Zombies with passports: The Walking Dead goes worldwide


In order to promote the new show The Walking Dead on AMC, swarms of zombies invaded 26 cities worldwide (including my city of Istanbul, pictured above and filmed here) earlier this week, lurching around major tourist landmarks and generally freaking out passerby. The undead began their sightseeing in Taipei and Hong Kong, then hit European capitols including London, Rome, and Athens. More arose in Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, and Johannesburg, before going after American brains coast to coast from New York to the show’s premiere in Los Angeles. Check out more photos and video on the show’s blog and Facebook page.

Zombies would make ideal travelers: they can walk through airport security slowly and with no complaints, pack lightly, and don’t need to be fed or entertained on planes. If you can evade the attempts to gnaw on your flesh, they’d make better seatmates than a screaming baby or an armrest hoarder on a long flight. When there’s no more room in coach, we will all walk the earth.

See any zombies on your commutes or travels this week? Leave a comment below if you escaped unbitten. Want more Halloween dead-eyed fun? Our favorite British bear does his take on the zombie genre with Dawn of the Ted.

[Photo Courtesy of Fox International Channels]

British bear hits the beach

The British have given us so much in the way of comedy; from Monty Python to The Office to the newly ubiquitous Russell Brand, funny is their best export. What else would you expect from a country so often bereft of sunshine? Now comes a delightful series of short videos from the BBC starring the hard-drinking, hapless Misery Bear, an English (but Made in China) stuffed teddy bear who never seems to catch a break. In the latest installment, Misery Bear goes on a seaside holiday to Brighton, England. Sad but familiar hilarity ensues as dodges seagulls, gets sick after riding a roller coaster, and tries to free some of his fellow bears from a claw vending machine. All that’s missing is a rotund man chasing after some scantily-clad women.This isn’t M. Bear’s first trip out, previous episodes have sent him to London and South Africa for the World Cup.

America’s Most Miserable Airports

US News & World Report recently looked at the 47 largest hub and non-hub airports in America. After analyzing data that included on-time performance and average load factor (i.e., how crowded the airplanes are), they assigned an “Airport Misery Index” to each airport. The more tardy the airport and the more crowded the airplane, the higher the Misery Index.

Guess which airport is the most miserable:

This list represents only the top 10 “most miserable” airports in the US. For the entire list, see US News & World Report. Some things of note about the results:

  • JFK ranks as the airport with the greatest percentage of flights delayed.
  • Honolulu is the best at maintaining on-time departures.
  • Honolulu has the highest average load factor.
  • Houston’s Hobby Airport has the lowest average load factor.