OUCH FM, my new flash animation

Is finally finished and published. Enjoy.

Comic Review – Unknown Soldier #09 and Astonishing X-Men #30

First of these in a while, so let’s start off slow…

Unknown Soldier #09

Written by Joshua Dysart

Art by Alberto Ponticelli

Colours by Oscar Celestini

Lettering by Clem Robins

Published by DC/Vertigo

In a nutshell: Focusing on the CIA agent Jack Lee Howl, Joshua Dysart’s writing overcomes the poor artwork and keeps things moving and intriguing, with an unexpected but adequate sense of humour.

Amoral and pathetic, Jack Lee Howl is a piece of shit who will let anyone stomp on him if it’ll keep him alive — even if “alive” is a bit of an optimistic term to define Howl’s condition. He describes himself, accurately, as a “tool” rather than a human being — and it’s the moment he decides he doesn’t want to be that any more that this issue of “Unknown Soldier” focuses on, without losing sight of the plot: the titular character’s indecision on whether he should murder the well-intentioned celebrity Margaret Wells, since her assassination would turn the world’s attention to the troubles of Uganda. The way they’re putting it, it’s a choice between the death of one celeb or of hundreds of child soldiers.

Providing some extra back story on the project that made the protagonist Lwanga Moses become a bandaged psycho, Dysart does a good job of exploring Howl’s background and personality and tying that to the ongoing plot: a story about the Siafu (a devastating kind of ant), for example, is used by Howl as a “way in” as he tries to work on a relationship with Moses (intending, of course, to exploit the man for his own ends). Howl is not likeable and not admirable — but he is intriguing, and that’s what he’s intended to be. Not to mention amusing in his sleaziness.

Dysart also illustrates Moses’ dilemma regarding Wells’ murder with a page divided into two panels — one showing hundreds of dead children and another showing only Wells being killed, creating a heavy contrast that, for a man with a soldier’s mentality, should be enough to make a decision.

Ponticelli’s art has improved, but only slightly. There’s more detail in his panels, but they’re just as sketchy as everything else, a dirty artwork that doesn’t have the charm of, say, Goran Parlov, the narrative brilliance of Sean Phillips or the impressive composition of Danijel Zezelj. It just looks amateur in its roughness, something that is made even worse by the laughable colour work by Oscar Celestini, whose technique would maybe look impressive in 1994 or so.

On the other hand, Clem Robins’ lettering continues to please in its intensity. You can easily hear the dialogue, imagine the voices and their tone thanks to Robins’ work (and Dysart’s good use of bold on his lines), and the placement of balloons and captions is flawless. I especially like the moment Moses yells “right fucking NOW” and “now” is written in a much larger font, with part of the balloon jagging to emphasize the shout.

Relevant and interesting, “Unknown Soldier” continues to be a brilliant ongoing that hasn’t lost its initial momentum. But it could use a decent art team.

Astonishing X-Men #30

Written by Warren Ellis

Art by Simone Bianchi

Ink Washes by Simone Bianchi and Andrea Silvestri

Colours by Simone Peruzzi, Morry Hollowell and Simone Bianchi

Lettering by Chris Eliopoulos

Published by Marvel Comics

In a nutshell: Mildly amusing and pretty, but overall meh.

So, all the five-issues-long mistery and intrigue can be summed up by “Forge went crazy”.

On his brilliant Astonishing X-Men run, Joss Whedon created a number of characters to support his original story lines. Warren Ellis, on the other hand, is digging deep into the Marvel Universe to find characters and loose ends to use — it’s like he was scraping the leftovers on the bottom of a barrel and look, there’s Forge. Let’s make him crazy, create a weak connection to a major Marvel event and add a scientific thingie called Ghost Box so it’ll all look more complex than it really is.

But really — Forge went crazy and made an army of, erm, mutant mutants. That’s about it. And it took four or five issues (can’t even remember) to find that out and one issue, this one, to solve the problem. And of course, it’s solved with arse-kicking. At least, the dialogue is good and Ellis’ humour is very present, but not enough to disguise the simplicity of the plot and its reliance on the reader’s knowledge of the Marvel Universe.

The art team, however, is at its best. Simone Bianchi has a good eye for page layout, and his narrative has gotten much better. His art feels less like a strung-together bunch of pin-ups and more like a continuing story, which is a huge improvement — and at the same time, he can create panels that stand quite well on their own, like the one of Wolverine popping his claws. The colouring is also very appropriate and well-shaded, and Chris Eliopoulos’ lettering is efficient, although it doesn’t go past that.

It’s a fun issue, but it also happens to be the ending of an overlong arc — that didn’t really go anywhere interesting or unexpected.

Game Review – Infamous (PS3) and Prototype (PS3, XBOX360, PC)

Two games that are very similar in concept but very different in execution, “Infamous” and “Prototype” have been the stars of “versus” features all over the internet, trying to decide which game is better. Which I think is an exercise in utter futility, considering both games are extremely solid, ambitious and manage to deliver on their promises despite the inevitable nagging issues. This review will talk about both side by side, and there’ll obviously be comparisons, but always keeping in mind both are excellent, entertaining games.

When it comes to story, “Infamous” easily has the upper hand. Cole McGrath is a courier. One day he’s tasked with taking a package to the center of Empire City and opening it. Upon unwittingly doing so, it explodes and partially destroys the place, killing thousands of people. Cole himself, however, not only survives: he develops a variety of powers related to electricity, like shooting bursts of lightning from his hands and sliding power cables. Trying to come to terms with his new life and being used by several authority figures to achieve mysterious ends, Cole has to decide how to use his powers, and the game gives you the binary choice of being good or evil. And that’s the one glaring flaw in the game’s narrative — there’s no middle ground. You’re either child-rescuing good or child-raping evil. You choose a path and you get going, so the choices the game puts before you aren’t going to take a moment’s thought — if you’ve chosen to be evil, just take the evil route, and so on. In fact, being evil for a while then deciding to be good is not a clever call, because “good” powers and “evil” powers are different and only accessible if you’re one of either. So if you choose to be good or evil, you should keep that up all the way, because going from “Infamous” (the most villainous rank) to “Hero” looks like a lot of effort (I didn’t try it, since it seems very unrewarding).

However, once you get used to the black-and-white moral system, the story is intriguing enough to keep your attention, the dialogue is well-written and the characters, interesting and likeable despite their flaws — Zeke is a good example. An utterly selfish prick, he is however very funny and captivating in his child-like enthusiasm. And the moral system may be simplistic, but the choices you make DO affect the game’s story directly, and the way people see you and react to you. And intelligently, the writers always tell the story with a light, fantastic tone that allows for some campy elements, like monsters made out of trash and the twist in the ending of the game, which would sound ridiculous in a realistic game but in “Infamous”, fits the world established by the story.

“Prototype”, however, is about a man with no memory who is the victim of a military super-human virus and we hear his story as he tells it to us, via flashbacks. I counted three major cliches so far. This is not a game that focuses on its story, but instead, on its premise — allowing the player to control a mega-powerful superhuman in a destructible New York city full of pedestrians that apparently have ten liters of blood in their body rather than the usual five. The story is just an excuse to give you a sense of purpose as you blow up the place and cause mass murder.

The protagonist, Alex Mercer, has the obvious problem of lacking a personality. After all, while he claims to be interested in saving the city from the virus (which turns people into zombies and other types of monsters), he won’t hesitate to cause so much collateral damage I couldn’t help wondering if the virus was really the greater threat. The writers were clearly at a loss on how to portray Mercer, so they just give him a sister to care about and a sub-plot involving the recovery of his memories so he has more reasons to stop the virus, since “I want to save the world” does not fit well with a guy who can’t swing his claws without killing five pedestrians along with his intended target.

And the story itself is uninteresting and cliched, with characters you could care less about. You feel compelled to progress due to the excellent upgrade system, which offers so many new powers and moves that the next mission becomes suddenly very attractive due to the XP it will give you (or EP, Evolution Points, as the game calls them). In fact, the developers were VERY creative with Mercer’s powers, like the one were he sticks his claws into the ground and, several feet ahead, they erupt like spikes, impaling targets from the bottom-up. Not to mention he can kill and consume people to regain health and take on their appearances, a system that works quite well.

The upgrade system in “Infamous” depends a lot on your moral choices. For example, you have the power of throwing shock grenades — if you’re evil, they’ll FUCK SHIT UP upon exploding. If you’re not, the enemies knocked down by it will simply be restrained by lightning handcuffs upon hitting the floor. It has to be said the evil powers ARE more attractive than the good powers, but that’s only natural — when you play a game, it’s FUN to be evil and unwind a bit.

And the powers in “Infamous” are generally cool, but the XP system is remarkably cheap. All the game’s 40 main missions add up to 20.000 XP, which is barely enough to fully power-up your main lightning power. The game rewards you for kicking ass in style, but the rewards go from 1 XP to 20 XP, so patrolling around the city in search of enemies isn’t that attractive. And the side missions give you 100 XP each, regardless of difficulty — and some are remarkably hard, opposed to some that barely feel like a mission at all.

However, the side missions in “Infamous” are well-developed and have a quick but relevant back story to them. Pedestrians will ask you to destroy surveillance equipment in their buildings, or to recover a friend or sibling from the hands of enemies, or to disband a crowd of protesters. Every time you finish a side mission, the area it happened in is generally free of enemies spawning in it, too.

Meanwhile, the side missions in “Prototype” are more like challenges — and all of them have a time limit. They offer shitloads of XP but simply add an “arcade” aspect to the game rather than making the city feel more alive — stuff like, “kill this many enemies in this time limit”. There’s even medals. I didn’t feel like wasting my time on it, since it didn’t contribute to the story — except for the “Web Of Intrigue” side mission, that consists in finding people who are tied to the game’s main story and consuming them (and therefore, their memories), which unlocks a quick (optional) cutscene and an EP reward. And some side missions, like destroying a hive (a building infected by the virus) or a police HQ have their rewards, and sneaking into the HQ is fun due to Mercer’s powers — if you’re under disguise, you can accuse an enemy soldier of being you, and his friends will shoot the poor twat and only afterwards realize their mistake. And within HQs, there’s enemies that will offer you special skills upon being consumed, like piloting helicopters or using guns.

Yes, combat IS that diversified in “Prototype”. You can pilot tanks, APCs, helicopters, shoot machineguns, bazookas, grenade launchers, assault rifles, use five different main powers (claws, hammerfist, muscle mass, extendible tentacle and blade), two different defensive powers (armor and shield), hand-to-hand combat, grab enemies and throw them, and so on and so forth.

And in “Infamous”, it’s always related to electricity. There’s some nice melee combat, but even your blows electrify the enemy. And while blowing them up never gets old due to the nice looking visual effects — well, imagine slicing several people in half in “Prototype” with one single blow, as blood washes the sidewalk and their upper halfs shower over bewildered soon-to-have-the-same-fate pedestrians, and you’ll have to agree Cole McGrath is a bit of a pussy next to Alex Mercer. Something that is also reflected in their acrobatic skills, by the way. While McGrath jumps from ledge to ledge, surely but slowly climbing the side of a building, Alex Mercer SPRINTS THE FUCK UP THE BUILDING, somersaults upon reaching the roof and jumps again to another roof. Yeah, there is no doubt who’d win in a race, really.

But despite McGrath’s limitations, he can be powerful if the player uses his abilities strategically — like electrifying a puddle of water with enemies on it, or landing heavily from a large height on a crowd of baddies to send them flying in all directions. His health is shitty, depleting fast under fire, but his abilities can make up for that if you use them wisely — and if you drain electricity from nearby objects, you can regain health almost immediately. There is, of course, the tiny problem of enemies being S.A.S. level marksmen, capable of hitting you from two roofs away — but thankfully, “Infamous” has a balanced difficulty curve that always keeps the challenge up without ruining the fun, and the missions have well-placed checkpoints.

Mercer also gets to use some strategy before FUCKING SHIT UP. For example, some of your powers are practically useless against tanks, and ALL of your powers are useless if you’re trying to bring down a building. Therefore, hijacking armored vehicles to do so is vital, and so is choosing the right weapon to do the job. Once you do, though, your enemies are fucking DOOMED. While McGrath needs to use a relatively lenghty “drain” power to regain health from enemies, Mercer just CRUSHES THEIR HEADS AND EATS THEM THE FUCK UP YUM YUM NOM NOM. You become a force of nature if you choose the appropriate powers to fight an enemy, and yes, that is as fun as it sounds.

Rampaging in “Prototype” is one of the game’s attractions, and while it can be fun to do so in “Infamous”, the former was developed with rampaging in mind — “let’s make this shit as fun as possible”. Pedestrians will be cut diagonally, horizontally and vertically in half, destroy objects when thrown against it, leave blood splatters everywhere and most of all, react incredibly well to your frightening presence. Crowd A.I. in “Prototype” is very well-programmed — some pedestrians run the fuck away, some stay paralyzed in fear, some stay torn between the two, others seem to even try to get everyone to calm down (and these are the funniest ones to brutally murder). “Prototype” lets you be an utterly evil fuck, and in terms of sheer destruction, no other game can touch this one. Using your powers to virtually destroy New York City is an ambitious concept that the clearly misanthropic developers managed to nail. And it’s unfair to request the same of “Infamous” because that was never the game’s focus.

Of course, in order to render hundreds of fleeing pedestrians and large explosions, “Prototype” had to sacrifice its visuals. The polygon count is noticeably lower than you’d expect from a next-gen title, and while things look good on ground level, climb up a building and the draw distance is pitifully mediocre, with lots of pop-in and similar problems. But really, if this is what’s required to keep the framerate steady while I FUCK SHIT UP, it’s a perfectly forgiveable sacrifice — and the attention to graphical detail in “Prototype” is truly remarkable, with blood splatters, cracks, and destructible scenario everywhere, not to mention exceptional physics. And it’s not only you causing destruction in the game — you can always see a battle between the army and the monsters happening in several places of the city, and even without your intervention, said battles look amazing, with pedestrians being brutally caught in the crossfire and casualties happening on both sides.

By comparison, I think “Infamous” could have a larger draw distance, since it comes nowhere close to being as graphically busy as “Prototype” — but the game’s art direction and overall color palette give the visuals a lot of charm, and the buildings of Empire City are far more detailed than the blocky New York City Alex Mercer sodomizes. “Infamous” also has some 2D cutscenes that look just beautiful. However, one thing both games get equally right is the animation of their protagonist — Cole and Alex are amazingly well-done, smoothly transitioning between realistic movements. Cole can target enemies from any position he’s in, and Alex can shoot guns while hopping several feet into the air. Amazing work in both games.

On the sound department, “Infamous” and “Prototype” both have competent soundtracks, but voice acting and sound effects are stronger on “Infamous”, with Cole’s powers sounding appropriately electric and the voices truly bringing the characters to life. A lot has been said about Cole’s voice (as the brilliant Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw put it, he sounds like an “angry blender full of gravel”), but Jason Cottle is very charismatic and delivers Cole’s sense of humour and anger very well. Barry Pepper also does a decent job as Alex Mercer, but the rest of the voice acting in the game is “meh” — while in “Infamous”, everyone manages to do a remarkable job. “Infamous” having a better story and characters clearly is an important factor in this. And finally, “Prototype” could have used some extra attention here and there — I would have expected Alex Mercer sprinting up a building to sound more thunderous than it does in the game, for example.

All in all, both games have strengths and weaknesses, but most importantly — both games are really fucking fun, ambitious and manage to deliver what they intended. “Prototype” is more violent, more brutal, more inconsequent and “Infamous” is better-written, more captivating and more balanced in its difficulty curve. Both games are brilliantly developed and deserve to be played.

Movie Review – Valkyrie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985699/

If you’ve read my review of “The Diving Bell And The Butterfly”, you know I despise the “The Following Is Based On A True Story” bullshit excuse that allows for dramatic changes while keeping the real names and likenesses of those involved. I despise it enough that it can overshadow a film’s qualities and ruin it for me. And while this has not happened in “Valkyrie”, it certainly was a factor that resulted in my “meh” reaction to a powerful and complex story — at least powerful and complex in real life, since the film manages to deliver a technically excellent but dumbed down version.

In July 20 1944, the ultimate attempt at Hitler’s life failed. The plan was to use the emergency plan “Operation Valkyrie” against the Nazi Party, arresting all the members of the SS and Gestapo while the conspirators seized power. This all should have happened after Hitler’s death, but the fucker didn’t die due to spectacular luck (the briefcase containing the bomb was moved to the other side of a heavy table leg that shielded the bastard). The movie tells, or pretends to tell, the preparation of the plan, the plan being carried out and the disastrous aftermath.

The script by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander simply lacks balls. Apparently under the impression their audience would be comprised of retards, the screenwriters didn’t bother to add any depth to the conspirators, who are seen as heroes simply because they wanted to kill Hitler. But the protagonist, Stauffenberg, was a very flawed man: an aristocrat who was in favour of the occupation of Poland and a practising Roman Catholic, and I imagine the latter was left out so it wouldn’t further stain the image of his interpreter, the practising Scientologist fanatic Tom Cruise. Cruise is a fine actor, but he made his personal life so public that it’s forcing filmmakers to adapt their films to him — and this is downright unacceptable. He either bites the bullet or bails out. Instead, he plays an unidimensional hero that is but a shadow of the complex man Stauffenberg was, refusing to embrace the man’s flaws.

Worse, McQuarrie and Alexander give him credit for things he didn’t do — the changes to the Valkyrie plan were implemented by Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), not him. And funnily enough, they take away from things he did do — like bluffing his way past THREE checkpoints after the attempt on Hitler’s life (they probably had no idea how he did it three times, so they cut it down to one). Similarly, Henning von Tresckow wasn’t the one to deliver the bomb to Brandt (in the beginning of the film) and he wasn’t the one to recover it afterwards — his deputy Fabian von Schlabrendorff did, but hey, Kenneth Branagh probably didn’t have enough screen time, right?

Point being, in order to simplify a very complex story, McQuarrie and Alexander hurt the film. None of the conspirators seem to own a human personality, instead being moved by a single motive. They don’t have any background and are seemingly born the moment the camera centers on them for the first time. They paint a black-and-white story over what was actually very, very grey.

However, they deserve credit for preserving some of the facts and getting some characters right: Fromm, played by Tom Wilkinson, is probably very close to the dick he was in real life; the sequence portraying the July 20 attempt is mostly loyal to the facts, especially on the factors that led to its failure — even the person who bumps against the briefcase and moves it to the table leg, Heinz Brandt, is shown doing so; Haeften really DID shield Stauffenberg from the firing squad, prior to Stauffenberg himself being shot — none of the bullets went through Haeften, which is at first glance preposterous but really did happen and is included in the film.

Historical inaccuracies aside, the script is simplistic but well-structured enough to be interesting, despite some painful dialogue that actually uses real quotes and twists them to fit Hollywood stupidity, like “God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find ten righteous men… I have a feeling that for Germany it may come down to one.” Yeah, Tresckow really did say that up to “righteous men” — prior to putting a live hand grenade under his chin and blowing his own head off. Here, it’s said as encouragement to Stauffenberg when he’s about to change “Operation Valkyrie”, something that was originally done by Tresckow and oh for fuck’s sake –

– FUCK THIS. It simply doesn’t work. If you’re going to use the real names, the likenesses and the real setting, then deal with the fucking consequences. If the star power of your stars can alter the story, don’t cast the stars.

Really, Bryan Singer was quoted as saying: “There were things I actually left out because I knew people would think we were making them up… imagine Tom Cruise saying ‘No morphine!’ People would think it’s a contrivance.”

Fuck you, Singer. You’re not in this business to worry about what the audience will think of Tom fucking Cruise saying something. Either make it work or kick him out, you incompetent, overrated hack.

…

Mm. I guess it did ruin the film for me. Oh well.

Flash Fic #13 – This One Has Zombies On It

I had no idea how they hadn’t seen me. Perhaps I was covered in so much blood they thought I was already dead, and the living ones were tastier. Not that they were still living. Steve had been reduced to a length of intestine, and I wasn’t even sure if it was Steve’s. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if the intestine wouldn’t come back to life, wrap itself around my throat and disgustingly try to choke me to death. Jeanne’s ribcage had been pried open and now looked like a meaty bowl, with her chewed-on organs floating on a pool of blood and zombie saliva. I was a bit creeped out by myself checking out her bare, blood-drenched tits anyway. I just had to, I kind of had a crush on Jeanne when her ribcage was still intact and her rack looked fine. Harry was the unluckiest one, because the zombies decided to start with his feet and went up, taking their time with every muscle. At two minutes, he should have been in shock, but his incessant screaming indicated otherwise, to the point of pissing off a zombie who ate half his throat before resuming the meal on his nether bits, so Harry just gurgled until death.

I was absolutely still throughout the whole thing. My face was the victim of Steve’s arterial spray and I fell on my arse, failing to get up or shoot my pistol. So I just went with it and pretended to be dead. I doubted I could have helped them with twenty zombies in the room and only eight bullets on my gun. When they were done eating, half an hour later, they left, one by one, not even glancing at me. I was probably very convincingly dead.

I raised my head and looked down — my shirt had been almost entirely covered in blood and what looked like a bit of stomach that had probably fallen from a zombie’s mouth. My pants were equally colored, and there was so much blood around that when I got up, my steps went “squish squish squish”. I hoped the guns left behind by the group were blood-proof. I picked up Steve’s AK-47, the one I had originally found but the fucker had sweet-talked for himself. I shook it a bit to get some of the blood off and, well, what else could I do with it? I put it under my arm and saw Jeanne’s pistol not far from her partially devoured hand. I picked it up and removed the magazine, which she hadn’t had the chance to use, and pocketed it. After a moment’s thought, the gun also went on the back of my pants, magazine reloaded into it, just in case.

And finally, there was Harry’s shotgun.

I picked it up, glancing quickly at Harry. His frozen, dead face looked like he was still screaming, but perhaps that was because his jaw had been ripped off. I almost slipped on it. I cocked the shotgun, for no particular reason besides looking cool, and shook some blood out of it. It had been fired twice, with four shells remaining. I examined the bloody mess that Harry had become, trying to see where his pockets were. I failed, or perhaps the idea of touching him just convinced me to fail before I even tried.

We were in an apartment complex. Enclosed space, so the shotgun would be a good bet. However, four shells wouldn’t do much good in the long run, so I settled for the half-a-magazine-loaded AK. And I wasn’t going to use it until absolutely necessary anyway, until then the pistol would have to do. So I slung the AK around my neck and thought whether I really, really couldn’t take the shotgun. Nope. So I left it, wondering if another survivor would come across it and have a moment of hope. Ha ha ha.

I left the room, nodding briefly to my fallen partners — yes, “fallen” has to be the biggest euphemism ever in this case — and looked down the sights of my pistol, pointing it straight ahead of me as I walked down the eerily silent corridor. Zombies weren’t into sneaking, so I figured the silence was a good sign. Only it made my steps sound relatively loud. And my breathing. And I got the impression even my heart was perfectly audible.

Then there was a groan coming from the staircase, and I could make out a faint shadow. It was the only way down, the elevator was no longer working. So I went over to the staircase, sneaked to the edge of the wall and took a quick look — three or four zombies, all still and very silent, except for the groaning one that seemed to be struggling against indigestion. Four bullets. Three, if I took the first one out with the knife. Two, if I managed to take two out with the knife. One, if I oh come on who was I kidding. The staircase made an u-turn to another set of stairs and then another u-turn, more stairs, and it went down in this fashion — there could be more zombies than I had ammo. And any loud sound would attract them all.

Mmm.

Steve had a flashbang with him. He kept complaining it was useless against zombies but potentially useful when we were fighting “the evil government troops and their conspiracy” in addition to zombies. So he carried it along with him, instead of pain pills or something more immediately handy. I went back into the room and glanced quickly at Steve, The Stubborn Length Of Intestine, proceeding to survey the room for the flashbang. Didn’t take long to see it on a corner. On my way to pick it up, I realized something.

Where was Jeanne’s corpse?

I felt hands gripping my shoulders from behind. Due to some incredibly convenient strategically-sound reflex, instead of trying to escape, I threw myself backwards, headbutting my opponent somewhere. I fell on all the blood and tried getting up, failing twice due to slipping like a fucking retard. Jeanne was on her feet, her forehead cut and blood on her eyes, trying to find me while leaning on the wall for support — her stomach was almost sliding out of her gaping abdomen.

Her stupid zombie brain took a while to figure out she could simply wipe the blood off her eyes with her other hand. In the meantime, I realized the pistol was no longer in my grip and in the heat of the moment, I didn’t remember I had one in the back of my pants. I surveyed the bloody floor and my eyes stopped on the shotgun precisely when Jeannie brushed her hand against her eyes and found me.

I leapt across the room and landed on my stomach, not as gracefully as I had planned but painlessly because I fell on Steve’s intestine, and slid over to the shotgun, which I grabbed and turned its sights to Jeannie, who was already on top of me about to bite.

The shot hit her chest — I mean, her back, since the chest was already open — and sent her flying against the wall. She bounced off of it and hit the ground like a big meaty sack. In my panic, I shot her head, which pretty much disintegrated at that close range.

After the shots, blessed silence — and then shrieks and groans reminded me I was in a building full of hungry zombies that had just heard two very loud sounds on an otherwise silent building.

FUCK.

No way was I going to risk the hahaha-I’m-just-pretending-to-be-dead strategy again, and my firepower was laughable. Without thinking further on the subject, I ran out of the room and there already were zombies heading my way, running and shrieking something that must mean “dinner is served!” in zombie. There was a window next to me, and I instinctively leapt through it, feeling every cut caused by the broken glass.

And then I remembered that window lead to the outside of the building, and I was on the 28th floor.

Some times, death is just random that way.

Rachael Noel Fox’s Photography Book, “DAD SOLD CRACK HERE”

While I’m (yes, slowly) recovering from a truckload of shit that fell on my head on the past weeks, Rachael Fox’s photographic skills continue to amaze me. I have seen the preview pages and am itching to buy her new print-on-demand New York photography book, brilliantly titled:

I want this on my fucking living room table.

You can see a preview and buy it here.

Blog Still On Hiatus

But things are looking up a bit. Probably back next week.

Okay, I’ll admit — this post is just an excuse to try blogging via my new cellphone, a handy Nokia E71 with QWERTY keyboard, nice features and decent camera.

So far, so good. Let’s see if this works…

Blog On Hiatus

I’ll have to abandon this blog for a few weeks, hopefully no longer than that. Having some health problems that are refusing to stabilize into something manageable.

So, as a man with a biceps the size of my head once said, “I’ll be back”.