There is a flaw with AMC’s The Walking Dead. It’s an unfortunate one.
Consistency.
With a lot of shows, this isn’t all that important. Comedy, episodic drama or stories that take regular time jumps of weeks or months between installments (a la Mad Men) can sometimes stretch things.
Characters don’t have to carry every little wound with them.
The problem with The Walking Dead is that it’s central theme is about a new, suffocating reality that all of our characters have to adjust to. The sum total of their changes matters. Consistence in the action and decisions of each character create human decisions we either agree or disagree with.
This is how we decide to root for or agains the characters.
What’s disappointing is that even in an episode that is supposed to bring back into play decisions certain characters have made in the past, it rings hollow. They’ve changed their minds so many times, why should we think that this time it holds any weight?
David Morrissey will play The Governor in The Walking Dead’s third season. Doctor Who fans will recognize him as the confused Victorian era faux-ctor from the 2008 Christmas special The Next Doctor.
Although certainly memorable, we didn’t see many of the beats one might assume would be worked into TWD’s chief baddie.
Let’s roll a clip!
Why is this a big deal?
In the source material, The Governor represents the high point for quality in the series. Without spoilers, the character is brutal (like Uday Hussein brutal) while showing a troubling knack for keeping his citizens safe and happy. As his name implies, there is a strong commentary on governments in crisis and the myth of the benevolent dictator.
These are themes that elevated TWD from a story about zombie survivors into something you tell your friends about. The Governor has been a character ripe with fan speculation fodder since the original AMC pilot. Even more so when original character Merle Dixon chopped off his own limb (The Gov only has one arm) and ran away.
It’s a meaty role. Or at least it could be one if written correctly.
He is not an fan-pander (Fander? Can that be a word?) stunt cast like Tom Savini. Then again, he’s also not an immediate home run like John Hawkes.
I hope Morrissey does the character justice and more specifically, I hope the show is on a tear by the time it’s most compelling character welcomes our survivors into Woodbury.
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We recently covered the release of a reported image of Bigfoot captured by a trail cam and my subsequent research Google search on trail cam images led me down a rabbit-hole from which I am just now emerging. At times the Internet begins to tarnish around the edges, so I am happy to report that I have found some of the magic that makes it such a freakishly wonderful place. I have collected for our readers 21 of the best and strangest trail cam pictures the Internet has to offer. None of these are new, many of these you may have seen before, many of them are obviously staged or fake, but they are all lovingly collected here for you to enjoy in no particular order.
The American Bigfoot Society has released what is being called the “clearest photo since Patterson-Gimlin”. Taken in 2008, it has only just been released, you can read about all the details at the source.
It can be a full time job trying to keep foreign, sometimes disgusting objects out of their mouths. But what if you could use the disturbing habit to your benefit? What if your infant could be used to safe guard the rest of family.
Who needs a dog when you can count on your child to murder snakes and eat their heads?
Here is the testimony from Palestinian mother Ghadeer Aylan…
“I was tending to a bottle of milk for my child Adhmad in the kitchen. I found in his hand the body of a small snake, its head in his mouth. I didn’t believe my eyes, and nearly died from shock and horror and almost fainted. I screamed at him, but he didn’t understand. Neighbors came over and carried on removing the body from my son’s mouth.”
Young Admad was rushed to a hospital and was found to be totally healthy. And the most hardcore baby on Earth.
Huge thank you to Weird Things reader Josh Souliere for finding and translating this story.
In 2002, scientists published the discovery of a new pterosaur from Inner Mongolia named Jeholopterus ninchengensis. The wingspan was less than three feet and it probably weighed between 5 and 10 lbs. In 2003, David Peters published The Chinese vampire and other overlooked pterosaur ptreasures in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology where he posited the physiological attributes of Jeholopterus made it a prime candidate for drinking blood from the backs of sauropods.
“In this analysis, Peters reconstructed the skull, observing elongated teeth akin to like pliers, a fortified palate able Jeholopterus to deliver a swift blow and powerful blow, a possible mechanism by which the teeth could be locked into place after a strike. Additionally, Peters observed a horse-like tail possibly used to swat away small insects.
The pterosaur seemed to have the ability to deliver a strong blow, plus it had fangs — and a method to lock the fangs into another animal after striking. All these features led Peters to suggest Jeholopterus latched onto the backs of sauropods and lapped up blood from fang wounds. Peters doesn’t offer any reasons for vampiric behavior — he simply offers it as a physiological possibility.”
Many paleontologists are not fans of this theory based on many reasons, but I think a vampire pterosaur would be awesome.
Much was made over the last few months about the apparent discovery of faster than light neutrinos at the CERN laboratories. The neutrinos appeared to travel at 60 seconds faster than the speed of light. Of course, this would stand in contrast to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
This will certainly be seen as a reason to celebrate for those professional frowners who did nothing but rain “we should wait and see…” negativity on the parade of interest in this particular scientific breakthrough.
Those people, are terrible.
Allow me to qualify, this is not about respecting the scientific process. Of course, we shouldn’t rush off and proclaim the preliminary research on neutrinos scientific fact, damaging a fundamental physics concept in the process. But it is it wrong to hope that it could change everything? Isn’t hope and enthusiasm for a better understanding of our natural world tempered with rigorous and constant verification the backbone of why science is awesome?
So the neutrino test turns out to be flawed. Fine. It was going to wind up here no matter which road we travelled. I am happy that a large population of folks who only kind of care about science got to take a route that included a possibility of Earth shattering realizations about time, space and our relation to it.
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We’ve talked, a lot about space elevators on the Weird Things podcast. For good reason. We are in an exciting period of engineering evolution where our drive to get things into space cheaper and cheaper is merging with stronger and cheaper components.
The future or is now.
Or 2050 if you are the Obayashi Corp., a Tokyo based company which hopes to use carbon nanotubes to built an elevator to freaking space.
In Obayashi’s project, a cable would be stretched up to 96,000 kilometers, or about one-fourth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. One end of the cable would be anchored at a spaceport on the ground, while the other would be fitted with a counterweight.
The terminal station would house laboratories and living space. The car could carry up to 30 people to the station at 200 kilometers per hour, which would mean a 7-1/2 day trip to reach the station. Magnetic linear motors are one possible means of propulsion for the car, according to Obayashi.
The problem? Right now there is no estimated budget for the project and Obayashi brass simply hope to make incremental progress until… boom… space elevator. We aren’t sure how a project this big and this ambitious can survive a 40 year construction cycle with no solid budget. Hopefully, when I am 68 years old you can call a Double Dumbass on me during our seven day trip to outer space.
When a giant airship descends on New York City in 1892 and threatens destruction if the world doesn’t submit to the Martian flag, it’s up to the mysterious Smith, inventor and adventurer to find out what forces are at work.
From the dangerous basement fan-tan parlors of Chinatown to the top of the Statue of Liberty’s torch, Smith and his brilliant assistant, April Malone, will have to unravel the clues and avoid danger lurking behind every corner. To stop the menace they’ll need they enlist the help of Theodore Roosevelt and other early twentieth-century heroes.
The second book in The Chronological Man series, The Martian Emperor combines mystery, airship battles and backroom Tammany Hall politics against the backdrop of a world on the verge of war.
After an episode that left my expectations for this episode in the same shape as Lori’s car. I was ready to quit. Done writing recaps. I don’t like crapping on TV that other people like.
But with that said, last Sunday’s installment was… good? Yeah, it was good. It was definitely good. In fact, it is only the proximity to the previous week’s poop storm which qualifies my praise.
Like a beaten dog, I can’t help but flinch even when given a treat. I digest this snausage AFTER THE JUMP Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a revolution best served with pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun.
The first test-tube grown hamburger will be produced this fall. Although still in the laboratory phase as of now, the experiment will eventually produces thousands of small tissues recreated from a cow’s stem cells. This proof of concept could be a very powerful one, reshaping agriculture as we know it.
Could meat grown in a lab and not from a slaughtered animal be considered vegan?
Only time and possibly some Bar-B-Q sauce will tell…
It streaked through the sky and made a loud boom in South Carolina, but what exactly crashed to Earth this week in the Palmetto State?
A local astronomer claims it was a meteorite, but we will leave it up to you dear readers to determine for yourselves. Could this be a rogue alien craft, crash laded on our home planet?
Not that Adolf Hitler is really hurting for further reasons to categorize him as a first-class jerk, but we can add one more log to the fire.
Adolf Hitler was a deadbeat dad.
At least that’s what new evidence suggests. As an idealistic young soldier in France during World War I, Hitler befriended a 16-year-old farm girl named Charlotte Lobjoie. One night, after getting a little liquored up, Ol’ Adolf blitzkrieg’d young Charlotte and nine months later Jean-Marie Loret was born.
That baby went on to join the French resistance in their struggle against the Nazi menace. Loret’s claim of being fathered by Hitler is not new. He spelled out his case in a 1981 memoir, which was long thought to be discredited.
Until now.
The new evidence — which includes handwriting analysis, documents indicating Hitler secretly supported the woman financially and paintings signed “Adolf Hitler” discovered in her home — is outlined by Le Point magazine, whose report Friday was widely picked up in the French media but largely ignored by German news outlets.
So why would someone’s estate work so hard to prove they are the only biological descendant of the most reviled dictator in modern history? Mein Royalties!
Cash collected for Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf could be collected by Loret’s children.
Heard your friends talking about Andrew Mayne’s books but don’t have the coin to pick one up? Now you can listen to his first three book for free in audiobook podcast form.
The Grendel’s Shadow: T.R. Westwood, distinguished professor of biology and the galaxy’s greatest hunter is in for the biggest challenge of his career. When an unknown animal starts killing off settlers on a backwater planet run on coal and steam power, he’s the only person who can help stop the slaughter.
Public Enemy Zero: The world is out to kill Mitchell Roberts. A strange virus is on the loose sending everyone he comes in contact with into a homicidal rage. He’s got to stay a step ahead of everyone around him if he doesn’t want to get ripped apart alive.
The Chronological Man: The Monster in the Mist: When the citizens of Boston begin to go missing in the fog in 1890, it’s up to the mysterious Smith, inventor and adventurer, to figure out what’s going on with the help of his assistant, April Malone.
Recorded on Valentine’s Day… Love is in the air as we are joined by not one, not two but three actual women. Bonnie The Invisible Wife is joined by Kimmy Kim and Frutron from the YouTube series Hollywood is Hard. Ritual cannibalism as a sign of respect for a fallen loved one is discussed. Frutron is bit by a deadly snake that could lead to all the wrong kinds of weight loss. Brian is consistently confused by descriptions of a Woolly Mammoth. A purple squirrel is loosed in a peaceful Pennsylvania town.
It’s finally happened. The endless bleating of Boing Boing commenters has summoned a creature neither God nor man will lay claim to.
The sheeple are here.
Although many surely thought sheeple was only a derogatory slur for those blind to the bought and paid for government controlling our every move, the truth is far more sinister. Nigerian locals believe a sheep gave birth to a sheep/people hybrid this week.
Garba Aminu, a commercial motorcycle rider, averred: “This is an abomination in our land. To see a sheep give birth to a half human being is a mystery and that shows how terrible some people are. It is unimaginable that some people will be having intercourse with animals.”
Of course, doctors (no doubt in the employ of the Federal Reserve) claim this is simply a horrific deformity and not a mutant sent to open the eyes of a weary proletariat. But those of us paying attention know far better.
The sheeple are here! Wake up other sheeple that are actually humans! The truth is right in front of you.
