Dead Island

Sun cream, ice bucket, baseball bat & nails

If you were to try to imagine a paradise island you would probably come up with Banoi, the setting for Dead Island, a survival horror by Techland that im currently wading through on Playstation 3. With crisp, blue waters, golden beaches, luxury resorts and near endless sunshine, it is truly a bit of Heaven right here on earth. If only it wasn't for the zombies hellbent on turning it into...well hell.
Dead Island is brilliant! A FPS (first person shooter for non gamers) which pits you against hoardes of the undead, eager to strip you of your tasty fleeeesssh! This game has had its critics but they are wrong I tell thee. They were probably expecting another Call Of Duty or Grand Theft Auto and more fool them if that was the case. The game looks stunning (I often put down my machete and take in the views) and gameplay is pretty sweet also. I particularly love the ability to create vicious homemade weapons such as Nail'd baseball bats (do I really have to draw a picture?) and double bladed knives. Sure you can find firearms but these are not nearly as fun as lopping some undead saps head off with a scythe and watching it bounce down the road. That my friends is extremely satisfying and is why I usually leave the guns to mortals. I like up close and personal death dealing. (Or is that udeath dealing?)
Im not a mahoosive fan of FPS (eventhough ive played more than my share) and when Dead Island first surfaced I was kinda hoping it would be played in third person like Resident Evil because im one of those weird people who find third person view more immersive than first person, but im happy to report that it hasn't spoilt my fun. Techland have even remembered to include the characters feet which is swell as one thing that ruins realism in FPS for me is the fact the hero always seems to be legless (and not the good kind!)
The only grumble I have with Dead Island is that it has to load inbetween the main areas (resort, city and jungle.) Why is this? Seems strange when in bigger games like Just Cause 2 the player can drive from one end to the other of a huge map without a single sniff of a loading screen. But as im in a mellow mood (and the fact this is not a game review) I can forgive this little annoyance, especially when the rest is such bloody (literally) fun.


Excuse the slurring. Hic!

Mechanics Of Death

Cleve 'Sarge' Foster has shared his thoughts of going through the mechanics of facing execution in Texas - and living to talk about it.
The process shifts into high gear at noon on the scheduled execution day when a four-hour-long visit with friends or relatives ends at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston.

"That last visit, that's the only thing that bothers me," he said. "The 12 o'clock-hour hits. A dozen or so guards come to escort you."

By Foster's count, it's 111 steps to the prison gate and an area known as the box cage. That's where he's secured to a chair for electronic scrutiny to detect whether he has any metal objects hidden on his body.

It's the legacy of inmate Ponchai Wilkerson. Wilkerson, asked by the warden if he had a final statement after he was strapped to the death chamber gurney for execution in 2000, defiantly spit out a handcuff key he'd concealed in his mouth.

"You're in handcuffs, you're chained at the ankles, they give you cloth shoes and you have to shuffle to keep them on," he said.

As he waddles the 111 steps, he gets acknowledgement from fellow prisoners who tap on the glass of their cells.

At the prison gate, armed officers stand by as he's put in a van and secured to a seat for the roughly 45-mile trip to Huntsville that he says feels like a "90-mph drive." There are no side windows in the back of the van where Foster, accompanied by four officers, rides to the oldest prison in Texas. Only the back doors have windows.

"It's like stepping back in time, dungeons and dragons," he said of entering through two gates at the back of the Huntsville Unit, more commonly known as the Walls Unit because of its 20-foot-high red brick walls.

Prison officials then hustle him into the cell area adjacent to the death chamber.

"Going inside, it's a little spooky. You can tell it's been there a while," he said. "Everything's polished, but still it's real old. You look down the row. History just screams at you.

"It's almost like `Hotel California,'" he said, referring to the song by The Eagles. "You can check out anytime, but you can't leave."

Both times he's been there, most recently last September, he's been treated "like a human being," Foster said. Officers look at him but don't smile, he said.

At one point, he saw someone walk by with a bulging envelope that he assumed contained the lethal injection drugs.

At 4 p.m., during his first trip to the death house in January 2011, he was served a final meal. He'd asked for several items, including chicken.

"It tasted so good," he said. "It actually had seasoning on it."

Two hours later, at the start of a six-hour window when his execution could be carried out, he received the Supreme Court reprieve.

Since then, inmates no longer get to make a final meal request. Procedures were changed after a state lawmaker complained that condemned inmates were taking advantage of the opportunity and that murder victims never get that chance.

Foster was looking forward to nachos and chicken, the same food served to other inmates the day last year that he made his second trip to the death house, but he never received it. Instead, his attorney tearfully brought him news of another Supreme Court reprieve just before dinner time.

He asked for a doggie bag but was refused. He was put back in the van and returned to death row.

"I've already told the chaplain: Take the phone off the hook before 4 o'clock," he said, anticipating his next trip Tuesday. "I want to get that last meal."



At 1:30pm you will be delivered to the Walls Unit.
You will go to a cell about 10 feet from the execution chamber.
You will get access to a telephone until around 3pm.
3pm ~ If you have a spiritual adviser, they go in an adjacent cell and talk to you. If you choose to opt out of the spiritual adviser ordeal, you can stay on the phone instead (until 5pm)
4pm ~ Final meal.
5pm ~ Prep time. One executed inmate described it like this: You sit, you wait, you try not to hope, and you finally come to terms with what is about to happen to you- you're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it. Once they find out that your last minute appeals have been denied, they ask if you're going to walk. If not, what they'll do is pick you up, strap you to a board and carry you to the gurney. You will be secured by straps and will have a shunt in your vein hooked up to a saline solution IV.
6pm ~ Warden will ask you about your last words. He says that if you become vulgar or spew profanities, he will push the button, this will signal to the executioner that he should start the execution.

Bloodthirsty

Just take a bit off the top thanks.


There is a belief amongst certain sections of the Anti death penalty crowd that Pro death supporters are 'bloodthirsty'. They seem to think all of us are counting down to every execution, a glint in our eyes and rubbing our hands together in some type of sadaistic anticipation for the death to come. Indeed some believe all Pros are sitting around death penalty internet websites, salivating at different methods of execution and getting some kind of weird sexual thrills from them.
And this simply is not true. Its a myth, a cheap shot in order to make Pros look like rabid sickos and barbarians. Yes you get the "Fry Circus" mob standing outside prisons with placards saying all manner of crazy stuff but Antis do this too. There are crazies on both sides, and you only have to visit the forums online dedicated to the death penalty to see it. (The 'death row groupie' sites are particularly disturbing.)
By and large though, Pro death supporters are very normal and show no hint of this silly 'bloodlust'. I know, im one of them! Truth is, whenever an execution occurs it barely registers on my 'Thrill 'O Meter', unable to raise a smile let alone an erection. All I feel is glad that the suitable (in my opinion) punishment was handed out and happy the murdered victims family got what they wanted (if they wanted it, I realise some families don't.) Thats it, not a cheer or swinging dick in sight.
If I was truly bloodthirsty and the type to get cheap thrills from death, there are many other avenues to quench my thirst for vein claret and they would be much more satisfying than hanging around execution sites waiting for some mope to receive his/her lethal jab. Hell that right there is why there can be hardly any lust for blood ~ lethal injection. Laughs Out Loud. Death by sleeping, yeah sure, that is really going to get someone in a fit and frenzy. If we were still breaking people on the wheel or stuffing them in brazen bulls then these idiot antis (not the sensible ones) might have a point but we don't so there.
If Pros wanted to get kicks out of things dying we would go out and shoot a few kittens or stomp on sparrows or whatever. Guess what? We don't, because by and large pro death penalty supporters are not sick.
And you will not find any irony with me posting this on a blog titled "Execution Island". This entire place was created as a pi$$ take, a caricature if you will of how some misguided souls think we are.

Cardboard Gurney

Look at the photographs below. Somebody has actually taken the time out to actually make cardboard versions of a gurney! A harmless replica of the not so harmless gurney those about to recieve a lethal injection get to lay on in their final moments on earth. Do you know what this means dear reader? It means somewhere out there on the vast plant earth is a being just like me! Who evidently has the same morbid bundle of nerves and blanket of black making up their being. The ghoul is not alone! Praise be shroud of death! Even shadow bees who feed on grave wax are not alone! This is indeed a comforting revelation.


What a cooler Blue Peter would have made us build in our youth.

Executions Past, Today

King Charles Execution on Youtube Shocker!