Zombie inspired donut shop survives 3-month mark

SPOKANE, Wash.--A new business started in the summer of 2013 in Spokane is bringing together zombies and donuts.

Dawn of the Donut has created more treats in their first three months and could soon be pulling up in your neighborhood. 

 "I'm so intrigued by zombies and how they're endearing, they're not going away,” said Jayy De Boer, Manager. 

The staff at Dawn of the Donut live for baking and making new varieties each day. They have up to 50 different kinds of donuts and are always adding more. 

The staff sells about 800 donuts each weekday. They get into the thousands on the weekends. 
    
"They're coming here for the donuts, of course we have our theme, it's never going to go away but they're coming back for the donuts,” said Boer.

Staff know it is the taste of their donuts that is bringing in business.

"Here's the tree most popular donuts, the governor which is maple bacon, the zombies which are filled with raspberry, and the brain, which is an apple fritter,” said Boer.

The staff said they are not afraid to offer a less popular flavor.
    
"We have apple crisps and a vegan donut,” said Boer.

Staff are working on a food truck for deliveries and to sell the treats on the street. 

Second Annual Zombie Run in Downtown Greensboro, NC 11/9/13

GREENSBORO, NC (Oct. 21, 2013) – There’s nothing like running for your life from the walking dead to liven up your day. 

The Greensboro Zombie Run in Downtown Greensboro, a two-mile race on Saturday, November 9 at 2 pm, gives grown-ups and teenagers the time of their lives – at least until they’re caught and have their brains devoured. The race, like a combination of flag football and the zombie apocalypse, starts and ends at Hamburger Square in Downtown Greensboro (corner of S. Elm Street & E. McGee Street), giving the Greensboro Zombie Run a unique urban setting. Participants show they can survive this exhilarating, super-fun race and everyone alive and undead celebrates at the after-party with live music and refreshments.

The event features 200 zombies positioned throughout the area, with up to 100 on the course at a time so the groups of undead have a break to freshen up. Spectators are welcome to enjoy the scene as wretched zombie hands grab for the three flags on each runner in a bloodthirsty struggle. The Greensboro Zombie Run is put on by Running With Horses Events, an organization dedicated to providing great fun while helping good causes. Proceeds of the Zombie run benefit the local chapter of Ignite the Spirit, which provides assistance to the families of firefighters who have fallen on the job. 

Organizer Nick Loflin says “It will be the best run of your life or if you’re a zombie, your afterlife.” All events put on by Running with Horses can be found on its website www.livebigdogood.com

Would-be Zombies arrive in costume and will be made up to look as bad as they want to be by experts from Boho Salon. Greensboro’s Roller Derby girls, zombie-style, will be at the finish line, along with other undeadly participants. The music at the party after the race includes the Tremors and The Straight 8’s, and is open to the public at Hamburger Square Park.

Runners receive a t-shirt, a voucher for a beer or root beer, snacks and a finisher coin for successfully completing the race. Event sponsors include: 

Signature Properties, Natty Greene’s, Smokey Bones, Downtown Greensboro Inc, The City of Greensboro Parks and Recreation, and Boho Salon.

Proceeds benefit Ignite the Spirit – Greensboro, a local charity that takes care of the families of firefighters here in Greensboro. 

For information, visit http://ignitethespiritgso.org/.

The number of participants is limited, so humans and zombies are encouraged to register early at www.greensborozombierun.com.

More information:www.facebook.com/TheGreensboroZombieRun.

For More Information, please contact: Meryl Mullane, APR

Meryl@MullanePR.com  336.312.3381

~http://downtowngreensboro.net/

Signs For The Apocalypse

"Zombie Zombie" The First Ever Zombie Video Game

Zombie games, the world is filled with them. From Left 4 Dead to The Last of Us, gamers have been obsessed with the tension, teamwork and atmosphere that come with the ongoing battle against the forces of the undead for years now. But where did this start? What was the first instance that zombies appeared in a video game? Were they at all representative of the zombies we see today? What was the inspiration for the introduction of the zombie to the video gaming industry? Well, it began on the ZX Spectrum in 1984, and believe it or not…it all started with a little game called Ant Attack.

Ant Attack was developed by Sandy White for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 and was coded by hand to develop an isometric projection of lines. The game featured a city infested with giant ants. The player had to breach the walls of the city and free a prisoner in the centre while throwing grenades at the ants to keep them away. The concept was simple but it warranted a sequel and that’s where the zombies jump in.

Zombie Zombie was designed by Sandy White in 1984, again for the ZX Spectrum, and featured a similar B-Movie plot line as Ant Attack. In the past, Man had travelled to the black land and had discovered ancient relics which brought the dead back to life. This door to the other land was shut and guarded until its guardians forgot why. When the player returns to this door he finds himself unlocking its door and releasing it’s curse onto the world again.

From the game’s manual,

“Words were spoken at the setting of time. Words, which put together, told a terrifying tale, a prophecy of doom. Man had crossed into the black land and returned diseased. Evil had found a door into another Kingdom. Somehow it had to be kept shut. Prehistoric man kept vigil until it was forgotten why. Of course they thought you were crazy, but you insisted on returning to that ancient place, just to make sure. You had a feeling about these relics, a feeling of death. Unwittingly you had sprung an invisible lock of an invisible door. A prophecy is about to be fulfilled. The Dead will rise again to eat the flesh of the living.”

The primary objective of Zombie Zombie was simply to kill as many zombies as possible as fast as possible. The game featured the same combat system as Ant Attack; grenades could be used to keep the zombie horde back from you and to cull large groups at a time. To aid you in the fight against the horde the game also included a helicopter that players were able to use to push the zombies of nearby cliffs in the game. You had to lead the zombies toward the cliff in the helicopter in order for them to fall off, similar to Lemmings. Zombie Zombie also provided innovation in the way of sound, being the first game to ever use both left and right speaker outputs for its sound effects.

The Zombies featured in the title are fairly similar to the standard modern zombie and were most likely influenced by the classic Romero Zombie. Firstly, they are reanimated dead that eat flesh and secondly they follow blindly and appear to have no self-motivation or driven thought. Much like the modern zombie they appear in tattered clothing and seem to have not much fat or muscle and are mostly skin stretched over bone. There are however some obvious distinctions to be made between the gaming zombie of the 80’s and that of the current generation. For instance, the zombies in Zombie Zombie originate from some darker magic or otherworldly spirit and though nowadays this can still be seen in the occasional game, most zombies originate from some sort of disease or faulty medication. This is most likely down to the expansion in video game graphics and narrative. There simply wasn’t enough scope in the gameplay or graphics to feature any kind of medicinal or biological alterations on the zombies and the harsh classification boards of the 1980’s would have had a much easier time accepting magic and curses than the biological warfare of Resident Evil.

So there you have it, a quick magnified look at histories very first zombie featured in a video game. Without which the culture that thrives today would not exist or at least not be at the stage it is. The influence of nerd and geek culture surrounding zombies cannot be understated when considering the growth of the zombie. That culture and its success owe its roots to the 1984 classic, Zombie Zombie.

~gamrmag.com

Terror on the Trail Zombie Apocalypse - Burlingame, Ca

What better way to celebrate Halloween than fleeing from rabid zombies on a flesh-eating rampage? Be a part of the horrific fun of Terror on the Trail Zombie Apocalypse, provided by the Burlingame Chamber of Commerce, this coming weekend at Burlingame.

Starting Friday evening and continuing Saturday and Sunday nights, a zombie uprising is expected to begin around 6:30 to 7, or as darkness falls (small children must be accompanied by an adult).

The Zombie Outbreak Response Vehicle will evacuate survivors from the Santa Fe Cafe BEMA station, 106 Santa Fe Ave., and transport them to the disease assessment area and prepare them for the last leg of the flight to the safe zone. A military escort will accompany survivors over a half mile through the last remnants of the ravaging hordes to safety, and to where a cure awaits!

(For little ones who don’t like to be scared, a children’s trail is available.)

Whatever you do, don’t miss the last shuttle to safety at 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 8:30 p.m. Sunday (the little zombies have school the next day).

The zombies don’t charge anything for shuffling around, groaning and trying to eat flesh, but a ride on the Zombie Outbreak Response Vehicle, access to safety and a cure for zombie-itis costs a mere $5 per live human.

The event is a fundraiser for the Burlingame Chamber of Commerce.

~osagecountyonline.com

Be on alert!

Fox News Says America's obsession with zombies is hurting our society

Is watching “The Walking Dead” seriously hurting American society?

I would argue ‘Yes.’  Hate me all you want, or call me paranoid and misinformed, but there is one common theme that is pervasive in American pop culture today: violence.  Even more specifically, zombie violence. The idea of a zombie-infested world inspires fantasies of monsters possessed by an uncontrollable rage to kill, and viewers get a thrill imagining what it would be like to participate in this new world order.

We also see this zombie obsession in many videogames.  Even more disturbingly, these games create environments for young children, in which they are exposed to an imaginary world where they get to play with firearms and place themselves in dangerous situations that they find exciting.  And studies have shown that these videogames can sometimes condition people, especially young children, to be apathetic towards violence.  That’s why they’re labeled M for Mature.

This obsession with the undead in television and other media is quite puzzling.  The concept of zombies has been around for decades, and their mythology has even been studied by scientists to prove that such an outbreak can never occur. Yet, whether it be in books or film, zombie popularity has only increased after having originally been popularized by the 1960s film, “The Night of the Living Dead.”

Now, it seems that zombies on television are part of our daily routine.  The obsession also permeates into other facets of our lives, such as with so-called Zombie Runs, in which people dressed as zombies chase other “civilians” to make them run faster towards the finish line.  Even scientists at the National Institutes of Health have spent time creating an apocalyptic how-to guide on dealing with a zombie outbreak.

Give me a break. As a doctor and scientist, I know one thing for sure: When you’re dead, you’re dead.  Our brains should be less focused on imaginary zombie hordes and more focused on harnessing the tools that we need in order to enhance our lives, whether it be music, education, science or the classics. Entertainment should help us soothe our brains so that we can ease our minds of some of the stress from our daily lives.  

With this country heading towards a socialized system of government, in which officials don’t want you to think or focus on what is important for your own personal growth, I’m sure they’re more than happy to let you obsess over something as stupid as zombies.  

And in turn, you ultimately become the zombie.

Wake up and smell the coffee.  Stop obsessing over eating brains, and focus on cultivating your own.

~foxnews.com