New Testingstan

Bakustra wrote:Apparently the movie is better than the trailers equating the walking dead with Palestinians would have you believe

Funny thing is in that particular scene, Palestinian refugees are some of the first people attacked by the zoombies.

In any case, Neil Gaiman totally is one of the most overrated nerd authors of all time. Probably in the top five if we discount the Golden Age effect and restrict ourselves to prose authors. Funnily enough, I actually am starting to sour on his works for reasons I was unable to articulate until I read Catherynne Valente's Deathless, though I won't really go into details unless people really want to hear me take many words to say that most genre fiction is shallow and hollow and this really pisses me off.

This is the point where I take any mention of vaguely gothy and/or fantasy fiction as an excuse to shamelessly plug my favourite author, Tanith Lee. She almost single-handedly supports my faith in modern writers.

Djinnkitty83 wrote:

Bakustra wrote:Apparently the movie is better than the trailers equating the walking dead with Palestinians would have you believe

Funny thing is in that particular scene, Palestinian refugees are some of the first people attacked by the zoombies.

Yeah well Metahive and others have spoken. O yea, gods I wish he would add the "h" to the "O".

But anyway I concede. No good can come out of any further "yes, but..." circles about why it's possible for human militaries to make missteps and lose to zombies.

AniThyng wrote:Yeah well Metahive and others have spoken. O yea, gods I wish he would add the "h" to the "O".

But anyway I concede. No good can come out of any further "yes, but..." circles about why it's possible for human militaries to make missteps and lose to zombies.

Sad thing is some of the points brought up are interesting to think about*, but I know any attempt to actually discuss it over there (or with people bringing that sort of mentality over here) will result in another circlejerk of "Military combined arms rulez all, stupid non-STEM trekkie luzer lolz"

For some reason zombies trigger this reaction more than most things.

*The whole 'why didn't they build a walkway' in particular. I eventually came away with, "1) Every cent dedicated towards this anti-zoombie wall had to be fought for, and in the end they had to choose between concessions or not completing the wall at all. 2) The wall was still a work in progress when things went to hell, so in the interest of 'get it done' they just capped it off as it was. 3) Zoombies react violently to human movement, it was judged better not to have meat-morsels patrolling the walls, constantly reminding the zoombies exactly where all the tasty meals had congregated."

#3 in particular applies because the wall actually did work fine until the zoombies became aware that there were people on the other side. Having people visible up top would have just hastened the inevitable.

For what its worth, I think it's pretty clear that any number of soldiers can hold off many times their number in zombies, but just how many soldiers does any country really have relative to population? Any major dense metro area is just doomed that way. It's not for nothing that most of the cities that make it out okay in WWZ tend to be smaller and somewhat isolated relative to other places.

A city like Tokyo or Mumbai or Hong Kong or even New York isn't going to be able to handle that very well.

so i watched lethal weapons 1 and 2 over the weekend. i couldn't help but notice both failed the bechdel test..... but they were fun films. i'll do 3 and 4 next weekend prolly.

lethal weapon 2 in 17 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXNUaSjXRY

Djinnkitty83 wrote:

Bakustra wrote:Apparently the movie is better than the trailers equating the walking dead with Palestinians would have you believe

Funny thing is in that particular scene, Palestinian refugees are some of the first people attacked by the zoombies.

I didn't catch that symbolic.

What I saw was Palestinian refugees singing with Orthodox Jews, probably about how good it was to be alive and that now they had a chance to get the old grudges behind them.

You know, that they were so happy to finally be treated as Equals in the Holy City that they didn't catch the fact that in their celebration of this good new they had signed their own doom.

Oxymoron wrote:

Djinnkitty83 wrote:

Bakustra wrote:Apparently the movie is better than the trailers equating the walking dead with Palestinians would have you believe

Funny thing is in that particular scene, Palestinian refugees are some of the first people attacked by the zoombies.

I didn't catch that symbolic.

What I saw was Palestinian refugees singing with Orthodox Jews, probably about how good it was to be alive and that now they had a chance to get the old grudges behind them.

You know, that they were so happy to finally be treated as Equals in the Holy City that they didn't catch the fact that in their celebration of this good new they had signed their own doom.

Idealism is a poison on humanity.

In fact for me that was the weakest part of the book. In reality the Israelis would be EXPELLING Palestinians, not inviting them in.

well I don't think they'd go that far
but yeah inviting the Palestinians into Israel was the most unbelievable part of the book for me, even ahead of Cuba becoming a world power because of the capitalist spirit of US refugees

Bakustra wrote:I leave you people alone for one extended holiday, and look what happens. In any case, Neil Gaiman totally is one of the most overrated nerd authors of all time. Probably in the top five if we discount the Golden Age effect and restrict ourselves to prose authors. Funnily enough, I actually am starting to sour on his works for reasons I was unable to articulate until I read Catherynne Valente's Deathless, though I won't really go into details unless people really want to hear me take many words to say that most genre fiction is shallow and hollow and this really pisses me off.

pls articulate buck

Djinnkitty83 wrote:
http://i.imgur.com/vjM5OUs.jpg

i liek your horrers always has

anyway i have been ruminating with my friend and we are trying to become shamans

i was wondering have you ever tried doing arts of properly proportional humanoid beings? i wish to see

because my shaman friend said that before one deforms or caricatures a humanoid, one ought to get the anatomies right, so that when one chooses to deform, the results will be more monstrous or something...

Funnily enough, I actually am starting to sour on his works for reasons I was unable to articulate until I read Catherynne Valente's Deathless, though I won't really go into details unless people really want to hear me take many words to say that most genre fiction is shallow and hollow and this really pisses me off.

that seems like a pretty blanket statement, but yeah most genre fiction is disappointingly shit (oh look how self-consciously 'weird' and 'zany' I'm being, blrghlarg, China Meiville I'm looking at you )

I do rather like Sandman, though I think that might be because it was my gateway comic into Vertigo, and from there the works of my spiritual liege Alan Moore and the religious experience that was Promethea.

but yeah +1 please articulate, I'm always looking for good stuff to read

evilsoup wrote:well I don't think they'd go that far
but yeah inviting the Palestinians into Israel was the most unbelievable part of the book for me, even ahead of Cuba becoming a world power because of the capitalist spirit of US refugees

No, the most unbelievable thing is that in the books there's a passing mention that they built a city of something like 10 or 100 million people in Greenland and that it was supposedly the center of humanity's reconstruction efforts during the period, and that it's never brought up again. WTF ?!


Note : you know what I dislike with paper books ? The inability to do Ctrl+F to search keywords.

that's why ebooks are the future

evilsoup wrote:

Funnily enough, I actually am starting to sour on his works for reasons I was unable to articulate until I read Catherynne Valente's Deathless, though I won't really go into details unless people really want to hear me take many words to say that most genre fiction is shallow and hollow and this really pisses me off.

that seems like a pretty blanket statement, but yeah most genre fiction is disappointingly shit (oh look how self-consciously 'weird' and 'zany' I'm being, blrghlarg, China Meiville I'm looking at you )

I do rather like Sandman, though I think that might be because it was my gateway comic into Vertigo, and from there the works of my spiritual liege Alan Moore and the religious experience that was Promethea.

but yeah +1 please articulate, I'm always looking for good stuff to read

promethea was fucking spectacular and remains to date one of my favourite comics

It's one of my favourite works of fiction overall, not just comics, and one of the larger influences on my thought processes.

so i was just watching the start of bad boys and found it hilarious mildly noteworthy that martin laurence was billed above will smith. So i guess that was the state of things in 1995.

Please tell me that was intentional.

alas i don't know what you mean so... no.

evilsoup wrote:well I don't think they'd go that far
but yeah inviting the Palestinians into Israel was the most unbelievable part of the book for me, even ahead of Cuba becoming a world power because of the capitalist spirit of US refugees

Well in the book the invitation to the Palestinians did spark a civil war between Orthodox Jews and progressives.

Man, you know what ? Fuck it, I'm going to re-read WWZ.

evilsoup wrote:that seems like a pretty blanket statement, but yeah most genre fiction is disappointingly shit (oh look how self-consciously 'weird' and 'zany' I'm being, blrghlarg, China Meiville I'm looking at you )

you take that back

which bit

evilsoup wrote:which bit

China Mieville is a lovely man and I won't hear a bad word against him

Flagg wrote:

Is that intentional?