Zombieddon

5 Baffling Discoveries That Prove History Books Are Wrong

2012-04-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

A generation of students found out the hard way that archaeology isn't anywhere near as much fun as Indiana Jones made it look. Still, experts in the field do have their exciting, and even shocking, days at the office. Mainly, these occur when they discover baffling artifacts that are half a planet away from where they
should be, proving that a whole lot of what we thought about history was dead wrong. Like...

#5. Cocaine Discovered in Egyptian Mummies

When Columbus and his buddies made it to the New World, aka not India, they found more than just future smallpox sufferers waiting for them. There was a whole cornucopia of never-before-seen plants and animals growing in the Americas, not to mention new and interesting ways to use beads. So while the natives came away from their first European encounter with raging infectious diseases and honeybees, Europeans were introduced to the glories of tobacco, narcotics made from the coca leaf and a whole mess of open-air nudity. If you've ever needed evidence that history is unfair, there it is.

"This is great, we'll take it. These guys
don't have squatters' rights, do they?"

At least that's the story we know. And if that's true, then how did some Egyptian mummies wind up with traces of cocaine in their bodies?

The Finds:

In 1992, German scientists were testing their mummies when they found remnants of hashish, tobacco and cocaine in their hair, skin and bones. Now, hashish comes from Asia, so it's not unfathomable that a royal Egyptian would know a guy who could get him the hook-up. But tobacco and cocaine were strictly New World plants at the time of the mummification. It'd be like if some celebrity today tested positive for heroin that could only have been grown on Venus.

"I've been nodding for the last two
millenniums. This shit is incredible."

So how did it happen? All we have are theories. Maybe the sites were contaminated by hard-partying archaeologists (although you'd think that if somebody had old pics of themselves snorting coke off of a mummy's ass, they'd have uploaded that shit to Facebook by now). Or maybe the mummies themselves were fake, like maybe they were disco-era archaeologists who just took their love of mummification too far.

"Four excavators came down with the disco fever before a
priest released the curse."

So the German scientists did what anyone trying to protect their reputation would do -- they had an independent lab test the mummies themselves. They found the same dope. The Germans then went to work testing hundreds of ancient mummies, finding nicotine in a third of them. Not only that, but actual tobacco leaves were discovered in the guts of Ramses II (of Exodus fame, maybe). And among those leaves, an actual dead tobacco beetle was found, which means that some ancient Egyptian just smoked the hell out of his cigarettes.

Only a lazy beatnik would have that beard.

#4. Ancient Hebrew Inscribed on a Rock in New Mexico

Picture this: You're an archaeologist minding your own business in New Mexico when a guy comes up and tells you he's got something to show you. Once you check to make sure he's wearing pants and double check to make sure you've got a gun, you follow him to this town outside Albuquerque called Los Lunas. And there he shows you a 90-ton rock inscribed with ancient writing. No big deal, right? Everyone knows Native Americans have lived in the area since at least the 1850s, it's only natural they'd scratch some graffiti up every now and then. People get bored.

Things to do in Old New Mexico: Die, watch
other people die, make pottery.

This is exactly what happened to archaeology professor Frank Hibben in 1933. Only he had the sense to recognize that the scribbling wasn't Native American writing -- it was Hebrew. Ancient Hebrew. And the message wasn't "Custer sux balls," it was the Ten Commandments.

The Find:

Believe it or not, while people in the 1930s were gullible enough to think Martians were invading Earth in the most melodramatic way possible, they were cynical enough to call bullshit at the claim that anyone in ancient America knew Hebrew. Yet when experts took a look, they were confounded. For one thing, the script included some Greek letters, which indicated that the script was etched by someone comfortable with mixing Greek and Hebrew (if no one comes to mind, ancient Samaritans fit that bill perfectly).

They're the ones who didn't cross the road to
get to the other side because their religion bans jokes.

So that was weird. And the rock was the same basalt of the mountain right behind it, so it was definitely local. But that doesn't mean that the ancient script on the rock was ancient, right? Any old American with a theology degree and a chisel could have done it (again, there was literally nothing else to do for entertainment back then). It also doesn't help that the guy who discovered the rock in the first place was later implicated in artifact fraud (though the allegations were never proven). The whole thing was just too weird to be anything but a hoax.

"Oh sure, but if we wrote 'Elvis lives'
in Latin, everyone would believe it."

Yet when a modern geologist examined the inscriptions and compared them with carvings nearby, he concluded that the scratchings could be between 500 and 2,000 years old. And that's as much as we'll presumably ever know -- by this point, too many people have handled the artifact for dating tests to get any kind of accurate results.

If legit, it would explain why the local
tribes have such kickass bagels.

#3. Ancient Roman Statues in Mexico

Anyone with a third grade understanding of world geography (or access to Google Maps) knows that Rome and Latin America aren't neighbors (fiery tempers and flat bread recipes don't count as proximity in the map world). Even when Rome was at its apex and was conquering Africa, England and everyone's hearts, places like Mexico were nowhere on their radar. Not just because radar didn't exist, but because as far as the Old World was concerned, the Western Hemisphere didn't exist. Once you got past Portugal, it was nothing but Neptune, water dragons and the edge of the planet.

Standing somewhere high and noticing the
curve of the Earth was just too much
for the Romans.

Which was why scholars were baffled when an ancient statue of a Roman head popped up in an old temple in Mexico.

The Finds:

In 1933, an archaeologist was digging around a burial ground about 40 miles away from Mexico City when he discovered this tiny little figure among the other offerings. And we should mention that this wasn't just a typical out-in-the-open burial dumping ground. The spot he was digging was previously under not one, but two undisturbed cement floors that were untouched since the 1500s. So it's not like a jokester could have purchased it at the nearest Roman-centered novelty store and dumped it in a cemetery to be hilarious.

"I left an ancient Egyptian dildo in there for
him to find, but wait until he realizes
it's from the wrong dynasty!"

And yes, we're aware that Columbus touched ground a few years before that, but white guys didn't make it to Mexico until 1519, and even then, it's unlikely they would have been carrying around Roman artifacts. And yes, they know it was Roman -- the beehive bouffant (or hat) and facial features match Roman artifacts of the second century.

Romans clearly went through a difficult
puberty before becoming masters of the world.

So how did it get there? No one knows. But another discovery might shed some light on the mystery.

In 1982, an underwater archaeologist discovered a buttload of third century Roman vases in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. A little more digging around led to the discovery of two rotting Roman-style ships, which were then promptly buried with sand by the Brazilian government. Apparently Brazil hates adventure, and also the idea of anyone messing with their version of history, which was that their land was discovered by the Portuguese, not the Romans. Seems like it'd be cooler to have been discovered by the Romans, but whatever.

"We don't want a bunch of unruly
Italians covering everything in marinara
sauce and pictures of the Pope.

#2. A Norse Coin in Maine

Imagine it's 1957 and you're on an archaeology dig in Maine. If it helps set the scene, picture yourself listening to Elvis Presley in a white tee with a cigarette pack in your sleeve while you dig around. The spot you're working on was once the largest Native American settlement in Maine, so you're looking for Native American-y stuff. Arrowheads and the like. But among all that is this coin that just doesn't fit. "That's because it's British!" said everyone at first, but the truth turned out to be much weirder. The coin was Norse (think descendents of Vikings), and a thousand years old at that.

The Find:

It actually took 21 years for anyone to pay attention to the coin that looked like a half-eaten Oreo ...

Prenibbled for the best filling-to-cookie ratio.

... but when they did, the evidence was pretty conclusive. Not only was this an ancient coin minted during the reign of Norse King Olaf Kyrre, but the window of its production was pretty limited: 1065 to 1080. That's 15 years, for those of you too lazy to bother with rudimentary math. This coin must have been made within those 15 years, and in Norway. And it was found in Maine, USA, 5 inches beneath the surface of the earth, among 30,000 genuinely Native American artifacts found during the dig.

"Dammit, Thor, I told you not to flip that coin.
Now we have no change for the parking meter."

One lone Scandinavian coin among tens of thousands of American Indian relics. So how did it get there? There was zero evidence of the Vikings ever settling past the very top of Eastern Canada, and even that wasn't so much of a "settlement" as it was a "temporary campground, maybe." And that was hundreds and hundreds of miles away. So the story was probably amazing, and also one that we'll never, ever know.

#1. Ancient Japanese Speakers in New Mexico

We're starting to think aliens knew what they were doing when they totally and for real landed in New Mexico all those years ago. Weird shit has been popping up in the Land of Enchantment since forever. They probably thought no one would notice their weird little melon heads among the Hebrew rocks and wacky turquoise shops.

"Aw, my Etsy store sucks."

Case in point: Tucked into New Mexico is one tribe of Native Americans who happen to speak a language unlike any around them. A language called Japanese.

The Find:

OK, maybe the Zuni people aren't speaking Japanese-Japanese, but there are enough similarities between the two languages that a few experts are spooked. The theory of a Japanese/Native American connection came about when graduate student Nancy Yaw Davis took an anthropology class on Southwestern Native American culture. She noticed that some Zuni words sounded a hell of a lot like Japanese words, and at a rate way above random chance. For example, the Zuni word for "clan" is "kwe," while in Japanese it is "kwai." The word for "clown" is "newe" in Japanese and "niwaka" in Zuni. "Priest" is "shawani" in Japanese and "shiwani" in Zuni.

The word for "cosplay" is "You're an
embarrassment to your culture."

And then there was the whole syntax thing -- both languages use the verb as the last word of a sentence, a feature only 45 percent of languages share. That may not seem like a lot, but considering the Zuni language is nothing like the languages of the people who surround it, it's a pretty odd connection.

Kachina. In Japanese that translates
to "those who have difficulty with sweaters."

So then Davis really started digging, and that was when she discovered all kinds of spooky crap -- like that both the Zuni and the Japanese share frequency of Type B blood, a rare kidney disease and specific oral traditions about their origins. So her theory is that sometime around the 12th century Buddhist missionaries made it all the way to California and traveled inland. Somehow.

If Davis' theory is true, the Zuni walked away from the deal with Japanese genes and some kickass stories -- which is a whole lot better than, say, smallpox. So it could have been worse.


It could have been dickgirls.

Thanks to CRACKED for the article!

6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can't Explain

2012-03-25T01:27:00.009-07:00

We like to feel superior to the people who lived centuries ago, what with their shitty mud huts and curing colds by drilling a hole in their skulls. But we have to give them credit: They left behind some artifacts that have left the smartest of modern scientists scratching their heads.

For instance, you have the following enigmas that we believe we're
created for no other purpose than to fuck with future generations.

#6. The Voynich Manuscript

The Mystery:

The Voynich manuscript is an ancient book that has thwarted all attempts at deciphering its contents. And it's not like some idiot just scribbled a bunch of nonsense on paper and went, "Figure THIS out, fuckwads." It is actually an organized book with a consistent script, discernible organization and detailed illustrations.

It appears to be a real language- just one that nobody has seen before. And it really does appear to mean something. But nobody knows what.

Translation: "...and when you get her to put the tennis racket in her mouth, have her stand in a fountain for a while. Then draw pictures of her."

There is not even a consensus on who wrote it, or even when it was written. And we sure as fuck don't know why.

Why Can't They Solve It?

Could you? Look at this shit:

Don't even try. Expert military code-breakers, cryptographers, mathematicians, linguists, people who get paid to find and decipher patterns, have all been left unable to decipher a single word.

As you can imagine, proposed solutions have been all over the board, from reasonable to completely clownshit. Some say it's an unbreakable code that requires a key to solve. Some say it's a hoax, and a damned fine one if we do say ourselves. Some say it's glossolalia, which is the fine art of speaking or writing something you don't understand but that is being channeled to you by God or aliens or whatever (note that the word was chosen specifically to make you sound retarded when saying it).

Our Guess:

It's written in English, by a person who was extremely shitty at writing in English.

#5. The Antikythera Mechanism

The Mystery:

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient, intricate machine found in a shipwreck near Greece that dates back to about 100 BC. The Antikythera mechanism contains gears and structures that were not found in devices again for 1000 years, and only then when the Muslims and Chinese were busy inventing shit while the Europeans were busy killing each other.

Why Can't They Solve It?

First, no one can agree on where the Antikythera mechanism was made or who designed it. Popular belief was that it was made by the Greeks due to its instructions all being in Greek (about a million of our tax dollars were probably spent arriving at that genius conclusion) but serious research published in serious places suggested the design came from Sicily.

And a billion parts with indecipherable instructions suggest it comes from Ikea. Ba-zing!

The mechanism, aside from placing you at serious risk for severing a finger, was supposedly used to figure out astronomical positions. The problem with that is that at the time this thing was made, no one had yet discovered laws of gravity or how heavenly bodies moved.

In other words, the Antikythera mechanism appears to have functions that no one alive at that time would have understood, and no single mechanical purpose of that era (such as navigating ships) explains the crazy number of functions and settings this machine has.

Our Guess:

It's a scrap from a time machine that exploded the moment it arrived in the past.

#4. The Baigong Pipes

The Mystery:

In an area of China not known to ever contain people, let alone industry, there are three mysterious triangular openings on top of a mountain containing hundreds of ancient rusty iron pipes of unknown origin. Some of the pipes go deep into the mountain. Some of them go into a nearby salt water lake. There are more pipes in the lake, and more still running east-west along the lake shore. Some of the larger pipes are 40 cm in diameter, are of uniform size and are placed in what seems like purposeful patterns.

Hey, vagina caves.

So what's the big deal? Well, archaeologists have dated the pipes to a time when people were still trying to figure out how to cook meat without setting their back-hair on fire, let alone casting iron.

Why Can't They Solve It?

Oddly, the pipes are clean of debris despite being older than Zeus. This suggests that they were not simply shoved into the ground for the hell of it, but actually used for something. Oh, and did we mention the mountain is completely inhospitable to human life?

As usual, a faction of nutjobs believes the Baigong Pipes to be an ancient astronomy lab or even spacecraft launching site left by extraterrestrials. This is possible, since the pipes contain a proportion of silica close to what occurs on Mars. Of course, the manhole cover outside your house does also, so take that with a grain of salt.

Some say they are a hoax. We must politely remind those people that you can't wipe your ass in China without the government knowing, let alone set up a fucking iron forge and start burying pipes in the ground for the purpose of confusing passers-by.

Our Guess:

Long ago, a group of frustrated fishermen with lots and lots of spare time spent their whole lives building a plumbing system to drain that nearby lake. Then they figured they'd just walk right down there with wheelbarrows, scoop up the fish and eat like kings.

#3. The Giant Stone Balls of Costa Rica

The Mystery:

Costa Rica and a few surrounding areas are scattered with giant stone balls. They are smooth and perfectly spherical, or nearly so. Some of them are quite small, a few inches in diameter, but some of them are as large as eight feet in diameter weighing several tons.

They have been chiseled to perfection by persons unknown, despite the fact that Costa Rica is still not scheduled to enter the Bronze Age until 2013. The are balls everywhere and serve no apparent purpose, like a swing club on Gentlemen's Night.

And God said, "It's nice, but could use some more purposeless balls."

Some of the balls have been blasted apart by locals hoping to find gold, coffee beans, or even babies. Some have been rolled around, but some are too heavy to move even with a bulldozer. Not that they have bulldozers in Costa Rica.

Why Can't They Solve It?

About the most useful information anyone has gotten is that there are not, under any circumstance, any quarries anywhere near the balls. This information is actually useless considering the balls are carved from volcanic rock.

Our Guess:

In 1,000 years the eggs of the stone men will hatch, and their offspring will emerge to rule the Earth.

#2. The Baghdad Batteries

The Mystery:

The Baghdad Batteries are a series of artifacts found in the area of Mesopotamia dating from the early centuries AD. This was the approximate time when Gozer the Gozarian was roaming the lands, morphing into whatever you thought of and then devouring you [source].

Source

When archaeologists stumbled upon the batteries, they assumed they were just regular old clay pots for storage, but that theory quickly went out the window since they each contain a copper rod that shows evidence of acid corrosion. Now, in case you weren't the biggest nerd in school, this means that the pots probably contained a liquid that would interact with the copper and produce an electrical charge. If true, they predate the first known modern battery by hundreds of years.

And that's all well and good, but what the fuck were they using batteries for?

Why Can't They Solve It?

Well, it's not like we keep digging up ancient camcorders over there. Some stone reliefs called the "Dendera light" depict what some believe to be electrical arc lights, which would require something like the Baghdad Batteries to power. Others believe that theory is incredibly retarded.

More reasonable types say the batteries may have been used to electroplate items with gold. Others say medicine men could have used the batteries to shock people (giving the impression they had mystical powers or whatever).

It doesn't help that the batteries are currently located in the Baghdad Museum, which means potential researchers have a sporting chance of being blown to shit on any given day.

Our Guess:

Take them to Egypt. Somewhere inside the Sphinx, they'll find several holes. Plug these batteries in there and the Sphinx's eyes will light up. Then it will start scooting around the desert floor making a mechanical barking sound.

And then someone forms the head.

#1. The Bloop

The Mystery:

Tired of having its mind blown by the guys in the archeology department, in 1997 modern science's mind pulled itself up off the mat and triumphantly blew itself.

In that year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded a strange sound in the ocean. Strange and LOUD. So loud that it was picked up by two separate microphones 3,000 fucking miles apart. The sound, dubbed "The Bloop," doesn't sound like anything at normal speed. However, the NOAA did us the favor of speeding up the recording to 16 times the normal speed, causing it to sound like a turd dropping into the toilet. Bloop! Except, you know, awesomely loud.

Scientists determined that its wave pattern indicates it was made by an animal, and not a giant electromagnet sucking a plane out of the sky, as the creators of Lost were no doubt hoping.

Why Can't They Solve It?

There is no animal big enough or loud enough to make that kind of noise, not by a long shot. Not a blue whale, not a howler monkey, not a startled teenage girl.

Not long after the NOAA posted the sound to their web site, some HP Lovecraft fans on the internet quite reasonably decided that The Bloop must have been made by Lovecraft's Cthulhu, a giant, murderous squid-dragon-thing.

Our Guess:

Yeah, we're also going with Cthulhu.

via Cracked

6 Signs You're About to be Attacked by Zombies

2012-03-24T08:21:00.001-07:00

The writer Matt Wilson of the International Society of Supervillains lays out some sure signs you're about to be swarmed by the living dead. It's as if it's almost Halloween or something.

#6. Your first instinct during a crisis is to go to your mall.

As seen in:

Dawn of the Dead (original and remake), Dead Rising

Why it's a sign:

Imagine a horde
of zombies swarming down the main street of your town. Where do you go? If the nearest military base comes to mind, you're probably OK. If you're having trouble deciding between J. Crew and Sbarro ... well, the good news is, you're going to find the rest of this article extremely informative.

That's because there are two types of people in this world: those who think of malls as grossly unsafe places to seek shelter during a zombie apocalypse, where the undead masses could hide out in clothes racks and toy bins and where glass doors serve as a flimsy barrier between them and the undead hordes outside. And then there are people like you, who were put on this earth to get attacked by zombies while helping deliver a subtle anti-consumerist commentary.

#5. You've just said or done something that would make it ironic if zombies attacked.

As seen in:

Night of the Living Dead, Diary of the Dead

Why it's a sign:

Don't be fooled by their barely functioning nervous system and shambling gait, Zombies have a devastating sense of timing. And if there's one thing they appreciate more than brains, it's dramatic irony. So if you're walking through a graveyard with a woman who's scared of the undead, you should avoid putting on your most sarcastic spooky voice and saying "They're coming to get you, Barbara." For whatever reason, sarcasm sounds like a dinner bell to zombies.

She's not reacting to your devastating sarcastic/spooky voice.

Zombies are incredibly patient. You can go your whole life avoiding any zombie irony--never dressing up as a zombie on Halloween, skipping all the "dead people are dead and never coming back" parties your friends throw every Easter. No rush. Take as long as you want. Zombies aren't busy. They'll just be chilling out under a thin dusting of suspiciously loose soil. And the second you slip up and do something that would make a zombie attack the least bit ironic, like say, starring in a zombie movie, they will be on your ass with a quickness.

#4. The hospital you just woke up in is completely empty.

As seen in:

28 Days Later, the comic series The Walking Dead, Resident Evil

Why it's a sign:

If you find yourself falling into either of the above groups, you should probably avoid spending time unconscious in a hospital bed. In a zombie apocalypse, nothing's more embarrassing than walking around asking stuff like, "What the fuck happened to the world?" The people who've had to deal with this shit for weeks will just roll their eyes, and generally act like you're the stupidest son of a bitch in town not mumbling the word "Braaaaains."

That's because the deeper people get into a zombie crisis, the more everyone starts acting like total assholes. So skipping two weeks of consciousness doesn't make for the smoothest of transitions. Your new friends got to ease their way into the apocalypse, whereas you just rolled out of a warm bed, directly into a frigid pool of cannibalism and back-sass.

NOTE: This of course assumes that you survive the two weeks in your hospital bed serving as a man shaped hot plate for your brains. For whatever reason, this is generally a safe assumption.

#3. You are doing something unorthodox in a graveyard.

As seen in:

Return of the Living Dead, Dead Alive

Why it's a sign:

Most people like to do their dancing and fighting in night clubs, and save the graveyard for more appropriate activities like being dead. But you don't play by those rules, and well, neither do zombies.

Listen, you just never know when, as you're taking a run-of-the-mill naked dance break in the middle of a graveyard, radioactive toxins will rain down and cause the people in the graves to rise up and begin shouting "Braaaains!"

#2. You never use the word "zombie."

As not heard in:

Every single zombie movie ever, and mentioned in Shaun of the Dead.

Why it's a sign:

Let me set up a scenario for you. You're coming home from work one evening. You pull into your driveway and pop out of your car to see your now-dead friends walking up the street, with the intention to eat you. What do you call them? If you said "them" or "things," then, well, that isn't a far-fetched scenario so much as it's a glimpse of your future. Make no mistake: With the exception of the aforementioned metatextual zombie movie, nobody in a zombie movie has ever seen one. If this page is in your browser history, it's probably time to be scared.

#1. Your girlfriend, pet, brother or parents are zombies.

As seen in:

Return of the Living Dead 3, Day of the Dead. 28 Days Later. Night of the Living Dead

Why it's a sign:

You know, I really shouldn't need to explain this one.

via Cracked

5 Things You Should Not Do Near A Zombie

2012-03-24T08:06:00.003-07:00

The rules to surviving the illogical world of the living dead. As told by someone who could care less about zombies. Follow these rules or you may end up like that guy.

You see? He didn't follow the rules!

1. Going into a mall.

Is it just me or do the actors in zombie movies get stupider and stupider as the remakes go on? Every zombie movie or
game that I
can quote has had at least one scene in a mall, and in every scene of that nature at least two people die. They just don't seem to understand that if you go into a mall with your crew of five people that don't get along, but are forced to cooperate for survival, only 1-2 of you will get out alive. The survival rate will drop pretty quickly. So, when you're being attacked by zombies in a post-apocalyptic world and you see a giant mall that seems safe enough, just be sure to weigh out the pros and cons. Check out our "Zombie Survival Test" to see if you're going to survive!

2. Not fueling up the helicopter when you have the chance.

If you're not stupid as hell, then you'd already do this any way's. (This is a reference to the 1978 movie Dawn of the Dead) Putting gas in your helicopter is something smart people think of already in a normal non-zombie ridden world, smart people that were Blackhawk pilots in the normal world. That means the people in the before mentioned world should think about this before taking off in their helicopter. Gas makes you go. Zombies kill you if you don't go, and the sad thing is that zombies seem to crowd around helicopter fueling stations. So fuel up when you have the chance.

3. Staring

Zombies don't think very highly of this. In fact they don't think at all. One of their remaining instincts of a zombie is for some unknown reason self-consciences. They have the bitter memory of their not horribly disfigured faces, so when you look at their uglier then Charles Brawnson mugs, they get pissed and have the sudden urge to bite.

4. Questioning the stupidity of the very idea that a zombie biting you will turn you into a zombie.

I know just as well as everyone else should that a zombie biting you should not give you the zombie sickness as well. When a person has an STD and they bite you, you do not get warts all over your body. If you got the zombie disease from something like rape then it'd be a little more understandable. Sadly though if you're caught in a zombie movie scenario you're already too stupid to question any of the ridiculous things that had to happen for you to be in that situation, so I'm sorry but it's too late for you.

5. Being at all afraid of a zombie.

A zombie's legs are about as functional as its brains. (That means that the legs are not functional.) In any realistic zombie movie the zombies are not quick. I do not believe I can stress this point enough. And no, the freaks from I am Legend, Twenty-Eight Days or Years Later, or the already mentioned Dawn of the Dead remake are not real zombies. Around the year 1987 people watching these movies finally realized that slow moving zombies weren't scary, so the Hollywood masterminds decided that they should change in the cheesy makeup and blood for fear. I assure you, when the day comes that zombies take over the world (and oh, it will come) these zombies will be slow moving and falling apart. So don't be afraid, don't run, or I'll personally get bit, hunt you down, and bite you right in your stupid ass.

via Cracked

ZombieddonTV: Bear Grylls Ultimate Fine Edge Knife

2012-03-17T05:32:00.002-07:00

Since its release, the excitement surrounding the Bear Grylls Ultimate Knife has been overwhelming. In 2011 the Ultimate was the best-selling knife in world. Fans and collectors, however, clamored for a non-serrated version and we listened. We now make the Ultimate Knife with a fine-edge from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade. Using the
same high carbon, stainless steel drop-point blade and texturized rubber handle this is equally tough and unmistakably Bear-inspired. Housed in a nylon and hard rubber military-grade sheath, a diamond-coated knife sharpener, emergency whistle, fire starter and survival guide are all integrated. This is the Ultimate Knife that you asked for, the pinnacle of Bear’s signature line.

Knife Features:

Full Fine Edge High Carbon Stainless Steel Drop Point Blade - Ideal for edge retention
Ergonomic Textured Rubber Grip - Maximizes comfort and reduces slippage
Stainless Steel Pommel - At base of handle for hammering
Emergency Whistle - Integrated into lanyard cord

Sheath Features:

Fire Starter - Ferrocerium rod locks into sheath, striker notch incorporated into back of knife blade
Nylon Sheath - Lightweight, military-grade, mildew resistant
Land to air rescue instructions
Diamond Sharpener - Integrated into sheath for on-the-go sharpening
Priorities of Survival - Pocket guide contains Bear’s survival essentials

Buy this knife with up to 30% discount from Amazon using our sponsored link: http://amzn.to/ultimateknife

5 Reasons You Secretly Want a Zombie Apocalypse

2012-03-11T03:54:00.003-07:00

All right, somebody needs to explain the zombie thing. It's not just movies and video games, there is something else going on. There's a Zombie Survival Wiki and a Zombie Preparedness Initiative. Then you've got the Zombie Squad's forum on zombie biology and another one on zombie combat tactics. Here's an index of 80 threads from the "All Things
Zombie" forums on various zombie survival tactics.

It's gone beyond good fun. It's not just a mere obsession. These people are actually preparing for a zombie apocalypse. So why is everyone so eager for a world devoid of life, but full of the undead?

We think we have an idea.

#5. Guilt Free Violence (That's Politically Correct)

It's pretty obvious why zombies appeal to the baser instincts of certain individuals. Most zombiephiles are young males and if you want young males to, say, buy a ticket to your movie, it needs to have a hero that kicks somebody in the face at some point. Then hopefully the bad guy falls out of a plate glass window, crashes into a parked taxi below, which then explodes. They like violence is what we're saying.

You don't have to rewind evolution many generations to find a time when stabbing something with a spear was all in a day's work. Today, buried in the reptilian part of the brain is that drive to survive, recalling that time when surviving often meant to kill or be killed. So, we sit in our cubicles all day and release that urge via harmless movies and video games and the sight of nameless bad guys getting mowed down.

But there's a larger reason that zombies are today's most popular target for therapeutic head-splosions. The role of "bad guy" isn't so easy to fill these days. It used to be there was always some ethnic group or nationality Hollywood could populate action movies with; if you grew up in the 80s, it was the Russians (Red Dawn, etc), before that, the Nazis or Japanese, before that, the "Indians."

More recently, it's Arab terrorists. But we're running out of villians. You can't fill your video game with Chinese enemies; hell, they may need to sell copies of the game there. The video game industry has had us killing Nazis for a decade, because they couldn't think of anybody else it was politically correct to slaughter in huge numbers.

And that's where zombies come in.

All that morality stuff is set aside. Killing them is OK because they're already dead. They don't even scream in pain, or show any sense of self-preservation. They seem to want to die. You get all the blood and gore and none of the complications.

And maybe more important than that, they're slow. And unarmed. There's no real threat. Sure, the movies always say the zombies have taken over the world, but come on. Every single male in that audience believes that, if they were in that world, they'd survive, no problem.

It's a playground of destruction with no repercussions. A violent video game turned into real life. Lots of targets, no real danger. Hell on Earth, but somehow pure fun.

#4. Free Stuff, Without All That Damned Work

"Of course there's free stuff," some of you are saying. "Free dirt, blood, zombies and broken glass. But when society collapses, nobody is going to produce anything any more! Say goodbye to electricity, plumbing, TV, new music and 90 percent of what you currently do for fun."

This is exactly what a rational person might think. Au contraire for zombie survivalists. They figure the loss of those inconveniences will be minor in what is sure to be an action-packed world full of zombie beheadings. Besides, the basics would still be there. What zombie movie ever portrays the heroes as starving?

And that gets right to the heart of it. What do you devote your waking life to right now? Curing cancer? Killing terrorists? No, odds are you're devoting all your time and energy to just paying the bills. Those Cheerios don't just appear in the cupboard, we slave away at a hated job to keep our bodies fed and the lights on for the fun parts, with no grand goal beyond that.

But when society collapses under all the zombie dead weight, it's all over. But not over like a nuclear holocaust, where all the warehouses and grocery stores lay in ruins. No, all the stuff is perfectly intact. All manner of stores and malls and mansions will be ripe for the picking. In a world where only a tiny fraction of the population remains, there'd have to be enough food and clothes in the supply chain to feed you and your friends for the rest of your zombie-killing lives.

For free.

Which means you don't have to spend all day grinding away in front of a keyboard just to keep food in the fridge. All that is swept aside. Killing zombies is your job now. And you won't be getting any damned memos about a dress code.

Your purpose in life is perfectly clear. It couldn't be simpler. Which brings us to the next benefit...

#3. Simplicity

We mentioned that we miss the violence of the "killing animals with rocks" stage of our evolution, but there's something else we haven't quite gotten over: Life was simpler back then. As a result, we're still really built for a routine of gathering food, protecting our huts from predators and having outdoor sex with the ladies.

There's a reason all this modern multitasking has half of us swallowing anti-depressants or washing away our pain with bottle after bottle of liquor. An apocalypse of zombie proportions would be a throwback to that simpler time... but with one important difference mentioned above: You're not in constant danger of starving.

There's tons of places to barricade, lots of items for creating weapons and plenty of zombies to slaughter. And that's it; those are your tasks for the day. Get sustenance, find shelter and slaughter zombies.

No homework, no term papers, no job search, no internship, no cubicle, no bills to pay. There will no longer be mail of any sort; paper or electronic. Identity theft will only happen if you die and come back as a zombie.

We think of teenagers as living and breathing texts and Facebook and Twitter, but it still buries them under the kind of rapid-fire multitasking humans just aren't built for. Even building up a bunch of shows you can't get around to watching on TiVO creates a kind of stress.

You get overwhelmed by how quickly everything stacks up. Answering 75 texts a day, responding to Facebook pokes, memorizing memes so you don't get shamefully laughed out of 4chan... all that nonsense is gone the moment the undead rise. Nobody can text with their fingers bitten off.

#2. Acting Like a Dick, Without Consequence

As humanity evolved and formed larger and larger societies that had to cooperate more and more, we have come a long way with the things like "empathy," "ethics" and "caring." Human society has rules in place that try to keep an ordered balance between people. In this day and age, it is hard to be too much of a dick without some sort of repercussions.

That's why the collapse of society is key in a Zombie Apocalypse. It is said that nice guys finish last. Well, nice guys also get eaten by zombies.

Without pesky "rules" and "laws" and "social conventions" you'll be free to do pretty much anything you want, to anybody. Sure, you may not immediately launch into a rape and torture spree, but how long could you resist the urge to break a few windows downtown? Or go to Yankee Stadium and poop in the batter's box?

And if, say, it comes down to you and a dozen women to help repopulate the world, you would gladly perform your duty to mankind.

A Zombie Apocalypse provides the kind of freedom the antisocial youth of today could only dream of, in real life anyway. Watch those same kids inside the world of the Grand Theft Auto games and you see their fantasies come out. The whole selling point of that game's universe isn't the main missions, it's all the stuff you can do on the side. Driving a car through a supermarket, ramping a motorcycle into a swimming pool.

We're just waiting for an outlet. From the moment we were toddlers until today, life has been all about not knocking over the lamp or spilling your drink or peeing in your bed. It's a fragile world where some grownup complains every time you put a scratch on it. Well, to hell with that. An apocalyptic world is a world where nobody cares what you break. The world is your oyster, albeit a very gangrenous and flesh-eating oyster.

So, sure, part of the fantasy is making your way to the Pentagon and barricading you and your band of survivors inside. But step two is to turn the thing into the world's largest indoor motocross track.

#1. Being the Alpha Dog

Let's face it: Everybody likes to be the boss. Even Rick Ross. Or more accurately, we like not having somebody else be the boss of us (actually being the boss, and sifting through expense reports every day, is probably Hell).

Notice how there's no power structure in the post-apocalypse world? Even if the survivors form some kind of hierarchy, the movie is certainly never about the guy at the bottom. No, the apocalypse has a great leveling effect. There are no more rich douchebags, no more handsome quarterbacks to steal all the hot girls. By the mere virtue of being a survivor in a world where they're scarce, you're already considered top dog.

And for a population of geeky guys used to being at the bottom of the social ladder, that's freaking awesome.

Sure, with great power may come great responsibility, but it also comes with lots of sweet stuff. You get to call the shots. You get the first pick of whatever artifacts are salvaged out of the ruins of civilization. You can probably get the pick of the opposite sex, all vestiges of your nerd past long forgotten.

Now, you might be thinking, "Hey, someone bigger and meaner can come and take charge of your operation." The answer: All that pre-apocalypse preparation will make you king. All those nameless victims who got turned into zombies at the beginning of the outbreak? They didn't spend their lives studying zombies. But you, you're prepared. You're the one who knows to shoot them in the head.

And when the other survivors see you slaughtering waves of the undead, finally all of your video gaming skills the world mocked will have paid off.

That's right: The only thing between you and being the heroic badass everyone loves, is a massive outbreak of reanimated corpses.

via Cracked

What's Your Zombie Contingency Plan? 11 Practical Strategies

2012-03-10T09:29:00.003-08:00

All the men (and most women) I know have one thing in common: They have a zombie contingency plan. If the zombies arise tomorrow, everybody has at least a hazy outline of what, exactly, they would do to survive the coming onslaught. It's the single best part about the zombie mythos: planning your strategy. So I asked everybody I could think of to
submit their own zombie contingency plans
, and this is but a small sample of what I received:

The "I Had a Good Plan But Then I Tripped" Strategem

Since I'm planning on criticizing the plans submitted, it's only fair that I go first. My zombie contingency plan:

I live in the inner city, so I'm pretty well fucked. But I also live in Oregon, which is somewhat sparsely populated outside of the cities. The only way to survive is to get out as fast as possible. To that end, I've looked around and I know that I live within a few blocks of three important things. First is the Gun Room, the scariest fucking gun shop in America. If you want to kill something, the Gun Room not only has the supplies to do it, but they'd probably do it for you at a reasonable fee (caution: "reasonable fees" as dictated by the insane may vary greatly in their definition of "reasonable"). One block away from the Gun Room is the fur supplier/taxidermist. Apart from having warm, tough, weatherproof hides aplenty, they also have complete hunting/survival materials and several items that could make great melee weapons, from old decorative lumberjacking gear to a giant stuffed moose head (come on, what it lacks in practicality it more than makes up for in style). Two blocks away from the Gun Room is the Post Office, and the Post Office has a lot of fully-fueled, well-maintained, simple, rugged vehicles in their high-fenced back lot. They have the keys on premises, and all vehicles have very few windows, but a lot of storage space for supplies. Some of the newer ones do not have driver's side doors, but the older ones have pure steel driver's side doors with old school bolt-locks. They get fair gas mileage, are unlikely to break down and can handle rugged conditions.

I know the backroads to get through to these areas, and I would not leave my transport until I reached them. I would load up on guns, ammo and hunting/outdoor supplies, then grab a Post Office truck and take those same backroads out east where civilization thins out a bit. Once there, I would raid one of the many towns along the off-routes that have populations among the dozens, if that. A small pharmacy, a feed market and a grocery store are all you need now that you're supplied with gear and out of the city. There are plenty of those around, so I wouldn't waste time grabbing anything in a danger zone as hot as the city. Even a roadside gas station has first aid kits, batteries, flashlights and packaged food. I would pick my way back to Central Oregon around the Indian reservations where there is fertile ground and high, flat plateaus in the middle of otherwise even plains. High ground to defend, structures already built, out of the way and you can see anybody coming from literally miles away. In the winter it gets cold enough to freeze, but no blizzards or white out conditions exist. I would wait for the winter and see where to go from there--move north and hope for more permanent settlement or just wait out the worst of it until control is restored.

Pros: It is awesome.

Cons: I once ran face-first into a sliding glass door. I am not competent enough to do any of this. I would probably trip over my own feet and stumble slapstick-style into an undead group hug.

The "I Will Miss You Dearly" Strategem

When the zombies appear and start messing with everything, I'm going to rely on you to have planned everything related to our survival. I'll steal a pair of Wheelies to wear so I can glide away when I need to make a speedy exit, but I'll still have good traction when running. I'm also going to pack up our nice sheets because I'm sure you never thought about what linens we would be sleeping on while we're on the run. Before the Internet goes down, I'll get right on making our Zombie Mix CD. Can we have Fiber One yogurt in the zombie apocalypse? Being constipated wouldn't help our cause out any...

Pros: It is adorable.

Cons: You will be dead within minutes.

The "Feed the Eldery (to Zombies)" Strategem

Well, I workout everyday so that I can be faster than a slowly moving shuffle. I also try to hang out with at least one person who is slower than me (obese or elderly) so that when the zombies attack I can leave them to be eaten. I'll miss my grandma, but a zombie apocalypse is no laughing matter.

Pros: Check the byline, again.That's her real name. Jennifer. Fucking. BONESTEEL. I have no doubt she will not only survive the apocalypse intact, but quite possibly will do so in a silver rhinestone tanktop, and eventually end up running a methane fueled trading post with a mentally handicapped giant and a little person.

Cons: Lacks detail. Sure you're going to feed them old people, but where are you going to feed them those old people, and which old people go first? Details are important. Not like old people.

The Eternal Sausage Party" Strategem

Start of the outbreak.

Destroy the steps to my front porch, and barricade the first floor windows of my house. Wait for the shit to hit the fan, get as many friends and loved ones over to safety.

Few days later.

After the mass panic has resided a bit, mainly due to more people being infected and dying, scavenge as many supplies as possible. I live in a large fraternity house, so staying put may not be such a bad idea. Load up on food, guns, ammo and supplies. If the outlook for the house is bleak, attempt to clear out and move in to one of the large freshman dorms that were fallout shelters during the cold war.

Weeks later.

Start a small farming operation on the roof of the building, or the court yard of the house, depending on the location.

Months later.

If still alive, attempt to lower the zombie population- i.e. kill the fuck out of them- and look for survivors.

Years later.

Start over? kill as many zombies as possible.

Pros: Low expectations. There is no grand scheming here to distract from the day to day survival, and the simpler a plan of action is, the less there is to go wrong.

Cons: You are stuck with frat guys forever. "James Bro-lin, that sounds like a sausage party! Who brought the chicks?" "It's the zombie apocalypse, Broseph Stalin, no reason we can't have a kegger!" And so on. You will last two days before the madness takes you.

The "Hope My Head Will Explode Shortly Before Theirs Does" Strategem

Basically using my access to multiple arms and my connections with the chief of police, I would hunker down in the armory with my guns and crack. All I really need anyways.

Pros: Guns.

Cons: Crack.

The "Don't Feed The Animals" Strategem

Luckily there is a retirement home/community only a few blocks from my house. Plenty of applesauce and boardgames for me; plenty of slow and senile people for the zombies.

Pros: Another plan that relies heavily on feeding old people to the undead. It is nice to see that practicality is taking front seat here, with such concerns as "love" or "morality" in the back. Way Back. Like in a trailer. At the gas station. Twenty-two miles ago. Which is now covered in zombies.

Cons: Again, lacking in details. It seems like everybody planning on using the elderly as zombie chaff have little else to go off of. What happens when the elderly run out? Much like feeding wild animals, you have taught the zombies to rely on your location to provide free food. The difference here being that when you show up without food for the pigeons, their revolt does little but soil your suit, whereas if you show up empty handed to a zombie feeding, you end up being that which they soil their suits with.

The "Get By With a (Very) Little Help From My Friends" Stratagem

Alright my plan is actually overall very simple, but is broken down into several steps so that they can be altered based on a few factors: the type of outbreak, heavily infested areas which would be to dangerous to attempt at passing, survivor error or random events out of our control.

Step 1: Determine the type of outbreak.

Is this an airborne strain? Is it necromancy? Is it passed mainly through bites or can in be transferred by clawing or open wounds? Is this the fault of a biological weapons facility under the guise of a pharmaceutical company? This also applies to what type of zombies are we dealing with? Are they fast? Are they smart? Can they climb? Have there been odd mutations in the strain causing almost superhuman alterations in some of the victims? Once all these factors are determined, THEN and only then may you proceed, because if you just run out of your house waving a machete in hopes that you'll make it, you'll be deader than Liam Neeson's wife. (Too soon?)

(Editor's Note: Yes, yes it is. But fear not, there will be little room for political correctness in the zombie apocalypse. Zombies are a notoriously "blue crowd." Get it? There's always time for a zinger!)

Step 2: Gather your team.

We've all thought about it. If you're reading these plans right now, you've thought about it. If there is an outbreak, who will you take, and who will you leave behind? Sadly enough this usually means leaving your parents and siblings behind unless they have some sort of useful skill. That is all what it boils down to. Do they have a useful skill? It's a good idea to bring a wide range of skilled persons with you. Bring the strong, the intelligent and even bring yourself a couple of slow moving people to put a bit of meat between you and the horde of ravenous bastards. It's important, though, to not bog your team down with too many useless members. You may still have some shred of humanity left in you that makes you want to save that child, but he's just going to slow you down. Try to keep your team tight and essential.

Step 3: Get some supplies.

Unless you plan on eating canned cranberry sauce for years and beating the infected away with rocks, chances are you're going to need some supplies. The smart zombie survivor already has at least a bladed weapon and a bit of food at the ready, but it won't last you very long. After your team is together you should head towards a large department store such as Super Target, Wal-Mart or Costco but be sure to scope it out first. Big store means a lot of customers which means a lot of infected. Remember your goal is to survive not be reckless. Now places like Wal-Mart all have an outdoor survival section and this should be your first stop. Grab axes, machetes, saws and everything that might be an essential. Next grab tools and medical supplies and then finally grab food. You're looking for food that will last a long time, canned food, cereal etc.

Step 4: Move to safety.

Now the common tactic for zombie safety is to find a military base or a heavily fortified area nearby. That's not enough. With the amount of people who will turn infected you'll quickly find yourself overrun by the horde. The safest option is to steal a puddlejumper aircraft (or befriend some one who can fly a plane) and get to either Hawaii or Alaska. I'm going with Hawaii on this one. One of the small islands is best. Being disconnected from the mainland, there is a good chance that the infection hasn't spread that far, and if it HAS then with a smaller population to deal with it will be easier to hold back the horde. Yes it is very important when on the island to locate a heavily fortified structure and build up your defenses but it is equally important to locate a supply of food, and tools.

Step 5: Stay smart and stay safe.

Now it is a matter of waiting it out. No doubt you will lose some allies. This comes with the territory. The important part is that you stay alive. Keep your base of operations organized and send out for supplies only when needed. Clear the corpses from the base and always keep someone awake to look out. And always keep your weapons on the up and up. Like Three Dog says "Never forget the importance of periodic weapon maintenance; rifle, pistol, police baton, I don't care which. If your weapon is falling apart, the only wasteland asshole it's going to kill is you. So be smart. Salvage those parts and make repairs whenever you can."

Pros: Comprehensive, complete and largely lacking in any of that pesky mercy or distracting human sentiment.

Cons: Largely lacking in human sentiment means you are unlikely to "befriend" anybody, much less a puddlejumper pilot, who will, regardless, have nowhere near enough fuel to get to Hawaii. You will die together 1/4 of the way there, silently despising one another as you sink into the ocean.

The "I'm on a boat, motherfucker!" Stratagem

So I go to school in Maine, and I'm right on the coast. I have a couple of family members who live further up the coast of Maine on an island that's pretty much 95 percent redneck hicks, and five percent deer. The plan is essentially this: When the zombie outbreak finally does occur, my cousins are going to hijack the ferry used to shuttle cars from the mainland to the island. They're going to float her down the coast until they get to my school. Myself, and any other unsullied survivors will swim out to the ferry, where we will begin the trip back to the island where we will make our stand. The amount of guns, alcohol and pissed-off lobster men will ensure a small amount of relative safety until winter, when the zombies freeze. Resupply missions will then be sent out to look for survivors and other food. Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, I have discussed this plan in great length with my cousins.

Pros: The ferry transport is a great idea for an organized evacuation.

Cons: Unless you know some ferry captains, you're probably not getting out of the docks. Survivors swimming to boat could be infected. Lobster men are notoriously unreliable folk, unless you're referring to the new roster of the Crash Test Dummies. Those guys are fucking solid.

The "It's Even Fireproof Because Fire Needs Oxygen to Thrive" Stratagem

Technically I have two zombie plans: fast zombie (a la 28 Days Later) or slow zombies (like Shaun of the Dead). The fast zombie is pretty simple: First, get food and supplies such as Spaghetti-o's, canned foods, Twinkies, etc. Then procure a nice bank vault and a shotgun.

The slow zombie is a bit more in-depth: Walk (briskly) to a mountainous area that's hard to climb. I seriously doubt I'll need to run. Also, it might be preferable to go to a mountain in Alaska as the cold temperatures added to their already low body temps could turn them to corpse-sicles

Pros: Multiple plans for multiple scenarios. Too often we fall victim to the arrogant assumption that we know what the zombie apocalypse will be like.

Cons: Bank vault = low on oxygen, low on supplies and hard to gain access to. Alaskan mountain = also hard to gain access to... unless you live on an Alaskan mountain. In which case, you're most likely there precisely because of the fear of something like a zombie apocalypse, and so probably also have your stores, weapons and hermit-like persona at the ready. You have made your plan and are living it, so congratulations! (P.S. Sweet beard and flannel shirt, Alaskan native! You totally don't look psycho or nothin'!)

The "Human Produce" Stratagem

Step 1: Gather "homies" and attempt to keep said "homies" to a decent boy/girl ratio.

Step 2: Gather weapons. We were going to do this by getting my friend's husband to donate all his crazy-ass hunting equipment, so we would have the guns themselves, in addition to the ammo and the ability to make more ammo ('cause most drunken hunters make their own ammo.)

(Editor's Note: This is a terrifying factoid.)

Step 3: Invade a grocery store, preferably one that is bigger then a local grocery store, but not as big as a Wal-Mart. The reason being that Wal-Marts usually have an insane number of entrances/exits, while the smaller ones don't have enough food to sustain said "homies." Also, attempt to find a grocery store that has a liquor license, because let's be honest, what's more fun then blowing the heads of the undead while drunk off your ass?

Then it's pretty much just barricading the doors with a heavy object (we figured the ice machine would be heavy enough to block the doors, and big enough to cover the whole door. If your ice machine isn't big enough, then proceed to blow the fuck out of any zombies that try to get in, then use their rotting bodies as a natural barricade; the smell will be annoying at first, but not as annoying as being eaten alive by your dead grandmother). Finally, use the phone to contact others that perhaps have more guns.

NOTE: If no one is reachable by phone, then hook a music playing device to the overhead speakers and blast some heavy ass death metal, because not only is it fun to kill things while listening to death metal, its also a great way for passersby of an un-zombified nature to know that there are other non-zombies occupying the structure.

Pros: It's always good to know a drunken, mentally unstable ammunition maker. Your plan, from the corpse-barricade to the simple aside that it is "always fun to kill things while listening to death metal," terrifies me.

Cons: Grocery stores use display windows as basic marketing tools. The front of nearly every grocery store, regardless of size, is made up of large glass planes to show off the merchandise. It's the same logic that put those windows there in the first place that is going to screw you: It's there to put food on display.

The "Uh... what was that first part again?" Stratagem

Authors note:

I am writing this from a fully and completely realistic point of view, I add none of the frivolous magical properties of a ghoul or zombie, and disregard the illogical completely. The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, takes the first part of the book explaining the virus "Solanum," and I am going to work off of that idea, using the same name. It is that concept alone that I am working with; that it is a virus. All other concepts are completely scientifically based and we will explore the possibility that a virus such as Solanum exists in nature and that it has the ability to infect a hosts brain cells (neurons), first by entering the circulatory system via bodily fluid interaction of an infected individual and an uninfected individual, and finally making its way to the neuronal cells and manipulating said cells. I will disregard the communicability of 100 percent used in the book in favor of a more realistic number, 99.4 percent as used in The Stand by Stephen King for a man-made virus (given that that is the most likely scenario for the creation of this virus). Critics may say that this is not a "zombie" contingency plan, and to them I say nay, it depends on your definition of "zombie." Plus, I find the idea of realism much more horrifying than fiction. Fiction you can brush off as being something implausible... The following may be fiction, but it is very plausible.

Skip this if you don't give a fuck about biology:

In order to realistically write a zombie contingency plan, one must have knowledge of how a zombie functions in order to exploit their weaknesses and predict their attacks. I am telling everybody right fucking now, the anatomy of the zombies outlined in The Zombie Survival Guide is impossible. The zombies would disintegrate, with cells lysing on a scale so grand that there is no way they could eat you/pass on the virus before turning into a pile of mush, let alone have the capacity of movement. Therefore, I am about to discredit any possibility in the known world for a human body to function without the proper systems in place. A virus is considered "pseudoliving" which means that it is not technically alive by the standards of science. Without the host cells machinery, a virus cannot grow or replicate. Thus, a virus must take control of the host cells machinery and use that machinery to create its own DNA and subsequent proteins. This hinges on one very important point, the cell must function as it has always functioned. It needs glucose, fat or protein to begin the aerobic respiration that uses oxygen as a final electron acceptor in the path to making ATP (energy) to run the metabolic processes of the cell.

The implications of this are great, the zombie has to have working lungs to bring oxygen into the system, working circulatory system to transfer said oxygen along with nutrients and wastes, and systems which can eliminate said wastes. This brings into light the very real weaknesses of the zombie. It must be "living" for all intents and purposes, but that does not mean it will be easy to kill. Here's the kicker: The virus can manipulate the cells. The neuronal cells that stop replicating in adult humans are once again capable of regeneration, a virus can lie dormant in a cell for very long periods of time (as evidenced by HIV, which progresses into AIDs once the virus decides to lyse the cells releasing the virus into the system) and make the cell replicate with viral DNA in the nucleus creating hundreds of cells with viral DNA in them. This means the virus will make the neuronal cells replicate, creating millions of new neurons each with viral DNA in them, each with the ability to control more of the processes of the human brain. One may also imply that the zombie is much smarter than your average human being, with a larger number of neuronal cells capable of propagating larger numbers of signals at a faster speed. I contest the idea that zombies are stumbling creatures with an off-kilter gate and little hand-eye coordination.

I believe that this hypothetical virus would create extremely intelligent humans which it would have full control over, by producing the proteins and enzymes of its own DNA rather than that of the original cell, it would be fully plausible that the human infected with this virus would be controlled by the desires of the virus, which would be to infect new hosts. Also, the infected individual would not be the same person they were in their lives with everything from memories to basic wants and desires being manipulated and changed by the virus. The zombie would also have a heightened set of sensory systems, and it's plausible that the neural signals from their external body are blocked by the virus in the CNS, reducing and possibly eliminating the effects of pain or touch sensation. Furthermore, they may act with a hive mentality, working towards a common goal (and remember, they're smart), and their circulatory system may be routed in order to increase the amount of blood to the muscles, increasing their strength and agility. The most horrific realization: They may look completely normal. The virus does not necessarily impact their vocal chords, and they would look like a regular human being. Their behavior would be notably different, but they could pass the virus on before the realization of what has happened is fully recognized.

Contingency Plan

With this knowledge in place, we can begin to determine what will and what will not work. Quarantines will be key in containing the virus to large areas (in the range of regions to complete countries). Given our inability to distinguish the zombies from the humans, large quarantine areas will be key. All air and sea ports should be shut down, and control of the army and air bases is essential. A 99.4 percent communicable virus can most likely become airborne, especially since viral particles are pseudoliving and can enter a dormant stage if not active in a cell (such is the case when they are housed within a water molecule, such as on a humid day). Dry climates are best due to such conditions, especially since a zombie lacks any other desire than to pass on its virus and thus does not drink, dehydration would be a good way to defeat them. Other ways to kill the zombies via natural causes would be to expose them to harsh environmental conditions, such as the extreme hot or cold, high saline, low/high pH and anoxic environments all fit the bill. Thus, the best areas to flee to would be the deserts, the higher and lower altitudes and the poles. The worst places would be the mountains, valleys, jungles and tropics.

Also, since they are human we can kill them if it comes down to that. We would want to see them coming given that a more intelligent being would outsmart us in a terrain war using the mountains or valleys. The plains and deserts are ideal for such a situation. Saskatchewan, where you can watch your dog run away for three days, is a good place to be for a zombie apocalypse. This is where the plan gets sleazy and corrupt. We need to get rid of these zombies before they kill us all, and we have to do it in a way that causes the least amount of damage, least bloodshed (especially into the water systems; I'll say it again, viruses are pseudoliving, they can live in the soil and water forever until it attaches to a host cell whose machinery it can manipulate) and the most successful. Thus we will need two plans, one for "the bait" and one for "the survivors." You're reading the survivors guide. The bait will be those that believe a virus can evoke a stage of being "undead" in which these things cannot be killed and the mountains and valleys should be used to hide from and trick them.

The survivors guide is for those that know these fuckers are smarter than us, and would kick our ass in a terrain based war of wit. Trust me, this is necessary. Think of the people we could get to follow the bait guide? Bush, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, etc. Man, I'm beginning to WELCOME the zombie apocalypse. Anyways, we can lure the zombies into the valleys and mountains, from there dams can be taken out and landslides created provided we still have control of the army bases (I thank you Wright brothers). Meanwhile, safe zones can be created and established in areas where the weather would kill any remaining zombies in a disposable manner (such as through freezing, and might I add that if you freeze a zombie it would be much like freezing a human, where the plasma and extra/intracellular fluid freezes into crystals which would tear the cells apart resulting in death). Due to the high communicability, the zombie bodies will have to be destroyed, I'm thinking a controlled nuclear blast in the areas the zombies were lured to. Fire is a good way to kill a virus, since even the pseudoliving cannot deny the destructive powers of heat to proteins which make up their outer coat. Thus, to the areas where any remaining zombies fled to and eventually died due to extreme environmental conditions, let the forest fires reign.

Note: this plan is kind of geared toward North and South America following the quarantine, it can be applied to Europe as well. Japan, if they got hit with this virus, they're kind of screwed. Britain, you're screwed. Australia... well you guys have all that poisonous stuff, so I'm pretty sure the zombies are afraid of you. China, fucking nuke them if this happens, because with that high of a population they are fucked. Canada, Russia and the Scandinavian countries will pull through nicely, and the US, if you guys don't go all batshit on me, you'll be alright (I'm talking to you Utah, you and your Mormons, lol.)

Pros: Holy shit. Easily the most well thought out, well reasoned response received. Logical, intelligent and practical.

Cons: You're no fun. You ruined zombies! You ruined everything and I don't like this game anymore and I'm going home.

Find more from Robert on Twitter, Facebook or his own site, I Fight Robots. Bring ammo and first aid supplies;

via Cracked

The First Zombie-Proof House

2012-03-10T08:44:00.005-08:00

Somehow, ritual drunk-conversation concerning team captains for the apocalypse has become a major part of the lives of 20-somethings. Having been matured in the Grandaddy-crowned masterpiece film (put “A.M. 180” on and forget that you have a job) 28 Days Later and the best-selling Zombie Survival Guide, we’re all a little too ready to deal with the 2012 of our dreams.

“The Safe
House,” designed by KWK Promes, starts to get earily close to something I could work with, if say 200 bludgeoned members of the undead army came over to eat their way into borrowing some sugar.

“The most essential item for our clients was acquiring the feeling of maximum security,” begins the designers’ website in the summary of the structure. Who wouldn’t feel safe in a concrete rectangle that folds in upon itself to become completely sealed? Even the windows are covered with a slab of concrete when the structure is on nap time.

The house, with its movable walls, has only one entrance, which is located on the second floor after crossing a drawbridge. Seems like the perfect opportunity to use a flamethrower and defend the life of your family, while stylishly nesting in a piece of architectural elitism.

via The PBH Network

5 Scientific Reasons for a Zombie Apocalypse

2012-03-08T06:49:00.008-08:00

We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he'll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It's because on some instinctual level, all humans know it's just a matter of time until the zombies show up.

Our culture is full of tales of the undead walking the Earth, from our religions to our comic books.
But, some sort of zombie apocalypse isn't actually possible, right?

Right?

Guys?

Actually, yes. It's quite possible. Here's five ways it could happen, according to science.

#5. Brain Parasites

Resident Evil TV

What are they?

Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There's one called toxoplasmosa gondii that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying.

This bug infects rats, but can only breed inside the intestines of a cat. The parasite knows it needs to get the rat inside the cat (yes, we realize this sounds like the beginning of the most fucked-up Dr. Seuss poem ever) so the parasite takes over the rat's freaking brain, and intentionally makes it scurry toward where the cats hang out. The rat is being programmed to get itself eaten, and it doesn't even know.

Of course, those are just rats, right?

How it can result in zombies:

Hey, did we mention that half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa, and don't know it? Hey, maybe you're one of them. Flip a coin.

Oh, also, they've done studies and shown that the infected see a change in their personality and have a higher chance of going batshit insane.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:

Humans and rats aren't all that different; thats why they use them to test our drugs. All it takes is a more evolved version of toxoplasmosa, one that could to do us what it does to the rats. So, imagine if half the world suddenly had no instinct for self-preservation or rational thought. Even less than they do now, we mean.

If you're comforting yourself with the thought that it may take forever for such a parasite to evolve, you're forgetting about all the biological weapons programs around the world, intentionally weaponizing such bugs. You've got to wonder if the lab workers don't carry out their work under the unwitting command of the toxoplasmosa gondii already in their brains. If you don't want to sleep at night, that is.

You may be protesting that technically these people have never been dead and thus don't fit the dictionary definition of "zombies," but we can assure you that the distinction won't matter a whole lot once these groaning hordes are clawing their way through your windows.

#4. Neurotoxins

The movie The Serpent and the Rainbow, the upcoming Resident Evil 5 video game.

What are they?

There are certain kinds of poisons that slow your bodily functions to the point that you'll be considered dead, even to a doctor (okay, maybe not to a good doctor). The poison from fugu (Japanese blowfish) can do this.

The victims can then be brought back under the effects of a drug like datura stramonium (or other chemicals called alkaloids) that leave them in a trance-like state with no memory, but still able to perform simple tasks like eating, sleeping, moaning and shambling around with their arms outstretched.

How it can result in zombies: 

"Can?" How about "does."

This stuff has happened in Haiti; that's where the word "zombie" comes from. There are books about it, the most famous ones by Dr. Wade Davis (Passage of Darkness and The Serpent and the Rainbow). Yes, the movie The Serpent and the Rainbow was based on this guy's actual science stuff. How much of it was fact? Well, there was that one scene where they strapped the guy naked to a chair and drove a huge spike through his balls. We're hoping that part wasn't true.

What is definitely true is the story of Clairvius Narcisse. He was a Haitian guy who was declared dead by two doctors and buried in 1962. They found him wandering around the village 18 years later. It turned out the local voodoo priests had been using naturally occurring chemicals to basically zombify people and putting them to work on the sugar plantations (no, really).

So, the next time you're pouring a little packet of sugar into your coffee, remember that it may have been handled by a zombie at some point.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:

On the one hand, it's already fucking happened! So that earns it some street cred right off the bat. But, even if some evil genius intentionally distributed alkaloid toxins to a population to turn them into a shambling, mindless horde, there is no way to make these zombies aggressive or cannabalistic.

Yet.

#3. The Real Rage Virus

28 Days Later

What is it?

In the movie, it was a virus that turned human beings into mindless killing machines. In real life, we have a series of brain disorders that do the same thing. They were never contagious, of course. Then, Mad Cow Disease came along. It attacks the cow's spinal cord and brain, turning it into a stumbling, mindless attack cow.

And, when humans eat the meat ...

How it can result in zombies:

When Mad Cow gets in humans, they call it Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Check out the symptoms:

• Changes in gait (walking)

• Hallucinations

• Lack of coordination (for example, stumbling and falling)

• Muscle twitching

• Myoclonic jerks or seizures

• Rapidly developing delirium or dementia

Sure, the disease is rare (though maybe not as rare as we think) and the afflicted aren't known to chase after people in murderous mobs. Yet.

But, it proves widespread brain infections of the Rage variety are just a matter of waiting for the right disease to come along.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:

If the whole sudden, mindless violence idea seems far-fetched, remember that you are just one brain chemical (serotonin) away from turning into a mindless killing machine (they've tested it by putting rats in Deathmatch-style cages and watching them turn on each other). All it would take is a disease that destroys the brain's ability to absorb that one chemical and suddenly it's a real-world 28 Days Later.

So, imagine such an evolved disease, which we'll call Super Mad Cow (or, Madder Cow) getting a foothold through the food supply. Say this disease spreads through blood-on-blood contact, or saliva-on-blood contact. Now you have a Rage-type virus that can be transmitted with a bite.

Just like the movie. With one bite, you're suddenly the worst kind of zombie:

A fast zombie.

#2. Neurogenesis

Laboratories Around The World

What is it?

You know all that conversy out there about stem cell research? Well, the whole thing with stem cells is that they can basically be used to re-generate dead cells. Particularly of interest to zombologists like ourselves is neurogenesis, the method by which they can re-grow dead brain tissue.

You can see where this is going.

How it can result in zombies:

You wanted the undead to make an appearance in this article? Well, here you go, you creepy bastards.

Science can pretty much save you from anything but brain death; they can swap out organs but when the brain turns to mush, you're gone. Right?

Well, not for long. They're already able to re-grow the brains of comatose head trauma patients until they wake up and walk around again.

Couple that with the new ability to keep a dead body in a state of suspended animation so that it can be brought back to life later, and soon we'll be able to bring back the dead, as long as we get to them quickly enough.

That sounds great, right? Well, this lab dedicated to "reanimation research" (yes, that's what they call it) explains how the process of "reanimating" a person creates a problem. It causes the brain to die off from the outside in. The outside being the cortex, the nice part of you that makes humans human. That just leaves the part that controls basic motor function and primitive instincts behind.

Reanimator research (artist's rendering)

You don't need the cortex to survive; all you need is the stem and you'll still be able to mindlessly walk and eat and enjoy Grey's Anatomy. This is how chickens can keep walking around after they've been beheaded (including one case where the chicken lived for 18 months without a head).

So, you take a brain dead patient, use these techniques to re-grow the brain stem, and you now have a mindless body shambling around, no thoughts and no personality, nothing but a cloud of base instincts and impulses.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead fucking zombie. So there.

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:

Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.

How long until somebody tries this? We're betting somebody in the world, maybe North Korea, will have a working zombie by Christmas.

#1. Nanobots

Michael Crichton's novel Prey, The PS2 game Nano Breaker

What are they? 

Nanobots are a technology that science apparently engineered to make you terrified of the future. We're talking about microscopic, self-replicating robots that can invisbily build--or destroy--anything. Vast sums of money are being poured into nanotechnology. Sure, at some level scientists know nanobots will destroy mankind. They just can't resist seeing how it happens.

How it can result in zombies:

Scientists have already created a nano-cyborg, by fusing a tiny silicone chip to a virus. The first thing they found out is these cyborgs can still operate for up to a month after the death of the host. Notice how nano scientists went right for zombification, even at this early stage. They know where the horror is.

According to studies, within a decade they'll have nanobots that can crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones. That's right; the nanobots will be able to rewire your thoughts. What could possibly go wrong?

Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:

Do the math, people.

Some day there will be nanobots in your brain. Those nanobots will be programmed to keep functioning after you die. They can form their own neural pathways, meaning they can use your brain to keep operating your limbs after you've deceased and, presumably, right up until you rot to pieces in mid-stride.

The nanobots will be programmed to self-replicate, and the death of the host will mean the end of the nanobots. To preserve themselves, they'd need to transfer to a new host. Therefore, the last act of the nanobot zombie would be to bite a hole in a healthy victim, letting the nanobots steam in and set up camp in the new host. Once in, they can shut down the part of the brain that resists (the cortex) and leave the brain stem intact. They will have added a new member to the unholy army of the undead.

Now, it should be more than clear by this point that our goal is to be responsible researchers. We don't want to create a panic here. All we're saying is that on an actual day on the actual calendar in the future, runaway microscopic nanobots will end civilization by flooding the planet with the cannabalistic undead.

Science has proven it.

via Cracked

CDC warning about zombie apocalypse

2012-03-08T06:09:00.003-08:00

The 2011 CDC warning about zombie apocalypse, Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse, is a blog post by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that uses a zombie apocalypse scenario to raise public awareness on preparations for emergency situations. In a blog post titled "Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse", the Director of the CDC's
Office of Public Health
Preparedness and Response, Rear Admiral Dr. Ali S. Khan writes: "Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That's right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you'll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you'll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency." Comparing the upcoming hurricane season and possible pandemics to "flesh-eating zombies" from the horror film Night of the Living Dead and the video game series Resident Evil, Dr. Khan recommends Americans prepare for natural disasters as they would have prepared for "ravenous monsters".

Idea behind the blog

A week before the zombie apocalypse post, members of the CDC group responsible for preparedness of the public for natural disasters and pandemics were working on the message anticipating the 2011 hurricane season. Dave Daigle, associate director for communications, admitted that "Preparedness and public health are not the sexiest subjects." Someone in the group remembered a tweet about zombies in connection to the nuclear disaster in Japan resulting from the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. This provided the idea for the upcoming CDC post, implemented on May 18, 2011 along with two tweets.

The Blog

The CDC's blog included precautionary tips about zombies along with its usual tips for preparing an emergency kit, as well as emergency escape routes in case of an earthquake or hurricane. For example, after explaining how the public should be prepared "if zombies started appearing outside your doorstep", it continues: "You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake, or other emergency."

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.

CDC website crash

The blog entry appeared a few days before May 21, the date predicted by Harold Camping as the beginning of the end-times, though there was no mention of this speculation in the post itself. The blog generated internet traffic that eventually crashed the CDC website. Usually CDC blog posts get traffic between 1,000 and 3,000 hits per week. 30,000 hits were reported by the evening of May 18. The post, oriented at "a young, media-savvy demographic", was read by so many that "by Thursday, it was a trending topic on Twitter". Initially the tweet with the tagline If you’re ready for a zombie apocalypse, then you’re ready for any emergency got 12,000 followers; overnight the number of followers increased to 1.2 million, or 100 times the initial number. Mr. Daigle said that the number of the followers of the CDC's zombie apocalypse tweets was comparable to the number of followers of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton: "We were trending yesterday! Things like the Royal Wedding trend. Not the CDC."

Robert Pestronk, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials agreed that "The 'Zombie Apocalypse' scenario was a great way of getting information out so people can understand the need for preparedness."

Reaction

Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic

Daigle said those people visiting the CDC's blog and following CDC tweets because they were mostly interested in zombies were asking what weapons the agency would recommend to fight zombies. Doctor Khan's response to this inquiry was: "Remember, we're a public-health center, so we're not going to recommend weapons. We'll leave that to the law-enforcement folks." Chris Good from The Atlantic saw the absence of weapons recommendations as a "downside to the CDC's warning" and wrote: "If a zombie apocalypse does happen—and this is important—DO NOT follow the CDC's guidelines as your only course of action. The CDC zombie plan includes no mention of shotguns, torches, hot-wiring cars, seeking high ground, traveling at night vs. day, or really any worthwhile strategy for keeping zombies out of your house. Parts of it are good, but it probably would serve the public better in the event of, for instance, a hurricane."

Others were concerned about taxpayer money being used for the CDC's budget; the CDC assured the public there was no additional cost for their zombie apocalypse blog post.

Bill Gentry with the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health said that the CDC deserves credit for trying something different, "but that doesn't mean the agency should start using vampires to promote vaccinations or space aliens to warn about the dangers of smoking."

Video contest

The CDC announced a contest for the most creative and effective videos covering preparedness for a zombie apocalypse or apocalypse of any kind. In this video contest, the CDC challenged contestants to upload videos to YouTube demonstrating how they are preparing for emergency situations such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and zombie attacks.

Graphic Novel

The CDC has provided a Zombie Pandemic graphic novel.

Analyzing results

The CDC is planning to run a survey to find out how many of the blog's readers actually followed the tips and made recommended preparations for natural disasters, zombie attacks and other emergency situations.

Read the original post by CDC on their blog.

Recorded Zombie Attacks

2012-03-08T02:22:00.003-08:00

This is a list of all zombie attacks throughout history in the book The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Accounts from societies with an oral history have been more difficult to acquire. Too often these stories have been lost when their societies have fragmented as a result of war, slavery, natural disasters, or simply the corruption of international modernization. Who knows how many stories, how much vital information-perhaps
even a cure-has
been lost through the centuries. Even in a society as information-savvy as our own, only a fraction of total outbreaks is reported. This is due, in some part, to various political and religious organizations that have sworn to keep all knowledge of the living dead secret. It is also due to ignorance of a zombie outbreak. Those who suspect the truth but fear for their credibility will, in most cases, withhold the information.

Note: These events are listed in the chronological order of their occurrence, not discovery.

List

60,000 B.C., Katanda, Central Africa

3000 B.C., Hieraconpolis, Egypt

500 B.C., Africa

329 B.C., Afghanistan

212 B.C., China

121 A.D., Fanum Cocidi, Caledonia (Scotland)

140-41 A.D., Thamugadi, Numidia (Algeria)

156 A.D., Castra Regina, Germania (Southern Germany)

177 A.D., Nameless Settlement near Tolosa, Aquitania (SW France)

700 A.D., Frisia, the Netherlands

850 A.D., Unknown Province in Saxony (Northern Germany)

1073 A.D., Jerusalem

1253 A.D., Fiskurhofn, Greenland

1281 A.D., China

1523 A.D., Oaxaca, Mexico

1554 A.D., South America

1579 A.D., Central Pacific

1583 A.D., Siberia

1587 A.D., Roanoke Island, North Carolina

1611 A.D., Edo, Japan

1690 A.D., The Southern Atlantic

1762 A.D., Castries, St. Lucia, The Caribbean

1807 A.D., Paris, France

1824 A.D., Southern Africa

1839 A.D., East Africa

1848 A.D., Owl Creek Mountains, Wyoming

1852 A.D., Chiapas, Mexico

1867 A.D., The Indian Ocean

1882 A.D., Piedmont, Oregon

1888 A.D., Hayward, Washington

1893 A.D., Fort Louis Philippe, French North Africa

1901 A.D., Lu Shan, Formosa

1905 A.D., Tabora, Tanganyika, German East Africa

1911 A.D., Vitre, Louisiana

1913 A.D., Paramaribo, Surinam

1923 A.D., Colombo, Ceylon

1942 A.D., The Central Pacific

1942-45 A.D., Harbin, Japanese Puppet State of Manchukuo (Manchuria)

1943 A.D., French North Africa

1947 A.D., Jarvie, British Columbia

1954 A.D., Than Hoa, French Indochina

1957 A.D., Mombasa, Kenya

1960 A.D., Byelgoransk, Soviet Union

1962 A.D., Unidentified Town, Nevada

1968 A.D., Eastern Laos

1971 A.D., Nong'ona Valley, Rwanda

1975 A.D., Al-marq, Egypt

1979 A.D., Sperry, Alabama

Oct. 1980 A.D., Maricela, Brazil

Dec. 1980 A.D., Juruti, Brazil

1984 A.D., Cabrio, Arizona

1987 A.D., Khotan, China

Dec. 1992 A.D., Joshua Tree National Monument, California

Jan. 1993 A.D., Downtown Los Angeles, California

Feb. 1993 A.D., East Los Angeles, California

Mar. 1994 A.D., San Pedro, California

Apr. 1994 A.D., Santa Monica Bay, California

1996 A.D., The Line of Control, Srinagar, India

1998 A.D., Zabrovst, Siberia

2001 A.D., Sidi-Moussa, Morocco

2002 A.D., St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

2012-03-08T02:10:00.005-08:00

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead, published in 2003, is a fictional survival manual that deals with the potentiality of an undead attack. Its author, Max Brooks, lays out detailed plans for the average citizen to survive zombie uprisings of varying intensity.

Contents

The book is divided up into seven separate chapters, plus an appendix.

The first chapter is entitled Myths and Realities and lays
down the specific ground rules that are referenced
repeatedly in the book. The most important of these describes Solanum, the virus that creates zombies, along with how it is spread, treatment of the infected, and why the zombie infection does not spread to non-human creatures. The second chapter is entitled Weapons and Combat Techniques and discusses the weapons at the reader's disposal, and weighs them against the various threats that may be faced during confrontations with the undead.The third chapter entitled On the Defensive looks at options for individual to stay in a stationary location. It focuses on remaining stationary in an undead ambush. This is followed by a chapter entitled On the Run which explores dealing with attacks while traveling. While chapters three and four emphasized avoiding the undead, chapter five, On the Attack, is specifically about engaging ghouls to ensure their destruction. The final chapter looks at survival during a doomsday scenario, a Class-4 outbreak would see battle for humanity's survival shift in the zombies' favor, much like the zombie-infested world that can be observed in Land of the Dead. Advice for this section is adapted from previous sections; recommendations for surviving a siege is repeated, though altered for relevancy to the long-term entrenchment a Class-4 outbreak represents.The guide concludes with a fictional list of documented zombie encounters throughout history, including a zombie Cossack, victim of an outbreak that happened 415 years prior, which was described in another entry.The oldest entry is 60,000 BC, in Katanda, Central Africa, although the author expresses doubt to its validity. Instead, he presents evidence from 3000 BC in Hieraconpolis, Egypt as the first verifiable instance of a zombie outbreak. The most recent entry is 2002 A.D., St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The journal section also introduces a lead in to the next novel, World War Z, in describing how a group of zombies came to be in China which is listed as the outbreak's source. The Appendix takes the form of a sample "Outbreak Journal," with the fictional author noting a covered-up zombie outbreak being seen on the local news. The following pages are blank entries, presumably for the reader to use as a basis for their own journal; their inclusion furthers the overall feel that the book is a survival guide to a real life-threatening possibility.

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack :

1. Organize before they rise!

2. They feel no fear, why should you?

3. Use your head: cut off theirs.

4. Blades don’t need reloading.

5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.

6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.

7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.

8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!

9. No place is safe, only safer.

10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

Solanum

The guide attributes the zombie outbreaks described to the virus "Solanum" (not to be confused with the plant genus). The virus is said to be neither waterborne or airborne; the only way to become infected is through direct fluidic contact, in which context the virus is 100% communicable, with a 100% mortality rate.

Cultural appeal

As a primarily niche-oriented piece of fiction, The Zombie Survival Guide appeals largely to two groups:

Humor fans

The book's humor is derived from its deadpan delivery and general style of parody of the survival books that were popular at the time it came out, like Army Survival Manuals and the Worst Case Scenario series of survival guides. While examining the menace that zombies represent in great detail, from the biological makeup of a zombie to anti-zombie tactics in different strategic situations, the book never alludes to considering its subject as anything less than a real, plausible threat to mankind.Throughout the book, unnamed "research" is cited as the backup for most arguments, though individual events (as listed in the Recorded Attacks chapter) are also cited where relevant. The reader is frequently warned that the advice is ignored at the reader's own peril, with the end result of "cold hands gripping your arm and dirty, worn teeth biting into your flesh," supposedly being a very real possibility. Author and humorist David Sedaris has been recommending the book on his 2007 book tour.

Zombie fans

The book definitively states another set of rules for zombie-related canon. Clarified subjects include:

How zombies are created

Why exactly zombies can only be killed by damage done to the head

Why zombies are unaffected by standard offensive tactics

Why zombies are qualified as "undead"

Presented facts are largely compatible with concepts seen in various zombie films, adding another level of authenticity for fans of the genre.

Buy the book with up to 20% discount using our sponsored link: http://amzn.to/yAvrtU

Zombie Shelter Preparation? What do you need?

2012-03-06T07:19:00.006-08:00

A shelter is a structure or location that serves as one's dwelling and base of operations during a zombie outbreak. A base is a place of shelter for a group, and provides a safe place to sleep and store supplies. Bases can be temporary or permanent, depending on one's current needs.

Your base is one of the most important factors when trying to survive a zombie outbreak. Deciding what type of base to use will be based on a range of things, including group size, specific individual and group needs, and threat level. A good base should be easy to defend with clear lines of sight, contain sufficient supplies, and should be able to provide shelter and support for the entire group. There are specific factors depending on the type of building selected, and certain advantages and disadvantages are inherent in the type of building or facility selected.

Potential Shelters

This is a list of possible bases. Please keep in mind that not all types of bases are available depending on where you live/plan to live.

Temporary Shelters

If anything is certain, it is that nothing is certain - especially when society has broken down. Anyone living in a territory infested with zombies will certainly lead a varied life. There will be times when you will need to quickly improvise a haven. It does not really need to be comfortable or spacious, it needs to be secure and easy produce. It needs little or no fortification, limits access to a small area, and is out of sight. These temporary resorts should be considered just that: a resort, and a last one at that.

▪ Fast food resturaunt

▪ Billboards

Small Shelters

Small bases are best suited for groups of less than 10 people. To make up for having less manpower and defenses, these bases typically leave a smaller footprint, and thus attract less attention. However, they will not fit as many people, animals, or vehicles as larger buildings.

▪ Homes

▪ Farm Houses

▪ Apartments

▪ Stores

▪ Gun stores

▪ Mobile Bases

▪ Lighthouses

▪ The overpass gambit

▪ Power Line Tower

▪ Caves

Medium-sized Shelters

A medium-sized base is perfect for groups of between 10 and 25 people. Medium-sized bases often attract more attention, but possess the manpower and equipment necessary to defend themselves, service vehicles, and store supplies for sieges.

▪ City Halls

▪ Hotels

▪ Warehouses

▪ Mansion

▪ Office Blocks

▪ Police Stations

▪ Churches or places of Religious Worship

▪ Container Ships/ Other Large Vessels

▪ Stadium

▪ Offshore Oil Rigs

▪ Supermarkets

▪ Home Depot

▪ Bunker

▪ Plane interiors

▪ Radio stations

Large Shelters

Large bases, are often considered small cities or colonies. These locations are large and obvious, but their large populations and massive amounts of supplies make them extremely resilient. Often, traders and merchants spring up around and inside large bases, creating a sort of economy and attracting even more people. In the Citizens inherit the Earth Aftermath scenario, the large bases will likely become nations and absorb or possibly enslave those of smaller bases.

▪ Malls

▪ Cruise Ships

▪ Vacation Resorts

▪ Hospitals

▪ Prisons

▪ Schools

▪ Islands

▪ Castles

▪ Farms

▪ Military Bases

▪ Airports

▪ Refugee Camp

▪ Shanty Towns

Keep in mind, "No place is safe, only safer." -Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide

Here is a checklist of things to consider when choosing a base

Consideration for a Shelter

▪ Can the base be secured easily?

▪ Is it in an easily defendable location?

▪ Is it big enough to support the needs of you and your group?

▪ Is the location good for your survival plan?

▪ Is the location far enough away from known major human/zombie activity?

Reinforcing

Ideally, survivors should search for and fortify locations with as few ground-floor windows and entrances as possible. Also, there should be a second, isolated floor to retreat to in case the first floor becomes compromised. One excellent way to achieve this is by destroying the stairs and replacing them with ladders, so if you climb up, you can simply isolate yourself from the zombies in the floor under you. The building should be just large enough for your needs; the point being to have an area difficult for zombies to be in undetected. Consider a location that is away from major human or ghoul activity, so as to avoid attracting other, possibly violent survivors and the ghouls who pursue them. There should always be at least two escape plans, including where the survivors will regroup and potentially, a secondary base stocked with emergency supplies. To learn about what to fortify a base with, visit Base Modification.

General Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guidelines

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These guidelines represent the most important and universal themes behind surviving a zombie encounter. The word used is "guidelines" in defference to the notion that there are no universal "laws" to survival, and that every situation is different. These guidelines should apply regardless of type of zombie or scale of outbreak. They should be ordered by approximate importance from top to bottom. Discussion of their approximate ranking is ongoing, and reserved for this article's comments below.

Always have some sort of weapon.

Prioritize your needs. Basic needs are food, water, shelter, weapons (in most cases, guns and ammo) and in rare cases, air supply/flow. It is not enough to have "just enough", one must know where the next week's rations worth are coming from. Based on the circumstances, some may be in shorter supply than others. Things of value in the previous world (such as money, companionship, and other smaller comforts) must be secondary.

Strength in numbers. Forming groups, troupes, squads, tribes, mutual survival arrangements, etc, is almost always advisable. Another person to bounce ideas off of, borrow from their knowledge base, and help eliminate zombies can outweigh all but the most severe character flaws. Knowing when to search for survival partners, and when to shut the doors is based on the overall needs of the group.

Avoid population centers wherever possible. This may now include areas where evacuation gets bogged down, like main roads, streets, and highways.

In combat, remaining calm is the most important thing. Panic rarely leads to anything but death. Being able to breathe deeply, slow things down, bring more oxygen to the brain, calm ones nerves and strengthen ones reason are attributes every survivor must learn to employ. At the same time, one has to know when to act without hesitation.

Using range and distance is the second most important thing. While zombies don't defend themselves in a conventional capacity, melee combat can be risky. Severing a spine, or destroying a (somewhat moving) skull is not always an easy task. As author Cormac McCarthy once wrote "Even in the battle between man and steer (referencing a slaughterhouse incident), the outcome is not certain". Keeping your distance from zombies decreases the natural and formidible stress that accompanies their presence, and it gives one more time to manage their actions.

Always expect trouble. Always be alert. Famed boxing champion Mike Tyson once said "Everyone has a plan... until they get punched in the mouth". No plan is foolproof. Expect things to go wrong. Prepare contingency plans. Never lower your guard. Develop the habit of visualizing where important things are (exits, weapons, people, supplies, etc). When traveling through unsecured grounds, constantly look around and listen. Be aware if any actions being taken may attract more zombies.

A one-time solution is rarely a solution. Everything one does or needs must be sustainable and repeatable, or the eventual lack of resources will be as fatal as a zombie bite. Long term thinking is critical for survival.

If holed up in a makeshift base, frequently reinforce and test your defenses.. Structures and devices of all kinds require some form of maintenance over time. The boards and beams that withstand a constant hammering day and night from the undead should be checked often and meticulously, and tested as safely as possible.

Melee weapons rarely one-shot. The human body has evolved to absorb damage. Unless one is either very skilled, or very strong, most zombie kills by way of melee weapon will require multiple swings. This should always be expected and planned for. Sometimes attacking the neck to sever the spinal cord can be preferable to only attacking the skull. This merely disables the zombie (leaving infection through a bite still possible), but then the finishing blow can be delivered unimpeded.

Short burts of fire conserve valuable ammo, and increase accuracy. The more zombies in an area (a figure which is rarely certain during an outbreak), the more valuable each bullet becomes. Use them sparingly. Single shot, or short bursts, with the proper amount of time, and proper form can conserve a resource that will be literally worth more than its weight in gold.

Conserve valuable energy. While melee combat does not consume ammunition, it does consume energy. Few people are athletic enough to wield a skull smashing weapon for hours on end, and adrenaline will not last forever. Ration swings, manage one's own blood sugar levels with nutritious food, and always try to save the last bit of energy for retreat to safer ground.

Adapt or die. In zombie infected world you will have to adapt to switch changes. With modern civilization gone the effects of changing seasons and natural disasters (heavy rains, unexpected freezing and more) will affect your life more than you might expect.

Practice worst case combat scenarios. During down time, practice clearing gun jams. How this is done this differs from survivor to survivor, and from weapon to weapon. Cycling, reloading, and field stipping are all options. Know your weapon well. Try to simulate combat situations within reason.

Observe firearm safety protocol at all times. Never assume a gun is unloaded. Even after unloading is verified, never wield a firearm inappropriately. Never allow it to point in a direction that is unsafe to one's self, or one's group. Be aware of when the last time it was cleaned and oiled. Be aware what types of ammunition the gun will work with.

When traveling, always be on the lookout for possible locations of supplies and shelters/bases.

Survival of the Fittest/Nature be not kind. In human civilization, generosity, compassion, and sacrifice usually serve to improve circumstances for all. When there is no civilization, many otherwise admirible qualities of humanity become luxuries that can be easily exploited, and lead to needless deaths. It is up to every individual to decide for themselves how much "humanity" they can afford. Only the strong, smart or sexy survive.

Consider having a "Final way out" plan. Even the strong can run into dead ends. Accept there may come a point where the fight is lost. A fast, painless death is much preferrable to being eaten alive or dying of starvation, thirst, disease, or exposure. Many people choose death as opposed to becoming a zombie - even if they are by themselves. With firearms in abundance, this plan often takes care of itself. Regardless, it is better to have this plan, and not need it, than to find yourself needing it, and not having it.

Remember the enemy may be gone but the threat lives on. Even if you have killed all the zombies in a given area, some may have heard their moans off in the distance.

Tell us for more tips in the comments below!

Zombies: A Living History (History Channel)

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Relentless. Infectious. All consuming. Since the beginning of time they have embodied our deepest fears and today their power to frighten us is more potent than ever before.
They are the monster that
history cannot kill.

Beyond Haiti. Beyond Romero.
Get ready for an unprecedented exploration of history's most terrifying and enduring horror.

What are the origins of the living dead and what makes them more relevant than ever before? Join Max Brooks, Jon Maberry, Roger Ma, JL Bourne, Kim Paffenroth, Rebekah McKendry, Steven Schlozman, Daniel Drezner,
The Zombie Squad and many more as we investigate the roots of our ultimate fear and find out what you can do to prepare yourself for the zombie apocalypse.

Because if you're prepared for zombies, you're prepared for anything.

Original documentary by History Channel

Subcribe to our YouTube channel for more Zombie movies

Spiked Bat Test & How to Make It

2012-03-04T06:01:00.003-08:00

The Spiked Bat! The legendary weapon from Dead Island and Dead Rising but will it make a zombie go boom? Let's see in the video test provided by our friends at ZombieGoBoomTV!

Via ZombieGoBoomTV

How to Make a 24 Hour MRE Meal Kit?

2012-03-04T04:13:00.002-08:00

See the basics of making a 24 hour MRE meal kit. MRE means "Meal-ready-to-eat". Thanks to our firends at ZombieGoBoomTV for this great tutorial, go check them out on YouTube (link below the video).

Via ZombieGoBoomTV

Katana Tutorial: How to grip and strike. How to kill a zombie?

2012-03-04T03:49:00.009-08:00

Learn how to grip and strike with a Katana sword! How to kill a zombie? How to survive a zombie outbreak.

Will a mall bought Katana stand up to a battle ready one? Will either be able to make a Zombie Go Boom? We did the tests and you won't believe the results.

Via ZombieGoBoomTV

Live Chat

2012-03-03T23:19:00.000-08:00

The Zombieddon live chat is made for almost everything. You need to ask something important or just want to say "Hi!", this is the place to do it. Find many other people just like you! The chat is integrated with facebook, like the whole Zombieddon community, and you don't need to make this annoying and long registrations.

About

2012-03-03T06:29:00.010-08:00

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