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Seperating Fact from Fiction: “The Walking Dead” a deadly reality? 2011/11/03

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Like a lot of people I know, I’ve been enthralled in the undead fantasy world that is AMC’s “The Walking Dead”. At first I was a skeptic
of watching another “zombie flick” style show, but this is so much better than that. The show raised questions to me as to whether
or not the possibility of an actual occurrence of the recently deceased becoming reanimated were at all possible, and if it was in the
Bible. A little internet surfing and some reading of Scriptures gave for some pretty interesting answers. Answers you may dismiss
as just more fiction.

The whole premise of “The Walking Dead” is basically MANKIND in a fight for survival, against an unknown event which brought the dead
back to life with only the most basic of primal needs apparent, the need to feed. We’ve seen it before in countless flicks courtesy of
George Romero and others, but The Dead take a refreshing approach to the idea and really has me asking: Could this really happen?!
The only reason I’m even entertaining the idea of any form of resurrection is because of Bible scriptures I remember learning about
quite some time ago:

Zechariah 14:12
And the LORD will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their
 flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

Zechariah 14:13
On that day they will be terrified, stricken by the LORD with great panic. They will fight their neighbors hand to hand.

I guess this is why the US insists on being Israel’s big brother, cause the government knows of the impending Zombie attack! Foolishness
aside, and taking into account that this is the Old Testament and not only is some of the material dated and confusing, some teachings
may have been taken out of context in the years of translation since the original scriptures were written, so lets fast forward, to the future in the Bible:

Revelation 11:6
These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood
and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

Revelation 11:8
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

Revelation 11:11
But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.

This prophecy is believed to be in direct connection with one of the Old Testament found in Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 37:10
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet–a vast army.

All jokes aside, every reference I seem to find about the living dead has direct correlation with judgement and conflict, which totally
fits the M.O. of “The Walking Dead”. End of the world scenarios abound in film today, with the impending 2012 date fast approaching and
no one really knowing what happens after that. Scientists believe that fire destroyed to world once, taking out the dinosaurs and from the ashes,
MANKIND arose like the phoenix. Then Bible scripture tells us (along with a lot of other world religions that agree that the events of Noah
and the Ark really did occur, ON TOP of the Ark being FOUND right where the Bible said it was in the icy mountain tops of Mt. Ararat) God flooded
the world with water to cleanse it a second time. What does that leave? Okay, it leaves a lot of options, I know, but zombie attack is definitely
on the table here.

But let’s say you’re an atheist, or of another religion. You’re not buying with the Bible says, so popular website Cracked.com
came up with 5 Scientific Reasons zombification could happen, check them out here:
 http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html.

Michael Bridges posts in his blog about zombification being outlawed in the country of Haiti :http://society.ezinemark.com/have-there-ever-been-real-zombies-184f95de5ba.html.
A cue he could have gotten from Wes Craven’s “A Serpent and the Rainbow” alleging to be based off of actual zombifying events in Haiti: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096071/.

Whether any of this is true or not, all the events state the same thing, its gonna happen fast, no one’s gonna know it until its too late, and a clean shot to the brain or
decapitation is the only way to stop a zombie.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not one to take chances, so I’ll be heading to my local Bass Pro shop and selecting a few firearms in the near future.

Blog again soon.

“I dunno. I guess I’m looking for that ‘Dare to be great’ situation.” 2010/02/12

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In honor of Valentine’s Day weekend, I decided to update Sanity with a little romantic banter. I’ll be delving into some of the great romance flicks of my time, reflecting on the things I thought made them great.

“I wanna get hurt!”- The infamous words of one Lloyd Dobler in the 80’s teen romance flick Say Anything. To this day, I’ll pop it in the DVD player and get lost in Lloyd’s world of Diane Court and the nice guy actually finishing first. The best thing about this flick is our hero getting the courage to ask the eye of his affection out on a date, and then she says yes. To cool. This film helped show us geeks that we deserve our time in the sun just as much as the next guy and not to be afraid to go after what you want.

“I could be fun, if you want. I could be pensive, uhh… smart, supersticious, brave? And I, uhh, I can be light on my feet. I could be whatever you want. You just tell me what you want, and I’m gonna be that for you.” – a young Noah Calhoun chasing the rich girl of his dreams in The Notebook. I gotta admit, like most guys, I absolutely refused to watch this film for fear of losing a piece of my masculinity, but once I saw this, I was hooked. Youth in love, torn apart by war. A man who won’t give up on his only true love despite her being with someone else, and in the end, the perfect ending to a life of love together. Death together.

“Well, I’m gonna get out of bed every morning… breath in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breath in and out… and, then after a while, I won’t have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while. ” – The story of a man no one wants to be, Sam Baldwin lost his wife and was left a widower father in Sleepless in Seattle. This is one of those films that can be timeless. 50 years from now you’ll be able to watch this and it will essentially maintain the same meaning as in the era it was released. This story teaches us that despite horrible loss, its okay to move on and love again.

I could keep going on, but these are films that have left a profound affect on me. Got any films that do that to you? Let me know by posting it in the comments. Happy Valentine’s Day all.

Blog again soon.

“Post Avatar Depression” and hope for 2012. 2010/01/19

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When you don’t have a place of employment, you find that you have a lot of down time that you have no clue what to do with. Normally I suck it all up playing with my 3-year-old son, but sometimes he’s off with the grandparents and it leaves me to wallow in my own unemployed loneliness. To fill this void I turn to films.

Now over the past two days I have seen the films Avatar, and 2012 respectively. Despite the obvious moral, ethical and religious undertones of the film Avatar, I felt it was a great film that really asks you to look into yourself and ask what life really is all about.

Now as far as the military’s actions in the film, I will not comment on them as I am a former Marine and am damn proud of it, but I will say that I have come across some “higher ups” in my time that may have overstepped their bounds and caused unnecessary pain. I do not relish movies that show me humans, especially Marines, getting killed, but I was happy that it was a Marine who was the protagonist and saved the day. My favorite scene, the most touching to me, was when all the animals of the planet came to help and Neytiri screamed in joy that Eywa heard him. Such comfort was that to think that God heard in such a way that he would not deny him. Beautiful.

Then I watched the film 2012. Being a huge John Cusack fan, ever since the days of “Better Off Dead” and the paperboy screaming “I want my two dollars!!!”, any film he does is good, in my humble opinion. The film was a CGI masterpiece. Throwing all the collective conspiracy theories and Nostradamus hoopla at you in a well crafted story of an estranged father trying to save the lives of his kids and ex-wife while being stuck with the ex-wifes current beau. The thing that appeals to me the most about this movie is John Cusack’s character Jackson Curtis. A non famous author who wrote a barely published book who believed that in its darkest hour, man will rise up to be selfless and caring. The complete opposite of the characters that made up my last post, this film restored a piece of hope in humanity in me that prays that in the worst of times, we may be great. He fought for the lives of his loved ones and when faced with sure death, looked fate in the eyes and won. It was a story that had so many crazy, impossible seeming things happen that it screams at you “If you believe it, you can achieve it”.

It’s pretty crazy how films can affect ones mentality. On one side they can show you the evil men do and are capable of and on the other, the great things we can achieve against all odds. No one knows for certain what the future holds, but my wish for you, dear reader is, that should you ever be in such a situation that calls upon you to choose, choose to be great.

Blog again soon.

Are we really that bad? 2010/01/11

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I just got finished watching a movie titled Carriers that really screwed me up. For those of you not familiar with the film or who never cared to see it, heres a brief synopsis:

4 teens are on the run from the inevitable, an airborne pathogen thats wiping out all of mankind. During the film they encounter other people, some infected, some not, but the apparent breakdown of social decency and downright cruelty displayed by these “people” can literally break your spirits at time. They fight, they steal, they betray and they kill for what seems like nothing in the end.

Now, being a father and a former military man, watching certain scenes in this movie really screwed me up. If you plan on seeing the film, skip to the end of this paragraph so you’re not spoiled as it deals with a major scene, to me anyway, in the film.  The beginning of the film starts with them on the open road when they come across an SUV sprawled across the road needing gas. A father and his young daughter, maybe 5 years only, are in need of help. The girl is infected. They ditch them at first but as fate would have it, they end up going back as they need the SUV to go on. The pair were trying to make it to a CDC help center and the teens reluctantly agree to take them with, sealed off in the back of the SUV. They get there to find emptiness and no cure. Getting ready to leave, the little girl has to use the bathroom, but the father fears that the teens will leave them there with no supplies and no hope, so the father tells his young daughter to go to the bathroom alone. Weak and broken the poor girl tries to go, but only manages to get 5 steps or so until she collapses. Dispairingly, the father tells the girl its okay and walks with his dying child to the bathroom as the 4 “teens” dump their belongings and leave them before she even makes it to the Port-a-John.

This one scene completely ruined the rest of the film for me cause if man can be so heartless and uncaring to a child, then they don’t deserve to live. I found myself not caring for the teens and hoping they would fall. Too often in everyday real life we see the atrocities and the evils that man is capable of. When I escape this world into a film, I do not want to see a mirror of man at his very worst. I want the hero to be just that, a hero. What good is survival if you lose that which you are trying to keep alive?

If you haven’t seen the film, I’d recommend you do. It’s on DVD and you can rent it at Redbox for free with multiple Redbox Codes. And I know what you’re thinking, why would I recommend it after just bashing it. The reason I say watch it is so you can realize the evil man is capable of, the selfish, uncaring that takes over in the face of adversity and ask yourself this? If you were faced with the same decision, what would you do?

As Jerry McGuire said, we live in a cynical world. A cynical world that is that way because we make it as such. A cynical world because too many people stand on the sidelines waiting for the next guy to do something. Don’t wait for someone else to take your glory. Stand up and fight. Be brave for your fellow-man, for all we know, you are their last hope.

Blog again soon.