As being reported by bastions of journalistic integrity such as The Huffington Post, LiveLeak.com and The Daily Mail a former city hall worker in Sao Paulo, Brazil was brutally attacked, beaten unconscious and left for dead in the empty grave of a local cemetery. The assailants hurriedly covered the man with a loose layer of dirt allowing him to later break partially free. Because this man’s horrific, life-altering tragedy is vaguely reminiscent of zombies the media, and MoreBrains.com, are going to treat it like a meaningless parlor trick done solely for our momentary amusement.

The man apparently startled a woman paying her respects nearby. She claimed, “I was terrified to see a man, who I thought was dead, trying to get out of the grave.” She continued, “He had his head and hands out and was moving his arms around trying to get out.” Naturally the woman rushed to him and attempted to provide what aid she could to her clearly distressed fellow human. She was immediately grabbed by the living corpse in a close-up, low-angled,crop-shot accompanied by trilling violins and bitten violently. This would begin a chain reaction that would change the world forever.

Just kidding! She ran away screaming. Then later called police who – fun fact! – ignored her thinking she was pranking them. She ended up having to return to the cemetery office to beg them to investigate and they, eventually, where able to get emergency services to respond and rescue the victim. He is now recovering in a local hospital where, to add insult to injury, a hospital source describes his condition as “coming back to life”.

In recognition of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary – and a continual loosening of our personal definition of “zombie” – we’re celebrating a horde of murderous, barely sentient walking sacks of exotic disease.

In the first episode of series two, “New Earth“, The Doctor and Rose  explore the replacement Earth in the M87 galaxy. There, via his psychic paper, The Doctor is summoned to a hospital run by a religious order of cat-nuns who can, it seems, cure any ailment. Rose falls victim to a psychograft while The Doctor determines that artificial humans are being grown and forcibly stricken with horrible diseases to provide cures for other patients. These infected are released and begin to infect others in a familiar scenario.

If you didn’t actually understand much of that, we’re sorry to point this out, but: you’re not very cool. You should be watching Doctor Who. You should start now.

Along with his good friends Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot the Chanukah Zombie is the (non) living embodiment of his particular holiday season. There’s not much known about this reclusive bringer of… whatever gets brung on Chanukah.  (As atheists we’re pretty unclear on most of this stuff, honestly… but we did hear there’s lots of food. We can get behind that.) The ever-helpful Futurama Infosphere does have some interesting tidbits, however:

• He held a luau at the B’nai B’rith on Xmas Eve 3002. He invited Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot.
• In 3007 he teamed up, again, with Robot Santa and Kwanzaa-bot to recover the Earth from the evil (well, more annoying, really) alien Scammers.
• He was reported to have been wanted by the police for an unspecified reason.
• Unlike his sleigh-bound friends, he travels in a Tie-Fighter tricked out with Stars of David and a giant Menorah.
• He can, for some reason, turn his eyes red.

When you begin to either reverently celebrate or utterly ignore Chanukah this year, please give a thought to the hardworking, and slightly deranged, Chanukah Zombie.