Astro Zombie wants to kill us all.

November 11, 2007 8:37 PM

I think that we need to ban a certain MeFite from attending any gatherings.

Speaking as someone who lived in Los Angeles during the LA Riots and fled New Orleans, and was recently just a few blocks from the I34W bridge in Minneapolis when it collapsed: The worst thing that can happen is precisely what you should expect.
posted by Astro Zombie

I mean, damn, A.Z. is just plain bad luck.

posted by Kickstart70 to MetaFilter-related at 8:37 PM (64 comments total)

Haaaaaaaaa, I was so expecting drama when I jumped in here.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:42 PM on November 11, 2007 [5 favorites]

Me too!! Flagged as "want a refund".
posted by nomis at 8:43 PM on November 11, 2007 [7 favorites]

I'm not sure why you are surprised. It's in a Zombie's nature to try and propagate.
posted by gomichild at 8:45 PM on November 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

bah, I was hoping for rancor. I want my money back.
posted by puke & cry at 8:50 PM on November 11, 2007

What is this mythical I34 bridge?
posted by Zosia Blue at 8:52 PM on November 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

Just don't serve stars or brains. You should be good to go.
posted by headspace at 8:53 PM on November 11, 2007

I was in L.A. for the '65 Riots AND the '92 Riots, and near the epicenter of the '71 and '93 Quakes. And one fire season I watched a 10K acre inferno from the window of a hospital that was almost evacuated... My "historical disaster index" is comparable to AZ's while living in one area for 40 years. So I welcome him to my current home on the California Central Coast anytime. But Astro Zombie 3 has to stay home.

And just for the record, L.A. did NOT kick me out.
posted by wendell at 8:53 PM on November 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Typo, Zosia Blue.
posted by puke & cry at 8:54 PM on November 11, 2007

I can honestly say that I've never been anywhere near anything that really qualifies as a major disaster. A few minor things, sure....but nothing like the list that AZ or wendell have seen.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:56 PM on November 11, 2007

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:02 PM on November 11, 2007 [5 favorites]

I was also beaten up in the riots that occurred in Westwood about a year before the LA Riots, when New Jack City opened. And there was a 6.5 earthquake, or some other ridiculously huge number, just before I left.

Although, to be fair, I lived in Omaha for six years and the worst thing to happen at that time was Conner Oberst.

Whoops. Sorry, emo kids. Conner's a sweetheart.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:13 PM on November 11, 2007 [2 favorites]

And just where where you on Dec 7, 1941?
posted by Pants! at 9:17 PM on November 11, 2007

Aw, you're missing the big picture. We shouldn't be banning him from meetups, we should be paying him to go to Crawford.
posted by felix betachat at 9:19 PM on November 11, 2007 [7 favorites]

Well, if I've recently been abusing the beer'n'kimchi, it can smell like a disaster area in my vicinity.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:34 PM on November 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

I still want drama. Will somebody please just tell him that he's a pariah and that he'll just need to buy our drinks from home with his debit card.
posted by a_green_man at 9:59 PM on November 11, 2007

Well, if I've recently been abusing the beer'n'kimchi, it can smell like a disaster area in my vicinity.

Wait a minute. Everybody smells like that in your vicinity, stav, so nobody's gonna notice. AMIRITE?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:12 PM on November 11, 2007

In 1998, I was bitten by a black widow spider in New Orleans' French Quarter the morning after a three day Halloween drinking and drugging binge. We were on our way to where our cars were parked, gearing up for the 9 hour drive back to Austin.

I was waiting for my friends to buy some coffee, sitting on a stoop playing with a puppy that one of them had bought from a homeless kid the night before when I felt a slight prick on my right forearm. Admittedly, I was still a bit hazy from lack of sleep and non-lack of strong drugs and booze, so I thought nothing of it and when my group returned with our coffee we started walking. I got maybe a block and a half before I noticed the strange circular welts that were starting to form, creeping up my arm and towards my torso.

At first, my friends thought I was dizzy and short of breath because I'd been hitting it so goddamn hard for the previous 72 hours. I showed them the welts and they knew something was rotten in swampland. My chest began to get really, horribly tight, the welts grew larger and more pronounced, and it was then we all knew shit was starting to fly. Two of our group took off to get their car, which was closer than ours, so I wouldn't have to walk any more and to maybe take me to the hospital if things didn't fix themselves. Later I found out that the fuckers stopped at a bar and had one last drink before they made it to their car. Priorities.

We popped into a coffeeshop - a big and busy one right in the heart of the Quarter, I forget the name - to wait for our ride to show up. I remember sitting on one of those high chairs that go along with those tall but small tables, starting to black out, and having someone catch me as I fell out of the chair.

My friends - no strangers to over-dramatizing even the most mundane events - were starting to freak the fuck right out when one of the cafe's patrons approached us and identified himself as a paramedic from, of all places, our home town Austin. I don't remember much from that point on, but he told my friends that I was going into anaphylactic shock and, damn the torpedoes, 911 needed to be called.

I remember coming to in the ambulance. A group of about 12 of us had gone to NO for the holiday, and for some reason the person that insisted on riding with me to the hospital was a girl that I barely knew, a new roommate of one of my close friends - a close friend that didn't want to ride in the ambulance through the French Quarter, apparently. The most I knew about the girl that was riding with me was that the first night/morning we were in town I'd woken up after 3 or 4 hours of light sleep to her fucking her boyfriend reverse cowgirl style in the bed not two feet from me. She was average cuteness, but her guy was a prettyboy and I watched nonetheless.

The paramedic was asking her all kinds of standard questions about my medical history - questions that she had no reason to know the answers to. Then the medic asked if I'd been doing any drugs, and I blurted out a firm "No!" (my first word in the ambulance). My escort decided that my lie might end up hurting me and I was promptly corrected. "He's been drinking heavily, doing cocaine, and taking pharmaceuticals... Valium, Percocet... maybe others." From that point on I was treated like a veteran junkie - looks of disgust, an actual mutterance of "brought it on himself", the whole works. Never mind that I was suffering from an ailment that no drug has ever been known to cause, I was trash to them.

When we got to the hospital, I was only in the ER waiting room for a few minutes. I was in such a state that they actually rushed me ahead of a poor fellow that had cut a sizable portion of his hand off with a chainsaw. I remember the blood. I remember his sobs. His blood and screaming are about all I remember of the waiting room.

I was given a couple of shots (steroid, hydrocortisone maybe?) and within a few moments I could breathe again. Before the shots were administered, though, the doctor made a comment along the lines of, "So... I see you've been doing cocaine and other drugs. That's not good." Because, you know, if my blood had been puritan grade that devious little spider would've left me alone and gone for the puppy instead.

I was out of the hospital in less than an hour. My arm and most of the right side of my bodys hurt like all hell, but since Little Miss Fucks-in-bed-next-to-strangers told them about my choice of chemical fun for the trip, they wouldn't give me any painkillers stronger than OTC.

While I was being treated, my friend's car was broken into and my hands down, all time favorite jacket was stolen. A few hours later, we were pulled over somewhere on I-10 by a fresh-faced Patrolman that decided our car needed searching and refused to believe that I was too ill to get out of the car into the chilly swamp night, despite my hospital bracelet and the medical paperwork my friends kept shoving in his face. Once out of the car, I fainted slightly and Officer Supercop wouldn't allow me sit down while he and his partner ransacked our car.

That's pretty much it. I've been to New Orleans many times since then and it remains my favorite city in the United States, but I promise to never attend a meetup there for fear of bringing down torrent of nasty luck.
posted by Item at 10:14 PM on November 11, 2007 [46 favorites]

Ah New Orleans, is there any city like it?
posted by nola at 10:24 PM on November 11, 2007

Wait a minute. Everybody smells like that in your vicinity, stav, so nobody's gonna notice. AMIRITE?

Not according to my good lady wife.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:25 PM on November 11, 2007

bringing down torrent of nasty luck

You know, I banged out that story quickly, but I checked the fucker for obvious grammar farts. The time I spent grammar-checking would've been better spent including the following points:

- The night before all of this happened, we'd met up with our good friends in the band ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Dead. They'd played a show in town and were embarking on a US tour that was to be capped off with - if I remember correctly - their first European jaunt. We'd gone to a party with them at Quintron & Pussycat's Spellcaster Lodge that lasted till the dawn started to break. We left our Trail of Dead comrades as we were heading back to our cars and they back to their tour van, planning on meeting up back at the Autobahn Hotel where we were all staying. We found our cars, hazed our way back to the hotel, and partied for the rest of the night. The band never showed, and we figured they'd split out early for the next stop on their tour.

Turns out the cheap fuckers had decided that $20 was an obscene amount to pay to keep their van in a secure, guarded garage for the night and they'd left the thing - bursting at the seams with expensive, uninsured equipment - parked on the street... IN THE NINTH WARD. Needless to say, the van and their gear disappeared into thin air, as did the remainder of the US tour and the much-anticipated European tour.

There was another aside to go with this whole shebang, but dammit if my brain isn't glitching out about it.
posted by Item at 11:29 PM on November 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

dammit if my brain isn't glitching out about it

Duuuuude man you gotta give up that spider venom it's seriously messing with ya.
posted by gomichild at 11:34 PM on November 11, 2007

As it happens, it was my pet spider.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:39 AM on November 12, 2007 [9 favorites]

I had to get about halfway through item's story before I realized he wasn't just quoting Rant Casey. heh.
posted by tehloki at 3:25 AM on November 12, 2007

I'm a god like that - constantly quoting works of fiction that I've yet to read. It lend itself into all kinds of trouble, as I tend to bump into famous authors all the time. Just last month I was in Barnes & Borders, turning the corner while reading from Newt Gingrich's latest spy thriller out loud -very, very loud. I like to give the characters and the narrator very distinct voices. It helps. Anyway, BAM there I was with my face buried in Newt's day-old stubble. He smelled like I imagine my departed grandfather smelled - Old Spice, tooothpaste, and mothballs. Seriously.

He was impressed that I was reading his book, and I had a really difficult time explaining that I like to pick up random books - best sellers, usually -and flip around in 'em to find the most awkward and hilarious passages.

I got my pic taken with him, though. Maybe I'll put it up in my profile.
posted by Item at 4:09 AM on November 12, 2007 [3 favorites]

...and the pic's up in my profile. Me 'n Newt hanging out, scheming, plotting, plucking out each other's nose & ear hairs, sometimes we kiss... but no tongue! You don't have to wory about that. Newt's afraid of getting the "Mouth Aids",and every attempt to convince him otherwise sends him off in a fit of tears.

In all reality, this photo was taken in downtown Philly in the Barnes & Borders. I was dressed like shit that day because the company I worked for didn't give an ounce of ooze collected from a mean rat's ass. I was also, for some reason, very sweaty. I think I might've just gone on a quick bike ride over to Trader Joe's. The important thing here is that I was a big ball of sweat.

Newt, always the politician, said "sure" when I asked some random guy to take the photo. Newt stood not exactly next to me, but rather pressed up against me with his right arm needlessly caressing my lower back. I think it was some kind of "man" thing. I'm not sure. Oh, and let's not forget about the sweat. I was wearing a tshirt and a hoodie that were both dripping the salty chris-sauce.

The guy I'd given my camera to - he seemed okay but he was probably born a little 'touched' - couldn't figure out how to work the easiest, cheapest point n click digital camera that will ever be sold, but after a good 2 minutes of Newt and Chris Item standing formation, the flash went off and I had my photo. Newt scurried away as fast as a pair of 97 year old legs can take a man.
posted by Item at 4:39 AM on November 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

the fuckers stopped at a bar and had one last drink before they made it to their car

This is the sort of thing that makes me seriously consider just moving to New Orleans instead of visiting once a year and pining for it the rest of the time.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:04 AM on November 12, 2007

Meh. When I was last in New Orleans, I actually drank one of those terrible fruity-daiquiri-like drink things in the big cup with the silly straw that you buy on the street. Now that was a disaster.
posted by googly at 6:16 AM on November 12, 2007

To tie this whole mess together, I must divulge that I once had to go to the hospital when I was bitten by a newt.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:23 AM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

It would have been a better story if Newt bit you, instead of the spider.
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:33 AM on November 12, 2007

I actually drank one of those terrible fruity-daiquiri-like drink things in the big cup with the silly straw that you buy on the street.

Well, that narrows it down to about a thousand.
posted by gtr at 6:39 AM on November 12, 2007

I am just trying to think about the rest of the spider's weekend. "I can't go outside, maaan! I'm telling you, there are SHOOES, like, EVERYWHERE! I can't be smushed, man, I'm too young to be smushed..."
posted by Eideteker at 6:44 AM on November 12, 2007 [7 favorites]

Aww.

Astro Zombie: You can come to a Chicago meetup! I will vouch for you! It's not like you could cause Lake Michigan to rise up and swallow the city whole, right?

Right?
posted by sparkletone at 7:24 AM on November 12, 2007

I swear to god, sparkletone, I will seriously hold it against you if something happens now.

Not Astro Zombie. You.
posted by aramaic at 8:35 AM on November 12, 2007

I am known for having the best and worst of luck, with very little in between. I've been in earthquakes, riots, fires, floods. Whenever I travel overseas I have to cross my fingers that whatever injury I receive will be small. Because something will injure me, oh yes... something will. In Thailand I fell going 10 mph on a scooter (yes, I was drunk) and ended up backpacking for 3 weeks with 2 broken ribs & a partially collapsed lung (I was in denial about how injured I was). On my last overseas trip, I broke my foot on the third day. On the 16th day I was on a bus and my eardrum ruptured due to altitude so I was half deaf for 12 more days. Yes, it sucked. It sucked as much as something sucky can suck.

I'm hoping to go on another holiday next year. So if anyone would like to trade my luck with me... I would really like to pass the baton to someone who enjoys drama a bit more than I do. (E-mail me!) I just really don't want to have any more holiday tours of the hospitals or disasters of the world, thank you very much. I'm quite over it. kthxbye.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:27 AM on November 12, 2007

In 1998, I was bitten by a black widow spider

I really wanted item's story to end with him fashioning a costume and fighting crime in the big city, but the real story was pretty good too.
posted by turaho at 10:44 AM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

a moose once bit my sister...
posted by blue_beetle at 10:46 AM on November 12, 2007

a sister once bit my moose...
posted by phaedon at 10:53 AM on November 12, 2007

a sister once bit my moose...

Hey, no nun jokes!
posted by languagehat at 11:04 AM on November 12, 2007

I swear to god, sparkletone, I will seriously hold it against you if something happens now.

Obviously! I am vouching for him.

Just please don't kick me out of the city. I like it here.
posted by sparkletone at 11:36 AM on November 12, 2007

As disasters go, mine haven't been that bad, generally as a kid I'd break a bone or bite through my tongue every year or so. Nothing bad had really happened since I ran over an old lady on my bike back in 2000, but they've been pretty frequent this year.

Two weeks ago I moved to California, flying into Oakland and driving down to San Jose. I met up with my friends and went back to their apartment, had some dinner, started drinking, and then I experienced my first earthquake. This happened only after I had already spent 4 years in California with no signs of geological disturbances. Nobody was hurt, but I had a sick sense of foreboding.

So, a few days pass, I move myself to the land of disillusionment known as LA and find a decent apartment in Sherman Oaks. What is sure to be an excellent opener, the WGA goes on strike, so I'm pretty sure I won't be finding a job real soon. On my 3rd day in the apartment, some kid does a B&E when I'm home and then jumps out the kitchen window. So I deal with the cops for the rest of the day and then my freaked out roommates. Two days later I wake up to go get some security stuff for the apartment and my roommates tell me there was another B&E, across the courtyard (same kid).

So I'm really just waiting for my car to blow up, a terrorist attack on downtown LA, or the "big one" to hit...

Wait, did you feel that rumble?
posted by Derek at 11:41 AM on November 12, 2007

It's stav, Derek. No worries.
posted by scrump at 11:59 AM on November 12, 2007

Fucking space zombies.
posted by NationalKato at 12:02 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've been warning you about Astro Zombie for years, but no one ever listens: You see him in the store, and he's all cute with his little dessicated face and fishbowl space helmet, and you thing 'Gee, I've been feeling a bit lonely, and an animated astronaut corpse is just what I need around the house to pick up my spirits'.

You just never think that all the voodoo and black magic that went into making him? Yeah, that shit might rub off.

So now you've got your sweet little space zombie wandering around your house, and that's all well and good, but all of a sudden you notice that your oven is acting weird, maybe it's nothing more that a faulty circuit, or maybe it's an evil hex that is going to explode in your face, starting a fire that takes out your entire neighborhood...

And because AZ is unkillable (I've surreptitiously tried) he will just wander around till he ends up in another adoption agency, waiting...
posted by quin at 12:03 PM on November 12, 2007

I was born on the very same day that I was born. Fuckin' omen, that.
posted by cortex at 12:08 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I should hang out with Astro Zombie and we'll cancel each other out. Nothing ever happens when I'm around - my Excitement Deflector Shields are impenetrable. When I visited Thailand in 1985, they waited until 4 days after I'd left to stage a coup d'etat. In 1989 I returned home from a somewhat sneakily extended vacation on the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which distracted my boss from chewing me out (which would have been about 9.3 on the Richter scale). I visited Turkey during the ramp-up to the first Gulf war, and the only thing that happened was villagers gave us a bunch of apples because they couldn't sell them in Iraq any more.

So bring it on, Astro Zombie! Quin thinks you're unkillable, but I know I can bore you to death!

It's my secret ninja skill.
posted by Quietgal at 12:29 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

May you live in interesting times...
posted by zoinks at 1:31 PM on November 12, 2007

By the way, ladies, hands off Item. He and I are like a veritable HURRICANE of adventure when we're together! Between the two of us we've had every major medical emergency, methinks, and many amusing brushes with the law.

Alas, we have yet to go to New Orleans as a couple. Although I have actually been in a car that killed a person there, on a different trip...
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:04 PM on November 12, 2007

Miss Lynnster: Metafilter's best hope at winning Survivor?

And I believe that the phrase you are looking for is: It sucked like a sucker would suck it.

no?
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:08 PM on November 12, 2007

I would SO watch the Metafilter edition of Survivor!

'Course, the admins would be a sure bet to win the whole deal.
posted by misha at 3:33 PM on November 12, 2007

I would SO watch the Metafilter edition of Survivor!

'Survivor: MetaFilter' -- which 16 MeFites (and, why) would you like to see banished to an island for 39 days?
posted by ericb at 4:07 PM on November 12, 2007

Def. Mathowie, Jessamyn, ThePinkSuperhero, Phrontist, Hama7, Astro Zombie, Stavrosthewonderchicken, Dr. Steve Elvis whatever, Empath, Wendell, asavage, Klangklangston, HMSbeagle and Item. I haven't been around long enough to form opinions about more than those few.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 4:34 PM on November 12, 2007

Y'all going DOWN!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:49 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Only 39 days?
posted by cortex at 4:55 PM on November 12, 2007

Yeah, I'm pretty sure asavage has us all beat.
posted by Item at 5:55 PM on November 12, 2007

Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
--Buck Owens and Roy Clark
posted by ardgedee at 7:00 PM on November 12, 2007

I'm pretty sure asavage has us all beat.

I think we can come up with a rule that makes him ineligible (other TV show and all). Of course, I'd want to include quonsar, konolia, miss lynnster, languagehat, Eideteker, Poolio and It's Raining Florence Henderson. And you'd probably need to recruit madamjujujive and scody to get quonsar to come along, and just because of the likelihood that I would need a doctor while on the island, bring ikkyu2. And, hey, unicorn forgot to include cortex! Dangit, just kidnap as many of my 117 contacts you can, and we can do more of a "MeFiKidNation"...
posted by wendell at 8:01 PM on November 12, 2007

I would totally vote asavage off the island immediately. And then he'd make himself a rocket pack powered by fermented coconut milk and disappear into the sunset.

Adam, I know you're thinking it right now...about how much energy is stored in a single coconut. I'm going to start a widely dispersed myth about this so we can find out exactly via the show. ;)
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:32 PM on November 12, 2007

Being stuck on an island with these people sounds ghastly.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 8:41 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

That's why we're gonna eat you first.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:08 PM on November 12, 2007 [3 favorites]

I stubbed my toe this morning. Stay away, far away!
posted by FlamingBore at 10:36 PM on November 12, 2007

Keep pushing, Mr. President. See what happens.

I slice like a hammer.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:42 PM on November 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

One thing stood out to me about item's New Orleans bad luck story.

I have never accidentally seen anyone making sex. I have never accidentally walked in on someone naked. I have never had an apartment or house where you could see anything illicit in someone else's window. I have never had thin walls where you could hear the neighbors going at it. I've never even heard anyone doing it through hotel or motel walls, and I've stayed in a lot of hotels and motels.

The thing is, I tend to have ridiculously good luck. Especially when it comes to ridiculous drunken and debaucherous behavior.

I have no choice but to conclude that voyeurism=bad juju.
posted by billyfleetwood at 12:09 AM on November 13, 2007

If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
posted by dg at 2:06 AM on November 13, 2007

Only 39 days?

That's the standard "stay" for 'Survivor.'

We could always extend it -- kinda' like to the three months to which 'Big Brother' confines their contestants.
posted by ericb at 10:17 PM on November 13, 2007