Zombie Duck Cake

So as a surprise on our wedding day that I had no idea what coming Leah had a Groom’s Cake made, seriously without me having a clue. It combined my love of zombies with our mutual love of rubber ducks, and her love of pastry – all in cake form! For those who don’t know (online friends fall in that category but that’s about it) Leah was trained as a pastry chef. While she didn’t have time to make this herself (c’mon pre-wedding? who has time for anything) the fact that she was able to have Bittersweet, the pastry shop that made our wedding cake, create this so perfectly is just awesome.

Seriously look at that with eye dripping and everything. Thank you Leah. <3

The Flesh Eating Masses Are Hungry!

So coming soon is going to be a huge revamp on Buy Zombie. The BZ is getting a new layout that is going to allow for a lot more flexibility with the website. We’re going to be adding a TON of new features over the next 6 months, be able to easier reward our readers, have it easier to run contests, AND lower the clutter on the website.

How are we doing that? Well a MUCH cleaner layout that’ll allow for easier navigation is what it boils down to. We’re merging a lot of the ‘sections’ of the website into 4 primary categories (everything else will still be in sub categories) but with this centralized interface it’s going to make everything a LOT easier to get to. On top of this we are going to be redoing how reviews can be accessed as they are one of the larger draws on the site so we’re making multiple ways to navigate through them (again from a centralized area.)

New Features

• A brand spanking new layout
• A smaller featured post section to easier get to navigation and content
• Larger content area on individual posts so we can easier show off images/videos
• A video feed of the posts we do on our YouTube channel
• More structured and better laid out navigation
• Regular reader rewards
• More contests and at least 1 monthly contest
• Also, a slew of secret features we aren’t mentioning until they go live!

Fun Facts About Buy Zombie

• We have over 30,000 unique hits on an average month
• We have over 68,000 page views on an average month
• We have over 2,200 Twitter fans
• We have over 1,900 Facebook Likes
• We have over 2600 published posts and average 4 posts a day Monday – Friday
• We are 4 years old this coming Saturday
• We have recently celebrated doing our 200′th review
• We have 12 regular writers on our staff

Think Outside The Brain

Twitter cracks me up at times. First off let me say that this all started because of a post I did on Buy Zombie earlier today: The Zombies Ate My Homework Shirt. I had a few entertaining posts about it on Twitter but the first one that stuck out was

Zombie_Rights: @BuyZombie Are Zombies just blamed for *everything* now? How long until Taco Bell blames them for forgetting the fire sauce? #zombie

While I was thinking about that it came to me. I needed to zombify a taco bell employee! Sadly I do not have the artistic skills to actually draw one but I do have photoshop! (Or in this case since I’m on my work laptop one of the online web applications that let you zombify people.)

While I was busy on this though the rant continued:
Zombie_Rights: If New Coke came out today, in a few months Coca Cola would be blaming Zombies for the decision

Zombie_Rights: Then when they brought back the ‘original’ flavor with corn syrup, the Zombies would get blamed for that too.

Zombie_Rights: Presumably Zombie farmers, growing corn too cheaply, or perhaps it’d be because Zombies supposedly drove up the cost of sugarcane

So zombies, they are to blame for everything (clearly) but what of this once lovely and now undead taco bell employee? Where do they fit into the equation? Well clearly to keep up with the demand of filling our faces with unhealthy Americanized Mexican food and not having to raise prices convinced them to enter down this slippery slope of zombie slave labor.

Only time will tell how this will work out for us but I’ll answer with one word: badly

On a lighter note do you think they had to invent a brain sauce for the undead to keep them happily motivated? There are a lot of the undead that may prefer blood or marrow flavored. Would they try to keep them all happy or just go with a generic flesh taste for them to spread happily on their Gorditos?

This is why Leah and I buy from small Mexican shops, to not support the zombification of the work place. Well that and the food tastes better generally.

The Library of the Living Dead presents: LIVE AND LET UNDEAD

Shoot ‘em in the head? Not always. What about actually using the living dead as baggage handlers, guard dogs, workers in nuclear power plants, bait for fishermen, and so on? I’m looking for different slants on using the shambling masses to benefit the living. Stories may range from humorous (the movie, “Fido” or the end of “Shawn of the Dead”) to horrific representations of servitude and slavery.

Please mention in your cover letter any genre twists (comedy-horror, war, science fiction, etc.) and any publication history. All acceptances and rejections will be sent out “after” the deadline.

DEADLINE: March 07, 2011
WORD COUNT: 4,000 – 9,000 words
PAYMENT: 1 cent per word + 1 contributor’s copy
REPRINTS: No
MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: Limit of 2, Maximum of 1 accepted
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: No
FORMAT: Standard Manuscript Format (click here for an example).
FONT: Times New Roman size 12
TAB INDENT: ½ inch
SPACING: Double Space
PAGE NUMBERING / HEADERS: No page numbers or headers
CONTACT INFORMATION: Place contact information in the top left of the first page (Name, Address, Phone Number and E-Mail). Place approximate word count at the top right of the first page.
Send the story to liveandletundead@holliesnider.com with the story title, your name and approximate word count in the subject line. Confirmation e-mails will be sent out within a week of receiving your submission. Questions may be posted here or emailed to the aforementioned address (place the words “Anthology Question” in the subject line).

Crazy Dave!

So I was a little busy at work today, got distracted, and didn’t do a blog post here. Excuses! I know… horrible horrible excuses. Truthfully I just thought about it though and as I’m working on other things today is another neglected post. At least fellow Plants vs Zombies fans should appreciate this one! I suppose it could be worse. Instead of being busy with a day job and busy with writing for my other sites I could be this guy…

Zombie Kong Anthology Is Taking Submissions

Books of the Dead Press has announced they are opening up a bit of an original anthology. A Giant Ape Zombie anthology! While there are a LOT of zombie anthologies in the works around the world a giant freaking ape zombie? Now that’s what we call original!

ZOMBIE KONG ANTHOLOGY

Reading Period: Submission period starts now and ends Feb 15th 2011.

Word Count: 2,500 words – 8,000 words

What we want: Stories involving a giant zombie ape. Be creative; steer away from the King Kong films.

What we don’t want: While the similarities to King Kong will be obvious, stories must not infringe upon the messy-as-hell copyright issues that surround the King Kong character, and all the other characters and settings that were created by Merian C. Cooper back in 1929. This means that names such as “Skull Island, Ann Darrow, Carl Denhan,” and “King Kong,” must not appear in your story.

Payment: Authors receive 2¢ per word via paypal, plus one contributor copy of the book.

Submission guidelines: Email your manuscript as a doc or rtf attachment to ZZombieKongStories@gmail.com. Preferred font: Garamond. Use standard manuscript formatting. This includes putting your name and email address on the cover page. Italics may remain italics. We don’t need a cover letter with a list of credits; stories will be judged by their own quality and originality. We claim first world electronic rights and first print rights for a period of one year; the author maintains all other rights.

Return time: As soon as possible.

Estimated Release Date: Summer, 2011.

A note about KING KONG, copyrights, and court battles –

Wikipedia states:

While one of the most famous movie icons in history, King Kong’s intellectual property status has been questioned since his (1929) creation, featuring in numerous allegations and court battles. The rights to the character have always been split up with no single exclusive rights holder. Different parties have also contested that various aspects are public domain material and therefore ineligible for trademark or copyright status.

A court battle with Nintendo, in regards to DONKEY KONG -

Because Universal misrepresented their degree of ownership of King Kong (claiming they had exclusive trademark rights when they knew they didn’t) and tried to have it both ways in court regarding the “public domain” claims, the courts ruled that Universal acted in bad faith and were ordered to pay fines and all of Nintendo’s legal bills from the lawsuit. That, along with the fact that the courts ruled that there was simply no likelihood of people confusing Donkey Kong with King Kong caused Universal to lose the case and the subsequent appeal.

They keep coming and coming and coming…

…Yes zombies are kind of like the energizer bunny but when they run outa legs they find OTHER ways to keep chasing after those delicious brains and this shirt shows exactly how they can accomplish it! A fun tribute to crawling zombies that can be found in a multitude of zombie movies, books, and now tv shows. A classic terror in a great look. As great as it looks on black I’d suggest checking it on a dark green and navy blue.

zombies keep coming, they never stop, even if their legs fall off and their guts are trailing behind them, they drag themselves ever forward searching for brains

Available in Men’s and Women’s

Above The Pants Releases the Santa Zombie Shirt

That’s right boys and girls to celebrate the season we’ve decided to follow Hallmark and start releasing Christmas zombies BEFORE Thanksgiving even happens! I mean hell it worked for them so clearly this should let Above the Pants earn a few billion too! …. …. rriigghhtt.. At any rate Byron was fooling around with the shirt today and when he was done it looked so perfect that we just had to get it going right away!

Move over Santa Claus or Zombie Claus will tear you apart. He doesn’t care if you are good or bad, he just wants to eat your braaAAaains.

Available in Men’s and Women’s!

Zombies Without Borders Taking Submissions

Seeking original previously unpublished zombie stories. The theme of this book is about location. Instead of just stating where your story takes place use culture, geography, and other indicators to showcase the setting. Stories can take place anywhere on Earth except the United States of America. It is urged that authors submitting from outside of the USA choose a location other than their home countries. (e.g. if are submitting from England your story should not take place in England.)

• Word Count : 4k – 7k
• Rich Text Format Only
• Indent paragraphs with 1 tab
• Single Space
• Use Italics – Do not underline
• No page number/headers

Please place your contact information on the title page (name, address, phone number, and email), the approximate word count, and the location where your story takes place.

Please send submissions to zombiekindantho@gmail.com

All submissions must be received on or before January 2nd, 2011.

Pay is 1 cent per word and 1 contributor copy.