[Video]

[irwins]

[Camera on means Shaun is on, all easygoing smiles and comfortable confidence. This is the usual thing, except this time? No zombies. No monsters. No weapons in hand. It's sort of a very different vlog post for him.

But it can't be mayhem and bloodshed all the time. I mean, usually it can, but here he is anyway.]

So. Valentine's Day is a thing back where I'm from too, but you know... little different. Less moonlit strolls on the beach or fancy restaurants and more staying home not getting eaten by zombies together. Not-dying-and-un-dying is basically the most romantic thing anyone can do.

What's romance look like for everyone else? Let's hear it. Anyone have a particularly romantic V-Day? I know you're not supposed to kiss and tell, but anyone want to kiss and tell?

[He's curious, after all. However.]

Wait, that wasn't actually my point. My point is, the best part about Valentine's Day in any world is the day after Valentine's Day because there is so much chocolate heart bullshit on sale. Discount sugar rush for everyone! RIP to out collective blood glucose levels.

[Here he holds up a bag that is basically stuffed full with various boxes of candy, chocolate roses, something that has a teddy bear attached to it.]

Given my assigned profession as restaurant critic, I feel like it is my solemn vocational duty to remind folks of this fact.

[And here he is, performing that valuable service.]

Comments

[irwins]

Nailing it so far. It was the marshmallow bit. Highly underrated candy component, in my professional opinion.

[He holds up a finger.] Disclaimer that said opinion is only about nine months old, since before I wound up here, most of my professional opinions were about zombies and the best way to kill them. Re-kill them. Whatever.

[anormie]

Wow. We’re they like fast zombies or slow ones?

[irwins]

Oh yeah, no, none of that 28 Days Later shit, thankfully. Think more your classic Romero style shambler. Coordination isn't Kellis-Amberlee's forte.

[anormie]

Is that what they’re called where you’re from?

[irwins]

Kellis-Amberlee? That's what the virus is called. The politically correct term varies. Infected, amplified infected, reanimated undead. Whatever. They're zombies.

[anormie]

Can I asked how it happened?

[irwins]

Sure, yeah. I'm not the guy to give you the hard science on it, and I was born after the Rising already was in full swing. But the history books are pretty clear by this point.

Couple man-made designer viruses. One intended -- and successful in it -- to fight cancer. And the other engineered to take down the common cold. The latter got loosed into the world by a bio-terror idiot before it was properly studied and understood in a lab setting. Somewhere, the two met in the wild. Decided they liked each other. Merged up. And then the dead started coming back to life and trying to eat the living. Bad times were had by all.

On the plus side, no one gets colds or cancer anymore?

[anormie]

Jesus. That’s horrifying.

[irwins]

Eh. It has its moments.

[It's the only reality Shaun has ever known besides the glimpses of "the normal world" in movies and tv and books. And well, here. This world. Relatively few zombies.]

[anormie]

How long has it been going on where you are?