Episode 243: Salvation

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: Faith

Faith is an interesting thing. It can be a guiding light in times of trouble. Keeping our hopes alive as we toil through the tribulations in our path. But then it can also pull us down by preventing us from seeing the reality of the situation. We look at things through the lens of our faith, secure in the knowledge that things will work out because God (or whoever) has a plan. All the while we could be making our situation better, we simply grin and bear it based on the notion that things will resolve themselves soon.

In zombie movies, a character with faith in a higher power is typically either dangerous/naive or one of the assured survivors, depending on what sort of faith they have. It seems like we see more dangerous characters than otherwise, but that might be a function of my own prejudices creeping in.

About this Episode:

I’ve been having Abe walk away from Sam, and talk to him without making eye contact quite a lot lately. The idea here is to make Abe seem either completely self-centered, or a little mentally imbalanced, preferably both. Working with LEGO® minfigs doesn’t give you a ton of latitude when it comes to body language, facial expressions, etc, so I’m not really sure if this sort of thing comes through. However, since most of communication is non-verbal, I figured it was worth a shot.

Other News:

I have decided to move Bricks of the Dead to a different hosting company. The big reason for the move is that I ran into a number of inexplicable slowdowns and occasional short-term outages with my current host. I’ve tried a number of solutions to fix this, but so far haven’t had any luck. Since I want you guys to have the best experience here (and since I’m getting tired of trying to fix issues I’m convinced are not my fault), I’m going to migrate the site to a provider that is highly recommended for hosting sites like this.

So what does that mean for you? Well, the big thing is that some comments are going to get lost. The transition process is never instant, so moving from one host to another mean some comments get lost in the shuffle. It sucks, but I hope that we’ll get improved speed and reliability as a trade-off.

I’m using a site migration service to handle the move, so hopefully it’s a little faster than doing it myself, which I’ve done more than a few times.  I am also trying to do it right after a holiday and over a weekend, when the site gets less traffic. Hopefully these two things mitigate the impact a bit.

If you have comments get lost, just pretend that they were eaten by a zombie. That way we’re at least keeping this inconvenience within the established theme of the site.

Discussion Question:  Maintaining a Positive Outlook

Read any survival book and it will at least mention, if not have a whole chapter dedicated to the importance of maintaining a positive outlook in a survival situation. When the shit hits the fan and the zombies start eating everyone, well, that’s going to be a real downer. What are you going to do to stay positive?

35 thoughts on “Episode 243: Salvation”

  1. Typo spotted in “About this Episode”, second sentence, should read “make Abe seem”. 😀 In “Other news” “run into” could possibly be better worded as “ran into” unless you wanted it to be both present tense and past tense. 😉

    • Fixed both. Thanks Brickvoid.

  2. Well Dave if its the begining and people I know die, I’ll just remember what I heard in a country song: “the only thing that gives me hope is I know I’ll see you again someday.”

    • I can’t say I’m familiar with the song, but nice sentiment.

      • It’s called Who you’d be today, and it’s by Kenny Chesney.

  3. Very nice job with the posing, actually. Nuance is a tricky thing to manage with the minifig actor, but you did it well here. Kudos!

    And who’s to say that I have a positive outlook now? Let’s go with “debts wiped out by zombie bankers! woo!” as my upbeat spark.

    • You just know those zombie bankers will send zombie debt collectors after you! 😉

      • What could be more nightmarish than zombie bankers?

        • zombie debt collectors

    • The prospect of not having student loans anymore is a pretty good one.

  4. How would I stay positive? I would tell myself YOLO……..oh wait….

    • Yolo?

    • You Only Live Once

      hahahahahahahahahaha

      • That kinda scares me.

      • You kids and your damn acronyms.

  5. Well, for me personally, I’m one of those dangerous/naive or assured survivors. I’d hold onto my personal faith, both in this world and in whatever may come after.

    Either there’s hope in spite of death, or there’s no hope at all on this earth. I know which one I choose.

    • Seems like a good plan to me.

  6. Yoly means you only live once

  7. Yolo

  8. I meant srry

  9. No Dave don’t give this site to some one else please the only person I would trust is u

    • ts250g – He is keeping the site but moving to a new host company. They probably have better servers and can manage the traffic better. I’m sure Dave would sell a kidney before giving up BoTD for good.

      • Yeah, I’m not giving the site away, just changing the company I use to host it.

  10. Just watched an episode of Futurama where Bender gets shot into space and has a tiny civilization stuck to his body. He becomes their god and, when he messes that totally up, he then gets to meet God.

    God tells him that the best way to help is to do enough that it makes a difference but not enough to make them realize that it was you.

    Don’t mean to get preachy or anything but I thought it was a cool way to express the need for faith.

    • God Futurama is great, especially in its first run.

  11. In the event of a ZA, I guess it’s back to basics.. enjoy the small things. Being alive for one, eating something decent every once in a while.

    • Yes sir.

  12. What would keep me happy is Bacon. One strip is like fuel for a week to me.

    • Only one strip? That’s self control right there.

  13. Mindset, skills set, tool set. The base of the pyramid is about cultivating an attitude of survival. Tactics and logistics are vital; but if one is not positive he’ll get through the situation, he won’t. Use whatever you have to, happy thoughts, revenge, whatever it takes. Just don’t die. Read up on POW’s or Holocaust survivors. They survived in their own ways. I recall reading of a Hanoi Hilton survivor that played golf in his head over and over. Another designed a house (that he later built).

    Another point I know I have mentioned is quality of life. An acquaintance of mine coined the term “thrivalism” in opposition to “survivalism”. The underlying philosophy is that the closer one’s lifestyle is to what he is accustomed to, the better his chances. To that end, the best way to keep a good attitude is to find ways to do what you like doing now. Do you like music and movies? Power inverters, battery banks, and backup generators can run your home theater, if that’s your thing. If you like gourmet cooking, a window box herb garden and old-fashioned wood stoves will keep your kitchen running for a long time. I knew such a man, now passed away, that had gallons of maple syrup in glass jugs, a large freezer full of the very best cuts of meat, boxes of natural sharpening stones, and everything else to ensure he had the food he enjoyed in a WCS (he would argue, and articulately, that the best way to keep a good attitude was a belly full of really good food).

    • As always, Bo, incredibly insightful comments here.

      I recall reading about that guy who designed his house in his head as well. Fascinating.

  14. All right, we’re on the new server now. Looks like we lost a couple of comments, but nothing too serious. Sorry for the inconvenience to those people who posted yesterday afternoon/this morning.

    • I am glad I decided not to comment with anything important on thhis discussion.

  15. Good luck with the site migration, Dave.

    And I like what you’ve been doing with having Abe McDadass facing away from Sam, it does seem to fit his character.

  16. I think it’s pretty clear that these guys are a little off-kilter by now, but I’m still holding out hope that they aren’t totally out to lunch like, say, the cult from Dead Space are about their monsters.

    Question:
    Well, my long-term strategy is to build a town of survivors, a safe place free of zombies for people to live in. I think I could take pride in that, that I was doing something to help people.