

Zombies and Satan are making a play for Santa, according to the internet.
Rather than using their skills to combat world hunger or help pensioners, boffins at the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University have weighed the big bearded fella against the flesh eating undead and the Lord of Darkness in geo-tagged key words – Google searches tagged by location – across the US.
To use easily the world’s most irritating web phrase, Santa is getting ‘pwned’ by the zombies and Satan in certain areas of the States, particularly the godless cities of Houston, Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco (check out the spread below).
“We basically just wanted to see whether the places we live in are augmented by more Christmas-related information or more devilish/ghoulish-related information. All in the name of science of course,” said Mark Graham, who runs Geospace and is behind the information.
“In both Texas and Florida Satan clusters are bigger than the Zombie clusters observed earlier. And the line of preoccupation with Satan remains behind eastern seaboard cities, so I guess folks from New England and the Mid-Atlantic should drive carefully and not pick up any shambling or horned hitch-hikers they may see,” added Graham.
Luckily, Santa is still smashing it generally, so presents at this time should still be on their way.
(Image: Stephen Begin)
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As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.
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