(and for dessert, brains)

Scrambled brains on toast, anyone?

Zombies and such, I sing, who forc'd by fate
And noble Erzulie's continued hate
Expelled and exiled, fled the Haitian shore.
Long time at sea and many storms they bore
And in the doubtful time before they won
Into our land and entered our poor town
They haunted many lands and ate such meats
As fallen armies leave on their defeats.
This truth I tell you, and my pious strains
May serve as warning 'fore their cry of "Brains!"

Naturally enough, the first consideration would be fly-strike and other insect attack. The average Aussie blowfly is a tenacious little critter, and a parade of zombies lurching down the road would be a prime target not only for the blowies, but also for the bullants. It's highly likely that an Australian zombie would be detectable by the buzzing noise of a swarm of insects tucking in long before the characteristic cry of "braaaaains" became audible.

So, number one note for Aussie zombie masters: don't forget the Aerogard[1]. This probably goes double for Aussie zombie hunters.

Next up would be the consideration that, should your zombie horde survive the insect barrage, they're rather prone to dehydration. While brains are relatively high in water content, they're not exactly going to make up for a solid twelve-hour barrage of very strong sunshine. It's therefore likely that a zombie under Australian conditions would rapidly reach a condition of dessication, and possibly near-mummified conditions. At this point, they'd be far more susceptible to such menaces as fire.

Note number two: ensure your zombie minions keep well away from the barbecue.

A third major consideration is the well-known Australian tendency to drink to excess given the slightest provocation (or indeed no provocation whatsoever). This tendency, combined with the well-known effects of alcohol on brain matter, means that an Australian zombie is more than likely to be suffering from the detrimental effects of extreme malnutrition, particularly during summer when alcohol intake among the expected prey population increases sharply.

Note number three: target "alcohol-free" social events and festivals, for the best chance of successfully feeding your zombie minions and thus avoiding them turning upon you and rending you limb from limb. Also, don't drink and raise the undead.

Quite frankly, zombies really aren't suited, by and large, to the mainly hot and dry conditions of the Australian climate. They're tropical creatures, best raised in rainforest and jungle. For Australian conditions, I'd suggest going for the old favourite: skeletal warriors. All you'll need is a bag of dragon's teeth, obtainable at this time of year from your nearest celebration of the Chinese New Year. Sow these in any reasonably fertile piece of soil, and recruit them as they pop up.

[1] Aerogard - popular brand of insect repellent.

Perhaps there's a progression of some sort? The larval stage is mummies, then they become zombies for their adult life cycle, and a few survive long enough to become skelitons? Alternatively, maybe it's like trees moving into a recently burned down forest--first come the zombies, then werewolves take over their niche, and skelitons are the climax species?

Thy bosom is engorged with all rotting flesh,
Which I by chewing have created dead,
And there grows slime and all the bodies rotting parts,
Of all the friends which I thought buried.
How many a whole and porous lung
Hath dead yet moving fingers stol'n from mine corpse
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things swallow'd that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where eated love doth moulder,
Hung with the braaaainss of all my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did feed;
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their braaaains I chewed and bit in thee,
And thou, and they, hast all the all of me.

Of course, if your "zombies" are just mind-controlled and/or berserked (but living) humans, most of that goes away, but so does a lot of the ultimate terror -- they may keep coming even after being wounded, but massive bloodloss will kill them (no headshot needed), and forget about being chased by disconnected limbs....

(As for skeletons... what force is moving those unmuscled bones? And why is it limited to their original anatomy, instead of, say, a lethal whirlwind of bone shards?)

I'm not really sure that's true, y'know. Consider foie gras: I'm fairly sure a royal diet makes for better liver.

Brains of fooools!

(which are mighty tasty I'm sure)

You turn your back, and I arise
And look on you with rotten eyes
But then you hear my hungry moans
And see the flesh hang from my bones.

You scream in panic, run away
While all around the graveyard sway
The revenants, in shambling race,
Converging on your hiding place.

And when we find you crouching there
We seize your ankles, wrists and hair.
We bite your flesh, we chew your veins
And then at last, we eat your brains.

And when the feasting time is done
You rise again, and we are one:
The eaten eat, the victims stalk
We shamble where we once did walk.

Remember, man, as you pass by:
As you are, once was I;
As I am, you're to be,
Lurching through eternity.

(To the tune of Look on and Cry)

Zombies prefer Claude Raaains over other leading men, although Michael Caaaine is more recent.
And they will watch Tarzan but only for Jaaane.

They can read too - sometimes they will look for a western from Zaaane Graaay.

The Romero thing of them eating brains makes even less sense biologically

Romero Zombies never ate brains.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/05/george-romero

So confused....

Surely some devolution is at hand;
Surely the Zombie Apocalypse is at hand.
The Zombie Apocalypse! Hardly are those words out
When a summer blockbuster out of Image Ten
Comes to my screen: a waste of good film;
A corpse with cankered body eats the head of a man,
Decays, rank, disfigured, fair to none,
Are moving on its slow thighs, while all about it
Crawl shadows of the indulging zombie hoards.
The munching starts again but now I know
That many columns of the marching dead
Were waxed to fragments by a roaring shotgun,
And what rugose beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Allentown to be fed?

Also, staring in AWE at the top-level post. I've been spending a lot of time with the original sonnet lately (I used it to open a fanfic) and... just wow.

tl;dr for others: Night of the Living Dead was made by George Romero and John Russo, who then split up, each making their own series of zombie movies. Romero, of course, went on to do Dawn of the Dead (et seq.). Russo had rights to the "Living Dead" titles, but chose a director who wanted to differentiate the new movies from NotLD, yielding the several Return of the Living Dead movies.

Allsopp defines jumbie, inter alia, as synonymous with duppy (Cassidy orthography: dopi), and provides an etymology which states that the word is probably of Bantu origin and that in the Kongo-Ngola group of languages clearly ancestral words mean "God" and "Devil".

As the Trinidadian folk song has it:

A me one a walk a road,
Jumbie O!
Jumbie come an' knock me down.

Oh dear! "Zombie hoards"? Srsly? It was late at night, and the words were sneaking around, whispering mischievously to each other and betting that I wouldn't recognize them if they switched places when I called them.

"Zombie hordes"! There. that's you put in your place, you little devil!

lee Thompson @24: And yarn zombies want skeeeeeeins. (I did a whole series of those Yarn Zombies earrings; they've all found their homes by now.)

For your delectation, and everyone else's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVIfnHyOkdw

"Do not need introspection. Grab a plate."

Nice. Just goes to prove that the examined unlife is not living.

Oh, I thought a "zombie hoard" was something one had in reserve, should one need to unleash a horde of undead on someone.

ObOtherLOLcat

Games often last a week, so there is lots of fun to be had dodging zombies inbetween classes. The zombies wear a headband in bright colours, the humans have it as an armband. The idea is that the humans stun the zombies with rolled up socks or nerf darts, and the zombies are stunned for a set time, usually 15 minutes. Because the games last so long you might have 200 humans and 5 original zombies, then over several days more and more humans get tagged by zombies until by the last day 10 humans are trying to fight off 150 zombies, and usually die trying. According to some people it is a game for both jocks and nerds, with fast running zombies and humans armed with modified nerf machine guns. (Only they prefer the word blaster because obviously people are worried about guns on campus)

The humans usually have missions to do, like escort the scientist or get to the helipad to be airlifted out. This ensure they don't just camp up in a dormitory for days on end.

It looks quite fun and a bit scary. Even better it seems that foam firing blasters have improved a lot since I was a child.

That, IOW, movie zombies are pretty much the exact opposite of "real" zombies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoe8dBByaw

I have eaten
the brains
that were in
your skull

and which
you were probably
not expecting
to be a repast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so soft
and not yet cold

That is awesome and I would appreciate citations with which to convince my skeptical orkers.

I knew my alma mater would be good for something! Since most students live on campus, it's a great place to play a game like that.

I saw a zombie with a Chinese menu in his hand
Shambling through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's
Going to get a big dish of brain chow mein
Zombies of London

If you hear him shambling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got masticated late last night
Zombies of London again
Zombies of London

They're the scary lurching gents who ran amuck in Kent
Lately they've been overrunning Mayfair
Better stay away from them
They'll suck your brains out, Jim
They'd like to decerebrate your tailor
Zombies of London

Well, I saw Lon Chaney noshing on the Queen
Doing the zombies of London
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. noshing on the Queen
Doing the zombies of London
I saw a zombie drinking a bloody Mary at Trader Vic's
His teeth were rotten
Zombies of London again
Eat braaaaainz

And then there's this, though I'm afraid the book wasn't as good as the trailer, alas.

Ginger #54 - that's cool. Certainly one of the more unusual ways of making a college famous, but a good way to keep the students amused.

http://dxelliott.hubpages.com/hub/Zombie-Evolution-A-Cinematic-Walk-with-The-Living-Dead

http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/kingzombies.html

http://www.zombiesecrets.com/p1019.html

--Dave