Black Friday claims more victims.

Last year, 4,093 people gathered in New Jersey’s Asbury Park to set the world record for the most people dressed like zombies in one place. Not surprisingly, a group of Mexicans broke that record this weekend, more efficiently and for less money, I assume. What the hell has happened to my America? More than 10,000 zombies got together in Mexico City on Saturday, which is also bad news for a recent gathering in Australia of 8,000+ zombie lovers. Let’s face it – when it comes to dressing up like zombies and standing around for no reason other than a love of moaning, Mexico is the best.

But these gatherings are pretty common these days – there was one down the street from me in Orlando just a few months ago – and they’ve left me wondering about a rather important issue. I’m a huge fan of zombie movies and literature, so the idea that there could be a zombie apocalypse exists in my mind. So if all these people are stumbling around at a snail’s pace and moaning, and they’re covered in blood and gashes, would I get in trouble if I started hitting them with shovels?

I mean, “Sorry your honor, but I really thought they were the undead bringers of the apocalypse and I wasn’t going down without a fight” would have to hold up in court, right? Someone needs to look into that.

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Links

Smell Their Feet: The Greatest Child Halloween Costumes That Will Ever Show Up At Your Door - If a child showed up to my door dressed as Sho Nuff (or Bruce Leroy, as long as I could tell it apart from a Game of Death costume) I’d give them ALL of my candy, plus whatever candy I could afford for the next year. [UPROXX]

Our Favorite Photos From Zombie Walk Toronto 2011 - “Our favorite photos” is so funny to me, like Robopanda is flipping through a bunch of polaroids going, “Well, I LIKE this one, but I don’t know if I love it.” (Hi, Robopanda) [Gamma Squad]

Frotcast 71: Spielberg, Voice Mails, Rum Diary, More Seagal or Porn Star - I’m going to debut our podcast at some point in November or die trying. [Film Drunk]

The Dugout: Jim Thome’s Back(yard) - In case you missed it yesterday, here’s a Dugout everybody likes because it has almost nothing to do with baseball. Comment on this thing! [The Dugout]

T.I. And Chelsea Handler Rekindle Their Late Night Magic - The “teen who wants to sleep with his friend’s Mom” in me really enjoys Chelsea Handler. Fantasy threesome: me, Chelsea Handler, Laura Prepon dressed as Chelsea Handler. [Smoking Section]

Meme Watch: Pick Up Line Panda Is Striking Out - Maybe Pick Up Line Panda should outfit himself with the latest technology from Cybertronics. Hi again, Robopanda. [UPROXX]

14 Punctuation Marks That You Never Knew Existed - I know that “schwah” isn’t punctuation, technically, but I hope it’s on here somewhere. [Buzzfeed]

Adult Swim’s Abstract Costume Corner - I don’t work at Adult Swim, but in my mind it’s just Bob Odenkirk and Starburns sitting in an office rolling their eyes while the interns come up with stuff like this and put it online. [Adult Swim]

Freddy Krueger Edges Out Samara Morgan In A Poll For The Scariest Horror Movie Character - You guys think I’m a pro wrestling hipster, wait until you hear my opinions about movies. Samara Morgan? Seriously? Yeah, I’m deathly terrified of your photoshop filters, guys. [FARK]

Regis Strips For Snooki - Regis shouldn’t be doing anything for Snooki. Nobody should be doing things for Snooki. Get it together, America. [AOL TV]

5 Bizarre Killing Sprees That Never Got Solved - An alternate title for “Regis Strips For Snooki”. [The Smoking Jacket]

The 50 Most Successful Box Office Stars of All Time in North America - Jim Varney is on here somewhere, right? He went to camp AND jail AND was scared so much it made him stuipd. [Pajiba]

Turning Movie Posters Into Cartoons - I don’t know why the Tazmanian Devil is in The Illusionist, but it instantly improves that film. [Unreality]

… and it’s worse than we could’ve ever imagined. Soccer zombies.

In the spirit of one of those scenes from early in the movie where a character starts acting weird, and the other guy’s all “heh, c’mon man stop kidding around, you’re not gonna OH NO WHAT’RE YOU DOING AHHHHHHHHH” comes this clip from a Uruguayan Primera Division match — players end up on the ground and a wandering limb comes too close to Argentine striker Nicolas Guevara’s mouth, so he bites it and doesn’t let go. Once you get past the initial shock of the video, the best part is the reaction of the guy who gets bitten. He does the only thing you can do when a soccer player starts trying to eat you, lie back and ask “what the f**k” with your entire body.

Guevara got a red card for the act, but at no point did the referee attempt to destroy the head.

[h/t Dirty Tackle]

Last June Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas was shot to death in the school’s weight room in front of students. The gunman: one of his former players.

The trial is underway for 24 year-old paranoid schizophrenic Mark Becker, who is looking at first degree murder charges. Thomas was the 2005 NFL High School Coach of the Year, and played a major role in bringing the town back from wreckage after a tornado destroyed 1/3 of it [emphasis added].

“He’s a devil, he’s a devil tyrant, he’s suppressing the kids out here,” Becker said of Thomas on the recording. “We can hardly breathe at night. He comes through and he turns us into fish and he turns us into animals and he turns us into dead people. He won’t let us be our heavenly selves. He’s been doing it forever.”

Becker said that after the shooting he told the students present that they were free. Six students who witnessed the shooting have already testified. –FOX Sports

The guy is clearly nuts, and shows no remorse for what he did. There have been plenty of schizophrenics in this world that do not run amok and kill people.  For example, Wesley Willis comes to mind.  Though he passed away in 2003, he brought us such punk rock classics as “Rock and Roll McDonald’s”, “Kris Kringle Was a Car Thief”, and “I Whipped Superman’s Ass”. All Wesley Willis ever wanted to do was give people a headbutt handshake and rock over London, rock on Chicago.

Rather than an insanity plea, Becker’s defense should be that he was leading the crusade against zombie takeover.  Since Thomas was turning everyone into dead people, the attack was imminent.  That’s what he would do if he were serious about this whole “insanity” thing, anyway.

So the guys at Steady Burn dug up this video of people that dressed up as zombies and, with those people apparently not entirely familiar with zombie canon, decided to play a game of kickball. And apparently, none of them had seen Dawn Of The Dead, because these zombies can’t run a lick. Clearly, this outfit of zombies needs a fresh helping of BRAAAIIINS! Or at least a better script supervisor.

West Des Moines high school soccer player Kayla Donahe (not pictured) can’t remember what happened to her on May 19th, but she’s not saying that because she lied to her parents about dating some older guy, or because she was caught drinking by police. No, she really can’t remember, because she was clinically dead after going into cardiac arrest during a game.

Parents and coaches rushed to Kayla’s side. One man began performing CPR. Another called out to Nick Sullivan, an assistant coach on the Dowling boys’ soccer team who just happened to be on the adjacent field. He also just happened to be a medical student, a few days away from graduation at Des Moines University.

“CPR by the bystanders, it’s a bridge. It’s obviously not as effective as your heart beating, but 30 to 40 percent is a lot better than zero,” says Dennis Stofer, a paramedic who was one of first to arrive at the scene. “It gives time. Very precious time.”

[...][Kayla's parents] say there’s no history of heart troubles in the immediate family, which only compounds the mystery. Nearly four weeks after the fact, the specialists still aren’t sure what triggered Kayla’s collapse in the first place.

Kayla now has a small defibrillator unit implanted above her heart. She can no longer play sports or even lift her arms over her head. Of course, the other team still swears that she totally took a dive. On the bright side, she has a great excuse now for failing math and science.

|Des Moines Register|