(Above link is to an ABC news story from Indianapolis where I man fights naked and gets away from as many as five cops, even after being tased. Includes video which may or may not be NSFW depending on where you work)
How are those tasers working out for you guys?
Zombies are a metaphor of course. We are all afraid of something human, we just don’t want to admit it. If you know humans you know they are unpredictable. Today’s sane rational person can become tomorrows irrational monster– if provided enough of a engine of change. This engine can be life changes, drugs, comets, disease, riot, social ques, and any other long list of problems.
What would a blog entitled Last Stand on Zombie Island be without keeping track of this trend.
Here is what we have seen this week.
At the University of Rhode Island, doctors and health professionals are setting up a ‘clinic’ to hand out zombie vaccinations as a practice run. Of course, this helps to drive training in handling pandemics.
A company in Europe is offering two hour simulations in zombie survival. “During the zombie game, which is suitable for those aged 16 or above, groups of up to six people will be led around the Cold War bunker by a soldier clad in combat fatigues and armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. Other actors will play scientists wearing white bio-suits and gas masks or the infected, who will be covered with fake blood and bear horrific wounds. Shots will be fired and tough decisions will need to be made as the group battles for survival.” Can you say training for urban riots, TEOTEWAKI scenarios, et al.
Zombies on your ipad and iphone- a new app called ZDAY takes you through hundreds of scenarios to keep you sharp. Much like the Choose Your Own Adventure books of old, you are presented with scenario after scenario and asked to make a decision on which action you will take. Will your choice lead to survival or death at the hands of the zombies? The game engine continuously keeps track of your survival probability, based on the choices you make. Of course this sets the user in an adaptable state of mind.
A good overview of this continuing phenomena towards zombie prep can be found here at the London Free Press, “It’s impossible to reasonably prepare for these threats NASA says are unreasonable. But we can ready ourselves — gather our meat-cleavers — for any fight with the undead. You heard me. Don’t try to look away. It’s time for every man, woman and child to soldier up.From Los Angeles to London, zombie survival courses are filling up fast. In the ’50s, families worried about commies. Today, it’s reanimated corpses.
“In a time of catastrophe, some people find their humanity; others lose theirs,” explains Michigan State University professor Glenn Stutzky of his summer course, Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse: Catastrophes and Human Behavior.
He’s interested in teaching behaviour through pop culture, such as Brad Pitt’s zombie movie World War Z, due out next year. If there is a next year.
Me? I’m interested in keeping my head.
Christine Speer Lejeune of the Philly Post has a great article entitled “Where to Hide When Zombies Invade Philly: Where would you camp out?”
“I’ve begun seeing the city through different eyes: Homes I once coveted for their floor-to-ceiling windows don’t look so awesome anymore. Same with my own sweet little apartment—too many doors. The Free Library has too many entrances; same, alas, with Ikea, which would otherwise be perfect. But that second-floor Superfresh in No Libs? That’s genius. We could stay there for months. This is how I take in architecture now: How zombie-friendly is it? Eastern State Penitentiary has a whole new appeal as a long-term residence. Same with the Moshulu…..”
Good stuff….
Posted: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 1:14 am
Chris Alcantara, Alligator Contributing Writer
http://www.alligator.org/news/local/article_9105e726-5c53-11e1-b20d-001871e3ce6c.html
The Gainesville Police Department wants students to be prepared when the walking dead strike.
The GPD Crime Prevention Unit aired the first episode of its Zombie Campaign series Saturday on Police Beat, a GPD television show.
The video features Mikel Mazlaghani, a GPD officer, as he arrests zombies for stealing a bicycle, snatching a stereo out of a home and lifting a student’s backpack from her car.
The campaign was designed to inform college students about the threat of burglary if cars, homes and bicycles are left unlocked, but with a pop culture twist, said GPD Lt. Art Adkins.
Adkins said 50 percent of vehicle burglaries that occurred in the first week of February in Gainesville happened because cars were left unlocked.
To raise awareness of burglary in the city, Adkins said Mazlaghani came up with the idea of sending out a crime prevention message through the use of a Hollywood icon: the zombie.
Ernest Graham, a GPD crime prevention officer, said the Zombie Campaign is a way to reach the student population.
“You take something serious, like property crime, and put a fun twist on it, like zombies, and that makes it entertaining,” he said.
Property crimes are, a majority of the time, a crime of opportunity, she added.
Chas Reynolds, a 19-year-old chemical engineering freshman, was a victim of burglary in October when someone broke into his car and stole his iPod, a friend’s iPhone, four credit cards and $100 in cash.
Reynolds said he thinks the Zombie Campaign will help prevent burglaries throughout the city.
However, Brian Ware, a 20-year-old information systems and operations management sophomore, does not see the new campaign in the same light as the department.
“I think the use of zombies is a little childish,” he said. “Theft is a serious crime and should be treated as such, especially in raising awareness.”
By Barbara LaBoe / The Daily News | Posted: Monday, February 20, 2012 8:15 pm |
http://tdn.com/news/local/zombies-will-help-promote-disaster-preparedness-in-kelso/article_033f3e34-5c2f-11e1-b19e-0019bb2963f4.html
Zombies are coming to Kelso Saturday — but they’re coming to help rather than harm.
Rather than feasting on brains, the zombies at the Three Rivers Mall will help residents prepare for several types of disasters during an Emergency Preparedness Fair. They’ll also star in some locally produced commercials.
Organizers say adding the “zombie factor” is a good way to grab people’s attention about serious topics.
“I’m a personal fan of zombies,” said organizer Markus Azeltine.
The 16-year-old Mark Morris High School junior is organizing the entire fair — including the zombie commercials — as his Eagle Scout project. “Basically, it’s how I got myself excited about emergency preparedness, and I figured it would work with others, too.”
The zombie theme also is a play off the federal Center for Disease Control’s own zombie campaign. Started as a tongue-in-cheek web campaign, “zombie planning” has become quite popular, according to the CDC website.
“If you are generally well-equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse, you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake or terrorist attack,” Dr. Ali Khan, the CDC’s director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, notes on the CDC website.
All kidding aside, Azeltine said last year’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami wave brought home the importance of being prepared for emergencies and natural disasters.
“I sort of realized that disasters can happen anywhere, and so I should be prepared,” he said. “And we’re near water and have Mount St. Helens here, so its especially important.”
County officials weren’t sure what to think when Azeltine first approached them about the fair. They’ve been pleasantly surprised, though, as Azeltine has handled all the organizing.
“He’s done a great job,” said Jennifer Engkraf of the county’s Department of Emergency Management.
There will be 20 booths at the fair, including those by PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center demonstrating CPR and the Civil Air Patrol teaching about cold weather survival. Participants can enter to win prizes, including an Apple iPod Touch.
And then there are the zombie commercials — or emergency preparedness public service announcements as they’re properly called.
Anyone who brings pet food or pet blankets for the Humane Society can join in as a zombie actor or extra, Azeltine said. Scripts and props will be provided. Regular street clothes are all that’s needed “because zombies turn into zombies when they’re in normal clothes,” Azeltine said.
The commercials will be posted on the fair’s Facebook page, search for Cowlitz Emergency Preparedness Fair 2012, and Azeltine also hopes to see them on KLTV.
Saturday’s Emergency Preparedness Fair runs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Three Rivers Mall in Kelso
Zombies invade Rhodes campus, South Africa
21 February 2012
DAVID MACGREGOR
http://www.dispatch.co.za/news/article/2922
ZOMBIE fever gripped Grahamstown yesterday as hundreds of paranoid Rhodes University students fought running campus battles with “the living dead”.
More than 350 students – and even a history lecturer – signed up this week to take part in the four-day Humans vs Zombies (HvZ) bloodfest that has fast become a global phenomenon since launched in America 15 years ago.
Held in South Africa for the first time late last year when the Rhodes University Gaming Society dug deep in their pockets to host the Zombie Apocalypse, this time round HvZ has been given the thumbs up by campus management – who even sponsored the event as part of their Live Smart Week.
Larissa Klazinga, student services officer in the dean of students’ office, yesterday said the focus of Live Smart was student wellness.
“We hope teaming up with a diverse group of roleplayers to host unorthodox events like HvZ on the one hand and traditional sporting events like athletics on the other will ensure that for this week at least, students spend less time in bars and more time enjoying themselves without drinking excessively.”
Described as a “massive game of tag (catchers)”, Klazinga said besides encouraging newcomers to make friends with “returners”, HvZ also attracted those who were more at home in front of a computer than running around outdoors .
According to former GameSoc chair Monique Mulholland – who got the HvZ concept going at Rhodes last year – new technologies played a huge part in keeping “humans” informed of the whereabouts of the ever increasing hordes of “zombies” who stalked the campus.
“New media plays a big role.”
Besides shouting verbal warnings to each other, players also use Facebook and Blackberry Messaging (BBM) to try and outwit and outlast the opposition.
Starting with one randomly picked secret “original zombie” – who is given a purple bandanna to wear on one arm just like the humans for the first few hours of the game – the aim is to tag as many humans as possible before all the zombies are forced to wear the bandana around their heads to tell them apart from their living enemies.
The only way for humans to keep the zombies at bay is to throw “anti- undead projectiles (AUPs)” – clean, rolled up pairs of socks – at them to stun the undead for 15 minutes, while the only way for zombies to notch up a kill is to tag touch their human prey.
At least one tag must be recorded every 48 hours on the GameSoc website or the zombie dies of starvation.
Dressed from head to toe in a custom made camo ninja outfit , star HvZ player Matthew “the chain soldier” Funcke, 23, said people who knew nothing about the game got nervous when they spotted him skulking around the campus bushes.
“I also get a fair amount of mockery,” the computer science honours student admitted – before adding he even attended lectures in his camo fatigues and resorted to using a night vision monocular as he lurked in the shadows at night dodging zombies.
Areas like buildings are off limits and hordes of zombies are known to lay siege to canteens and lecture halls waiting for human victims.
Veteran GameSoc member Will Walters said the idea of HvZ was to try to break away from the clich�d idea of gamers being stuck in “caverns” behind computers doing nothing.
He said the best way for humans to survive the zombie onslaught was to adopt a herd mentality.