Friday, July 1, 2011

Liquids

I had two ideas for a post today so I decided to just combine them into one since they're kind of the same.

First there's this new Toshiba ad, check it out and meet me on the other side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyN6Obi7eI

First of all let me say that this guy knows what's going on.  We must all be vigilant in all areas of our lives for even the mere possibility of zombie apocalypse.  Secondly, great commercial.

Back to the liquids, though.  Could an expired carton of milk grow a zombie contagion and usher in the end of the world as we know it?  I'd like to say yes.  A quick Google search shows that there have been cases of fungi found in milk, generally caused by contamination during processing.  If you scroll down you'll see my post about the fungus that takes control of ants and turns them into zombies.  I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this (zombie ants on a dairy farm).  So, although it's not quite the same as in the commercial, the executive in the commercial certainly has good reason to worry about a milky death.

There is an easy way to counter this threat: booze.  I initially thought about this in a much different way, though.  I wondered, "if a zombie eats the brain of someone with a really high BAC would the zombie get drunk?"  Also, if a zombie was drunk, would it matter?

I would say, based on absolutely nothing at all, that a zombie probably could get drunk from eating drunks but that in practice the zombie would have to eat way too many drunks for it to be practical.  Zombies also don't seem like they would want to drink alcohol on their own, so it's not like you'd catch a bunch of them in an abandoned liquor store drunk like sorority girls on spring break.  As a matter of practicality, this point is rather moot; as a matter of interest, this point is fascinating.

I can imagine a scenario like in Day of the Dead where some mad scientist has a zombie chained up and is force feeding it Smirnoff then making it touch its nose and walk in a straight line.  Furthermore, would drunk zombies love Jack in the Box like drunk people do?  That's the experiment I want to see (Brain in the Box, maybe?).

Would it matter if a zombie was drunk?  Would you know if one was drunk?  It's not like you'd have a zombie driving you around, so I'd say it doesn't really matter.  Your average zombie's motor skills are already at a pretty low level, so I doubt it would matter much if one were able to further reduce that level.  I do have one cavaet to this: Land of the Dead.  If zombies somehow start using guns then we would probably have to worry about their level of motor function.  Although the feasibility of getting them drunk remains the same, it is still an option in that unfortunate, and unlikely, circumstance.

The Jim Beam warehouse would probably be a great place to hide from zombies.

Bottom line: Zombies drink milk, people drink booze.  Let's get drunk so we can't turn into zombies.