They don't care what is said later.  They think they have all the information.  The media can't apologize enough, but to be gracious for their apologetic efforts in fixing that, I can only forgive them.  But I'll have a harder time with those ignoring the press's later statements that violence like the shooting and Asperger's is not related.  Those people I have little sympathy for, because they don't often use their heads.  I make no apologies for what I'm saying to any of those that believe in a non-existent correlation.

All Crimes Are Committed By Someone Mentally Ill?

First off, no.  Actually most crimes are committed people that are completely sane by medical standards.  Ok, now that we've got my main point let's get to it.  I miss the old days when crimes were committed by psychos and psychopaths as people called them.  Crazies.  There wasn't anything specific to people's rationale as to why someone did something.  It's just like pointing out that there was just simply something wrong with the person and it's true isn't it?  A poor person needs money to pay a bill.  Well, he has a gun.  He can hold up the local store clerk and in the process, oops, kill him.  Was their something wrong with the person.  Of course, but the person can be perfectly normal.  All he needed was a big motivator.  Maybe his heat was being shut off this winter.  And you know people can't go without heat.  Many people can't stand that.  So there's his motivator.  We don't usually see why a person does what they do.  Often times the crimes are simple and for simple reasons.

Now we have school shootings.  This is a more complex situation.  Lately the one thing that's been trending in the news in so many shootings or other crimes is "this person has asperger's."  Not sure where this has come from entirely.  I suspect since the term is a trending topic as of late and people are learning more about it, it's on people's minds.  Now people really don't understand what asperger's is all about.  They know the basics of it.  A couple things that stand out are the awkward behaviors and the other is the lack of show of emotion.  Well, rest assured, as we, like every normal person is, that although we are capable of it, the likeliness that we would do such a thing is generally the same as all normal people.  Just like the guy that shot up a store clerk for his gas bill I mentioned earlier.

The apparent lack of emotion is the big indicator for people.  "He's not showing any emotion  He must have asperger's," is probably what people are thinking.  Well, actually when someone commits a crime that big, they often lock their emotions away in their head.  Seems to be a normal thing to do for some people, really.  Try to hide their guilt, so they hide emotion in the process of hiding their guilty look.

But school shootings are complex situations.  There's a lot we don't know.  There's a lot that we don't see.  There's a lot we can assume.  We try to rationalize people's behavior now.  It obviously doesn't make it right, but we're all looking for a reason.  We're all looking and asking why.

In the end though, we have someone that did something.  We can't stop it.  We can't read minds.  As much as we like to think we have control, we don't.  We like to think we can take care of these things.  We all want that power.  But we simply can't do that.  All we can do is deal with it when it comes and pray for those lost and those hurt.

Live like nothing can go wrong.  Love like nothing can stop you.  You never know when the unexpected may happen.  Don't live worrying about it.  Don't try too hard to rationalize it.  If it's not in your best interest, then just leave it be and bandage and pray for those left behind.

The Copyright Debate

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My take on the whole copyright deal.  I couldn't get everything in this video that I wanted, but I got the just of it.

New laws needs to be made and negotiations between people on the sides of fans and people against the "infringement" need to take place.

The internet is like this...  Say you're on the street and you get to talking to someone new and suddenly you get on the topic of "Family guy" and you just happened to buy the episode and put it on your phone.  So you talk about "Family Guy" and you show him part of the episode from your phone.  Now imagine this taking place on the internet.  The internet has a different feel to it.  When you click a link to a copyrighted video, it's like bumping into someone on the street happening upon someone with the same taste and thinking it's funny.  The thing I'm saying that we should start seeing the internet this way.  The internet just has a different feel to it than real life.  Copyright is no different in or out of the internet, but it is being treated VERY differently.  We need to make it clear that real life is a very different beast than the internet, but we should treat it the same way we do real life.  The thing is is that the internet is crystal clear and you see everything.  You see things happening that you don't see in real life so clearly.  With the internet, it's right there in front of your face and at your fingertips.