Readying for the Zombie Apocalypse

Kelly's lady friend alerted me to some geniuses who blended the zombie apocalypse with one of the greatest games ever created, The Oregon Trail. If you love Zombieland (hand raised) and love The Oregon Trail (other hand raised), then this is one of the best time-killers you can find on the interwebs.

In playing The Organ Trail (clever name), you pick a crew, and decide on a profession so the game can alter the experience based on what career you choose. It's awesome because the first choice is "Cop from Kentucky." Well, that was an easy choice, thanks. I created my family truckster crew of myself, Kelly, Dan, Luke and Douglass. Sorry to the wife and poodles, but surviving the zombie apocalypse is a man's job. Well, at least I thought so until Kelly got bit by a zombie about 8 feet into the drive and died about two days later when we reached Chicago. Damn, Kelly, you gotta be stronger than that.

I finished the game without losing anyone else, and found that I was a great barterer and shooter when having to scavenge for provisions. I know it's just a video game (and an 8-bit one at that), but I'm feeling more confident about my ability to make it through the zombie apocalypse in one piece, because all these things are just training, like for a marathon. But of wits.

Game On: Week of Oct. 24

Here is my column from two weeks ago. I reviewed Kirby's Epic Yarn, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and Super Scribblenauts. Thanks to the Nashua Telegraph for publishing.

Game On: Week of Oct. 17

Here is my column from a couple weeks' back. I reviewed Civilization V and Dead Rising 2. Thanks to the Nashua Telegraph for publishing.

Don't Be Frightened ... Again

Got to see one of my favorite bands again last night. Frightened Rabbit was wrapping up the U.S. tour so I wanted to make sure I checked them out since they probably won't be back stateside for another couple years.

The opening act, Plants and Animals, was decent but it didn't sound like they've figured out what kind of band they want to be. Good set, but every other song sounded like they were appealing to a different crowd than the one before.

Once we got to the main act, things livened up right quick. They played a little longer because they are at the end of the tour, which was nice for the crowd. They played just about every track off their two newest albums, which was awesome. The only downer were the three chicks behind us who spent damn near the whole show taking each other's picture with their phones and firing it up to Facebook. Damn annoying ladies, and your drunk asses were missing out on some great music that plays well to a frisky audience. By now you all know my love of the band. If you aren't listening to them, you should be. No excuses.

Halloween Ribfest 2010

So last year I smoked my famous Pineapple Jerk Ribs to wild acclaim. It worked out well on several fronts. 1) I got to smoke ribs, which is one of my favorite things ever to do. 2) Handling the cooking for the Ribfest party meant I didn't have to interact with hundreds of children and hand them candy. (Yes, I'm still bah humbug on holidays, get over it.)

Well since last year was such a success, the wife and I decided to declare the 2nd Annual Halloween Ribfest. And to honor the occasion, I decided to bus out an entirely new recipe. This time I went crazy and made some Fillippino-style ribs. About 70 different spices went into the marinade and dry rub, which made this one of the more expensive rib recipes I have undertaken since it involved a bunch of items I normally don't have on hand, like whole Szechuan peppercorns or whole fennel and coriander seed. Oddly, we grew lemongrass in our garden this year, so we actually that covered!

The recipe was a 150% success. Holy crap those ribs were tasty. The only downer was the accompanying sauce, a plum-ginger sauce that I also made from scratch. The wife and the rest of the party loved it, but it wasn't my bag, just something wasn't quite doing it for me. But nevertheless, it looks like we have created a nice tradition with Halloween Ribfest. So mark it down, and reserve your seat for next year.

My Rally of Restoration

Saturday, for those living under a rock or playing a little too much Halo: Reach, was the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear, and I couldn't miss a chance to be part of a cool rally in which nothing mean or aggravating was said.

The rally was sweet, featuring The Roots doing a nice four-song set and some solid comedy bits and pre-taped spots to keep the people livened up. I was supposed to meet a couple groups of friends, but sadly a technology black hole was in effect down at the Mall, so I instead was left to fend for myself amongst 200,000 people. Thankfully, the people I ended up nestled next to were all cool folk, some environmental tech students, some funny hippies and some girls who all decided to dress up like Rosie the Riveter for Halloween (you can see them in the photo ... they did well with the costumes). Good times.

As a whole the rally kicked ass because Stewart and Colbert made some great jokes, and at the end Stewart made a simple, poignant speech that was all about coming together and stopping the bullshit division that the media keeps pushing and that politicians don't help themselves but propagating. It's a vicious circle, and yes I blame the politicians first and the media second, but it's infected our everyday lives and I appreciate the way Stewart reminded everyone that in the end we're all trying to get things done and it's not worth hating each other during the journey.

Here's a brief video I took to give you a sense of the size of the crowd and the vibe. I was all the way near the back of the crowd and it's still damn huge. Way to go, America, showing those posers Palin and Beck what kind of movement you can create when you put sanity instead of crazy.

Friday Funnies

I had a couple ideas for this last week and then forgot them, so I'm sorry for being uber-late coming up with a Friday Funnies. Plus, Kristin might be the only person who cares enough to ask me to post something because it helps her get through the final push after another week of work on our team.

In case you missed it, last night's opening prank of The Office was one of the best ones ever, and it didn't even revolve around pranking Dwight. Loved it. Laughed out loud a couple times. Yes, maybe I like The Office a little too much.

What I've Read: Bright-Sided

Just because I've haven't posted any book reviews lately doesn't mean I've given up the written word. Far from it. I just took the summer months to crush through a whole bunch of books from the fiction writers I love, and since those don't have the same umph as the nonfiction I spend a majority of time reading, I thought hey weren't review worthy.

But I'm back on my nonfiction kick, and I started off with a good one. Barbara Ehrenreich is one of my favs. She's got a great reporting style to bring her theses to life. In several of her past books that I really enjoyed (Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch), she didn't just talk about the problems facing middle class families, she took jobs in the same industries that many laid-off workers were having to take to see how the economics took their tool on them. Good reads, check them out.

In Bright-Sided, she goes head-first into the uber-sketchy positive thinking industry. As someone who is often thought of as a grouch in the family and always pushing depressing and serious and non-reality TV viewing, this was right up my alley. She first tackles the subject of her breast cancer diagnosis, and how those who have been diagnosed are almost forced to swallow nothing but positive imagery and the belief that if they think and pray enough, their cancer will somehow magically disappear. It's a startling look into how that "fighting cancer industry" is hellbent on only celebrating survivors and not those fighting it with the same passion, and how anyone who dares have a bad day or a negative chemo session is blasted for being human and having negative thoughts.

After breaking that down, she moves on to other solid territory, giving you a history of the positive thinking movement and its founders during the early part of the 1900s. She gives some great history into the hucksters and other jagoffs who created this idea that you can think yourself rich and successful. Once the history lesson is over, Ehrenreich gets right back into the good stuff, going after the Joel Osteens and other success preachers of the day that are preying and outright spewing bullshit to get their congregations to pray for more money, because as she claims, "god wants you to be rich."

She closes the book discussing how the positive thinking industry relied heavily on corporations and HR departments to build their successes, and more importantly how they began feeding off each other until company leaders and Fortune 500s were insulated to never listen to contradictory advice or filling their ranks with realists. She posits that it's this cycle that helped contribute to the economic collapse, and she makes some good points though rushes through it a bit too fast to make the impression stick.

In all, a fast read that will make you honestly reconsider a lot of the messages you hear from your HR department or from others. Plus, it makes you feel good about hating all the Amway bullshit and any other fake-ass pyramid scheme shit out there that promises happiness and good health and just by having good thoughts. Sounds like the kind of shit those infomercials peddle at 3 a.m. and what they preach about on Sundays before heading back to their mansions. Oh yeah, that's because it is.

Idiot of the Day

What better place to go to find an Idiot of the Day then the place of my birth, Kentucky.

Sure, you could ask if the idiot here is the woman from MoveOn who thought being funny at a debate featuring Rand Paul. Probably not a good idea to be a leftist pinko commie like myself and be in the line of fire from riled-up Tea Partiers who probably tailgated all day for this debate.

But I'll stick with my original belief that, while this is not the most dangerous assault ever caught on film (let's cool our jets, everyone), you're still an idiot for assaulting a woman and stomping on her head while cameras are filing you. Idiot. But since he's from Kentucky and a Tea Partier, he probably is a U of L fan and doesn't know what technology or the Internet is. I'm just quietly hoping, since this happened in Paducah, no one related to my wife was involved.

Friday Funnies

I've recently gotten the wife hooked on one of the best shows ever made, The Wire. I watched it on my own because I wasn't sure she'd be into since she consumes more than her fair share of Real Housewives and other shite that the networks churn out. But I promised her if she didn't like it after the first 7-8 episodes, then we could quit. I knew she'd love it, and soon enough she was hooked like one of Stringer Bell's customers.

I also knew she'd get a kick out of the famous "Fuck Scene." Not sexual in any way, this instantly reminded her of what my life would be like if I were a detective. That, or she's convinced the writer overheard me talking to Luke or something and decided to write a scene exactly how I am sometimes known to talk.