About Zombie Apocalypse TV shows

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From time to time I write a post about TV shows on this blog and today I’m going to talk about Zombies.

I know everybody is thinking about a new boring post supporting The Walking Dead.

Sorry to disappoint you, I hate The Walking Dead.

I know that writing for the screen is different from books, for different reasons, but all the workshops I attended to left me a kind analytic ability or, if you prefer, compulsive obsessive kind of behavior that prevents me to enjoy a TV show without analyzing it.

This is what happened with The Walking Dead and this is why I don’t like it.

The Walking Dead doesn’t say anything, there is no goal to move the story forward.

I always argue with, well almost everybody because of this. My partner says that the goal of the characters in The Walking Dead is to survive. I’d say that surviving isn’t a goal but one of the required characteristic to make a post apocalyptic world real. Even in Hunger Games they had to survive in the districts, but that wasn’t the point.

Also, I was told to watch the whole series before judging. I honestly don’t need it. I watched the first and second episodes of the first season and they bored  me to death. I couldn’t see the point of the whole hassle. I’ve seen episodes here and there but I was just disgusted. And mind you, I love zombies.

I know some of you would think I’m just a silly know all. But it’s a kind of judging meter I have developed!  I’ve been there with other series like Dexter and Teen Wolf. I didn’t like the first couple of episodes, but watching here and there some others I realized I was wrong and I started to follow them constantly.

Then I was told The Walking Dead is more psychological and it goes down to the characters. Ehm no! It’s zombie, not drama in first place! And secondly, telling the story of a character doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re giving more infos on his or her deep psychological state.

Anyway, don’t think this post is just a long rant about what I don’t like, look back at the title!

I have the perfect alternative: Z Nation!

I don’t consider myself an expert on the matter, so I’ll keep going with my personal opinion.

Z Nation is much, much better than The Walking Dead.

It’s zombie stuff, hence very splatter.

It’s fast paced and believe me, in three episodes you have so much more action than the one you find in The Walking Dead first season.

It’s variegated. Since I haven’t seen the other one properly my constant question to my partner is “is this ever happened in 5 seasons?” And he just shakes his head. I refer usually to alternatives like radioactive zombies or hyperactive zombies on drugs. This sentence is usually followed by him saying “well, but they’re different and this is just a splatter zombie”

Although I think this is pretty much the point, I have to disagree to some extent.

Z Nation has a hint of a story, for how small and silly it might seem the characters have a goal from the very first episode: bring Murphy to California.

That’s it! They have to struggle to survive, like in any post apocalyptic scenario, but they have something to do! AND, little by little, the characters are introduced with their phycology, but it’s diluted in every episode or a rare focused episode. I remember I’ve seen three episodes in row of The Walking Dead, each one focused entirely on flash back, it’s boring and heavy.

By the third episode of Z Nation you know more or less who the characters are.

So you got my point.

I have no clue how many season of Z Nation they’re planning to film and I don’t know if it’s going to worsen but for the moment is much better of that marketing boom of its counterpart.

It’s sad to see like people are always attracted to fashion or to what everybody watches and does rather than thinking about things!!!

W  Z Nation! Well done!

From Béloland to Sligo!

 

As I promised in my last post I’ll tell you everything about my first experience of travelling with Airbnb.

Well, I hope I’ll travel more often now so I hope it’ll become a regular-ish kind of post.

First trip Bélo style was in Sligo. 

We decided to stay only one night as we had to work, but it was a nice change anyway.

We left Dublin in the afternoon after my partner finished working but it was OK, it’s summer time and at least the light last longer during the day.

I’ll save you the details and the feeling in seeing the Irish countryside again. I know I’ll be repetitive, but still I love it, I can’t help. 

I just want to highlight a couple of things seen during the travel though.

First of all my partner and I were happy, although surprised, to find a service area on the M4, a tolled main road. Last time we used it I had to beg him to stop the car to the side of the road because I was bursting (if you know what I mean). In Italy there are lots of them everywhere but we’re happy to see that Ireland is catching up with the fashion.

Second thing is a bit creepier. A bit before our arrival we travelled on a street we named ‘via crucis’ because that was that literally. Have you ever seen a cross on the side of the road? Yes, you have, everybody has. It usually stand there as token for someone who accidentally lost his or her life there. It’s very sad.

However, in this street you had many crosses, all looking alike, single or even in groups of four and five. After a while it was disturbing to watch.

Double disturbing as we have to pass through the same road on the way back too.

Then I’d skip almost at the end of the travel.

Around dinner time we had to pick among the cute fairytale-like villages where

 we wanted to stop and we picked Carrick on Shannon.

It was basically a little harbor on the river, loads of boats and, if you know me a bit by now, this spot was perfect. We picked the Oarsman pub as place to eat but it was full so we were directed to other options among which there was Victorian Hall.

The restaurant had an original venue because was built in a chapel now refurbished into a restaurant offering a fusion cuisine.

Also there was something on the table I’ve never seen before, a button you could press to call the waitress; that alone, we decided, was worth the pick. 

The only weak point, oddly enough, was the food! There was a nasty smell coming from the kitchen, like burned cheese. The fires were completely drawn into water, greenish colored water.

We were hungry though, so we cleaned our plates, even if the meal didn’t taste good or didn’t taste at all!

After that we were ready to reach our host’s house.

We actually got lost because Jl thought to follow the phones directions while the host’s ones were much better. In fact, after getting lost we went back to the roundabout and followed the printed piece of paper and we reached smoothly our destination. P and S’s house is a quiet cottage at the top of the hill. I really needed some peace, my life is always noisy.

It was awkward at the beginning. We weren’t even sure that was the house but we decided to go in and ring the bell.

P opened the door and showed us the house around and our room. Then we chatted for a while over a cup of tea.

It’s weird being in someone else’s house, someone you don’t know, but there was something I felt I already liked of the whole experience. It’s the first time since I work for a big company, that I feel willing to follow the core standards. One of the Bélo land core standards is embrace the adventure and I kept repeating it to myself, in order to push my shyness away.

Night was quiet as I wished and bed was so comfortable.

When we woke up we had breakfast and it was then that the magic happened. P and S joined us as we were eating and in less than two minutes it was like having a meal with old friends, I felt at ease and very sorry that I would have to leave them in a while.

P took his computer and helped us to find the places we wanted to visit.

It was a rainy day but we were ready to go.

When we left S wasn’t there, but she reached us in no time to say goodbye.

And I think this is the magic our founders talk about. Get in someone’s house as stranger and get out as friend.

After we left our hosts we went to visit the Gillighan’s world. It’s a big garden where the fairies “live” along 9 rescued chickens that behave like dogs really!

Molly, the lady who explained us how the scavenging hunt worked, had such a deep knowledge about fairies and supernatural of the area I was shocked…in a positive way!

It was nice, at least for me, being treated like a child after a long time. You can go back in touch to your inner self. I didn’t win the scavenging hunt but I got a mushroom shaped candy as reward all the same!

After leaving the garden we headed to the field to see the eagle show, but unfortunately the park was closed and would be open again for the next show two hours later.  Unfortunately it was raining so we decided to go on with our program and we missed it.

The third attraction I picked for the day was The folk village. Unfortunately for my partner we have a very different taste and interests so we ended up in eating in the coffee shop of the experience and went away, after he realized what he was going to see. It was lashing by that time and we were cold and, again, we were unlucky with food!

We decided to start heading south towards home and stop to visit something random.

It was then we passed through Boyle and we saw there was the King’s House open for visits.

We parked and visited the place. It was too much a modern place as a castle for me to be appreciated as such. Despite that it was interesting as military barrack and we spent in there a nice hour while outside the weather was still giving its best or worse…it depends on what you like!!!

After the King’s house we went back home and we ordered take away because we were still on holiday after all. Also we were knackered. 

It was such a nice experience but too short and too much time was spent in the car…or simply we’re getting old!!!

I have to admit I was a bit skeptic about the whole experience but I’m so looking forward to do it again!

Happy Belo day!

And the day after the celebration I post here again, simply to let you know how happy I am at the moment. I believe that being happy and also managing to relax a bit will bring me to update this blog constantly and also dedicate my spare time to my beloved writing.

Said that, I want you to know that my hands are kind of itching to tell you how wonderful are the improvements from my previous job. Also that I constantly think about the differences about the two jobs, but this is not the time to write them down, mainly because we talk about celebration here.

We talk about some founders who tried and managed brilliantly to organize a global celebration day for their logo. You can see it in the picture on the cake. It is a very sweet thing, in many senses!!!

Yesterday I was in work as usual, we worked our set time, and then we were part of this splendid meeting run by the founders in US and also we celebrated the event  with a nice picnic…indoors. Well we are in Ireland, we couldn’t really expect to be that lucky, but who cares, it was fab!

I love the philosophy at the base of the company I work for.

The idea is to create a worldly big family, where everybody feels at home everywhere. I think it’s a fantastic philosophy and I hope that we’ll manage to get there sooner or later.

I’ll promise you I’ll keep you posted. It’ll be soon experimented fist hand, only one night but it’s a good start.

And also kind of holiday after almost 4 years!!!

Short post, but I said the essential!

I’ll leave you with the video that explains what I’ve just said!

When the boss is on holiday!

 

Hello readers,

Here I am again hopefully with a good news, at least for you! I hope…I think.

Ok so, the boss is away, on holiday! And by boss I mean Maya, my toddler. 

My mum offered me to keep her in Italy for a month so “I’m going to bring her to the beach and she’s going to see what summer looks like!” and I’m quoting.

Actually she’s kind of right. 

As you can see from the picture associated with this blog post, yes, this is Dublin today, the 13 of July. All right, no complains, we had already our week of summer so, I should be happy! But I also understand that a toddler needs more than that.

So the news is that I might be able to post more often during her absence! Well, whether this is a good news or a bad news you tell me, truth is I feel much better!!!

However I feel sad that Maya is away and partly guilty to have let her go, I’m happy I can relax a bit and dedicate some time to me and my partner.

A part having more energy to write during commuting, I can read a few lines of any book before bed. And believe me, these improvements make me feel so good right now.

Today my partner will have his raid online and I’m more relaxed so I hope I’ll manage to spend some quality time with my paperworks.

If I’m lucky, by the end of this week I’ll have all my handwritten things on file so I can start properly with my 10 minutes spells of writing.

But before that I have some important stuff to do I’ve been dragging for too long.

Firstly, I have to finish to read and take notes of Orson Scott Card’s How to write Sci-fi and Fantasy. I don’t think the guy who lent me that book expect it back anymore but I’m determined to give it back to him. I know what it means not having your books back.

Second, I still have to finish to read the book of which I had a copy in advance, in order to write a review. My point is I cannot review a book like that unless I test it, and to be honest, it would’t be fair for the writer. So I guess it’ll take some times for that too.

At the same time I put down some lists on what I should do to resuscitate my house, that at the moment look like it had been through a big fire that burned it to the ground.

Put it this way, I’m trying to tidy up my head and my house in order to have a nicer environment to work in!

I hope it make sense.

That’s it for today folks! Talk to you soon!