zombies – Page 8 – Looking to God

Anniversary Week—Part I (2014)

Posted on December 29, 2014December 31, 2014 by Jack Flacco

December 17th was the two-year anniversary when Jack Flacco: The Official Site went live. In celebration of this milestone, I would like to present the Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts of 2014.

Before we get to that, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who visited my site over the course of the year. It’s been quite a ride, folks. We’ve delved into zombies, zombie apocalypses and the like, and we had fun.

I don’t share this information freely, but I thought it appropriate given the nature of the festivities for the coming week. Here are some stats* you might find interesting:

Total views since going live: 113,376
The most views in one day: 1,194
Most views in one month: 7,741 views in October 2014
Most visitors in one month: 5,101 visitors in November 2014
The country with the most views: 31,520 views from the United States

* Statistics range from January 1, 2014 – December 29, 2014 as at 7:00am EST.

Let’s move along to the main attraction. When choosing the Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts, I first wanted to present them based on amount of views. The more I thought of it though, the more it didn’t make sense. For instance, a visitor may pop into the site and hit the same post several times within the day. I didn’t think it fair, considering there could have only been two visitors for that day and a hundred views.

Next, I thought I’d use comments as the benchmark. You know, the more comments a post has, the more popular it is. Again, I didn’t think it represented a good way to measure popularity given I can comment on my own post a dozen times and push it ahead on the popularity scale.

No, what I used is the number of “likes” a post has garnered throughout the year. It will not only present a fair representation of popularity for a post but also prevents users from gaming the system with multiple “likes”.

Okay, enough chitchat.

The Top 5 Most Popular Monday Mayhem posts of 2014:

Jack Flacco takes action to a new level.

My Second Book Release—“Tomorrow, my second book in the Ranger Martin series releases. That sentence makes it sound as if something’s about to escape the San Diego Zoo. From what I know, literature doesn’t eat people. At least I don’t think it does. So I wouldn’t worry about wild books named Ranger Martin and the Alien Invasion running…” ~60 likes
Asbury Park Zombie Walk 2010 (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

Why I Like Zombies—“Have I ever told you why I like zombies? I mean, I write my Monday Mayhem posts, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned the reason why I’m drawn to these ill-fated, putrid-smelling, bile-seeping maggot bags the media affectionately calls zombies. I have a number of reasons for liking them, and today, you’re going to find…” ~51 likes
The Walking Dead

Zombies and Mental Illness—“Zombies are undead eating machines. They kill, consume and hunt for victims. They have an insatiable appetite. Their goals are simple. Kill and eat. Is it a wonder zombies have a reputation of being one of the most feared creatures in Horror? Monday Mayhem has always been about the other side of madness. It will always…” ~50 likes
R from the movie Warm Bodies

Zombie Characters—“A few days ago, I watched World War Z—again. This movie will not go away, will it? I remember thinking how quickly humans had turned into zombies. The bite. The convulsing. The white eyes. The shreaking. And the cycle continues. I’d noticed this before, but never really analyzed it in depth. Not something I’m about…” ~48 likes
The Terminator

Terminators vs. Zombies—“They keep coming and coming and don’t let up. They’ll hunt you down and kill you without mercy. They have no soul. They’re impervious to pain. They are dead inside, unable to feel empathy or feel anything for that matter. They will not rest until every single human soul lies dead under their feet. If…” ~47 likes

Come back Wednesday when I reveal the Top 5 Most Popular Women Who Wow Wednesday posts of 2014. Don’t miss it!

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Do you have a favorite Monday Mayhem post you’d recommend to your friends?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: The Matrix

Posted on December 22, 2014December 24, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The Matrix broke all the rules. It was the most successful March debut ever to hit the screen at the time. It also introduced Bullet Time, where the audience walked out of the theater thinking anyone can dodge bullets. The premise of the franchise was clear, the machines create an alternate reality where humans can live while the machine harvest the humans for their own nefarious reasons.

Since I’m expecting everyone to be a holiday mood, for Monday Mayhem, let’s have a look at The Matrix and how the machines represent a form of zombie apocalypse.

If you haven’t seen any of The Matrix movies, I won’t spoil it for you. I’ll try to keep the examples as high level as I can. But I won’t lie. I can’t talk about it without describing a few points that may reveal certain parts of the plot. In that case, you may want to read on to the last paragraph for the summary.

The idea of the Matrix is that of a group of machines linked together to serve the purpose of self-preservation—preservation of themselves. The resource is human, rather, what humans possess to make them a resource. In the world of the Matrix, humans function as sacks of energy the Matrix readily consumes for keeping it alive. Without human beings, the Matrix would not exist.

How on earth would the Matrix typify a zombie apocalypse of all things? Much like the Matrix, a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t be a zombie apocalypse without one thing—human. The undead could not exist without humans a) to keep them alive and b) to keep reproducing themselves. In the movie, the Matrix maintains control of the human population in order to maximize its returns by executing a slow depletion of the species.

It sounds like science, doesn’t it? And I’ll have to agree with those who will quickly point out the Matrix is smarter than any zombie apocalypse. But the fact of the matter is, zombies, on a whole, are stupid as individual entities. Multiply them over by the hundreds, though, you have yourself a formidable enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve its goal—consume human.

Not much different from the Matrix, is it? Both vie for self-preservation. Both desire human as their resource. They even go so far as to act as a single entity when threatened.

A zombie apocalypse seems disorganized when one of the undead stands on their own. But the horde mentality—the hive—lives as a single unit when many stand together as one. The Matrix is a film that brings the zombie apocalypse to life. Instead of zombies, however, computers make the bulk of the hive.

Who’s to say today we’re not living in a world controlled by a Matrix making us all part of a typified zombie apocalypse?

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Have you seen any of the The Matrix movies? What do you think of the analogy of The Matrix being a type of zombie apocalypse?

Monday Mayhem

The Book of Eli and Zombies

Posted on December 15, 2014December 17, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The Book of Eli is one of my favorite movies of all time. That’s saying a lot, considering I can name my favorite movies in a quick ten-second round. Given I’ve written about Solara, the female protagonist for one of my Women Who Wow Wednesday articles, I thought it appropriate for Monday Mayhem to write about the dystopian nightmare presented in the film. Even though the world of Eli is far from being the center of a total undead infestation, the scenarios the survivors face are the same.

Just how similar is The Book of Eli’s reality with that of a zombie apocalypse?

Not to give away anything from the plot of the film, the future according to The Book of Eli is that of doom and gloom. Gangs rule the earth searching for wealth—but not the wealth you and I might think as valuable. Huge swaths of land lack the basic ingredient to make it flourish into a viable ecosystem. The ingredient? Water. Whether it’s a small blade of grass or an ox, life needs water to survive. Without water, life ceases to exist. What are the chances water can become the new currency? In a zombie apocalypse, all the employees who worked at the dams and water treatment plants will have disappeared, swallowed by their fall into the vortex of the undead. With no one supervising the flow, malevolent humans could easily capture the resource and use it to control those under their supposed jurisdiction.

Next is the food chain. Survivors will need to eat things. If the film is any indication to what humanity has to look forward to, then there will be more to deal with than a mere food shortage. Lack of sustenance gives rise to the unthinkable. Cannibalism could become the norm. Not only will the survivors have to pay close attention to attacks from zombies aiming to make a meal of them, but they would also need to be mindful of attacks from within. Hunger will do strange things to a person’s mind. It will lead someone, who otherwise in a civilized society would be a model citizen, to commit the most heinous of crimes—to consume a fellow human for the purpose of self-preservation. How farfetched does that sound in light of the fact that we don’t know what humanity is capable of until that day when placed in those circumstances where everyone’s forced to choose?

Lastly, The Book of Eli suggests the barter system will work when all else fails. A pair of gloves, cat oil and a trinket from the past may buy a charge for an iPod. That is all a survivor may need to get them through another week of wandering through zombie-infested farmland in order to find a hospitable environment where they could call home. It won’t be easy. To deal in the barter system one will need to expropriate goods for the sole purpose of trade. Those goods will need to be high-demand items on everyone’s list. It’s unrealistic to assume those items would also not fall under heavy guard by those who’d want to keep them for themselves. And if zombies have anything to do with it, what’s to say survivors couldn’t use the bodies of the undead as trophies for their morbid trades?

Therefore, again I ask. Just how similar is The Book of Eli’s reality with that of a zombie apocalypse?

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What do you think would make a zombie apocalypse less dangerous than a real end-time scenario?

Monday Mayhem

Why Don’t Zombies Eat Each Other?

Posted on December 8, 2014December 10, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Everyone has their ideas of why zombies do the things they do. Why do zombies eat brains? Why do zombies from forty years ago lurch while today’s undead sprint toward their victims? Do zombies ever have to go to the bathroom?

I’m dedicating today’s Monday Mayhem post to the ultimate question: Why don’t zombies eat each other?

To answer this question I’m going to speculate, hypothesize, and take a few wild guesses. I’m sure everyone has an opinion, but how scientific are unsubstantiated opinions? Does science have an answer? I’m totally going to throw a dart with the hope it sticks and makes sense. Let’s see how far I get.

This is my theory.

Whether folks are talking about zombies bred by a curse, a virus or a freakish experiment gone wrong, the undead know only one thing—to eat. I’ve mentioned this before in the context of sharks. If anything is true about zombies, they are like sharks that smell blood in the waters. They hunt until there’s nothing left of their prey. Similarly, the undead search for the living as a means of nourishment in order to satisfy a craving deep within their bodies. That craving dictates their actions to terrorize humans for their own personal fulfillment. No matter what they do, they can’t feel satiated by their latest conquest and have to kill again in an endless cycle.

Of course, the next question to come from the astute reader is why. Why do zombies search for humans to fill the void in their souls? With all the meat around them—although undead nonetheless—why go for human? Won’t eating their kind stem the hunger burning within their bowels?

The answer to that is no. The question references the same question posed throughout the decades: why do zombies eat brains? It’s the same answer as to why don’t zombies eat each other?

John A. Russo’s film The Return of the Living Dead popularized the idea of zombies eating brains. Brains? Yes. Zombies need endorphins to sooth the pain of decomposition. Since their own kind can’t provide the endorphins needed to quell the agony of a slow death, humans will fill that void.

Located at the base of the brain, the pituitary gland produces the endorphins zombies need to relieve the pain of their immanent demise. To get to the gland, the undead would have to capture a human, bash the skull and draw the prize by scoops. Zombies simply can’t fulfill this order from other zombies. For one thing, in death their pituitary glands no longer secrete endogenous morphine (a.k.a. endogenous opioid inhibitory neuropeptides) as the nervous system is dead. No nervous system, no endorphins.

What was that analogy I’d used earlier? Right, sharks smell the blood in the water of their victims. Can it be zombies also smell the endorphins from humans as they go about their daily lives trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse?

What do you think?

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Why do you think zombies don’t each other? Is there a better theory?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: The Aftermath

Posted on December 1, 2014December 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I haven’t read many zombie books to know for certain, but I know my movies, and I would have to say I haven’t seen this issue explored—what would society be like after a zombie apocalypse? Zombie movies typically concentrate on the time when the undead take over the world. But, what of the aftermath? Society would need rebuilding.

Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31347 / CC-BY-SA (This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.)

Today’s Monday Mayhem will explore what would society need to do to rise from the ashes of a zombie apocalypse. Of course this is all speculation, and for the most part, for entertainment value. However, I will assume some truth lies therein, and I’m rather opposed to revealing what that truth is. I’m sure you’ll figure it out—eventually.

First thing on the agenda? What to do with all the bodies of the undead once a cure for the zombie virus hits the streets? I will presume a zombie virus antidote will render the survivors immune to the virus and kill everything else undead. Even more so, let’s take that assumption to include zombie traps that would disperse the antidote to the undead masses like a net and relieve them of their zombiehood. So, again I ask. What will happen with all the dead zombie bodies?

Gas stations would need gas. If there is gas in gas stations then tractors can have gas in order for survivors to use the tractors to dig ditches. The survivors can then use the ditches to bury the dead bodies.

The other solution is to burn the dead bodies and bulldoze the ashes into the fields where former farmers could fertilize their crops. Morbid? Yes, but it’s a positive solution for a negative event.

Next, as it happened after World War II, a baby boom will take place. Those left will have nothing else to do but to procreate the next generation of survivors with the hope that generation will build a society void of the threat from the undead.

With all the children born, a number of things will need to happen if society wishes to survive another generation. Not necessarily in this order: The survivors will need a leader to instruct them in the way of civility. Laws will have to come into effect to address quarrels among families, individuals and other areas of the land. With growth also comes farming, education and healthcare. Who will do what? will be the big question on everyone’s lips.

Lastly, as with all great emerging societies, comes the sanitation question: What to do with all the human waste once society gets into a rhythm of birth, growth and death?

So you see, even though we may have won the war against the zombies, we’ll still have to win the bigger war—the war of rebuilding after the undead are no longer a threat.

To me, that is the greatest challenge of them all.

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What do you think the world would need to do to rebuild from the ashes of a zombie apocalypse?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Apocalypse: Family

Posted on November 24, 2014November 26, 2014 by Jack Flacco

After having watched a number of zombie movies these past few weeks, I’ve concluded that family comes before anything else. I write this with the firm image of a family running through the woods trying to elude a zombie army. Not only is family above everything and everyone, but it’s also the key to a stable society, regardless of the law of the land.

For this week’s Monday Mayhem, let’s explore this thing called family, and its importance in terms of the survival of a nation—specifically during a zombie apocalypse.

Humanity has fought many wars. Many of which could have been avoided. Of those wars, the ones who would emerge as victor would always be the stronger side. But is that true?

For instance, take the ancient walled city of Masada. Built on a natural plateau in Israel, comparable to a mesa, in 74 CE, 960 Sicarii rebels and their families repelled 15,000 Romans before taking their own lives in an act of defiance against the empire. Archeological findings, though, indicate as little as 28 rebels could have held off the great Roman army from captivity. This contradicts the historian Josephus’ account detailing the loss of life.

Imagine if this were also true in a zombie apocalypse. The undead wouldn’t have a chance.

Stable families create stable nations, which in turn, create strong armies based on loyalty and honor. Numbers are meaningless with strong armies. In other words, if families are in the midst of a siege, hundreds could defend against thousands.

Zombies could try to attack families, but zombies are stupid, they haven’t got a clue what a father would do if their son or daughter becomes the target of the undead. A mother would equally decapitate those who dared threaten her offspring. Have a look at the animal and insect kingdoms. The females tend to be the most dangerous gender of the species. Two cases in point are the praying mantis and the black widow spider. You can read about them coming up with your own conclusions.

I’ll now leave this open for discussion.

If there ever were a zombie apocalypse, I believe a nation built on a strong foundation can conquer anything—it doesn’t matter if it’s a foreign invasion or zombies. Despite domestic disputes, families will always win.

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What do you think of stable families and their role in regards to the security of a nation?

Monday Mayhem

Zombie Swarming

Posted on November 17, 2014November 19, 2014 by Jack Flacco

The opening titles to the movie World War Z contains an interesting scene where the audience witnesses ants swarming. The scene, which foreshadows what will happen later in the film, is so brief that it wouldn’t surprise me if folks missed it. Later in the film, the swarming happens again, but this time the creatures are zombies.

Zombie Horde [Photo Credit: Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.]

For today’s Monday Mayhem series post I would like to talk about zombie swarming—how it takes place, who is susceptible, and why. It’s all about theory today, folks. If you like to talk about the Horde Effect—I just made that up—then you’ll want to keep reading.

Ants are one of the most interesting insects in nature. They come together, disperse, forage, warn and even lead, all by a chemical built within their small bodies. The chemical they possess goes by the name pheromones. Simply stated, ants produce pheromones to assist their complex colonies in multiple ways.

Ants Eating [Photo Credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos]

For instance, when an enemy approaches their colony, ants spray pheromones to warn other ants of impending doom. They also spray their pheromones when they want to ward off ants from other colonies, in effect, protecting their territory. They do likewise if they come across something of interest. This is how they lead other ants to food sources. Have you ever seen how ants seem to follow each other in a straight line to and from a picnic table? That’s how they do it. They spray pheromones from the location of their catch all the way back home so that other ants can follow their trail. It’s quite interesting to see this process at work.

Now, as for zombies, they aren’t much different from insects. Similar to swarming ants, the “modern-day” undead have a way of communicating in order to get things done. I’m talking about their shrieks.

In the old days, zombies lumbered and dragged and lurched. They were slow. They were feeble. Today’s zombies, however, sprint, jump and ram. Hard to deny the power the undead possess when they’re in full attack mode. Their shrieks lead other zombies to potential kills, and the other zombies do the same. On and on it goes. I call it the Horde Effect, but you can call it anything you’d like. The point being, like ants, zombies lead each other to a food supply without knowing they’re doing it out of instinct.

I’m sure there are other similarities between insects and zombies. This post only concentrated on zombie swarming. Perhaps one day I’ll also look at the zombie dormant state and its similarity to bat behavior. Until then, ants can provide a great lesson for humanity, not only in organized social structure, but also in zombie swarming. It’s time to appreciate nature more than for providing us food and resources.

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Have you seen ants lead other ants to food? Do you think zombies function the same way?

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