ZSC Recipe Challenge

The Zombie Survival Crew was looking to put together a recipe book.

Below is the actual blurb from the web site:

The ZSC is looking for original survivalist recipes. These recipes need to be easy to make over a campfire, or with no cooking at all. Utilize local fruits, vegetables, and protein—anything you’d be able to find on the run from zombies. We’re also looking for recipes which can be made ahead of time and stored for use in case of a cataclysmic emergency, both natural and undead, like jams, canned stews, etc.

I turned this in. I’m not a chef or very handy in the kitchen, so I turned in something a little different. Now keep in mind the ZSC is all about having a bag packed and ready at all times. This idea was done with that in mind.

I haven’t heard anything back, so I thought I would share my idea here:

—–

So….

You have been preparing yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse. You joined the Zombie Survival Crew and you have read every inch of the web site. You even have your survival go-bag packed and ready. Speaking of your go-bag, it’s pretty full, isn’t it? You’ve got your pillow, first aid kit, camping supplies, flint, manuals, flashlight, rope, tape, and whatever else came to mind…in other words, not much room for food. That means you are either going to need to hunt, forge, and/or scavenge for substance. What most people forget is that the key to good tasting food whether hunted or store bought, is good seasoning.

So after you hunt down that deer or forge for fresh carrots, before you cook them, you are going to want to season them. This is where a little preparation comes in handy. Grab several sandwich baggies and a sharpie marker to label your bags. The best thing about it, is that your seasoning bags will be compact enough to fit in your go-bag no matter how full it is.

Quick tips:

1) If you are using fresh herbs, you will need to dry them and chop them up fine before adding to your bags.

2) You don’t have to measure the herbs. Equal parts of each will do. If there are some that you like better or not so much, then you can add a touch more or a touch less. There is no wrong configuration.

3) You can use any size bag. It really depends on how much room you have in your go-bag.

 

Italian Seasoning Bag

A versatile seasoning that can be used on anything from meats to vegetables to even bagels and potato chips to give them a little zing.

Throw together in a bag equal parts:

basil

oregano

garlic powder

thyme 

onion salt

rosemary

 

Seafood Seasoning Bag

Can be used on anything from fish to clams to crabs.

Throw together in a bag equal parts:

bay leaves

celery salt

nutmeg

ground black pepper

paprika

ground white pepper

ground ginger

crushed red pepper flakes

ground cloves

dry mustard

ground cardamom

ground allspice

 

Asian Seasoning Bag

Add a little kick to stir fry, noodles, and vegetables.

Throw together in a bag equal parts:

anise powder

ground pepper

ground cloves

ground fennel

cinnamon

sea salt

 

Cajun Seasoning 

The amount of Cayenne you use will determine the hotness, if you leave the cayenne out it becomes an all purpose seasoning.

Throw together in a bag equal parts:

onion powder

paprika

sea salt

garlic powder

thyme 

black pepper

cayenne pepper

oregano

 

Some bonus treats you could keep in a baggie:

Trail Mix – any types of dried fruit, nuts, granola , chocolate or yogurt covered candies

Cereal Party Mix – any type of cereal, nuts, pretzels, bagel chips, onion powder, salt, garlic powder

 

Time Travelling Zombies Vs The Dinosaurs

If you are unfamiliar with SyFy Channels brand of movies, check out this post: My Simplistic Review of Sharknado.

If you don’t feel like clicking the link, and I know that you don’t…basically in a nutshell, SciFy Channels movies are weird, low budget, campy, and silly.

In other words: perfect.

Here is a short list of some of their offerings:

Alien Apocalypse

Rage of the Yeti

Dinoshark

Jersey Shore Shark Attack

Sharktopus

SO with that in mind, here are two movie concepts I would like to pitch to the SyFy channel.

Movie Concept Numero Uno:

Act I

The year is 3013 and Zombies have taken over the planet Earth. Only a few hundred uninfected humans are left including the evil Dr. Richard Dicks. The evil Dr. Richard Dicks has been building a time machine, unsuccessfully mind you, for the last twenty years. His plan is to go back in time before the Zombie Apocalypse and become rich off the stock market as inspired by the movie Back To The Future 2. Franklin Shallow and the Shallow Freedom Fighters learn of the evil Dr. Dicks plan and formulate a plan of their own to stop him. Franklin Shallow and the Shallow Freedom Fighters execute their plan in the middle of the night and everything goes wrong! As Franklin and the evil Dr. Dicks fight in hand to hand combat they accidentally start the untested Time Machine. Suddenly hordes of Zombies that have been kept at bay by the evil Dr. Dicks security systems break through and start eating all the Freedom Fighters and the evil Dr. Dicks evil Henchmen. As the zombies descend on Franklin Shallow and the evil Dr. Dicks, the Time Machine emits an eerie bright light and sucks all the Zombies into it, along with Franklin and the evil Dr. Dicks.

Act II

The Zombies, Franklin, and the evil Dr. Dicks find themselves back in time in the land of dinosaurs. The Zombies start attacking the dinosaurs. The big dinosaurs like the Brontosaurs and the T-Rex easily step and crush the Zombies, but the smaller Dinosaurs, like the  Compsognathus and the Velociraptor fall victim to the zombie’s bite and become Zombie Dinosaurs. Franklin and the evil Dr. Dicks realize they need to work together, along with the bigger dinosaurs to stop the Zombies and the Zombie Dinosaurs before the time line is drastically changed and man would cease to exist.

Movie Concept Numero B:

Crazy Grandma

The Stickman’s are an ordinary family. The family consists of Mom Stickman, Dad Stickman, Brother Stickman, Baby Stickman, and Grandma Stickman. Grandma Stickman often feels left out and ridiculed by the family.  The Stickman’s don’t mean to make Grandma feel this way, it just sort of happens. One Saturday night the Stickman’s decide to go out to their favorite fancy restaurant, The Olive Garden.  During the family’s fifth serving of the Never Ending Pasta Bowl Promotion, Grandma Stickman starts chocking on a meatball. The Stickman’s not realizing the severity of Grandma’s chocking start laughing and pointing at her. Not until Grandma starts turning blue does the Olive Garden waiter rush to her aid and applies the Heimlich Maneuver. Grandma passes out for a brief moment and goes to Hell. During her visit to Hell the Devil gives her special powers and super strength. When Grandma comes too, she goes on a rampage and kills everyone in the Olive Garden. She kills the Stickman’s by hanging them from the ceiling with Spaghetti. Then Grandma starts her killing spree through the small town with various funny one liners and new and crazy inventive killings.

Grandma Stickman is finally stopped by the Local Sheriff and the Local Demonologist in a show down that involves Ben Gay Ointment, Bingo Cards, and a car whose left blinker light has been on for the last seven miles.

Jack Is Better At This Vine Thing Than Me

No secret, I’m a big fan of Social Media. I usually try the latest and greatest, but mostly stick to the big three…at least for me…Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress.

Here is my quick take on some of them:

Twitter – The best one out there, by far, hands down. If you don’t have a Twitter, get one. If you don’t understand it, learn. One of the greatest things about it, is it’s list feature. You can create a news list, comedy list, sports list, etc.  Then you have little pockets of news and entertainment. However, sometimes the 140 character limit gets annoying because I can be wordy.

Facebook – Good for those posts that you just can’t get down to 140 characters no matter how hard you try.  Also apparently good for baby pictures, car pictures, and cryptic sad posts.

WordPress – A community. Enough said. Love.

Instagram – If you like pictures of other people’s food, then this is the place for you.

LinkedIn – Seems to be a network for people in business. The only thing I use it for is to promote this blog and the Long Awkward Pause magazine. I imagine people sitting around in business suits, opening their LinkedIn feed and seeing my posts about boobs, twinkies, and toilet paper and throwing their phones at the window. I drove by the Chase Bank building in downtown Orlando the other day after publishing and saw a big pile of cell phones lying outside of it and I smiled. I knew I did my job well that day.

FourSquare – Tells people when your not home. Good for members of the Wet Bandit Gang.

GetGlue – Tells people what shows you are watching. People really don’t care what shows I’m watching, I get that. However, you earn virtual stickers for checking into certain shows. The really cool thing is that GetGlue will send you real stickers of your virtual stickers for free! Everyone likes stickers.

Tumblr – If you like animated Gifs and seeing the same funny picture 50 times from 50 different people, then this different take on the blog format is for you. Also, boobs.

Google + – This service was suppose to be the Facebook killer. Well, after killing nothing, it’s now overrun by Google employees and people in various web related industries. If you’re a techie, web designer, or computer programmer, then you will want to hang out here.

Pinterest – It started with the women of the world posting their craft and holiday ideas. Slowly, some of us has been invading it with our dumb pictures and themes. I actually have a big following on here and have declared myself the King of Pinterest.

YouTube – We all know what this is…the cool thing about YouTube is that over the last couple of years they have funded original programming, and a lot of those shows are incredibly good. Three that I like to watch are: TableTop, Why Would You Eat That? and Bored Shorts TV. I also use YouTube to catch up the Jimmy Fallon Show.

There are other sites out there, but who cares?

About…I don’t know…6 or so months ago, along comes Vine for Android. IPhone users had Vine for awhile. If your not familiar, it’s an app where you record 6 second videos that play in a continuous loop.

Side Note: When Vine hit the Android platform the IPhone people were upset. This makes no sense to me, because if you are in to creating something, why wouldn’t want more people to see it? You just doubled your number of followers dumb ass! This was the start of putting a sour taste in my mouth about Vine.

Side Note Two: Vine has a created a new type of porn. The 6 second porn. Make your own obvious jokes here.

Side Note Three: I suck at Vine. I suck at all those other platforms too, but I really, really, really  suck at Vine.

For example, this was one of my first Vines:

And it has all the classics of what most Vines are: something random, some kid, and not very interesting.

Here is another attempt:

A lot of Viners…I don’t know if that is what they call themselves, but I’m calling them that…like to practice the art of misdirection, by filming one thing, then cutting to something random. Here is my attempt:

(If there is no sound, hover over the video with your mouse cursor and click the speaker icon that comes up. Your not missing anything if you can’t get it to work.)

I’m not a good Viner. Most of my vines miss the key action of the scene, like this from Medieval Times:

In this vine, it starts with me missing the start of the competition, thus the guy just sitting on the horse, then cut to me missing the battle, which is why you see the knight getting off the ground, and finally a missed shot of a knight being tossed from his horse.

This one is of a zombies at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights walking through the bar line. I started the video too early and missed the actual walk through. No second chance with this stuff, which is why I just posted it anyway. It was cool…the part not in the Vine that is…

Here is another zombie where I cut off the Vine just before the attack on some unsuspecting tourist in line:

If you pay close attention, at the end you can see him about to lunge. I missed the lunge. The lunge was the best part.

As of this writing, I only have about 30 Vines. It’s not really something I plan on doing regularly.  Vine already has it’s standout “stars” as it is, one of them being Nicholas Megalis:

Go follow Nick, and in the meantime, I’ll just leave you with my best vine:

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Meet Christopher De Voss: Writer for Zombie Survival Crew

Once again it’s Thursday which means it’s a day of reblogging….but is it okay to reblog someone when they are talking about me? Of course it is!

cestlavie22

One thing I absolutely love about blogging is being exposed to new people. In the blogosphere you can meet all types of people who get a chance to do interesting things.

One thing my blogging buds might not know about me is I love Zombies. I am obsessed with the Walking Dead, I have seen most Zombie movies on the shelf and I am pretty sure I am a chick you would want with you if a Zombie Appocalypse hit.

In my blogging travels I ran across one of the writers for the “Zombie Survival Crew” and I just couldn’t pass up the chance to interview him and share with you what he had to say:

Interview with Christopher De Voss:

 

For those who don’t know, what is the general premise of “Zombie Survival Crew?”

 

The ZSC is a web site/club started by Juliette Terzieff. They specialize in…

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So Here’s the Thing About Walking

It’s Thursday…there must be a reblog on the horizon…Now the fact that this post starts out with two out of three of my favorite things…zombies and Star Wars…may lead you to believe as to way this post made the cut today. You would be correct. Anyway, take a quick walk with this Maineiac (groan) and her foot doctor and see why putting one slightly shorter leg in front of the other might make you chuckle.

She's A Maineiac

If you ever happen to be strolling down a walking path in Maine and come across a limping, weeping, zombie Darth Vader, don’t be alarmed — it’s just me.

It all started a few years ago when my podiatrist pointed to the tiny stress fracture on my X-ray and said, “See this? When your foot comes down on the pavement, it cracks, just like a pretzel.”

“Okay. I guess that’s not good?” I asked.

“No.”

“But I was only walking.”

“Yeah.”

“So what you’re saying is…I can’t walk anymore?”

“Oh, no. You can walk. But…well, pretend my fingers are your toes,” she pressed her hand onto the table and made a loud cracking noise.

I blinked.

“Tell you what,” she peered over her glasses at me. “Just keep walking using this orthotic insert and we’ll see what happens.”

“What will happen?”

“Oh, nothing, if it doesn’t work, we’ll just cut open your ankle here…” she tapped her finger…

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The First Fifteen Minutes Of: The Horde (2009)

Why only review the first fifteen minutes? Because that is going to tell you whether or not or you would be interested in the rest of the movie.

The synapses: An end of the world battle between gangsters, cops and zombies in a high rise.
Directors: Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher
Starring:  Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins and Eriq Ebouaney
Total Running Time: 1:37

The film is originally in French, but the version I saw was dubbed over in English. Don’t worry, no reading required.

Zero Minutes In:

We open the movie to a view of a dead body, with an Angry Dude with a cross tattoo on his arm staring over a body.

Who is the dead man? Who is the Angry Dude?

We don’t know, because we cut to a funeral scene. The Angry Dude is there along with some French Chick. Which makes sense because the film is French, remember? We pan around the funeral attendees who mill between each other, always looking like they are going to say something to one another, yet they never do.

Then everyone kisses this Barbra Streisand looking lady. A scruffy bearded guy talks to her. We find out that the Dead Man is this woman’s husband. She tells Scruffy to “bring them all back to her.” Scruffy promises.

Next scene is at night. The Angry Dude, The French Chick, Scruffy, and Another Funeral Goer are shown trunk view from a car.

5 Minutes In:

They don some black ski masks, grab some guns, and head towards a skyrise apartment building.

Breathing heavy we get near the building to listen to some Guys With Dogs tell each other to “Fuck off!” That prompts what I assume is Angry Dude to tell the masked people to head to the back of the building. Which they do to some very fine dramatic music.

Crap! Some man is standing at the back of the building too! One of the masked men pulls out a knife. Another one tells him, “We are not here for a blood bath.” And promptly goes to the Dude That Was Just Standing There and beats him up.

Angry Dude rips off his mask. He is really angry now. Quickly pulling out his knife he kills the Dude That Was Just Standing There. Scruffy takes off his mask. Angry Dude tells him that, “Yes, we are here for a blood bath.”

They pull down their masks and enter the building.

Once inside the building, we enter a stairwell and do that whole: point-guns-in-different-directions-in-case-anyone-is-coming thing.

Some mustached man with a shotgun busts in on them from behind. Gun trigger sounds emit. Angry Dude pulls out a rather large wallet with a silver coin in the middle of it and holds it up.

We are guessing that is the French version of a police badge. The man with the shotgun tells the cops that he is the Superintendent of the building. They have a quick conversation about the whereabouts of the men they are looking for, the lookouts around the place, and also the fact that building is condemned. Up the stairs the cops (or coin collectors) go. The Superintendent mutters something about how this is his building and heads off in the opposite direction.

As we climb flight after flight of stairs we run across some mean looking chick smoking a cigarette.

We have a twenty second stare-off and move on. The Smoking lady looks like that the entire twenty seconds.

Continuing up the stairs we finally reach the top. A quick recap of the game plan from the Angry Man about who is blowing what up and who is shooting who, and of course the standard: “No one moves until I say so!”

10 Minutes In:

More gun pointing in various directions, this time down an empty hallway. We also do that finger in the air thing, where you point up to the sky to signal it’s clear and then wave the next person to run through to the target. A staple of all rush and seize scenes.

Next we do some of that silly putty/chewed bubble gum explosive thing, where we play with it and stick it on the door. Then you stick a exposed copper speaker wire into it.

However, before we can finish setting up the blow-the-door-open charges, the Superintendent bursts onto the scene to offer his shotgun to the Coin Collectors to help aid them against whoever is behind the door. Some loud whispering ensues, and the Angry Man steps in front of the door just as a bullet comes flying through it. What bad timing on his part.

Some more shooting through the door happens, then some explosions, until some guy emerges holding a gun.

The Superintendent shouts something unintelligible at the Guy With The Big Gun and is immediately shot by him like a hundred and forty times. So much for offering that great gun. He didn’t even get one shot off!

Another guy emerges and we start unmasking the Coin Collectors. (cops really, not trying to confuse you.) As the Second Guy discovers these masked men are Coin Collectors, a Third Guy emerges from the door, looking just as mean and grumpy as the first two.

How many mean and grumpy guys are behind this door anyway?
Four apparently.

As Third Guy is telling the other two to drag the bodies into the apartment, he tells Fourth Guy to go warn the Guys With Dogs downstairs that they have been breached. Fourth Guy blinks a lot and runs off. A Fifth Guy appears to help as Third Guy stares at the wounded Angry Dude. Third Guy rips off Angry Dude’s mask, and drags him into the apartment. He shuts the mostly blown apart apartment door.

We then cut back to the Guys With Dogs, but we just look at them for a brief second before returning to the interior of the apartment. All the Coin Collectors are against the wall. The Angry Dude is clearly dying and breathing like he has asthma.

But wait…another quick shot of Guys With Dogs and then back to the interior of the apartment.

We now see some Guy Tied On The Toilet. French Chick looks at him like she knows him. Third Guy holds a gun to Scruffys head and says, “Are you here looking for your (something unintelligible) and shoots Guy Tied On The Toilet.

15 Minutes

In review: So far not a single zombie. We have some good (or bad) cops seeking revenge against some bad guys in a condemned apartment building. They get caught.

Cast Of Characters So Far:
The Coin Collectors – Angry Dude, French Chick,Scruffy, and Another Funeral Goer plus Barbra Streisand looking lady.
The Bad Guys – Guy With Big Gun, Guys Two through Seven, Guys With Dogs.
Miscellaneous – Mean Smoking Lady, Dead Guy At The Beginning, The Superintendent

My Prediction For The Rest Of The Movie: The surviving cops and the bad guys will find a way to work together when the zombies do start appearing. Since this is in France the zombies will be fast, because European zombies are always fast. That’s how you tell they are European. At the end of the movie the French Chick, The Head Gangster, and Scruffy will survive or possibly just Scruffy.

Would I Continue Watching: Yes. It has potential, plus even though there has been no zombies yet, I see them coming in the very near future.

Meet Mark Desenti – Zombie Survival Expert

There is a quiet city just north of Orlando called Clermont. It’s a growing community located on the main route 50 highway. It’s got rolling hills, a few car dealerships, a Kmart, and a Target. When the Chipolte restaurant opened up recently, it was a big deal.

Just off Highway 50 is a subdivision about a mile down. It springs up out of nowhere a little after seeing nothing but rolling grass and trees. In this subdivision is an important house. It belongs to Mark DeSenti, a Zombie Survival Expert.

“Zombies? Pfffft!” you scoff.

But ask yourself: If the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta felt the need to write up and publish information on zombies and zombie attacks…are you really willing to discount the fact that it could not happen? Are you willing to risk your life and the lives of your loved ones and pets because you discount it as mere late night movie fodder? Do you want to be caught with your pants down, around your ankles, as several hungry zombies turn you into a seven course intestinal meal?

Of course not!

But where to begin?

That’s where people like Mark can help.

Mark DeSenti, Zombie Survival Expert

Mark recently let me into his zombie room, which is part tribute to the genre, and part survival preparation center. And in the center of his collection, a very real and useful Zombie Survival Kit.

Looks like an ordinary house, but inside that second floor window lies the key to zombie survival.

The purpose of the kit, of course, is to be able to house the essential tools needed to survive an actual zombie attack. The kit also must be portable in case anyone needs to vacate from an oncoming, non-stop, zombie horde.

Mark keeps the key in a secret safe place.

So let’s unlock this and check what’s inside:

First up you should have some tools. A good multi-tool is essential and can be found easily at any Home Depot. Mark acquired this unique portable saw and added it to his personal kit. You may want to include a rubber mallet and nails as well.

Zombie Kit building 101 always includes the machete. Not only is it an invaluable tool for a variety of reasons, it is also a deadly bludging weapon.

And speaking of weapons…pictured here is a Raging Bull .44 Magnum. Big, powerful, responsive.

The actual name of the ammunition that the .44 takes is called Zombie Killers. If that doesn’t tell you this is the right weapon for the job, then nothing will.

Contains of the kit: Portable Saw, Machete, Bowie Knife, Raging Bull .44 Magnum, Cobra 380, Ammunition. Not in the picture: .22 Long Range Rifle, and a Handheld Crossbow.

Now, besides what is in the grab and go box…also on hand:

Water jugs, canned food, a tent, and tarps.

Mark has also devised specific escape plans if needed, sort of like when you had to come up with a fire escape route for your house in grade school. What is really cool is that Mark’s preparedness will come in handy for any type of emergency situation, including Florida’s most common natural enemy, hurricanes.

He is also very astute when it comes to the layout of the area surrounding his house, and has devised several specific and different alternative plans if anything should go wrong.

An example of some good advice from Mark:

“If you can get to a UHaul Storage Place that has trucks. Get one. They are generally full of gas, because people are required to bring them back with a full tank. They have room for everything of course, and they can take a beating.”

So basically if you live in Clermont, Florida and the zombies come, find Mark. Or if you are nowhere near him, instead hire him out to help you put together your own Zombie Survival Kit and devise your best escape routes.

You can contact him here: Markdesenti@cfl.rr.com

My only advice to Mark for the Zombie Survival Kit…add a deck of cards. In the off chance there is any down time at all…not likely…you made need some entertainment.

Some Fun Halloween Zombie Stuff You Need – Halloween 2012

Some Fun Halloween Zombie Stuff You Need

Zombie Bedding

Zombie Cookie Cutter

Zombie Cocktail

Zombie Spatula Hat (Because zombies love spatulas????)

Zombie Popcorn Bucket

Zombie Attack Stroller

Zombie Bottle Opener

Zombie Teapot (British zombies drink tea.)

Zombie Lawn Gnomes

Zombie Shoes

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Zombie Doorstop

Zombie Self Promotion (Which you can buy on Zazzle)

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