Saturday, October 29, 2011

Live First, Work Second: Understand the Young

New book out with a lovely title: Live First, Work Second.  Thanks to Candyce Carden-Deal of Candidness for bringing it to my attention.  She has a great blog post that describes the book.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Is Andy Kaufman dead?

There is a documentary out about Andy Kaufman asking whether he really is dead.  I was intrigued because the director shares my name.  But really, if Andy was alive, he'd be doing something else besides laying low.  On the other hand, the weathermen taught us that you can hide in plain sight.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Walking Dead: Shocking? Really? Isn't Everyone Supposed To Die?

I had the misfortune to develop an interest in the Walking Dead recently.  Blame it on the recent Austen/zombie book.  I wanted to see what a drama would be like played out against a zombie backdrop. 

In the first episode, we begin with the hero blowing away a young blonde girl turned zombie.  So children getting shot is how the series begins.  Imagine my surprise when in the opener of the second season they...have a child getting shot. 

Evidently my memory is longer than the reviewers, who are all atwitter (pun intended) with what it means to the morals of television now that a child has been shot.  Really?  Did you miss the horse getting eaten?  How about the walkers getting beaten to second death with bats?  Did you close your eyes during the moment when a man has to shoot his walker wife in the head? 

My biggest issue with Walking Dead is that I do not believe our hero survived the initial slaughter lying comatose in his hospital bed.  First, the walkers can smell people, so a bed across the door isn't going to deter them.  Second, there is no way he didn't die of thirst while his beard grew to the length it did.  World full of zombies who never die, fine.  But don't fake dehydration. 

I also found that I don't really care about the characters, so I stopped watching.