Life in America: The Zombies

"We want zombie rights...Durh..."

Yep, living in America, no other horror genre is more prominent than the zombies. Zombie movies? Check. Zombie comics? Check. Zombies at Halloween? Check. Zombie Day? Check.

And I grew up in Malaysia with the sort of rise of modern "zombie revolution" in entertainment media, if you will call it that. There was this burst of zombie popularity stemming from America. The Resident Evil movie got me hooked (and scared the shit out of my pants) into zombies. I played Resident Evil 2 on Playstation, but didn't really finish it because I was only 9 or 10 years old and was a coward.

Then I watched more zombie movies, though not all, throughout my teenage. The Resident Evil series, The Living Dead, I Am Legend, 28 Days/Weeks Later, and a few cheesy but similar movies. And then Valve came out with Left 4 Dead the video game, which got to play quite a bit. I wasn't really hardcore into zombies, but it is something that definitely catches my attention. (I got quite a bit of game time in Plants vs Zombies too)

I don't know why exactly why I like to see something so depressing. You see, these movies usually sets in a world ravaged by zombie apocalypse. The cities are desolated, overrun by the undead. People get killed, but they don't exactly die. The zombies want to eat you, and then people are constantly on the run, trying to avoid being cannibalized by the zombies. And then in the movies, they will kill off the characters you like, which makes it so much more depressing to watch. But I still watch it, I wondered why.

Maybe it's because this genre simulates human interaction in a post-apocalyptic environment. It puts our human values to question. Maybe that is why I love to watch it, to see how it questions our values.

And that feeling has been confirmed when I started to watch a new TV series that came out last year -- The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is very different from all the previous movies I've seen. First of all, it isn't a movie, but a TV series. And unlike most movies, especially Resident Evil, where there are mass zombie killing money shot scenes, The Walking Dead is a subtler kind of zombie show. There are no protagonists going into zombie killing spree, this is not a show where you can see that. But there are definitely scenes that are as gruesome, if not more gruesome, than what you can see in zombie movies.

What I liked about the show though, is not about the human-zombie conflict, but rather, the human-human conflicts. It is not like the characters in the show are going all out to kill each other, not that kind of conflict; but just conflicts that happens in everyday human lives. Except that it becomes greatly amplified in the backdrop of zombie apocalypse, it and puts a huge question mark to the audience. I don't know how else can I describe that to you without spoiling the show : (

If you haven't watch it (and I'm sure most of you have not), I would highly recommend this show. Go get it online, you know how, especially Malaysians. There are 6 episodes in the first season, and the second season is currently airing its 7th episode. The second season has a total of 13 episodes planned so there, 19 episodes. That is not too much to catch up. I must warn you though that if you are a squirmy type of people that faints at the sight of blood, this might not be the show for you. But otherwise, I'm sure you will enjoy the show as much as I do. And you may possibly find it more interesting than all the zombie movies you've seen so far. So what are you waiting for? Get some zombie action today!



Till next time, cheers~

Life in America: Thanksgiving

Don't eat me pl0x

Happy Thanksgiving! So the Thanksgiving break is finally coming to an end. It wasn't too much of a break anyway, University of Wisconsin only gave the students a two-day break from Thursday. So I haven't been doing much except to chill during this rare holiday (students in the United States are very holiday-deprived during regular semester).


Come to think of it, it never fails to amaze me how fast time flies as we are growing up. When I was 7 or 8, a year felt like an eternity. But now, a year felt almost like nothing. I still remember vividly this time last year I was writing my thanksgiving note, which I later found out to be a huge task because there are just too many people to give thanks to, so I scrapped the idea. Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been in my life. It might not be sincere enough, but this is the best I can do without being too creepy (like, posting "thank you" notes on everyone's wall on Facebook).

Speaking of Facebook, I shared a video a couple of days ago on my page. But I'll put it up again here so you can watch it. It was about a Thanksgiving tradition, specefically Black Friday. Some of you might not know, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which is usually on the last Thursday of November). Basically, it is a day of sales. Shops open at 3am or 4am and people would just go on a shopping frenzy, like the video below.



I find it disturbing, especially the value of consumerism in the U.S.. I read somewhere about the Americans spending more than the GDP of North Korea in Thanksgiving weekend 2010. I was surprised at how much they can really spend!

The crowd is just crazy, I am not sure if I want to experience this part of American culture.

One thing I want to experience though, is to travel around the cities of the U.S.. Thanksgiving break was just too short, maybe I'll do it during my one-month winter break. Haven't have any plans yet, but I'd like to travel alone. That ought to be interesting. Any suggestions on the places I should go? Hmm...



Till next time, cheers~

I'm a Pastafarian

I have a confession to make... I am a Pastafarian.

"What's a Pastafarian? Does that mean you like to eat pasta?"

No. But I do like to eat pasta though.

Anyway, let me tell you a story...



One day, I was alone at my house. It was late noon and I got very hungry. So I decided to risk food poisoning myself by trying to cook myself a meal of pasta! (I have poor cooking skills, don't laugh) I took out a handful of spaghetti and popped it into a pot of boiling water with some seasoning and salt. Then I waited, and accidentally fell asleep on the kitchen table.

Something woke me up. Soft, long, thin and squishy, wetting my face as it slowly glided across my face. I looked up and there it was, a monstrosity so weird I almost thought it was a dream. It was a huge ball of interweaving spaghetti, curling around two meatballs as large as my head. Floating in the air, its spaghetti ends probed the surrounding like a tentacle. And it had eyes! Two protruding eyes stuck on its top side, in an almost crab-like fashion.

How it looked like

"Bow upon your maker," a voice rang in my head. There wasn't anything to be found in the surrounding that could have made that voice. The spaghetti monster looked at me with intend. It squinted, and the voice rang again, "I am your maker. Bow to me, and I shall grant you a place among the blessed."

So I did. I didn't know what else to do (perhaps I couldn't have ignored its command and eat it? I was hungry.). And then it disappeared with a flash.

Maybe I was blinded for the moment, maybe the flash knocked me out. But I found myself  waking up again. Was it a dream? But it felt so real! Then I remembered the spaghetti I was boiling. When I looked at the pot, it was.... it was gone!

No way... Where did it go? There wasn't anyone else in the house, nobody else could have eaten it. Then it dawned on me that the spaghetti was the same spaghetti monster that I've encountered earlier! That's it, right? How else can you explain the disappearance of the spaghetti?

That day, I did a research on the internet and I found out that there were many people with the same experiences. They've all met the maker. Our maker. And they have a name for it - The Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's it. It's real! The spaghetti monster is real! I mean, millions of people have been touched by His noodly appendage, how can you explain such a coincidence? There is no way all of us hallucinated and had the same exact experience (boiling spaghetti, flying spaghetti monster appeared, disappearance of the spaghetti). Science couldn't explain this. This had to be a divine experience!

And so I believed. Although many other people were skeptical. But it doesn't matter. I have faith, you see. And that is all I need to believe in our maker the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I have experienced his noodly grace. Maybe if you try cooking spaghetti with a room in your heart to accept Him, you will be able to meet Him too. (And why am I so sure it was a "He"? Because it has two large meatballs you see, and we know He created man using Himself as a reference.)

To all atheists who questioned my faith, I do not blame you. I know my maker created you so that you can test my faith in Him, so that my faith can grow stronger everyday. I thank you, but at the same time I sympathize you for being so blind. He is everywhere, people in the world has been eating His gift to mankind, the spaghetti, for hundreds of years. Surely this is a sign that He exists! Not? Argue all you want, you are not going to convince me. I have experienced His noodly grace, and that is enough for me to believe in His existence. My only hope is that He is forgiving enough not to send you to the Land of Macaroni, where the Grounded Angel of Macaroni lives. There they will feed you macaroni everyday, thinking of it gives me the shivers. Sometimes I can't help but to cry when I think of the poor souls who couldn't experience His noodly grace and were sent to Land of Macaroni.

But such is live, right? You win some you lose some. Although sometimes I still do not understand why doesn't our maker just appear when everyone is cooking spaghetti and convince them. He wanted people to acknowledge Him as our maker but He is just so shy. I guess He has His big plan that I do not understand. Who does, right? He is made of spaghetti flour, I am just made out of... of dusts in the ground ( Pastagenesis 9.1 ). Surely dusts could not understand flour, right?

That is all I have to say today. I hope the fact that I am coming out as a Pastafarian will not get me into trouble. Our numbers are still small for now, but remember all religions started small. If we could persevere, we would eventually be able to bring His noodly grace to everyone in the world, just like other religions did for their god (although I am not convinced of their god, because I know mine is the real one. And the truth will always prevail!)

Onwards, Pastafarians. Let's bring His noodly grace to everyone on earth. Let His noodly appendage touch the heart of billions, and create an ultimate paradise for us his creations to live in. Long live Flying Spaghetti Monster! R'amen.



Till next time, cheers.

Taming Infinity

Warning: Math Content!

So the other day I saw this very cool mathematics trick. Suppose you have a divergent series (a group of numbers that adds up to infinity) that adds up like this:

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ...

Where the next number in the series equals to twice the value of the previous number.

It is pretty obvious that when you have infinite numbers in this series, this adds up to infinity right? Well, yes. But, it can also be mathematically proven that the whole series equals to -1.

What?

I know. Pretty mind-boggling stuff. But watch the video below, it explains how the series can become -1 by some mathematical manipulation



So, to reiterate what the video just said. Suppose you have the series

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ... .

Now the whole series will be the same if you multiply it with 1, right? Anything that is multiplied by 1 equals to the original value. Like this

1 * (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ... )

It wouldn't change a thing. Now we all know 1 = 2 - 1, so we can substitude 1 in front of the series with (2 - 1), which then becomes

(2 - 1) * (1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ... ).

Now we expand the brackets by multiplying 2 and -1 in (2 - 1) separately with the series, which becomes

( 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ... - 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 16 - 32 - 64 - 128 - ... ).

If you noticed, except for - 1, the other numbers on the right side can subtract the numbers with + sign. And in the end, you will be left with only -1!

So... 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + ... = -1!

Isn't it amazing? Although I do not know how does this apply in anything because I am not a mathematician, I still think it is very interesting how some problems in mathematics can have answers that are so counter-intuitive, and not to mention aesthetically simple too (at least that is what I think).



Oh well. Till next time, cheers~