halloween, symphony, and zombies, oh my!

Of course what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t update you on the weekend’s festivities? Friday was the traditional “dress up for work” day. My co-worker Andrea and I decided to go as Mario and Luigi. We didn’t have a costume contest, but I’m pretty sure we would have won if there had been one:

Along with the costumes each department entered a“haunted” gingerbread house into the competition. Although ours looked great on paper, it didn’t turn out so great in reality. I learned that Royal Icing is NOT a medium I prefer or excel in:

Scott and I were given tickets to the symphony on Saturday night, so rather than spend it waiting for the non-existent trick-or-treaters (P.S- I had THREE) we spent the evening with Haydn's Symphony No. 1, Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter playing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6. Although it was enjoyable we learned we are NOT Symphony goers. Our favorite piece of the evening was definitely Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6. Throw in the spectacle of parking in Downtown Salt Lake and the Freak Show that was Halloween made for a pretty interesting evening.

Our Halloween weekend wrapped up with Scott coercing me into watching ‘Walking Dead’ on AMC. It's definitely an adult show, not everyone's cup o'tea, and should be viewed with discrection. It's based on the graphic novel of the same name, and I’m not going to lie; it was good. So good it’s probably a series I’ll watch from now on. I love that it's not full of the cheap scream tricks most horror movies rely on now, in large part because it’s on basic cable so they actually have to write a smart script that isn't reliant on blood, guts, gore, and nudity to cause fear or tell the story. Most of you know how I feel about horror movies so you probably also know I’m LOVING the fact that I can watch this and not be completely disgusted. I wasn't even creeped out-well until it was time for bed, anyway. I totally had zombie dreams.

Aside from the pros there were a few HUGE cons for me, and they are problems I have with all zombie shows/movies:

1. There's always someone who misses the zombie apocalypse--how do you MISS the zombie apocalypse, let alone SLEEP through it ala our hero in 'Walking Dead', Rick? I would like to think I would NOTICE when my dearly departed started eating my brains.

2. There's always someone who is a late comer to the game-usually the one who SLEPT through everything-and they act as if they don’t know what a zombie is when they start playing said game. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW!? If I woke up to nothingness, saw a door chained shut that read “DO NOT OPEN DEAD INSIDE”, and something was trying to get through those doors; wouldn’t you put two and two together? I sure would. I would be looking for a weapon-blunt object, knife, gun-ANYTHING that I could kill zombies with. ESPECIALLY when I see half of a zombie trying to pull it self towards me when I come across it heading home.

3. Why do they always head to the large, populated cities (here it's Atlanta) under the guise that there is some sort of Mecca waiting there for them? Wouldn't logic lead one to believe that you are safest where there WEREN'T large concentrations of people? Because my logic leads me to believe that NATURALLY those people have most likely become what you're trying to avoid.

I would love nothing more than to see a smart protagonist in a zombie movie-to see the signs, immediately put two and two together, commence being a bad-ass, instead of playing the clueless, confused, and bumbling characters this genre is full of. The moral of the story is this: I will live through the zombie apocalypse-will you?