Monday, July 20, 2009

Tai Chi Zombie Fighting




I've been thinking a lot about the zombie apocalypse idea, and what it would take to survive. (The slow "Brains" kind of zombie. If we get the "28 Weeks Later" kind, we're f-ed.)

Obviously, the big issue is not getting infected, so blades are a sucky idea. And they will keep on coming until they physically cannot move anymore. So we need martial arts. Sophisticated martial arts.

The most sophisticated martial art on the planet, I'm told, is Tai Chi. It's practiced very slowly, so no one who practices it actually knows how to fight anything other than a sports replay. That's okay for us, because zombies are slow!

Just think about it.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

I would like to apologize to all the Mexicans I offended.




I recently posted a blog entry in which I suggested that Mexicans would be perfect for space travel.

I meant it as a compliment, but I have received so much hate mail that I have decided to pull the blog entry before Google shuts down my page. (Interestingly, none of the hate mail came from Mexicans. They must not be reading my page.)

If you are Mexican and reading this, I really did mean it as a compliment. I wasn't making fun of your size or the fact that you are the only people on the planet who could possibly like living in Barstow. I mentioned this to suggest that you would thrive in hostile environments such as Mars.

Once again, I apologize unreservedly.

The Blob...




Kudzu Bob sent me a scary link.

Do you remember the end of the classic movie "The Blob"? (The original, not the crummy 80's remake.)

They eventually defeated The Blob by freezing it and shipping it off to The South Pole, where it will remain frozen forever, right?

Wrong! Here's the thing. The government always covers its tracks by forcing Hollywood to make cheesy movies about all the scary stuff that really happens. In other words, The Blob actually happened, and anyone who says so looks crazy because of the movie.

Now, the polar ice caps are melting, and... guess what? The Blob is on the move.

Scientists have observed it off the coast of Alaska.

Here's the original article. The author seems to think we had Blu-ray in 1958, but other than that, it's good:
http://www.sciencebuzz.org/blog/blob-returns-call-mcqueen-get-your-fire-extinguishers-prepa

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I Need a Critical Mass


I've posted before that my needs aren't being met by my city. I have a short list of needs that shouldn't be hard to fulfill, but I just can't find them.

I have decided that what I need is a critical mass. I'm okay with living in a town that contains rednecks, trash, and other forcefully ignorant people. What I need is just enough of the other kind of people that it's not certain that everyone I talk to in a single day is going to suck.

I sit at my desk in my cubicle, and people call me with questions and complaints. My company sells diet pills, and I'm in customer service. I get calls from people who want to know if our pills will help them lose 15 pounds in the two weeks before they go to Baja. The honest answer is, no. The only thing that will help you lose that weight is if you put down the Doritos and go for a walk, and it will take at least as long to lose the weight as it took your fat ass to put it on.

I get people who call to return the pills because they have to take three of them a day, and they're so big. I do harder things before breakfast every day than take a few friggin' pills. If I managed to make it to adulthood and I couldn't manage to do something as simple as take three pills a day, I would be ashamed of myself.

I can't tell these people any of this, because I would lose my sucky job.



So, what I need is at least as many people in my life that are capable of thinking about the distant future and recognizing all the other people out there as also human.

I'm not sure I'll find that in Barstow.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

More Flesh-Eating Technology


Blood-sucking doomsday clocks?

It turns out that DARPA isn't the first to design technology that runs on meat.

Check this out. I can't make this kind of stuff up.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Real Flesh-Eating Robots!


I am not sh**ing you. DARPA, the folks who brought you the internet and The Sea Shadow, are planning to build self-feeding steampunk flesh-eating robots.

The EATR (still not sh**ing you), or "Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot", is designed to perform long-distance missions of an unspecified type, and powers itself by picking up "biomass" along the way. That means wood, plants, and corpses.

The best part is, they use the flesh to power a steam engine, which means stempunk technology!

These babies will certainly still be roaming through post-apocalyptic aftermath type #1, so we'll have to make plans accordingly.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Tiny Sheep in the Apocalypse




Well, I was going to have my lovely wife raise sheep while I tool around in my armored dune buggy / dirigible, but it looks like that's out.

According to the BBC, the climate change is making sheep shrink.

Maybe she'll have to raise giant mutant voles, or something. At least until she's killed by the cannibalistic mutants to give my anti-hero character motivation.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Tower King



I just realized that I forgot an important element of post-apocalyptica:

The Future Steampunk World.

In this world, electricity has ceased to be available, due to microwaves or something.

There was a great comic strip in the 80's called "The Tower King," in which the U.S. Space Program causes the end of electricity (It's a plot contrivance. Just go with it.)

THOSE WE LEFT BEHIND has a bunch of pages of it here.

My armored dune buggy will be of no use in this future. I may have to build a steam-powered tank.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Friday, July 3, 2009

War Nerd, You Jerk.




War Nerd, that fat cynic from Fresno, has once again attempted to snuff my hopes for the future. He wrote this post. You think I don't know who you're talking about, War Nerd? You've had a problem with me ever since I had you kicked out of the California Amtgard league.

Of course I know there won't be any water in California. That's what the dirigible is for. To get me, my wife, and my armored dune buggy to the other side of the Rockies.

Didn't think about that, did you? And double mute spells are still against the rules.

Gymkata!






The other night, I snuck out of bed to watch one of the greatest movies ever made: Gymkata!

This little-known gem came out in 1985. Here's the plot:

The U.S. Government wants to install part of its Star Wars missile defense system in the mountains of the tiny Eastern European nation of Parmistan. The only way they will be allowed to do so is if they enter and win "The Game," a yearly competition which is kinda like cross-country running while being chased by ninjas.

The U.S. Government, naturally, recruits a young Olympic gymnast, whose father, one of their agents, disappeared (presumably dead but not really) in Parmistan.

A hot young Filipino chick teaches him the skills of the ninja very quickly so he can participate in The Game. They have sex during his first training session.

(To recap: U.S. Government recruits gymnast as secret agent, has Filipino chick teach him Ninjutsu (Japanese) so he can beat the Eastern European ninjas.)

Things go awry when the King's general decides to stage a coup in the middle of the contest while working extra hard to kill off the contestants of The Game. It's a race against time, etc.

In perhaps one of the most spectacular martial arts scenes in the history of movie making, the main character is being chased through "crazy town," where the Parmistanians send all their crazy people. As luck would have it, the crazy locals have built a pommel-horse out of concrete in their town square (Hey, like I said, they're crazy.) Our hero uses it to do gymnastikungfu on his pursuers.



I don't remember how the movie ends, because my wife got up and made me go back to bed.

Never Become Middle Class: The Neighbor





In a recent post, I stated that all you have to do to become rich in this country is to spend less than you make.

My neighbor came over and knocked angrily on my door last night. "I read yer damn blog."

(A quick note: My neighbor may come across as a charicature of a redneck. That's not my prejudice; he is a charicature of himeslf.)

"How am I gonna spend less than I make? I work my ass off and I still don't make enough to git by on."

I looked at my neighbor. He was wearing $150 nikes. "You work at a grocery store, stocking shelves. You spend half your day slowly opening boxes, and the other half smoking dope behind the trash can." My neighbor, I estimate, spends about $300 per month on illicit drugs.

My neighbor looked at me as though he was planning to set down the $1.95 bottle of Pepsi he was drinking (the fourth one of the day) and punch me. I said, "Let's go back to your place and talk about it.

We walked past his new truck, parked on the curb. He'd got a fancy new tint job on the windows recently.

Back in his living room I admired his new $1,500 dollar flatscreen HD television. "Nice," I said.

"I got extended cable," he replied. ($120 per month) You orta come over and watch movies with me and ma wife sometime." He had a Blueray player ($299) and a shelf full of disks. He's replacing his DVDs with the new disk format as soon as they become available.

His wife and son were sitting on the couch eating Papa John's pizza. ($23.87 + delivery tip)

Between the two of them they make about $35,000 per year. They are up to their eyeballs in debt because they can't afford daycare after their $400 a month rent bill and their $150 a month utilities bill. Thank goodness they don't have a phone bill; they each have a Blackberry, which only cost $219 each (after signing a 2-year agreement to pay about $115 per month for the phone and internet service.)

Perhaps I was wrong. These people have no chance of ever becoming rich. I apologized and helped myself to pizza.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

I bet have more usernames and passwords than you.

My six email addresses, Technorati, Youtube, Paypal, Cafepress, Facebook, Myspace, Tribe.net, Delicious.com, Linkedin.com, both my phone companies, my gas company, my electricity company, my laptop, my desktop, both my banks, both my ATM cards. Possibly many others.

All of these require a username and a password to access. I either have to memorize all of these, write them down somewhere, or use the same password for all of them.

I have decided to use "Apocalypse123" as my password for all of them to save me the trouble of remembering them all, but what if someone figures it out? It's pretty obvious. I'm kind of obsessed with the apocalypse. Should I change it to something else?

You, my dear readers, get to decide. Post your advice here on my blog, and you could win:

The genuine gold lame jacket and yellow lycra leggings worn by Moody Blues guitarist...