Aitch-Bar

Writing About (Mostly) Not Astrophysics

Tag Archives: Apocalypse


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Zombs On The Tee-Vee

I am going to stick my neck out, or extend my arm outside of the moving vehicle, or avail myself of the glory hole, or whatever your preferred metaphor for risky behavior may be. I am going to make the statement that I enjoy watching The Walking Dead mostly because of the outrageous violence. Feel free to pontificate on character development, well-maintained evolving story lines, and great camera work. Agreed that those are all positives. But if you are a hardcore subscriber to those things, try tuning in to any other AMC production, because they do it much better. This show is made great by unrepentant head trauma infliction. I refuse to carry on bloviated discussions that dance around this core facet any longer. Along that line of thought, Talking Dead is a truly stupid thing, and Chris Hardwick irritates me to no end. Between that guy and the entire Ghost Hunters team, I have spent a lot of time recently praying for people to be reincarnated as toilets.

Edit: spolier alert, season 2 mid-season finale, next sentence.

Yes, the girl was in the barn the whole time and they had to put her down, that’s whatever. Consider that point as read. I tune in for the facial perforations. I do acknowledge that the folks doing makeup deserve all of their awards and nominations. Were I to be completely candid, however, this is just icing. The walkers could look like they just staggered out of an 8-bit video game, and I would not particularly mind. In fact, that might be preferable, vis-a-vis escapism. My entire life is a constantly evolving character-driven narrative, and I see people who look like they’re dead every time I leave the apartment. The only thing in that show that doesn’t resemble my daily routine is the use of a katana in anger.

I realize that claiming enjoyment of that sort of thing calls into question my entire moral character. To quote Biggie: fuck ’em, I didn’t want to go to Heaven anyway.


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Apollcalypse

When I’m listening to some of these internet radio stations and their slightly off-brand retro dance music, I feel like I’m about to have a bad teenage experience. I am at a rave, and I can’t find any of my friends, and the fog machine is slowly displacing all of the oxygen in this abandoned warehouse but no one else seems to mind. I’ve stumbled upon that small fraction of the population–and every single member is here tonight–that can wear naught but glowsticks and have intercourse in the open without performance anxiety-induced ED, and have that be just another Friday. I am concerned that Hot Mix Radio 90s is going to roofie my drink while I’m not looking, and I am going to come to with no wallet and an untreatable case of the trojan flame.

There is a series on Natty Geo called Doomsday Preppers, where every episode showcases three adults devoting what remains of their lives to ruining what remains of their children’s. The NG poll at left is taken from their website, hopefully illegally. A few items bear discussion; you can go ahead and click the thumbnail to bring up a full-size view, because otherwise these observations won’t make any sense. If you’re ready, let’s proceed. 26% of those surveyed think the Soviet Union is still around. 21% are trapped in the ruins of the History channel, deep in the body dent on their couch, an episode of Ancient Aliens and a bag of Cheetos as their only sustenance as they await the weekend, when they will finally shower. 2% support destroying the Sun before it destroys us. And, by my calculus, 104% of people are generally pessimistic about our future prospects. I invite you to look up the definition of “microcosm,” as it is apropos on that last point.

GS made a fascinating observation, which points to the one and only thing that’s wrong with the subjects of the show: they are all preparing for the apocalypse by storing food and holing up in bunkers. Thanks to these episodes, we know with great precision exactly where all of these people live, what their defensive capabilities are, and what golden treasures they secret away. There needs to be an episode where they interview a person whose sole purpose is preparing to invade everyone else’s bunkers, and is stockpiling military hardware and conscripting homeless people, and every Saturday evening gets to add three new flags to their map of the U.S. No one ever steps up to really own the role of warlord until post-cataclysm. A little preparation now will go a long way, after a solar flare causes Yellowstone to spew radioactive oil-eating superviruses all over our money.