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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.