The Zombie Shopping Mall Experience
Everyone wants to spend a little of their free time practicing up for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, right? Well, in the town of Reading, England (just a wee bit west of London) there happens to be company organizing full-on zombie battle simulations in their local condemned mall. That’s right, it’s Dawn of the Dead revisited and you can pay to be a part of it. It’s called Zombie Shopping Mall and it’s put together by the same folks that ran Zombie Boot Camp. It costs around $200 (U.S) to play the game, which is quite a bit of cash, but at least they include all the drinks and snacks in the price, so that’s a bonus.
The whole thing starts with a briefing by the Police Special Zombie Bashing Unit. They fill you in on some back-story, give you some weapons with which to fight your undead enemies and then set you off to solve some problems in the mall. The weapons are non-lethal, of course, consisting of air-soft guns and an extremely limited amount of ammunition. Teams of up to 15 people can be in a single session at one time, so you won’t be going in alone (thank heaven for small favors).
Once inside the mall, you have around 2 ½ to 3 hours to have fun. The experience is set up so that you are given a number of different scenarios or missions, similar to the way a video game works. The zombie action is accompanied by special effects, bloody explosions, props and make-up, making it even more realistic and immersive. Luckily, there’s no flesh-eating going on, so if you happen to get caught by the zombie hordes you can still make it out alive. They just hold you in one place until someone comes to your rescue. You’ll survive, though your pride may be a little bit bruised at being proven wrong about those zombie survival skills you brag to your friends about.
The mall that the simulation takes place in is, as said before, condemned, so there’s no word on when Zombie Shopping Mall will end. Currently, they have sessions scheduled for each weekend up through May of 2013. Many of those dates are filled (most of them up through March), so if you want to take a shot at this you’d better grab up a reservation soon.
Pumpkin carving gods
If there was ever a time to feel insecure about your ability to carve a pumpkin, then seeing some of the amazing things that end up on the webbernet or the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular in Providence, Rhode Island. That event alone is more than enough to utterly put us in our place and pretty much make me unsure of my ability to even look at a pumpkin without feeling a deep, deep shame.
The event boasts some 5,000 pumpkins, and if there is anything worse than one pumpkin letting me know that I'm a weak carver- it's 5,000 of them. Granted it's easier now to pull this off. Back in the day you had knives, spoons or whatever small tools you had laying around. Nails were actually pretty good for scraping in little details. These days though- it's all about using Dremel tools. It's not exactly fair that dremel, as well as several other third party parts manufacturers has gone and developed a whole slew of bits specifically for pumpkin carving. Yes that makes me feel slightly better- though truth be told the tool is only a small part of it. It takes much more to be able to actually use the tools right and create the art in the first place. Pumpkins are deceptive too. Find one that looks like it's a perfect shape for your work, then BOOM, the “meat” of it is nearly two inches thick and liquifies the second you put pressure to it. I guess thats just another thing telling me to just give up and focus more on coming up with other ways to decorate.
Two years later- drunk finally finds car
I LOVE DRUNKS. Well no not really – this is my pre story PSA by the way: I do not condone excessive revelry, driving while intoxicated, or anything else that may cause harm to another...you screw up thats your thing, but it's others that should be a priority. NOW, that aside back to this all to epic of a fail. Or perhaps a win, really depends on how you look at it.
One man in Germany- after a night of said drunkenness back in 2010 had apparently lost his car. ( yes I will avoid making a comment about movie plots) The problem was not that it was stolen, it was because he could not remember where he parked it. They searched for it, and never found it.
Now rolls in 2012 and an officer by chance stumbled upon an abandoned car with long expired tags. When running the info discovered that it was the long lost car from two years ago. Still where the drunk “ and most likely still drunk” owner had parked it, a whole four kilometers from where he “ thought” he left it. Four kilometers is just a little less than two and a half miles on the imperial scale. The real kicker is that the owner had over $50,000 dollars worth of tools in the trunk. How can you go two years when you have that sort of money invested in something lost? I will never understand some people. That and my German is elementary at best, so I'll have a hard enough time- more so if he's drunk and slurring.
Unavailable
Finding someone you connect with in this world is hard enough without complications. It used to be that the one you would marry (and eventually grow to love) was some lady that was arranged for you by your parents. Things were simpler then, if not necessarily romantic. As the world developed and different people came closer together, this changed. Transportation got quicker and more efficient, communication became more and more instantaneous and the people of Earth are now able to meet from the comfort of their living rooms via the Internet. Which leads me to the point of this post - what does one do when they meet someone they like that happens to be thousands of miles away?
When you’re an oddball like myself, the ladies you meet frequently don’t relate to you the way you’d like them to. When you do meet someone who kicks ass, they’re usually already taken, given the small number of them that exist in the world at any given time (I think there’s a production limit or something). And so comes the Internet and random chatting. I’m not normally a big chatter online, but sometimes one thing or another draws me into a conversation with someone.
Recently, I started chatting with a lady who is about as close to my ideal mate as could possibly be without having a ton of money and wanting to take care of me while I write my great novel. Of course, it didn’t take long for the revelation to set in. Revelation one - thousands of miles away. Revelation two - decidedly not single. Ah yes, the story of my life replays in loops, so it seems.
So the question remains - does all this mass communication help us or hinder us when it comes to finding a significant someone and bringing them into our lives? Does the wider availability and increased access give more options? Does it encourage us to sit on our butts and not go outside because we have other ways of socializing now? Is it just one giant tease, screwing with our heads until we rage and throw stuffed animals across the room (not based on actual events)?
Whatever the answer, the situation sucks. The people you meet linger, regardless of the reality of the situation, and I frequently finding myself saying “What if…?” or comparing others that I meet in more conventional ways to said individual, which is a bit unfair, of course. Perhaps one day we’ll be able to clone people and the worries of socially awkward geeks will be gone forever. Meet someone who’s taken? Clone them and get a copy for yourself! Too far away? Get a DNA sample and build one at the local corner liquor store and clone-o-mat!
It may never end up happening that way, but one can always hope. In the meanwhile, I’ll drown my sorrows in video games and writing.
Team Stat Visualizations
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=== Team Stat Visualizations ===
Advanced NFL Stats creates a grid for you that captures the 'personality' of every team at a glance. The dynamic link there gives the embedded hyperlinks with info on each team: here's a small capture for yer convenience, brudder.
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Teams stationed along the purple line are .500 teams.* As a team moves top right, moving along the green line up toward the arrow point, it's a better team. The Panthers and Titans are trailing the rest of the league. I'm very happy to see the 49er's where they are, aren't you.
The Saints and Seahawks are teams of even quality - to date - but the Saints rack up, and give up yards while the Seahawks slog out WWI Maginot-style games. It's neat to see the Rams and Arizona right there in the same territory, with the Rams trailing a bit. Which is about what you'd have thought. But it's a disconcerting thought that the Cardinals could have a considerably more ferocious defense than ours.
It's a basic axiom of sports, for Dr. D, that he'd rather have the Saints' or Seahawks' position than the Chargers'. Mediocrity in every area is hard to address. But if you have something you do real good, you only have to bring the weakness up to mediocre and you're set. Which is tougher: to move from "bad" to "mediocre" or to move from "mediocre" to "excellent"? It's much easier for a baseball team to move RF from 0.0 WAR to 2.0 WAR, than it is to move it from 2.0 WAR to 4.0 WAR.
The script of the Seahawks' season has been: can they stay up with the pack while Russell Wilson figures his job out? So far the answer has been yes.
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Patriots 51% or -3.5 to Seattle
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=== Odds, Blamed Odds and Statistics ===
Advanced NFL Stats gives the NE-Sea game as a coin flip: 51% New England. That's not enough vig for an oddsmaker to lay a line: a bookie would not (I don't think) take a bet on a coin flip based on you paying $51 or getting $49.
Yet the Vegas line is that if you want the Patriots, you've got to give more than a field goal. A 24-21 Patriots win on the field is a Seahawks win in the casino. That's awfully good value, a field goal, if the game is really 51-49.
Casual observers quickly reply: "the -3.5 is just to split the crowd." Dr. D always wonders about this cliche. So all you have to do to get rich, is trot over to Advanced NFL Stats and take the three games on which Vegas is most egregiously "splitting the crowd"? Nuh-uh. Everybody goes broke betting sports, and it's because if Vegas is indeed "splitting the crowd," it's doing so in ways that differ in no discernible sense from "gauging the outcome perfectly."
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Based on the Team Stat Visualizations at Advanced NFL Stats, the 2012 Patriots again have a tremendous team, with a historically-great offense and, as usual, a defense that is better than it is given credit for. When you have a "great" team against a "rawhide-tough but not very talented" team, how do you get 51% to 49%? The crowd, of course, which in this specific case is creating extreme synergy with its home-team defense.
Yeah, I know, the defense has playmakers. But if the Seahawks be a Super Bowl contender, they be one that is awfully short on offensive players generally, receivers and quarterbacks specifically and superstars all around.
If Tom Brady can't solve the CLink/Clemons problem, then maybe it can't be solved. Aaron Rodgers took eight sacks in one half, and did manage some adjustments, but hey. For THIS game, Tom Brady, the crowd is going to be amp'ed.
I'd say the 51-49 is closer to the truth than the -3.5. Brees and Rodgers didn't enjoy their stays here and there's reason to believe that the great Tom Brady may enjoy his stay even less...
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Whoever came up with the light bulb in the thumbnail pic, came up with a great one. Talk about a Zen self-diagnostic.
Pet Beds How To Choose The Right One
Often finding a pet bed is more of a challenge then what you think. Here are some tips which will help you in locating the perfect pet bed and know your pets will be comfortable when they are sleeping in these beds you lovingly picked out for them.
The first thing you need to look for in the pet bed is the size of the bed in relation to your pet. By taking this into account, you are able to find the bed which will suit your pet properly and not have to be concerned about it being to large or to small for your pet to lay in.
Another thing you need to consider in your pet beds is the different materials these will be made from. When you take this into account, it is easy for you to see your pet in the bed or not in the bed based on how soft the material is. So you need to seriously think about this aspect as well.
The last thing you should consider is how long the bed will last your pet. This aspect really depends on your pet and the way they like their bed. However, you should be able to estimate how long the pet bed will last your dog or cat before they need a new one.
Getting to enjoy your pets and know they are comfortable is a great thing to do. However, you need to make sure you know some tips to guarantee you find the perfect pet bed for them to sleep in at any period of time.
Teenager on drugs? Try tricking him.
I was brainstorming with a friend the other day about her teenage son, who is totally out of control. He’s drinking, he’s smoking pot and may be doing even worse. Because I am not a parent, I couldn’t fault her parenting, but I did think of some different strategies that she could use to deal with him.
IF your teenager is:
- Drinking: Keep fake alcohol in the refrigerator. Water down the booze and wine. Buy near-beer. Trick him into thinking he is getting drunk.
- Smoking pot: Steal his weed. This mom in question said she could sniff out his weed in all his “secret” places like nobody’s business. Why shouldn’t she just confiscate it and replace it with oregano so that he will look stupid in front of his friends?
- Using more serious drugs: Find out who is selling him the drugs. The person is probably not a teenager and may be corrupting him in other ways, if in fact he is using harder drugs. Find the true source of the problem and find out the options. The punishment for dealing drugs to a minor is probably much stiffer in a majority of states than the penalty for a minor using the drugs.
I have no idea if any of these strategies will work as I have never had to try them, but I have other ideas, too.
- Make the punishments tough and enforce them. Marijuana is non-addictive, but is definitely not helpful for teenagers who are saying they are doing their homework, but aren’t.
- Keep him busy. The person I talked to had employed this strategy a bit. My strategy would be to force the teenager to get a job like many other American teenagers do. If he is working at a fast food restaurant, you can easily stop by and make sure he is there. If he is working at his dad’s office, you will definitely know where he is.
- Do not believe him. Teenagers lie all the time to keep from getting into trouble. They will blame innocent people.
- Remember that you are smarter than he is by about a million times because his tiny brain is still mush.
- Get his friends on your side. Many teenagers are strongly anti-drugs. If your teenager has made “new friends,” try to get in contact with his old friends. Reminding him that his “new friends” are not really his friends probably won't work, but it might.
Gatlinburg, Tennessee: A great vacation destination
Heading to the mountains can be a great thing for many people to do and a wonderful way for them to relax. Gatlinburg is such a great vacation destination to take a trip to. Once you know more about Gatlinburg, it is easy for you to find this as the best place to go for your trip.
The first reason you should select Gatlinburg as a destination to consider as your vacation spot is the accessibility to the mountains. When you see the how accessible the mountains are, it's easy to see how recreational activities are so close and fun to do.
Gatlinburg also has a variety of hotels available to stay at. Most vacation destinations offer a boat load of hotels to select from and Gatlinburg is no exception. Gatlinburg has a large selection of hotels and each one has features you will be looking for.
Something else you should consider with Gatlinburg as your vacation destination is the shopping. Most people want to shop when they go on vacation. In Gatlinburg, there are a ton of stores available to shop at, but you will also find different boutiques that offer unique treasures you cannot buy anywhere else.
Traveling to a place that has the best of all worlds while on vacation can be a challenge. If you want to take a great trip, you need to know more information about why you should choose Gatlinburg as the place to travel to. Once you know this information, it is easy to see why Gatlinburg is a place you will visit time and time again.
The First World Hotel
One of the largest and craziest hotels in the world happens to be in the country of Malaysia. This monstrosity looks like it would be more at home in Las Vegas, but the Malaysians decided that a hotel/theme park painted brightly and towering over the Gentling Highlands would be a good idea. And, truth be told, the First World Hotel has become a hot-spot and major tourist attraction in the region.
The First World Hotel is the current Guinness Book of World Records champion for largest hotel in the world with more than 6000 rooms. The rooms themselves are pretty standard, rating from singles to suites. The surrounding entertainment is not standard in the slightest. The hotel is situated next to the First World Plaza, a combination of massive shopping complex and indoor theme park.
In addition, there are several other things for visitors to this hotel to do without going more than a stone’s throw from their rooms. There is the Arena of Stars, which features performances of many types. Several restaurants in the complex serve a variety of food. There is also a Cineplex, a huge casino, an indoor ski park, a bowling alley, a skydiving simulator and more.
Rooms at the First World Hotel start at $65 and go up from there. If you manage to get a room higher up in the building, you’ll also get a great view of the surrounding scenery. Nearby the hotel are a variety of local attractions and historic sites, so you can actually leave the complex if you want to.
The biggest problem that most seem to have with the hotel is that with so many rooms, people are given a factory-like processing treatment. There is little personal hospitality and if something complicated happens you’re often left waiting in line for a resolution. For the convenience and novelty, the First World Hotel is on par with the best. If you want a friendly staff and exceptional service, however, you might want to check out someplace smaller and more intimate.