The world doesn't need any more dragons

My friend Chris has just made my day... this news just in! Check it out - it definitely sounds like something I'd be interested in, and it's hopefully going to achieve what WoW never did for me!

Hot Cans (keep it clean, kids)

If you're already struggling to survive a Zombie Apocalypse, the last thing on your mind beyond running as fast as possible away from the hordes, is eating. This problem only occurs to you once you've found some safe space to hide away for a while, but mark my words - in a full-blown stage 4 zombie outbreak, you're going to need some decent food to keep you going, and the sooner you plan for it, the better.

L4D: New achievement!

L4D: Disappointment

L4D: Lolcats

I would probably have used that BOOMER picture for a TANK, and got a cat puking as a BOOMER, or maybe used a TIGER as a TANK... but anyway...

L4D: Comical truths

I'm going to have to start pretexting these posts with a L4D title so you know what they relate to (and for those that don't care, you can skip them).

If you've ever played Left4Dead, you'll no doubt appreciate the subtle humour (and sometimes not so subtle).

Confusion: A side effect of getting old...

LOUIS is the man!

Thanks to some feedback from the comments to my previous post (see comment #6), we've now got a little bit extra for you... the reality is, apparently YOU are NOT the man, LOUIS is the man!.

If you don't know who Louis is, then google for "LEFT 4 DEAD" or check out this concept art...

Zombie Survival Tips

I'm not in a position to divulge precisely why I am suddenly starting to post more tips about zombie survival, lest I cause a general panic. Suffice it to say that I am aware of my responsibility to humanity, and that I am fairly fond of most of my friends and family, and wouldn't really want to have to hatchet your head from the shoulders.

Anyway, I digress.

I feel it is my duty to do as much as I can for as many as I can before the day arrives, and as outbreak coordinator and survival commander-in-chief for this side of the Umgeni River, I intend to have the largest survival taskforce working under my leadership. After all, I've met the sort of "Zombologists" preparing for the outbreak, and trust me when I say that when that day comes, it's only going to be a matter of time before most other divisions will suffer the trials of a full-blown apocalyptic battle for survival.

The key to surviving the Zombie Apocalypse is mental preparation. My statistical analysis of the kinds of mental stresses and anxiety caused by a sudden realisation that the world is actually crumbling and fast closing in on you and you have no way out, suggests that 4 in 5 survivors will succumb to Zombie Apocalypse Stress Related Psychotic Disorder (ZASRPD), and either eat their own dog, or go on a psycopathic survival quest and kill anything else that moves.

However, I digress.

The key to this post is to make sure you are all mentally prepared. How do you begin this process? You think like a survivor.

What you need to do is the next time you're waiting in a shopping queue, look around. Check out your surroundings. Say to yourself "if there was an outbreak right here, right now, where would I go to?". Follow this question on with related questions, such as "if my buddy here was slowing me down, would I have time to wait for him to get to safety, or should I trip him up now to slow down the horde?" It's a tough question to ask, but the reality is, in the heat of the outbreak, you may just have to do it.

There, that's the real key to this post - although my advice to notice your surroundings is a key aspect of survival, the lesson today is not so much hanging on the process of ascertaining your surroundings and how you'd escape, but most importantly, to make you realise that to survive in a Zombie Apocalypse, you're going to need to make sacrifices. If you've got a buddy that's been bitten, or someone who's twisted an ankle, if it goes down to a foot race between you, your buddy, and a horde of hungry KFC-employee-turned-zombies, you're going to need to ditch your friend and feed him to the Colonel. If you aren't prepared to do this, then trust me when I say there's going to be a KFC Zombie Survivor Cheese Twister with extra hashbrown, and we all know no-one likes hashbrown in their Twisters...

(you're the hashbrown, you idiot... if you didn't understand my KFC analogy then you're as good as dead and you're going to be the one that gets ditched, so accept it now and eat your dog)

XBOX Live and splitscreen

We've got this thing called XBOX Live, and we've got this thing called splitscreen. Some of us even have this thing called Left4Dead. All of these things work great when you merge them with this thing called an XBOX360. I believe for now I have discovered a very underrated formula that sums up the meaning of the grand total of these things:

XBOX360 + SPLITSCREEN + LEFT4DEAD + LIVE= HAPPINESS.

One confounder to this fairly simple equation is the advent of GOLD memberships, and how they suck the $$ out of any couple's finances. Although I am stating the obvious (obviously), I'll explain what I mean, specifically...


You see, when Kat and I want to play splitscreen co-op with our buddies over XBOX LIVE, then we need a headset for optimal results. The problem is, only GOLD membership allows the use of a headset in a PARTY, so that means when we play, I hear Slimonavitch and Oltman barking orders and screaming for help, and I have to relay these messages over to Brattex(1), sometimes in the heat of battle. Sometimes, even Brattex(1) needs to relay a message to one of them, while I'm in the heat of battle, and it becomes quite distressing for me to play messenger of messages, messenger of God, rescuer of downed survivors, and overall survivor saviour. It's become quite frustrating at times, that Slimonavitch has even considered buying another GOLD account just so we can overcome this, but that leads me onto my next problem; we'd still need another headset.

We've tested out a NOKIA headset, since it has the 2.5mm jack and 3 comms rings on it (stereo+mic), but for some reason, which I suspect is the mute button, it won't work on the controller. We thought we could at least hook up a stereo headset, and share one earpiece each, so my splitscreen buddy could at the very least hear the instructions - no dice so far though.

Then Slimonavitch - in all of his novice glory - figured out that if one goes to CONSOLE SETTINGS and selects PREFERENCES, there's an option under AUDIO that says output audio to HEADSET, SCREEN, or BOTH. Voila! Now at least we can survive (in the meantime) with one headset and we can have some degree of easier communication for Brattex(1) to hear what the other teammates "over yonder" are saying via the TV!

Left4Dead (or left4Hawaii?) flight of terror

Picture it - an obliterated airport. Charred wreckage marring the runways as grim reminders of the carnage that befell a once bustling and energetic town. Luggage lies strewn across the departure lounge, the rancid, acrid stench of death and decay filtering through the hallways. Yet not even this vivid portrait of despair comes close to the foreboding portent that is the silence. The grim, deathly silence serves to overwhelm the visual nightmare, deafening a small team of survivors who are crouched hiding inside a safe room. "Should I close the door?" whispers Zoey... "I don't like this one little bit..."


"No!" snaps back Louis "We need to heal up first! Watch that door!". The oppressing silence is broken by the quick snapping of shotgun shells being loaded into the chamber. Zoey repeats her earlier request "should I close the door?" - there's a very clear element of fear in her voice. "There's a smoker out there..." she warns.

"No! Let's heal up first! I'm going to heal Louis" responds Francis. Zoey keeps her eyes and pistols trained on the aisles of departure lounge seats. She can hear the wracking cough of a smoker nearby. The eerie silence returns, only occasionally being interrupted by a wheeze or a sputter somewhere outside the safe room. Somewhere. Out there. Zoey knows it's out there. Zoey wipes the sweat from her brow. The bite wounds on her arm continue to ache. She clenches her grip around the pistols even tighter, fighting the pain that is ebbing through her body. She has to remain calm. She has to focus. The team needs to recover. She has to keep guard.

"SMOKER!!! THERE'S A SMOKER OUT -" Zoey's screams are brought to an abrupt halt as a tongue lashes around her body and drags her out of the sanction of the safe room. The team is caught completely off guard. Louis bolts for the doorway, trains his gun onto the smoker, and lets fire a clip-full of ammo into the Smoker's rotting body. Zoey scrambles back to the safety of the room, and with a pleading tone shouts "we have to close this door! We're sitting ducks like this!" ... at that moment Francis exclaims "okay, done patching up! We can go!" and Zoey closes the door, thinking to herself "why after all of this senseless proximity to death and my added pain, does Francis look decidedly fresher - almost angelic - and Louis is still bleeding all over me as badly as he had a few minutes ago? "...

And so begins the final level of the Dead Air campaign, with the team of survivors nearing death (Louis [Oltman] on 45% and Zoey [me] on 24%, with Francis [Simon] on 96% health, and Bill [Wayne] on 72%). Our esteemed guest back from the UK - Simon - had healed up himself from 80% to 96% instead of Oltman, and after all of that, I had been dragged out into the gaping maw of a Smoker for NOTHING much.

Anyway, the final level is spectacular - the plane-crash scene [spoiler averted] is phenomenal and draw-droppingly good, and it doesn't take long before you're in the horde/rescue stage.

First round, Simon manned the minigun, and I was on the ground watching his back and shoving away infected. Oltman and Wayne were stationed on the gas tanker's top. We became sitting ducks for the Boomers and in the end the Tank mauled through us.

Second round, we didn't fair much better with that strategy.

Third round, I suggested we go up my little hideaway nearby, and we adopted that strategy. It worked pretty well, except version 1 had Oltman watching at the end nearest the stairwell, to the left with Simon covering his back to the right (the front of the fuselage is 12 o'clock, so Oltman was watching 9 o'clock, and Simon was watching the stairwell at 3 o'clock). Wayne and I took up position at the far end away from the stairwell, with me on sniper duty, and Wayne on shoot-everything-that-moves (including me ... once again, byebye SAFETY FIRST ACHIEVEMENT) duty.

Simon bought it first, and the rest of us amazingly survived the Tanks and all of it, and made a run for the plane. The ramp never dropped in time and I was overwhelmed. Wayne was nailed before me, and Oltman made it onto the plane, but heroically, answering my Jedi-mind-trick advice, he didn't end the campaign, and hopped off the plane to die so we could try it again.

The next few rounds had mixed success, but we reviewed our strategy and had all of us at the far end of the fuselage, sheltered by the sidewalls and mentally overwhelming the infected, who couldn't seem to figure out how to run up the stairs, turn, and get to us. They create a tad logjam at the stairs and we could dispatch them quickly. Once in a while someone would get smoked, and then our plan would fall to pot with us sending out rescue attempts and dying. Armed with the only pipe bomb, I would throw it to distract the horde enough to rescue the incap'ed player, but this fell flat when a Tank starts to throw concrete blocks at a group in one corner.

We revised our strategy even further, with Oltman ingeniously planting propane tanks and gas cylinders around the base of the plane ramp so we could quickly clear a path on our escape route. We ended up refining our equipping of molotov's and pipe bombs in the end, and Oltman and I would have pipe bombs and the others would have molotov's. Simon had become a pro at hitting targets with his molotov, and had whooped for joy earlier when he had actually hit a Tank in the face, even though it was killing him. He died with a look of satisfaction plastered all over his face. Of course, I was a little less impressed, since he also managed to splash a Tank *and the team* in the corner in another round, and quickly expired all of us.

The final - winning - strategy was a masterpiece of execution. I must also congratulate the team for their quick-thinking rehash of an old strategy and their thinking on the run.

Here's how it came about (for the four people reading this post...):

I don't recall setting up any gas tanks around the plane - maybe - but I'm not sure. A comment below can help clear that up.

We healed up at the station, all grabbed a health pack, and made a run for the salvation airlines flight 4v10000. Oltman summoned the horde, and while he was running, I was aimed clearly down the stairwell to keep it clear for him. Wayne was firing off anyone in the pathway for his sprint to the stairwell, and Simon was ready to slow down the horde coming from the 9 o'clock plane.

Simon got up, we got to the far end (6 o'clock), and prepared ourselves. Interestingly, a crouched person doesn't seem to be shoved along as much as a standing person. At any rate, Simon watched the stairwell and a bit of the 9 o'clock show, Oltman watched the stairwell and more of the 9 o'clock show, and Wayne was standing at the back potting off anyone that got through the stairs. My job was to be about three paces in front, crouched by the gap in the side wall on the right side, ready to be smoked whenever a Smoker got to the stairs, so someone behind me (usually Simon) would despatch the death-grip and I could return to action.

This worked so well, that I think pretty much all of us just used our pistola. I was smoked three times or so, and rescued every time, and no-one was incapacitated. I do believe we even made it past the first Tank.

Then the side walls started to fade a bit, and the Smoker got greedy. Oltman (I think?) was the first to be smoked, and he hit the stairs, but we managed to rescue him before he was incap'ed and he bolted back upstairs. Next it went for Wayne, but this time we freed him, and he was disoriented, and he fell off the stairs. That's when the nightmare began to unfold a bit. I lobbed my pipe bomb to distract the hordes from him while Oltman valiantly leapt to his aid. Up, down, up, down the two went. I sprayed covering fire around them (I could only see about 270 degrees of their side, because they were UNDER the fuselage that we were inside), and when my pipe bomb didn't rescue them, Simon (or Oltman?) lobbed his, and bought them some time. Oltman managed to revive Wayne, and they made a run for it. Boomer! They were stenched. And another wave came. I was down to 54 bullets in my assault rifle, and I realised the end was night unless we intervened. I started to feel it was a lost cause, so I shouted "leave him! you've got to get up here!" and Simon quietly concurred. Oltman left Wayne and made a hobble up the stairs. Wayne was bleeding out; 50... 40... 30... and sadly we watched him die. I gave Oltman a revive from his 40% to 80%, in the middle of an impending Tank battle, and then he did the same for me. We managed to fend off a lobbed concrete block, and someone managed to spark flames around the sucker. A flaming Tank ran around haplessly and we felt quite safe in our position. Our little safe-haven soon became a death-cradle, as the Tank made his way up the stairs, and Oltman barked out the captain's orders "abandon ship!" abandon ship!" ... we could hear the plane starting up its engines, so we knew we had a hope to make it. We jumped out the 3 o'clock side, hopefully bracing our fall by bouncing off the broken fuselage next to us. I hit the ground. Oltman hit the ground. Simon hit the ground. I ran away. Oltman ran away. Simon whimpered. I think his legs were broken. Or his neck. Whatever, he was down, and a flaming Tank was making his way to the coup de grâce.

I wasn't going to leave anyone to die, so I turned around, screaming to Oltman that we had to save Simon. Simon was whimpering like a jack-russell discovering his own shadow, and I ran into the fray. Oltman declared unilaterally that it was time to make an escape and to leave Simon. No ways Jose. I hadn't had my heroics for the round yet. Oltman was a bit "half-empty" because of his failed rescue on Wayne (which admittedly was a success, except for the meaty bits of Wayne that ended up on Oltman's clothes).

I ran into the burning Tank, and let rip a full auto of my assault rifle on him. He didn't flinch. Bugger. I then gave him a shove to distract him from Simon, who was now also on fire, and on about -40% life remaining. The Tank turned to me, let out an almighty roar, stamped his fists (which squished Simon), and then rolled over and died. [at this point I must submit that had we had a few more bullets into the Tank, perhaps Simon wouldn't have died... Oltman!! But nevertheless, had Oltman responded to the rescue attempt, perhaps the rest wouldn't have transpired as it had]

I turned to flee, hearing the horde surrounding us. I had NO bullets except for my akimbo pistols, and I wasn't going to go down again this time. I ran around a corner, and heard Oltman declare "pipe bomb by the plane" - the little genius had gone back to the ammo supply and grabbed a pipe bomb to clear the plane area - that was what my pipe bomb was SUPPOSED to be for, but the rescue raid on Wayne had depleted my reserve. Great job Oltman, we have a clear run for the plane - Oltman was on the left side, I was on the other side of the tanker. Around the corner, one step to freedom, and ... SMOKED! I was smoked!!! Pulled away into an icy kiss of death!!! SO CLOSE!!!

Oltman stopped, turned, aimed, fired, and freed me. My hero! I lumbered (I was that broken) to the plane, and as I was getting in, I saw Oltman make a dash, and get vomited on. Oh dear. I dispatched the Boomer, and told Oltman "come to my voice!" ... he managed to stagger blindly into the plane, and off we flew to freedom.

Strangely, and unofficially of course, the game closed with the credits "in loving memory of Bill (buddy), Francis (BadKat), and Louis (oltman)"... he may or may not have bled out on the deck of the plane in my arms... or maybe the door closed on his hand or something, but at any rate, he got the achievement, and he did make it to the plane twice, so that counts for a win :)

"Here lies Oltman's Louis... he may or may not have died, but he was the representative black IT guy"

"Here lies Simon's Francis... he died a happy man, because he had molotov'ed a Tank in the face"

"Here lies Wayne's Bill... he shot teammates. And he died"

Miserable end to a hard-fought campaign

Welcome back to the Promised Land, Simon Clur!

Simon is back in town, and in true CompSci student fashion, Kat, Simon and I hooked up again to relive some of the good old days, and under Simon's instruction (how could we deny him his request?), we had some pizza and XBOX360 co-op action. Oh boy, were there some fun war stories...


Mary-Anne Botha was kind enough to allow us to invade her home and hook up again with Oltman to play some 4-player Left4Dead co-op action, and this time we had substituted our friendly-fire fanatic, Wayne, with a newbie, Simon. I was hopeful that I could train Simon into the ways of NO FRIENDLY FIRE and we could achieve the very elusive SAFETY FIRST achievement. As events unfolded, I realise now how wrong I was... :(

We played Blood Harvest, and it started off pretty well - we were doing very well in fact, and making good time on the missions. We headed onto the penultimate level, and there things took a turn for the worse. At some point Zoey (played by Kat) died, and it was left to Francis (me), Bill (Simon), and Louis (Oltman) to escape the level on 1% health each, and me on my last life.

As we made it to the escape point (up ahead on the bridge), we were swarmed, and Oltman and Simon were incapacitated. Being the hero I was, I held off the swarm on my last legs and 1% (or we would have had to restart the darned level), and revived both players, who then subsequently ran off (while I lumbered along behind them) to the safe house. As I reached the safe house, what was waiting for me other than a smoker on top of the escape car - fortunately I fended him off with the last shells of my shotgun, and we made it into the escape car in time.

Next level, we repeated our antics and managed to make three successful attempts to the finale where we radio'ed in for help. Round one, Louis got panicked and raido'ed in while the rest of the survivors were still agreeing on the safest place to fend off the swarms. In the end, Zoey and Francis (Kat and me) lasted the longest, because Louis and Bill couldn't agree on anything, and both died. We didn't outlast the swarm, and also inevitably demised.

The second time we made it into the house, we all hid in the front closet, and it only took a little time before a Smoker pulled Louis out into the open, and going against my better judgment, I departed the closet to rescue him, only to be swamped and beaten. The two hapless survivors still in the closet didn't last with only two guns, and we failed again.

Third time, Louis suggested hiding out in the barn. In the end, we managed to hold off two waves and died by the second Tank. Much better result in the end, but the unfortunate early loss of Louis during the first Tank meant we hadn't enough firepower to repel the second Tank, and we all bought it.

Our successful attempt was achieved when we took out an unexpected Tank at the beginning, without anyone dying. We made it to the barn, set up our perimeter, and then the most stressful sprint from the house to the barn by a panicked Francis (me) and desperate Louis (Oltman) resulted in us successfully repelling the waves.

Bill (Simon) was taken down during the first wave, but we managed to defeat the Tank and survive the second wave too. The final Tank showed up, and we were nailing him just fine, until Louis took a tumble. I ran in to distract the Tank and deal the deathblows to his head at point-blank with my combat shotgun, only to be smacked across the barn and (fortunately) onto the ledge on the other side. Attempting to get myself back into the fray to save Louis, I noticed I was taking a lot of hits, and I realised the Tank didn't have this sort of distance firepower, and it slowly dawned on me that my hopes for a SAFETY FIRST achievement were definately over, since my two esteemed survivor team-mates - Zoey and Bill - were missing the Tank and hitting me!!

I jumped off the ledge, climbed back up the ladder, just in time to see Louis being trampled to death, and we couldn't make the escape together :(

In comes the Military APC, followed by a distant swarm of zombies, and we made a run for it. Zoey was awaiting a helicopter pick-up, so Bill made it to the APC first, followed closely by Francis (me). As I was running up the ramp to my first survival and to freedom, I was knocked off the ramp and into a waiting swarm of zombies. I never made it to the ramp, and was knocked down. I pleaded for rescue, but saw Zoey run over the heads of the marauding zombies and into the APC, which then closed their doors and raced off. I was very distraught at fighting the good fight (and especially in the penultimate level single-handedly bringing us to the finale), but not making it.

At this point, Simon sheepishly confessed that he had shot me off the ramp in a Vietnam-induced flashback and thus ended my desperate attempts to finally complete a campaign. And so, I once again observed the campaign ending lying alongside my dead buddy Oltman, and once again, we did all the hard-work and sacrificed ourselves for the lesser survivors to escape under a hail of gun-fire :-/

I must add, however, that I managed to achieve the Cr0wned, pharm-assist achievements this time around :)
.

Offline co-op Left 4 Dead system link split-screen 4 player

These are the stuff of legend. Four humans, survivors of a mutated rabies virus outbreak that has decimated the world. Four survivors who have to find a way out - a way to sanctuary and safety. Four survivors armed with fairly primitive firepower and relying heavily on each other and their mutual will to live, to adapt, and to survive.

And it was with much speculation and trepidation, that Oltman, Kat, Wayne and I hooked up this Sunday to play 4-player on two Xbox 360s - to my pleasant surprise (and all of our excitement) it works!!

Here's how ...


1. Sign in both people on one console at the start-up screen (pressing |> START; signs in for split screen mode)

2. Select "Play Campaign"

3. Play with Friends

4. Create Lobby (X)

5. Campaign Mode

6. Create Lobby after choosing settings

7. Then other xbox360 chooses steps 2 - 5 (it's drop-in, drop-out so they can join in while your game is going; the "client" will see the following screen displaying an available server...)

It's done so well! Split-screen, system link, 4 player co-op, and if players go idle or 'take a break' then you can have AI players taking over "for a while".

Screenshots show what the game looks like being set up for system link split-screen games. First is split-screen setup on the "server", then what the other console ("client") sees, and finally a successful 4-player lobby game, ready to go (but as I've already mentioned it's drop-in, drop-out so no need to have everyone ready at the start).

SO MUCH FUN! If anyone has Tank-busting tips for us, please let us know by leaving a comment :)

My name's BrYan, and I might be Infected

I don't really want to dishonour the latest suspected victim (and 2nd in South Africa) of the H1N1 virus, but this is something I need to post, since it relates directly to me, and I knew the guy that passed away suddenly, and he wasn't a frail dude by any stretch of the imagination.


"A spokesperson for the family of [name deleted] has advised the Division of Human Resources and Equity that Mr [name deleted]'s likely cause of death is related to the H1N1 virus which is commonly called Swine Flu. The University would like to reassure staff and students that there is no cause for panic and that the matter is being addressed by a high level team, convened by Professor Willem Sturm of the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine. This team will shortly publish guidelines for staff and students. In the meantime all staff and students are advised that if they are displaying flu like symptoms and feel concerned, they should seek medical advice."

What can I say? I've potentially been exposed. More interestingly, this guy died after a short visit to Swaziland. Where have I been just at the beginning of July? Swaziland. Coincidence? I think not! I am now starting to think my four-week long illness with 'flu was actually this H1N1 virus. Let's go over the facts:

1. Throat infection / sore throat
2. Coughing for weeks (still a minor cough now)
3. Fatigue
   

"The internets" says that the symptoms of H1N1 are (with emphasis on the ones I've had):

What are the signs and symptoms of H1N1 (swine) flu in people?

The symptoms of H1N1 (swine) flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with H1N1 (swine) flu. In the past, severe illness (pneumonia and respiratory failure) and deaths have been reported with H1N1 (swine) flu infection in people. Like seasonal flu, H1N1 (swine) flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions.


Hmmm... might I have contracted this virus after all? I'm starting to think not, because I don't seem to have enough of these symptoms to confirm the illness, and no-one else has contracted anything after being in contact with me. And apparently I wasn't contagious just by being around me.

This then leads me onto my second suspicion. If suddenly we get a whole lot of "service delivery protests" in areas that are quite obscure and isolated, and we have reports of police needing to use "rubber" bullets, and protestors going on the rampage, then I'm going to start to suspect that this whole H1N1 pandemic is nothing more than a very elaborate cover-up for the latest potential outbreak of you-know-what! Again, without trying to trivialise what happened just over a year ago - do you really think xenophobia was the true root of the unrest???

Zombies 101

Last week I had a minor dream come true. I was shopping with Warren Lansdell to buy some more games for our gaming club, when I noticed Left4Dead on sale at Incredible Connection for R249. Now usually I wouldn't spend so much on a game, but when it retails for R799 normally, and it's a first-person co-op shooter about zombie apocalypse madness, I can't ignore it. I really can't ignore it, because with the impending doomsday around the corner, one needs to keep one's wits about and be mentally prepared at any moment.


Joe Graham made a comment on Thursday evening after watching Katherine and I play a bit of the game (yay for Kat! She recognises the value in mental preparation for the inevitable) that stunned me, and made me realise I have a responsibility - nay, a duty - to inform the ignorant masses about the inescapable zombie apocalypse.

You see, Joe Graham made a very casual remark that mainstream zombies have lost their "realness" because now they're too fast and agile and such, and recognising the telltale symptoms of an ignorant trying to pretend to be a zombie scholar, I responded with "what do you mean?" and Joe let out the revealing confession I was anticipating:

"well, you know, 28 Days Later - the zombies are super fast and agile - ..." ... I cut him off at that point and reprimanded his heresy.

I then realised many more out there may fall into the same trap as Joe, and to Joe's credit, he's already a great way down the path to complete zombie enlightenment, and I would certainly let him hide in my crawlspace during the invasion, provided he brings with him the necessary tools and skills - and of course, the willingness to submit to my every instruction since I am the commander-in-chief of the zombie survival group this side of the Umgeni River.

Let me put it out there for all of you to understand:

28 Days Later is a fictional movie based on the premise of a biohazard outbreak which is in fact a mutated strain of the Ebola virus gone wrong. It is a very sad by-product (or mutation) of a virus intended to curb the hostile and psychotic tendencies of violent miscreants, which instead fell into the wrong hands and became a military technology geared at empowering total domination of the globe. Interestingly, the Rage virus (as depicted in the movie) is also the French word for rabies, which is not unlike the virus in terms of behavioural effects and general efficacy.

However, I digress.

In 28 Days Later, the Infected aren't zombies in the traditional sense of the word, since they don't ever really die and then un-die. They're not undead. They're simply infected with a virus whose sole purpose is reproduction. The symptoms of the virus cause an uncontrollable, blindingly insane rage that drives the Infected to want to do really really nasty things - it just so happens that their blood-vomiting abilities coincide with the virus' need to reproduce itself. Ultimately, the Infected in this movie are virus-infected humans - they are as fragile as a normal human, but just carry a virus in their blood (the Rage virus) that drives them to do zombie-like things, but they're not - and in fact never will be - undead. A good illustration of this is in 28 Weeks Later where Robert Carlisle's character manages to use his swipe-card to gain access to otherwise secure rooms, while in an enraged state.

Understanding this very significant and vital disparity between REAL undead zombies and the Hollywood (or indie) concept as depicted in this movie is key to your preparation for the unavoidable apocalypse. Assuming a machete hack to the body will slay a zombie is foolishness. Furthermore, assuming a zombie will starve itself to death within three or four weeks is also tomfoolery.

DO NOT BE DECEIVED.

Forget everything you have learned about 28 Days Later Infected, and focus on reality - zombies will not, ever, ever, ever, starve to death in a month. You are going to be in it for the long haul, and the chances of quarantine on the British Isles is also foolhardy wishful thinking. Zombies will not keep out of the sunlight. Zombies will not relent. Zombies will not be put down with a shot to the vital organs (apart from the brain). Zombies will rise from graves. They will rise from morgues. They will rise from the beds wherein parents take overdoses of sleeping tablets. There will be very little escape from a zombie horde. You must unlearn all that this movie has taught you about zombies, lest these aspects invariably become your undoing in week three onwards during the outbreak.