Your Zombie Guide

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan's rant on a topic way outside his expertise (much like Tom Friedman's rants on automobiles, a story for another time), I decided to put together my own uninformed guide to Zombies in the cinematic world.  

Shaun of the Dead (2004):  Quite clearly a spoof of classic zombie movies, but it nails the zombies dead on.  They sort of roam around and get at you by sheer determination and numbers.  And because you have to brain them or remove their head to stop their advances.  Sullivan would love these I'm sure, and the dry British humor (er, humour) should tickle his Thatcherite senses.  

Serenity (2005):  Zombies in space, really.  (I can't take credit for this categorization, but I certainly can steal it.)  The zombies are a result of government experimentation, natch, and have the "increased cardiovascular skills" that Sullivan decries.  They are smart.  I think they like to eat people.  But, they die like everyone else.

I Am Legend (2007):  The one that started this mess has zombies with more cardiovascular skills than many pro-football players.  They, also, were the result of scientific experimentation and die like normal humans, only louder.  It would have been so much better for them to have something interesting and new about them, but aside from their ability to jump out of dark corners, the zombies were an uninteresting hybrid of previous reanimated peoples.  The book upon which the movie was based is apparently chock full of new ideas, but alas, I must concur with other reviewers that this movie is a hatchet job in the vein of I Robot and that all such zombie innovation was lost.

This is why...

...The Shawshank Redemption should never be screened in prisons.

Hybrids revisited

Back in the foggy depths of history I posted on the personal economic merit of hybrid vehicles.  With gas prices running at full tilt towards oblivion, lets have another look shall we?

In November 2005 I said that, ignoring tax credits and battery replacement costs, gas would need to be somewhere between $2.17  and $3.53 to recoup the initial costs of buying a hybrid Civic over a traditional Civic.  On Honda's website a nice tool is now available to compare competing cars, including Honda vs. Honda.  The Hybrid is shown to cost $4840 and $3090 more than the LX and EX Civic sedans, respectively, when comparably equipped.  Mileage is 40/45 for the hybrid and 25/36 for the LX and EX.  Using the same argument as before, gas would have to cost $3.49 and $2.23 for the Hybrid to make financial sense against the LX and EX, respectively.  

Since I'm paying well over $3.00 per gallon, the hybrid, as before, is not an unreasonable choice.  However, it seems (according to the Honda website) the hybrid depreciates faster and has somewhat higher maintenance costs, which further hurts the financial strength of the gas-electric car.  

Thus, overall not much has changed in two years.  A hybrid's additional cost is small but not trivial, and the cost may be worth it to obtain the peace of mind that comes with knowing you are supporting crazed oil barons 28% less when your drive.