The Zombieslayer

I used to read books.  I still do, but almost always non-fiction except for the Harry Potter books.   I know, boring, but I’m one of those people who go through phases.

One of my favorite authors back when I read fiction was Edward Abbey.  Hated by both the Right (for environmental extremism) and the Left (for voicing that there are too many God damn illegal immigrants), Edward Abbey is my kind of guy.  He believes in open space, the natural world, sex, and Freedom.  Anyone want to argue with that?

“The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an “equalizer.” Egalite implies liberte. And always will. Let us hope our weapons are never needed—but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny.”

-Edward Abbey

Abbey gets it.  Guns are the equalizer.  I hear liberals say “what good is a rifle against a tank?”  I’ll tell you what, Mr. Liberal.  You get in a tank.  I’ll hide with my rifle.  We’ll play a game called hide and go seek.  I’ll let others put money on us, and I guarantee you that the people putting money on me will be happy with the results.  I could write a separate blog post on how easy it would be for me to kill you, but it will be long and boring and over liberals’ heads because liberals don’t know anything about how guerrilla warfare works.

“The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.”

-Edward Abbey

This will piss off conservatives.  Well, conservatives piss me off.  Today’s conservatives are completely unable to see anything past the dollar sign.  I don’t want to see the entire America turned into strip malls and suburbs.  I just don’t.  I think nature is beautiful as is, and the last thing we need are more cities.

We need less people.  The world is overpopulated.  And yes, I’m for limiting immigration to only taking the best of the best.  I’m sick of taking in the shit, the gang bangers, the pregnant teens, near retards, and illegals with diseases.  Send them all home.

“It might be wise for us, as American citizens, to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically, impoverished people…Why not [support immigration]? Because we prefer democratic government, for one thing; because we still hope for an open, spacious, uncrowded, and beautiful–yes beautiful!–society, for another.”

Exactly.

America simply was more beautiful when it had 200 million people.  It was even more beautiful when it had 100 million people.  Now we’re over 300 million people and every year, the population grows.  Not from within, but from outside the borders.  Americans know how to use this thing called “birth control.”  Illegal immigrants don’t.  They just breed and breed and breed, then their kids join gangs and tag everywhere and make the schools suck.

I know this first hand.  I’ve lived in those neighborhoods that white yuppies are afraid to enter.  They’re not pleasant for anyone, and the teachers in those schools burn out within five years, because illegal parents simply don’t take education seriously.

Anyways, Abbey’s books are excellent.  I suggest pretty much anything he ever wrote.  I like people who think for themselves, and Abbey not only does that, but he can write.

I’m going to see the Harry Potter 6 movie today and will link the review to this post when I get back.  In the meantime, I’m a Slytherin.

Why? No, I’m not a bad guy.  I’m a good guy.  But let’s look at the four houses…

From Wikipedia, Gryffindor values courage, bravery, daring, nerve and chivalry.  I don’t value courage and bravery.  Those will get you killed.  Yes, if someone I loved was in trouble, I’d risk my life to help them.  But that’s a given.  So would just about anyone else.

Realistically, being scared keeps you alive.  I have fear because I want to live.  I don’t want to die until I’m in my 90s (or unless I lose my brain, then I’d want to die earlier).

Hufflepuff, values hard work, loyalty, tolerance, and fair play.  OK, I like this house.  I value hard work, loyalty, and fair play.  Tolerance? No.  I’m a very intolerant person.  Some people piss me off and I have no time for their bullshit, and I’ll call a spade a spade.  So that’s three for four.  Almost a Hufflepuff, but not quite.

Ravenclaw values intelligence, creativity, wit, and wisdom.  I’m almost a Ravenclaw.  Intelligence, I got plenty of that.  Creativity and wit, yup.  That’s me.  Extremely on both parts.  Wisdom? Nope.  I got none of that.  If it wasn’t for my wife, I’d probably be either dead, in jail, or homeless.  So that scratches me from Ravenclaw.

Slytherin house values ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness.  Bingo.  That’s me exactly.  I’m a Slytherin.

It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that to be a successful bad guy, you have to be ambitious and cunning (and resourceful).

Now as proof that not all Slytherins are bad, the most brave wizard of all is a Slytherin.  He sacrificed a heck of a lot more than anyone else did, and that’s really saying something because so many of them sacrificed a lot.  (NOTE: I had his name in there but realized it’s a spoiler so took it out).

Slughorn and Andromeda Tonks are both from there, and Ms. Tonks raised one of my favorite characters (Nymphadora).  More proof that Andromeda is cool is she was Sirius’ favorite cousin, and disowned by the Black family (which is a good thing).  Sirius Black as you probably already know is my favorite Harry Potter character.

Anyways, movie starts in four hours.  I got to buy tickets as soon as those dorks open their ticket window.  Have a Happy Wednesday.

UPDATE - My review is up here.  Don’t worry, I was careful not to give anything away.

If you don’t know who Missy Suicide is, she’s the one who pioneered Suicide Girls, which is a website that has the classical pin-ups, except with a twist - these girls are very punk, goth, or indie.

I bought her first book yesterday, simply called Suicide Girls, and am reading it now.

“I had long thought of the Pin-Up era as something of the past, but that summer in Portland I decided I wanted to be a Pin-Up photographer anyway.  Surely, with the proliferation of hardcore pornography and graphic sex all over the internet and cable, there wouldn’t be the same sort of widespread appeal for the understated beauty of the demure there once was, but so what?”

Exactly.  So what? Create your own niche market and expand on that.  So, a lot of folks are into hardcore porn.  Let them enjoy their hardcore porn and do your own thing, something that you find enjoyable.

I’ve been burned out on hardcore porn for years now.  I no longer own a single magazine and have a whopping zero hardcore porn files on my computer.  Not that I’m against hardcore porn, I’m just sick of it.  It does nothing for me.  The actors look like they’re going through the motions and it’s not at all exciting.  It looks so, well, fake.

“I had done jobs to make money and they hadn’t made me happy; this time I would start with a job that would fulfill me artistically and I’d worry about the making a living part later.”

Bingo.  No matter what religion (including Atheist) you are, you get one and only one shot of being you.  If you believe in reincarnation, you’re no longer you.  You’re someone else.  So in this life, you’re you, and this is you’re only shot at it.

I strongly believe that doing what you like doing is more important than money.  Funny hearing that from a rabid Right-winger, but I strongly believe that.

Money will come.  I make money at jobs and investments and I learned to make it work.  But if you’re not doing what you love doing at least part time, you will have a sick, empty feeling and your life will not be complete.

Trust me on this one.  Don’t get into something you hate because your parents want you to do it, or society expects you to do it.  Do it out of love, or at least do that job you hate, leave it at work, and do what you really love part time until you make enough money doing what you love that you can tell them where they can stick that job you hate.

“If I was going to present images of female beauty, it would be my personal vision of femininity.”

Awesome and thank you.  I get sick of Playboy with their fake blonde hair, their fake big boobs, and the heavy airbrushing.  It doesn’t do it for me.  For the record, if I were single, I couldn’t fuck a fake blonde with fake boobs and a fake tan and a 90 IQ.  I couldn’t do it.

There is something intriguing about the Suicide Girls.  When I was in high school, I had a thing for the nerdy girl two seats behind me in my English class.  She had an IQ within 20 points of mine (which means she was pretty fucking smart), but she wore glasses and she wasn’t exactly popular.  So because I was being a dumbass, I never asked her out.

She wrote her own poetry and listened to Post-Punk music.  Not my thing, but I’ve always preferred anything out of the ordinary to the mindless corporate crap that they shove down our throats on the top 40 stations across the country.

That’s the type of girl who would have ended up in a Suicide Girls calendar.  Dang it.  I’d like to go back in time and slap that 16-year-old Zombieslayer across his head.  Screw popularity ratings.  This girl had it.

As do a lot of the Suicide Girls.

Missy, I’ll be buying the rest of your books shortly.  Still got to finish reading this one.

I have 3 Chuck Klosterman books here.  Finished one, half-way through the 2nd.  I just went to a book sale and picked up a book by Peter Lynch.  Have barely cracked the book when I read this.  Some of the best words I’ve ever read.

You start to recognize that you’re only going to exist for a little while, whereas you’re going to be dead for a long time.

You remind yourself that nobody on his deathbed ever said: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”

-both quotes Peter Lynch

I love money as much as the next American, but come on, we work too hard.  Get out and enjoy life, folks.  Don’t work too hard.

I wish someone told me that ten years ago.  I worked my butt off and they still sent my job to India.  Had I known that, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to keep it.

Get to know your spouse better.  Get to know  your kids or your parents better.  Also, don’t forget you have neighbors.  If you give them a chance, you might find out that they’re interesting people.

Undead or Alive 2007. Directed by Glasgow Phillips. Starring Chris Kattan, James Denton, Navi Rawat

Undead or Alive is a “zomedy,” a zombie comedy filmed with a Wild West theme. Navi Rawat plays Geronimo’s niece, and before Geronimo was driven off a cliff, he cursed the white man with the dreaded zombie disease. Of course those who know American history know that Geronimo wasn’t driven off a cliff and died an old man and his autobiography is freely accessable (and well-written I should add).

Chris Kattan takes his usual unfunny self and stinks up the movie, along with James Denton playing the other main cowboy role. All the characters offer nothing but bad dialog and even worse acting. The movie also fails to follow any of the zombie movie rules, like a shot to the head doesn’t kill a zombie, only a decapitation.If you want to see a funny zombie movie, rent Shaun of the Dead. Skip this one at all costs. One dead zombie for at least Navi Rawat being cute. Yes, it was that bad.

Firelight 1997. Directed by William Nicholson. Starring Sophie Marceau and Stephen Dillane.

It’s the 1830s. Sophie Marceau plays Elisabeth, a struggling woman who agrees to bear a child and give it away to a Gentleman in return for a large sum of money. After losing her child, Elisabeth keeps a journal complete with watercolors imagining how her daughter Louisa is growing up.

She decides to search for her daughter and that’s when it really picks up.

I won’t give too much else away, but this may be the best period piece I’ve seen in years. The acting was nearly flawless and the sets and costumes did their jobs splendidly. It’s in fact so well done that it will move you in many directions.Every main character has a struggle to overcome. Several characters are developed, not just Elisabeth. And Marceau can act. She’ll play your heartstrings in ways you haven’t felt in years. I’m actually going to buy this one, it was that good.

9 dead zombies. It’s a shame Nicholson only did this piece, for he definitely has talent.

World War Z, a novel by Max Brooks. 2006

A follow up to the most important book ever written, The Zombie Survival Guide, WWZ (as it’s abbreviated) is a look into the future, after the zombies have been defeated and the world is in a recovery stage. It takes place in the next decade, and is basically a collection of interviews from survivors of the great zombie wars, from all over the world.

Brooks is a master at geopolitics, showing how each nation counters the zombie plague. You’ll see that some were more effective than others. Brooks obviously put a lot of research into this, and it shows in the writing.

The book’s flaw is its lack of flow. It had some humor, but not as much as his first work. I didn’t even read it in one night like I do with most books, for it failed to keep my attention.It’s still a good read, but if you haven’t read his first one, pick that one up first.7 dead zombies

Ozzy Osbourne - Randy Rhoads Tribute by Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads. Transcribed by Wolf Marshall. 1987

This one is really for musicians. It’s a note-for-note transcription of the Ozzy Osbourne live album Randy Rhoads Tribute. Marshall not only gives you every note played on the album for guitarists and vocalists, he gives you a good biographical summary of the late, great guitarist. Includes some good black and white pictures as well.

If you don’t know who Randy Rhoads is, he was Ozzy’s first guitarist after Ozzy was fired from Black Sabbath. Rhoads unfortunately died prematurely in a plane crash in 1982 and we only have two studio Ozzy Osbourne albums, one live album, one E.P., and two poorly recorded Quiet Riot albums featuring his playing. It really is a shame, not just because a life was cut short, but also because of the amazing talent he possessed. If you’re a guitarist, pick this up. You’d be surprised just how much of an influence Rhoads was on modern electric guitarists.

10 dead zombies . I haven’t been this glad to buy a book in years.

Celebrity prediction - I’m predicting the next celebrity to end up in a loonie bin is one of the Olson Twins. The big question is, which one?