Apocalypse Eve, My New Favorite Holiday

So let me summarize. It's been an eventful night. My celebration of Apocalypse eve consisted of a long apocalypse movie marathon which is still going on as we speak. I have a collection of 6 apocalypse movies, and my goal is to finish all 6 before the day is over (assuming, of course, that the apocalypse does not happen, which is what I believe will happen today).

So why celebrate 12/21/12, you might ask? Well for me, this day is a significant historical landmark. This day has been an event of interest for centuries. It is, in essence, the 1 year birthday of the Mayan calendar. In another way, this is also kind of the death of the Mayan calendar. Either way, I thought it would be interesting to treat it as a holiday. It is sort of the Y2K event of the two-thousands.

I am delighted to report that the night has been a smashing success. This has been, without doubt one of the best nights of my life. I felt like I was celebrating history, in my own kind of geeky way, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I dove into the suspense, gasped with the heroes  and celebrated the victories. I let myself into every moment, as if it was happening from a window of my room, and the result was humbling and exhilarating.

I have seen many different apocalypse movies tonight (and also, as a bonus, I can now spell apocalypse correctly 100% of the time). Many of the more widely known apocalypse movies I have already seen. I am, after all, a huge movie nerd. I was aiming to watch new material instead of re-watching things I've already seen, so I went shopping and found a value pack with 6 apocalypse movies. I was sold.

The first movie I watched was "2012: Supernova". It was the least impressive of the movies I watched tonight. Mostly, I felt like the whole thing was too easy. I mean, by no means is a supernova a boring catastrophe, but pretty much all the things the team needed just kind of magically appeared. It seemed like they were too prepared for a phenomenon which is traveling at light-speed. How did they manage to detect it in the first place? The movie was all-right, but not impressive.

The next movie, "Storm" was a little more interesting, but still left things to be desired. The "natural disaster" was not one at all, but instead was a storm which people manipulated in order to direct and strengthen it. It was an interesting concept, but not really an apocalypse.

The third movie was one of the very best movies I've seen so far this Apocalypse Eve. It is called "Catagory 7: End of the World". Despite the melodramatic title, the movie was amazing!

There were just so many plot twists and parallel plots all happening at the same time. The characters were engaging, and I liked them immediately. Because of this, I was drawn more deeply into the plot. The movie was extremely long. It had two parts. I liked that there was just the right balance of complete and utter destruction, and joyful salvation. There has to be enough destruction to make the movie feel like the entire world really could just disintegrate. However, there also needs to be a long-shot plan which results in some sort of victory. This movie had all of these element, balanced perfectly. I genuinely applaud the directors of this film, it was truly well done.

Needless to say, after the previous masterpiece, the next movie had big shoes to fill. I was worried that all the rest of the movies would be downhill from there. However, the next movie was equally as good. So good, in fact, that I can not decide which I like better, the third or fourth movie in this marathon. The title is "10.5 Apocalypse". I think that perhaps both the third and fourth movies in this marathon were directed or produced by the same person or company. Both movies have the same sort of balanced parallel plots and engaging characters. Also, both movies have two parts, making them both extremely long.

Anyway, 10.5 Apocalypse was different because it featured a sort of chain event catastrophe sequence where each catastrophe was partially caused by the previous one. Also, only in this movie did I see such a wide variety of destructive forces. In most of the movies, one or two focused things cause the apocalyptic event. In this movie however, there were earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, sinkholes forming, tidal waves smashing, volcanic acid eroding structures, buildings collapsing, and at one point, there was even an impending nuclear accident/fallout which would kill millions. Overall, just when I thought that the suspense couldn't get any stronger, something else would happen which would push the whole situation higher. Great movie! Great movie indeed!!

The fifth movie might possibly be the worst movie I've ever seen. The title "2012: Doomsday, didn't seem too much different from the others. But it was comically dramatic, the acting was terrible, and the plot was heavy and laborious. The entire movie was also filled with this overly dramatic background music which made every scene just as sickening as the last. It was crammed full of mismatched religious traditions and prophesies. The goal never seemed worth the amount of drama required to reach it. For example, the brave trek featured in one part of the plot was all so that a statue could be returned to a temple. The statue looked like it had been made hastily and then covered with gold spray paint. It was.....pathetic. Anyway, you can't win them all. On to the last film.

The final movie in this marathon was simply named, "Apocalypse". This movie, although it seemed like a blockbuster in comparison with the last one, was fairly strange. The apocalypse mentioned in the title was less of a natural disaster, and more of an inter-terrestrial terrorist attack. The terrorist was a mentally ill woman with a fetish for word play and puzzles. The vessel was an ancient spaceship which everyone assumed was abandoned. There were some charming things about this movie, some of the characters were engaging, but overall this movie isn't one I'll watch again.

So there we have it. I have officially watched somewhere between 10-12 hours of apocalypse movies, and it is now close to noon on 12/21/12. Happy apocalypse day everyone! I'm going to go get some sleep!

Apocalypse, an extremely difficult word to spell

We've all seen those films. Where the solidity of the earth fails, earthquakes open up great chasms in the ground, entire continents shift and protest. The sea rises up and smashes the statue of liberty, the fire rains down from the clouds, and hail the size of cars smashes buildings. Fires are everywhere, electricity fails and phones are useless. Cities fall into the sea and planetary poles shift. Suddenly, icy cold is descending on the people and no one can escape.

Apocalypse. A great force of nature which would render our planet lifeless and barren. Why do I write about these things? Well, as I write it is currently past midnight on December 21, 2012, a date widely believed to signal the end of the world.

These prophecies supposedly originated from the ancient Mayans, who created an elaborate calendar system which, of course, was not indefinite. The Mayans wrote that the end of the calendar signaled the beginning of a "new age". This statement is clearly ambiguous, but nevertheless, for centuries it has been widely believed that the world would cease to exist past 2012. When I say widely believed, I am not saying that the majority of people believe it, but only that as far as apocalypse prophesies go, the 2012 prophesy seems to be the most significant doomsday prophesy.

I do not claim to be an expert in Mayan culture, nor have I extensively studied the subject, however, I am one of the people who do not believe 12/21/12 signals the end of the world. Perhaps I am just one of the great gullible masses, and a massive meteor really is plummeting toward earth to wipe out humanity. After all, in the movies, the people who see the truth are few and they are ridiculed. The majority of people go about with their lives until the very last second when the world is crashing down and they realize that they were wrong.

In reality, and excuse me for being callous, but I honestly don't care. What am I doing tonight? I'm watching just about every apocalypse movie that was ever made, just for the fun of it. My viewpoint on life tends to be a very liberating one. I figure that if I'm going to die, whether it be old age, freak accident, murder, or act of nature, I'll just deal with that when I get there. Why worry about every possible crisis? There are so many different things that can go wrong, it's amazing! My legacy is that I'll deal with every crisis once I can clearly see it, and I'll do my best to advert catastrophe when I can, but I'm honestly not going to loose any sleep over it.

Look at it this way. If I'm going to live in a house, there are some important things that I can do to keep myself safe. I'm going to put fire detectors in every room and keep them well-serviced. I'm going to map escape routs and make sure I know how to get out of my bedroom window. I'm going to put a security system in the house, not cut corners, and a good, healthy pit bull never hurts.

I'm going to wear my seat belt when I drive, and never drive intoxicated. The point is, I'm going to do all the routine things which can keep me and the people I love safe, but when it comes to everything else, I'm just not going to worry about it.
If a random bolt of lightning strikes a wire which runs into my house, in through the walls, into my room, through my socket, into my laptop's cord, and electrocutes me through my ear-buds  there is absolutely nothing I can do about that. So why worry about it?



When it comes to things which I have no control over, I would say the most obvious of these is nature. We see every day what happens when nature grows restless. Tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis; these are all natural disasters which strike suddenly and without prejudice. If you ever wanted a power which recognizes equality, it would be nature.

These disasters devastate poor and rich alike, killing whoever can not scramble to safety. Another factor which makes these killers effective is that every one of them is a little different. There is an air of unpredictability which makes escape risky and flawed. Overall, if there is anything which I cannot plan for, in any way shape or form , it is a natural disaster. And the apocalypse, if it ever does occur, would be the mother of all natural disasters. For all we know, the entire planet would disintegrate. Where do you think meteors come from? They are pieces of something.
My point is that an apocalypse event is something which, by my nature, I simply do not feel the need to worry about. If it happens, it will happen, and I will deal with it them.

Life is such a fragile and beautiful blessing. The more I learn about science, the more intricate and interconnected it becomes. In fear of sounding like a granola hippie, I'm going to go ahead and say...........we should celebrate life. I don't mean that we should all go outside in the rain and soak in the positive energy or some nonsense like that. (Although if that is your method of celebrating life, there is nothing wrong with it I'm sure) I'm just saying that for right now, how about we all just take a minute or two to soak in the world. Breath the air and love that it is around, feel the ground and love that it is strong, absorb your controlled environment and love that you're not outside (which in my case would be bitterly cold, extremely windy, and unpleasantly damp.) Love where you are, and leave the world to go forward, wherever it is destined or fated or just decides to go.

Human 100-300 pounds

Earth 5, 973,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms (estimated number calculated by this source)
(1 kilogram= 2.2 pounds)

Conclusion? Sit back and enjoy the ride, nature wins every time.