Humans Vs Zombies has officially begun here at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and mayhem has overtaken the student body. If you have never heard of HVZ it is a lovely little game created at Groucher College in 2005 witch involves a game of moderated tag between humans and the devil spawn, Zombies . The players wear bandannas on either their arms or legs, indicating human, or their heads, indicating Zombie. On day one a single (sometimes multiple depending on group size) human is selected to be the original Zombie. The aforementioned O.Z. does not have to designate themselves as a Zombie and tries to tag as many people on the first day as they can. From the next day on players must always wear their designated headbands. Humans can stun Zombies by shooting them with a Nerf gun or hitting them with a sock ball. Zombies who don’t feed will eventually starve out. The players then compete in missions against the other faction, as well as humans being petrified about stepping outdoors for fear of a Zombie attack. In short, it’s awesome. So here are my top five reasons you should bring HVZ to your campus.

5) Teamwork

Three guys and a Mohawk Elf

HVZ is the perfect way to brush up on your teamwork. When plotting against a Zombie horde, only the strongest and smartest of teams will survive. This means planning, meetings, secret codes, secret hand signals, secret boxers, etc…. Everyone who has played Left 4 Dead knows that teamwork is essential. No one can be that idiot who rushes ahead and leaves the rest of the team in the dust. Because that idiot is going to be a Zombie, and that’s no good.

4)Community

Chevy Chase and Friends!

The thing that really hooked me the first time I participated in HVZ was the sense of community it inspires. It is like joining a secret club. A cool one though, like the Avengers. Not like the secret garden. That club sucks. I can’t tell you how many friends I made playing HVZ. It brings people together, bonded by the fear of a life spent in want of brains.

3)Nerf Guns

Compensating

Lets face it, the coolest thing about being a kid is being able to play with toys all the time with no one trying to tell you things like “you’re to old for that”, or “you can’t play scuba in the ball pit when you have a beard sir”. So one of the perks of HVZ is being able to play with Nerf guns all the time. Today’s kids have it good. These guns are nuts. The N-Strike series is amazing. Plus you can take out the air restrictors out of them and hit an unsuspecting Zombie in the face. No better feeling than that.

2) Zombies

Just rushing to get that new Taylor Swift album

Zombies are totally in right now. Video Games, Movies, Books; You just can’t seem to escape them. When you think about it, why would you even want to. Zombies are awesome. They are monsters that want nothing but brains. Simple and pure. Pure evil. Seriously they don’t understand emotions anymore so there is no reasoning with them. Just brains.

1)Nerf Ax

TADA!

You remember at the top when I said that players compete in missions. Well the purpose of those missions is to win privileges. One of those privileges is the ability to use melee weapons. Imagine facing the Zombie Horde with that beauty. It is sweet my friends, sweet indeed.

Second episode is up folks! Today we talked about the re-release of Perfect Dark for XBLN and the FCC bringing internet to everyone. We both agree it should be brought in like Reboot and dropped on some suckas.

If you have any topic, discussion, or song requests I would love to hear it.

Topics:

• OnLive goes live June 17th
• Apple iPad available on April 3rd
• BSG MMO
• Sony’s Playstation Move
• Samsung rolled out their 3D TVs – Are we ready yet?

Round Table Topic:

• Are you seeing it? Yay or nay of upcoming films

Links mentioned:

• http://www.repo-opera.com/
• Trololololoolololoo

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Hey All, This is what is up. I’ve wanted to do a daily news show about the new in the world of games, tv, tech, and nerdy nerd stuff. So Nelson and I took some time on Sunday and made a rough  a “Special edition unedited” Pilot episode of it. Watch it!

Now, if you are reading this you A) need to watch it and then B) write what you want to see done with the show in the comments or shoot me an e-mail at justin@pixelatedgeek.com. This is important because I want to make a show that you the audience would really enjoy and if I don’t know what you want to see I can’t bring it to you. So all comments positive or negative will be thanked. So start clicking them keys!

Any progress? yet?

I’m tired. I’m sore. But just like the headline says, “it hurts, but it feels so good.”

I’m six exercising days into the EA Active 30-day challenge. Yes, six.  No, I’m not slacking. See, during the challenge, you exercise for two days, then rest for one. For each exercise day, you are given different number of exercises.  This is really good because you never do the same thing twice in a row.  You’re always guessing what is next.  Also, each day’s exercises are always harder than the last and I’m simultaneously loving and hating it. Especially during the exercises that burn my thighs. ugh.

I almost wussed out… twice

It has only been 6 exercise days in and I almost wussed out… twice.  The first time was on Wednesday morning. I couldn’t get my butt out of bed.  I looked at my clock and saw it was already 7am. I needed to be at work by 9am.  One side of my brain was saying, “just get ready for work. You’re already too late for a morning workout.”  The other was saying “If you don’t exercise, think about what your readers will say.  Even worse, think about what your podcast cast member will say. *gasp*”  And with that second thought, I jumped right out of bed, ate a Thomas English muffin, two bowls of Chex cereal, and surfed the net all in 30 minutes.  (15 minutes to eat then 15 minutes to digest.)  Then I got my running shoes on, turned on the Wii, did my EA Active training for the day, headed into the shower, got ready, then drove to work.  I was still late to work, but only about 5 minutes late.

The second time was after I got home, ate dinner, did some stuff on this here blog, and played some Team Fortress 2. The time read 9:30pm.  Again, half of my brain said, “it’s already too late for a workout. Just play another game of Team Fortress 2 and call it a night.”  The other said “If you don’t exercise, think about what your readers will say.  Even worse, think about what your podcast cast member will say. *gasp*”  And with that second thought, I got my running shoes on, turned on the Wii, did my EA Active training for the day, headed into the shower, then went to bed.

I guess this weekly column is working.

Exercising is one thing, the diet is another

Of course one can’t ever achieve weight loss on just excerising alone.  Cutting back on all the good, greasy, sweet, succulent, mouth-watering, appetizing, food is the other half.  Through out the weekdays, I’ve been doing really good.  Sticking with a Jamba Juice (smoothie), sandwiches, and salads type of diet.  I don’t feel the need for anymore Starbucks coffees or sodas.  But during this weekend, my eyes were hit with a number of treats staring deep into my eyes and into my belly.

I went to my girlfriend’s birthday party. Not good. In my face was lumpia, Pizza Hut pizza, homemade brownies, chips and soda. Thank god, I had a Subway Turkey sandwich before we got there. But, boy did I want to eat them. Badly.

Keeping it up

I want to thank all the readers that have read the first entry of this experiment and giving me some tips. I’ll try to keep this up for not only my own health but to show your all that if an unmotivated fat geek like me can do it, you can.

“The power is yours!” – Captain Planet

So maybe you are a Fat Geek, that is okay. But you might be reading thinking I really don’t want to be for all my life though. We are here to help you.

Now, you need to know a few thing before you get started as stated in The Hacker’s Diet -which is free to read, but kinda dry in my opinion- says the more calories that you put into your body the equal to more energy you have to expend to stay balanced or lose weight. Simple right? You put X amount of Stuff in your body you need to use it, or else your body will store the excess for energy later. Your body just get calories and thinks sweet I have to use X amount of energy today, but I only need 3/4s of this energy here (because we all know a Calorie is a unit of energy, right?) I’ll just store this for later, maybe tomorrow we won’t have such a good haul and will have to go without.

Now I want to tackle two problems deeper What you put into your body and How you get rid of that fat. Let’s stick with the first this week. Food. More exact Diet. AH! BAD WORD BAD WORD! I hate the word diet outside of it’s regular context. Diet is literally what you eat, not what you don’t or force yourself to eat. This is important with my philosophy of dieting, which with my degrees in both Sports Medicine and Mad Science makes me very qualified to talk on the subject.

Sportsmaster, my Dean and Advisor at Mad Science Community College.

If you come from the mind set that you need to reduce somethings in your life in order to trim down this wouldn’t be totally off base. Making yourself eat very little and expect yourself not to binge later on? Terrible idea. Let’s look at your pantry and see what we can do. Now, I want you to look in side and pretty much get rid of anything that has the word “Toes” in it. Fri’toes’, ‘Toe’stinos, Dori’toes’ all of them aren’t very good for you and you know it. They are full of fats, and like witches there are good fats and bad fats. You have to basic schools of Fat, Saturated which due to it’s large chain of chemicals are harder for your body to break down and Unsaturated which are found in natural sources and are broken down easier by the body. Does this mean throw out and stop buying fired corn with flavor sprayed on? No, oddly enough I think you can have your cheetoes (again toes) and eat them too. Here is a word of stupidly good health advice Moderation. You know the food guys that stuff themselves in the name of sport? You don’t need to be that guy/gal. Food is made to enjoy flavors and supply you to go though the day, not to pack you to the brim. If you are faced with the mega super Godzilla size portion and you know that you will feel bloated, greasy, and bulbous. Don’t get it.

Well...good job picking vegetables, I guess.

The opposite side to moderation is that you aren’t living off of rice and hope. I live on a fairly okay lifestyle, I eat a ton of veggies and fruit, and try to stay away from fast food meat except for a couple of exceptions. It is fine to have the exceptions as long as exceptions aren’t normal daily habits. For example, I love Ruebens. A Rueben sandwich is corned beef, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing (Russian, if the place is serious) on grilled or toasted rye. There is nothing “diet” wise that is healthy on that sandwich. I eat it though, and then judge a place based off of the Rueben. Enjoy your vice, in moderation. Keeping it a special event helps it stay special. I haven’t gotten into what I feel you should be eating, looks like I will do that next week.

Note: This is what you should be eating.

As always, justin@pixelatedgeek.com This week I want to know what you are eating, What is your vice?, What is your favorite sandwich?

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Hakureiryou high school provides students enrolling in its servant education program a fully paid scholarship. Students in the servant-ed group are trained up to be proper maids and butlers under their superiors in the upper-ed program. The upper-ed program is comprised of girls from affluent families. Akiharu Hino, having recently lost his parents, has entered the academy to have some place to stay. There are only 5 boys enrolled in the academy as of episode two.

Akiharu runs into Selnia Iori Flameheart on the path to the school. She marks his as a strange and suspicious person, berating him while he tries to walk away, and the eventually charging after him. They collide and land in an classically inappropriate one-hand-grope position. Selnia then begins to chase Akiharu across the school hurling insults and epithets. Akiharu clumsily gets himself into more trouble with more girls as he tries to find his freedom. Its only when Tomomi Saikyo intervenes that the girls stop chasing him.

It turns out that Tomomi knows Akiharu, and worse yet, used to bully him in elementary school. Akiharu overcomes his initial terror at this realization and attempts to fit in with the others in the servant-ed program. Selnia, unwilling to forgive what happened, attempts to make Akiharu as uncomfortable as possible. She arranges for him to serve her during tea; havoc ensues. A clumsy maid pours hot soup on Akiharu; shower scene and unintentional groping ensues. Que sera sera…

There have been both censored and uncensored versions released to various outlets. I leave it up to you whether you wish to watch a scene that is 80% obscured or 100% over-the-top unnecessary. The reason I ranked this series a C was due to the funny situational comedy that surround Akiharu PULLING the rating back from a D due to stooping to a lowest common denominator to get a fan(service)-base. Without the excessive nudity, but still keeping the outright ecchi themes and situations, this could have ranked higher.

Maybe companies should have more confidence in their writers; allow a STORY to develop, not just a few extra boob shots to make their rent.

Overall Hook Rating: C

Topics:

• 80s/90s cartoons

What were were also supposed to talk about but didn’t get to:

• 80s/90s Music
• 80s/90s Movies
• 80s/90s Commercials

Links mentioned on the show:

• adventure time
• cops intro
• turtles forever
• super hero squad

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SPRING BREAK 89!!

5) Go Larping (Live.Action.Role.Playing)

Just hanging out

Have you ever been sitting around the house watching Lord of the Rings and thought to yourself, “Hey, I could grow a beard like Gimli”, but you never had the guts to try it. Well these guys don’t stop there. They go big or go home. There is something about running through the woods with foam weapons that never gets boring. It is like a Nerf War for grown ups. But better. There are girls there pretending to be Elves. Just don’t try and mess with these guys, they are super hardcore.

4) Road Trip To Your Heroes’ Hometowns

Hustlers

When I think of how awesome Harrison Ford is I often wonder of the birthplace of such a Man among boys. Turns out it is Chicago. Who wouldn’t love to hit up the open road and see the birth place of their favorite stars. Nothing beats the bonding experience of a road trip. Well maybe a kidnapping, but it’s such a pain to organize one of those. So instead why not see where William Shatner got his diapers changed before he conquered the final frontier, exotic Montreal by the way. So why not hop in the van, pump up the jams, and hit up those two lanes that will take you anywhere.

3) Stay Inside and Play Final Fantasy 13

Your soul will belong to this game

You know what is awesome about Spring Break? All the free time. What better way to use that free time than by pouring it all into the newest Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy 13 is going to take a lot of time to beat. Now you have it. If you put two and two together you get a lot of spiky hair to watch over the week. Isn’t that the American Dream?

2) Have A Sci-Fi Marathon

Firefly: This got cancelled and "According to Jim" survived until last year. My soul is weeping.

You know all that time I was just talking about, well if you don’t have a copy of Final Fantasy 13 why not have a marathon of your favorite Sci-Fi show or movie. Whether it be Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica sit down and watch it. It will be like visiting family without leaving the comfort of your living room. Seriously though if you still haven’t watched Firefly, go do it. Right now.

1) Go to New Zealand

Land of Hobbits. And Flight of The Conchords

If you are a geek with excess cash flow, you should probably just go ahead and go to New Zealand. Every Fantasy film is shot there. Really. It is like waltzing through all your favorite battles as you drive to breakfast. So if you can afford it, you should. Plus Flight of The Conchords are from there. Doesn’t get much sweeter than that.