Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sociopath Zombies


I read a very interesting article this morning:
A friend of mine from high school posted it to face book and I was intrigued to say the last by the title. There are a great number of sociopaths in the media right now. There was one great over site that I noticed… the zombie genre films.  These films effectively turn all of the living in to sociopaths because the norms of society are taken down by an “evil” or “dark” force.  This forces daily existence in to a survival mode and the mundane existence of most quickly turns in to a kill or be killed culture.  

The thing that makes zombie films so relatable is that the films typically comment on society in some way. The original "Night of the Living Dead" dealt with race relations of the living at the forefront but just below the surface there was a comment on satellite technology. The inception of the zombies, or “flesh eaters” as Romero lovingly calls them, starts with a fallen satellite and the radiation that is caused from that catastrophic event. In 1968 when “Night of the Living Dead” was released satellites were still in their infancy.   Satellites would still have another 7 years before they would be used for television with the birth of channels like HBO and TBS. Today they are an integrated part of our everyday life that we use for everything from TV to GPS to Internet to radio stations so satellites are not as scary as they were over 40 years ago.

Today our zombies take a different form but they still comment on society in a much different way.  In 2002’s “28 Days Later” the zombies are created from an outbreak that is begun in an animal testing lab where the animals are set free by a group of animal activists.  Similarly in 2009’s “Zombieland” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156398/ a mutant strain of mad cow disease is what causes the apocalypse.  The vast majority of zombie movies you see the world through the eyes of the living and the living rage war with the undead. There is no care for the constraints that society once had. The living are all taken from their mundane lives and thrown in to a world where being a sociopath is not only acceptable but is also the only way to stay alive. It is only in “Shaun of the Dead” that we see what happens when the humans over take the mass of zombies. In a few short clips of  TV programing as Shaun is flipping mindlessly you see that there are zombies doing everything from menial labor to living a life as close to their old life as possible.  There is an outstanding deleted clip where they are interviewing two members of the band Coldplay about their 2 fallen members and how although they attempted to play with them it proved to be impossible. The band Coldplay is very well known for their activism and it is the activism that they end up promoting on the show.  In the end the world really returns to normal more or less. There is the distinct feeling that most people did not learn any real lessons but they may be more grateful for their live.

The lack of rules and laws during the post apocalypse is what truly defines as humans. Yes, we want to live but at what cost? We typically find the living clinging desperately to any living human connections that they can find. Occasionally there is regret for loss of life and a revelation that these zombies were once no different from any of us. At the end of the day the zombies had the same issues and problems that we all face in our everyday life and they are also transformed in to unthinking sociopaths.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Awesome Apple Jack Crumble

Ok so I had a birthday party to go to yesterday. I decided to go at kind of the last minute because my lack of car situation. Anyhow I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare something for the  party so I did what I always do I went in the pantry and fridge and made do with what I had. I was thinking about a pie because I had some apple jack liqueur from a trip to Illinois River Winery and loads of apples but I did not have the time for or want the mess of pie. So crumble it was….

6 apples (I used honey crisp but whatever you have on hand will do)
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon of  cocoa chili blend (or you can use a bit of unsweetened cocoa powder)
½ cup flour
½ cup oats (I used instant)
½ cup  apple jack
¾ cup sugar
Ice cream or cool whip

*    Pre heat the oven to 350F and grease your pan with cooking spray or butter.
*   Peel, core and cut the apples in to bite sized pieces.
*  Coat apple pieces with pumpkin pie spice and cocoa chili. Transfer in to baking dish.
* Mix flour and oats together and pour over top of apples.
*   In a small sauce pan over medium high heat melt sugar in to apple jack.  Stir constantly.  Take off heat when the sugar is dissolved and the mixture turns to a light syrup when put in to cool water (about 5-10 minutes).
*  Pour apple jack syrup over apple and oats mixture. Stir just enough to make sure everything is coated.
*   Bake for 25-30 minutes or until apples are soft.
*  Serve with ice cream or cool whip.  I used a caramel swirl ice cream but a cinnamon or vanilla ice cream would work well. 


Welcome Blog


This blog is just something that I want to do to keep myself busy and positive while searching for a job.  I am thirty, unmarried and recently back from living and teaching in England for the past year and a half. There are a lot of topics that I would like to explore but I must say that I was very tentative about creating a blog because it seems very narcissistic. I have attempted to write blogs before but I was unable to keep it up because I quickly felt as if the blogs were never really good enough or they needed more pictures or they could only be about one specific topic. This “little pieces of nothing” is just that little ramblings about how I feel or what I think or things that I am doing. It is just my way to have an outlet and a good step to make sure that I am writing. I love to write but without an audience I tend to slack and then the lack of writing makes my writing trite and kind of boring. The more I do it the more I find my voice, the better my writing becomes.