Shuffling Zombies

I'm not sure if it's the imminent arrival of Halloween or what exactly is the cause but there seems to be an outbreak of shuffling zombies lately. They are wandering down main street, breaking into malls during the day,  shambling down the aisles of your local grocery store, and stumbling into your home. The economic fallout has turned the world into the post-apocalyptic future infested with zombies that movies are so fond of predicting. They are everywhere, they are annoying, and unlike traditional zombies you will be arrested if you shoot one in the head to end its misery.

Some zombies are the kind who present with extreme cirrhosis of the liver and stumble into a shopping complex at ten on a sunday morning still so saturated with libations from the night before that a single spark would likely set the whole building on fire. These zombies may mouth words and try to communicate through hand-gestures as well but are ultimately not cognizant enough to intelligibly communicate and quickly break down into frustrated anger. Fortunately the zombies that have reached this stage have so little coordination they cannot effectively do any harm because they have to concentrate too much on just remaining more-or-less upright. The best weapon against them is disapproval and shooing motions.

Some zombies are the high-functioning sort who can manage to go through the motions of life over and over again without actually living. You may see them on the buses or walking down the street. You may hear them talking to themselves in the grocery story as they wander along largely unaware of the real world. These zombies are not violent and won't try to hurt you unless you hurt them but they can still be very dangerous. Do not allow them to back you into a corner and start talking about cats or celebrities or whatever other inane obsession they might have. Your best defense against these kinds of zombies is non-pseudo pseudopods which you can use to locomote away or if you are trapped in a situation where you cannot leave your best defense is a cellphone which you can use to fake a phone call or else make a real phone call to your work number to aid in your escape.

Other zombies are the drooling drug-induced kind. They grin like skeletons while moaning about their pain. They trap you in webs of questions that they use to hold you still while they tell you about their hallucinogenic visions of signs of god that they see everywhere and use to justify an evangelistic faith they only wish that they could spread as easily as the spore of zombism spreads in movies. These zombies are capable of extreme violence at the slightest provocation. Do not attempt to confront them physically. Your best defense may be flagrant atheism or threatening to call the authorities.

Still others are merely the dress-up kind who are literally wandering down mainstreet unconvincingly on an exceptionally cold saturday in late October in the middle of the afternoon. These zombies are completely harmless even to themselves and retain a distinct sense of self-preservation that manifests itself in the form of their uncanny ability to observe traffic laws. Your best defense is inclement weather and a healthy dose of mockery.

Then there is the most common kind of zombies. Those unfortunate souls who are so awestruck by celebrity that they become obsessed with glossy stacks of colored paper, thin sheets of color-emitting plasma, tweets, feeds, and applications on their phones- anything to give them that much-needed dose of vicarious excitement. Your only defense against them is to keep your wits about you. If you feel your cognitive intelligence may be impaired for some reason the only thing you can do is run as fast as you can.

Remember, if you see any of these types of zombies around you should immediately inform the CDC* so they can begin tracking and containing the outbreak. Do not try to take matters into your own hands in the form of a metal object being propelled at upwards of six hundred miles per hour by a tiny explosion or you will be arrested. Simply try to keep your distance from the zombies so as to avoid being infected with the brain-damaging malignancy they all possess.


*Center for Density Control

Progressive Dipodic Perambulatory Syndrome

Progressive Dipodic Perambulatory Syndrome


I would like to thank my friend Ivan, who once worked with me to develop an informative website about this medical problem back when we were in high school, for indirectly reminding me about this issue so I could write about it for you all. We didn't actually talk about PDPS but having him up to visit reminded me about this and made me wish I still had access to the website we made. Unfortunately if the website exists at all it's only on a server at our highschool and nowhere I could actually access it. I'm going to try to recreate my research on this seemingly obscure but widely prevalent issue.


In case you didn't know Progressive Dipodic Perambulatory Syndrome is a serious epidemic. 97% of Americans over the age of two years suffer from this problem (most likely yourself included). However this is not just a problem in the United States and other first-world countries but may be just as much if not more of a problem in underdeveloped nations and across the globe. 2-3% of adults in America are even seriously affected by this syndrome even in their sleep when typically the harsh symptoms of PDPS are arrested during slumber.

Most people are not only totally ignorant of PDPS but those that are aware of its dangers dismiss the problem as being an acceptable risk. An acceptable risk that claims the lives of 13,000 people each year in the United States alone. Unfortunately reliable data concerning the number of deaths PDPS causes globally is unavailable but considering that not only is the population of the United States just under 5% of the global population but also the medical care in the United States is considerably better than most of the world it's not hard to think just how large the numbers of lives claimed globally by PDPS really are.

Some people who shouldn't be ignorant of the dangers of PDPS are the members of the CDC and yet the CDC recommends that anyone over the age of six do activity that will exacerbate the symptoms of PDPS. That means that if you are a resident of the United States the health agency the government designed to protect you is actually encouraging you to make yourself sick. This is advice that could lead to your death but is widely available on the CDC website under the guise of helpful medical advice.

If thirteen thousand deaths in the United States every year does not concern you let me tell you about some of the other non-fatal injuries that can occur as a result of PDPS. PDPS can result in a huge variety of injuries including but not limited to breakages of every major bone in the human body. PDPS can incur slipped discs, internal bleeding, brain injuries, and among serious PDPS cases can even end in heart attack. PDPS is a serious ailment about which you're unlikely to have ever heard anything.

I would like to encourage you to spread the word about PDPS to your friends and relatives. This is a ailment that can be fixed but only if people are aware of it. Without knowing its dangers people cannot be expected to prevent injuries caused by PDPS.