Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Megamind >> Despicable Me

Saturday, July 2, 2011

I've been watching The Walking Dead. It's okay. Some moments of good writing and a few of pretty terrible writing. A lot of characters I don't care about. Especially the female characters who tend to alternate between breaking-down crying or getting really bossy. Maybe I'm sexist, or the show is.

The secret to surviving a zombie attack is the same as in real estate: location, location, location. It is not sticking together, which is what the characters on this show like to tell each other. "We've got to stick together!" The number of people is a moot point if you get swarmed with zombies, which is more likely to happen if you're sticking with noisy, dumb people. I guess if you know you're incapable of surviving alone then you should find someone who is competent to latch onto. But that's how life is for some people, zombies or no.

So location. Just be where the zombies are not. Take your supplies to the middle of the desert. Zombies don't drive, and if they do you'll see them coming 20 miles away. Or if you're near a coast take a boat out. Zombies won't swim.

I wonder if part of the zombie appeal is the average sci-fi geek knowing that he could easily take out a string of zombies with just a shovel or a hammer. It's so manly! Just a man and his trusty shovel, breaking bones of aggressors who can only clumsily try to grab at him.

And how could zombies possibly overrun a military base? Every man with a gun can take out dozens of zombies without a problem. I guess they didn't know at first where to shoot, but how long would that really take to figure out? After the first zombie didn't die until his head was blown off, I think I'd start aiming for the head. Heck, a lot of those macho military guys could probably take on endless zombies just using an improvised club.

The last episode of The Walking Dead is weak. Some extremely contrived events and poorly thought characters. It's funny that one guy introduces himself as "Doctor Edwin". Even after the apocalypse, doctors will cling to their titles.

There's a moment near the end where the doctor says "Before you go..." and he leans in and whispers something in the main guy's ear while everyone else is just watching them. I find myself not caring at all what he said. But from reading a couple online reviews, I guess I'm the only one who isn't actively pondering what one adult man might decide to whisper into the ear of another. They tried to pull a Lost trick and I'm disappointed in the writer's cheap tactics.

(comments about a news article about LightSquared's wireless network causing GPS interference)
kdavis: GPS's are so useful to me that I'm very biased here. I travel a lot for business, maybe 15-20 business trips per year, and get lost easily. The GPS has improved my quality of life more than any single device invented in my lifetime. Frankly, if somebody found a way to eliminate HIV but it would wipe out GPS's, I would choose saving the GPS's.
NotContinuum: kdavis: I will now kill you, bury you, and piss on your grave.