Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

No Justins, No Peace

Nothing worth doing is easy.

He really is that stupid.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

A consequence of cucumbers

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Dragons

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    Vico

    They seem to be growing pretty fast to me, despite what Dany says. A dragon that can fish and then broil its catch and down it in the air is ready for some fighting.

  3. 3.

    srv

    Channeling Bond: Resurrection

    If I were going to be taking a TGV ride to Brussels in May, anyone know if day trips to The Beer Abbeys is practicable?

  5. 5.

    Redshirt

    What movies are people excited for this year?

    Being a nerd, mine are:

    World War Z
    The Wolverine
    Iron Man 3
    Man of Steel

    And maybe some other nerdbait I’ve forgotten.

  8. 8.

    Walker

    @Redshirt:

    World War Z

    Absolutely not. Have you seen the trailers? Why even bother call the movie by this name if it is not going to be anything remotely like the books?

    Besides, if they have all of the abilities in the books AND they are fast, then I give humanity about 6 months before complete extinction. I had the same problem with the Brian Keene novels. Those particular “zombies” should have wiped out all life within 48 hours.

  10. 10.

    Walker

    @Suffern ACE:

    Gatsby (so I won’t have to read it for class)

    That is always dangerous. Teachers like to create exams to seriously punish people who rely on adaptations.

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    @Walker: I’ll repeat my plan for other Seattle area juicers: in case of zombie apocalypse, we’ll meet at the powerhouse at Snoqualmie falls. Pretty defensible (a cliff and a river) and a hydro plant to power our computers. Adjacent to a rail line to zip down to Ft Lewis for weapons.

  12. 12.

    Redshirt

    @srv: Oh yeah, definitely Trek. The trailers look awesome.

    Have you seen the second trailer for Z? Much better than the first. Here.

    From stuff I recently read, it sounds like they’re going to be somewhat faithful to the book. To be fair, it’s a difficult book to film given today’s blockbuster standards.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Watching last night’s “Doctor Who.” Apparently the sonic screwdriver can overcome TSA locks.

  15. 15.

    Redshirt

    @Walker: “Fast Zombies” is a great band name.

    I agree, though. Fast zombies are an abomination. One of the major points of zombies is that they’re not fast.

    I was OK with the “28 Days Later” fast zombies, however, because they weren’t really zombies, but rather living people who were infected with a crazy ass virus that made them act like zombies.

  17. 17.

    Walker

    @Redshirt:

    It is impossible to have fast zombies and be faithful to the book. Just about every military strategy (and short story) depends on these being classic Romero zombies.

    I was OK with the “28 Days Later” fast zombies, however, because they weren’t really zombies, but rather living people who were infected with a crazy ass virus that made them act like zombies.

    And who could die of starvation. That is the only thing keeping that from being a extinction event.

  18. 18.

    MikeJ

    @Walker: Normally not really cold enough for freezing here, but Snoqualmie Falls is close to Snoqualmie Pass which *is* above the freezing line.

    For food, like everyone canned will be important, but with power from the falls we’ll have refrigeration. Happily there is farmland nearby for getting through the second year. I’d suggest we round up golf carts and use the batteries to convert farm machinery to be chargeable from the falls.

    It’s not perfect, but having a power source expands your options a lot.

  19. 19.

    Johnny Coelacanth

    What’s on the agenda? Freerepublic nutpicking. Here’s a Freakrepugnant timeline since the death of Terri Schiavo nine years ago:

    On January 20, 2005, George Bush was inauguarated for the second time as President.

    It was the high water mark of the GOP.

    On March 31, 2005 Terri Schiavo died, exposing the complete inability of government at all levels to protect an innocent,disabled woman from being murdered.

    If you look carefully, it has been a long downward descent for the GOP in these last eight years.

    Right now, we are holding onto the last firewall, a GOP house, in the destruction of America, by a thread.

    In 2006, the GOP lost the House and Senate. We almost lost the Iraq War that year as well.

    In 2007, the GOP pushed amnesty and we pushed back—hard.

    In 2008, that no good SOB Zippy won the Presdential election with a certified dope as Vice President, and Sarah Palin was crucified. We also had an economic meltdown.

    In 2009,Zippy became the President, took over GM and Chrysler,put his union buddies in charge, blew $ 900 million in stimulus money. He has spent more than a trillion dollars more than he has taken in every year since.

    In 2010, the Dems passed Obamacare without one single GOP vote. Thanks to Sarah Palin, the GOP regained the House. The GOP-E sat on their asses.

    In 2011, we got the credit of the United States downgraded,and the threat of a sequester. Notice how the GOP and the Dems failed to come up with the budgets needed to avoid the sequester.

    In 2012, Zippy steals the election with vote fraud in four states, and the unthinkable happens—he gets a second term.
    Benghazi happens, and a covering, uninterested media covers for the President. The country re-elects a failed President, with a failed economy and no plan for the future. The Supreme Court fails to overturn the blatantly un-Constitutional Obamacare. Zippy overturns “Don;t ask, don’t; tell” and the military decrees combat roles for females.

    In 2013, we will see the Supreme Court overturn DOMA, and sanction gay marriage, which will lead to anything goes on society. After all, on what rational legal basis can you deny polygamy, polyandry, bestiality, etc, if the definition of marriage is not one man and one woman? No resistance will survive a legal challenge.

    In 2014, we will have death panels in full swing. We will all become Terri Schiavo, or the potential to become so.

    Nine years is a blink in time, and look all that has and will have befallen us, by this time next year. The Left had a great victory in Schiavo, and it sucked the will of Americans to stand up against a blatant injustice.

    It has been a retreat ever since.

    If the good people of America do not stand up now and in 2014, the game is over.

    That’s some prime nutty shit right there.

  20. 20.

    Mornington Crescent

    I just found out that Fresno, the 1986 miniseries about rival raisin empire families, is available for viewing online, so I’ll be watching some of that.

    It stars Carol Burnett, and her rival, evil raisin magnate Dabney Coleman (“The man who controls raisins, controls Fresno!”). Also appearing is Gregory Harrison as Torch, who never wears a shirt in the entire series.

    In the opening scene, you find out how Fresno got its name.

  23. 23.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Do you get the feeling that the writer could’nt figure out how to get himself out of the impossible hole he had got himself into and then just gave up?

  24. 24.

    Redshirt

    @Johnny Coelacanth: I sincerely believe every sane and logical person should peruse Free Republic, Fox Nation, Breitbart, and the other cesspools on the Internet where Wingnuts gather and speak freely amongst themselves. Only there do you learn the true horror of these people. These fucking monsters. It makes the battle lines clear and SHOULD purge even the fireiest Firebagger of the urge to backstab “from the left”.

  25. 25.

    Walker

    @Redshirt:

    I love WWZ a lot too, but it drove home how much I absolutely loathe the “Zombie arms race”. People keep giving zombies more abilities to make the movies more exciting. But in the end you get something like the Borg: an enemy that requires massive plot holes and deus ex machina to be defeatable. The result is so insulting that I just cannot care about the conflict anymore.

  26. 26.

    MikeJ

    @Walker: Open space so you can see them coming from a distance.

    Eventually you’d need to cap either end of the valley (say at Ft Lewis and Mt Vernon, where there’s a bridge over to Whidbey Island and its NAS) and watch the passes. Having high mountain ranges on both sides is probably a plus.

    But with fast zombie it’s probably all moot.

  27. 27.

    Redshirt

    @Walker: Damn right. Just like the Borg, who, to be fair, are basically Tech Zombies. Even with the slow parts!

    I generally cede issues of this sort to the themes of the day. We live in an artistic culture where you generally have to “one up” whatever came before. This is especially true in movies and all forms of moving media (TV, music videos, etc). Thus, fast zombies for the extra scare affect.

    I’ll rise above it if the movie portrays many of the scenes in the book. The basic premise of the book (a world war with zombies) is broad enough that even just riffing on the concept should make for a good enough movie. Brook’s book is a weirdly serious “Studs Terkel covers the Zombie War” kinda thing which would be very difficult to film in our current cultural climate.

  28. 28.

    MikeJ

    @Redshirt:

    I’ll rise above it if the movie portrays many of the scenes in the book

    the book showed that the only way to survive was to band together in communities, and getting rid of Z was a long, hard slog that took everyone fighting.

    The trailer for the movie implies Brad Pitt is going to sneak into Russia and find a cure that magically fixes everything.

  30. 30.

    Redshirt

    @MikeJ: The premise implies a human v. zombie world war, meaning of course we all collectively fight back against an implacable foe. So even if the movie doesn’t follow Brook’s narrative exactly, as long as it gets this core concept correct (as opposed to like you mention Brad Pitt killing all the zombies himself cuz he’s super sexy awesome), I think it will be a good zombie movie. Maybe the best?

  31. 31.

    MikeJ

    @Soonergrunt: Then you lose the power supply and the proximity to higher altitude. And in WWZ zombies walked along the ocean floor and up on beaches, so islands weren’t really any safer. The river is probably better than an ocean because of the rapid current.

  32. 32.

    Yutsano

    @Soonergrunt: Puget Sound really isn’t a bay, plus there is no energy source like what would exist on Snoqualmie Falls. There are also a couple of escape routes should a fallback position become necessary. On Whibey you’re stuck unless you have a ship you can sail and even that has limited uses.

  33. 33.

    Redshirt

    @Soonergrunt: SPOILERS FROM THE BOOK! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO SEE THE MOVIE IN A SPOILER FREE STATE!!!

    !
    !
    !
    I loved the section of the book that concerned the Japanese sub commander who disobeyed orders and thus saves his crew and ship, and then they set up a brief little paradise on a lovely tropical island. Before the war found them…

  34. 34.

    Soonergrunt

    @MikeJ: I never read the book. But it was written by the same guy who said (in the Zombie Survival Guide) that the best bet was oil rigs off the coast. And he never said anything about zombies being able to walk on the ocean floor.
    Fucker changed the rules.

  35. 35.

    MikeJ

    I just hope they don’t shoot the scene in the book where Bill Maher is having sex with Ann Coulter.

    page 85 in the hardback, page 167 in the epub:

    I stepped over Mister Political Comedy Guy on my way out to the beach. He and this chick, this leathery old blonde who I thought was supposed to be his political enemy, were goin’ at it like there was no tomorrow, and, hey, maybe for them, there wasn’t.

  36. 36.

    Redshirt

    @Soonergrunt: They can walk on the ocean floor. But, consider the reality: 1. There won’t be many of them, as they will decompose quickly in ocean conditions. 2. They’re on the bottom, so geologic conditions apply. For instance, there’s no way zombies could walk to Hawaii. It’s too far, too deep. But an island just offshore the mainland? Sure, they could do it.

    Plus, zombies can’t climb ladders, so how they heck would they get up to an oil rig from the ocean?

    So, oil rigs would be a pretty safe bet, just considering the odds of a zombie walking to it from the bottom of the sea.

  37. 37.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Walker:

    People keep giving zombies more abilities to make the movies more exciting.

    Then we don’t have long to wait before we see zombies who fly by lighting their super-powerful zombie farts.

  38. 38.

    Walker

    @Redshirt:

    None one can one-up the garbage in Keene’s novels. The zombies are actually Sumerian demons that can inhabit the body of anything recently dead. Including animals. And they all have perfect coordination with one another and can communicate cross species (the first book has a memorable scene of zombie birds acting as scouts for human zombies).

    Humanity should not have lasted 48 hours.

  39. 39.

    David Koch

    @MikeJ:

    scene in the book where Bill Maher is having sex with Ann Coulter.

    Bill Maher is into trannies? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @Johnny Coelacanth:

    In 2014, we will have death panels in full swing. We will all become Terri Schiavo, or the potential to become so.

    [channeling Gary Larson] Oh please, oh please, oh please….

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @Yutsano:
    Does Snoqualmie Falls Lodge still do those amazing breakfasts, because I could see spending some time there (burp).

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    Texas wingnut assassinations…the case thickens.

    Two weeks ago McLelland told the Associated Press that he thought white supremacists might be responsible for his colleague’s murder. “We put some real dents in the Aryan Brotherhood around here in the past year,” he said. The district attorney had warned his employees to stay alert, and said he carried a gun everywhere he went and was careful when answering the door. “I hope that the people that did this are watching, because we’re very confident that we’re going to find you,” he said at a news conference shortly after his deputy was killed. “We’re going to pull you out of whatever hole you’re in. We’re going to bring you back and let the people of Kaufman County prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/second-prosecutor-shot-to-death-in-texas.html

  43. 43.

    Citizen_X

    @Johnny Coelacanth:

    Thanks to Sarah Palin, the GOP regained the House.

    Yeebus.

    What happens when the zombies think we’re the zombies?

    In 2011, we got the credit of the United States downgraded

    How is a person that thinks this not a saboteur?

  44. 44.

    Donut

    I’m trying to decide, do I want to have brunch with Conan and Al?

    In theory, yeah, sure. Why not?

  45. 45.

    Redshirt

    Anyone else like the dragon flick “Reign of Fire” with Christian Bale? And that Texan dude?

    I found it a strong sci-fi-fantasy movie depicting a dragon filled dystopia. I mean, surely, it would suck if their were shit-tons of dragons flying around burning up all our shit, right? Dragon World War. WWD.

    But many people hate the movie, or so the Internet has told me to believe.

  46. 46.

    Elias

    I’m still trying to figure out why nobody just suggests hopping on a boat and riding out the zombie apocalypse? You could drop anchor in Elliot Bay and watch the fireworks. Then toss out a few fishing lines and catch dinner.

    The post-apocalyptic world could be quite leisurely as you let the winds carry you to ruined and burning ports of call.

  49. 49.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Redshirt:

    I like “Reign of Fire.” One of the reasons I like it is that it did include some nods to the difficulties of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

  50. 50.

    MikeJ

    @Elias: Lots of people in the book try living on boats with almost universally bad results.

    Of course the results on land weren’t so great either, at least until pockets of civilization got cleared out.

  53. 53.

    Elias

    @SatanicPanic: They already made that movie. It’s called Waterworld. And it did suck.

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