Culturegeeks

Zombie Tools: Accessories for the Apocalypse

Why blades? Wouldn’t guns be better in a zombie apocalypse?
First, we’re fans of guns. Between us, we own a bunch. In fact, the Zombie Tools crew all recently purchased Russian Mosin-Nagant M44 carbines, which we love.

But we are swordsman, first and foremost, and we wouldn’t go into a zombie apocalypse without a good gun OR a good blade. We think blades would be indispensable for a number of reasons, including:

1) Guns need ammo. If you’re facing a zombie apocalypse on the scale envisioned by Max Brooks’ World War Z, you’re facing A LOT of zombies. How much ammo do you have for your gun? Under a worst-case scenario, probably enough to last a few days. We’re thinking in terms of months and years. Furthermore, ammo is heavy and thus not terribly portable. While most people we’ve talked to imagine holing up somewhere and fighting a stationary, defensive battles against zombies, we’ve imagined scenarios where mobility would be your best chance of survival, and so would like to remain as maneuverable as possible. To that end, our basic survival package includes a solid mountain bike, a sidearm, and a Zombie Tools blade.

2) Stealth. Like high blood pressure, diabetes, and Joey’s fetid foot stench, a blade is a silent killer. Under many speculative zombie scenarios, zombies are attracted to loud noise. A blade would allow you to take out small bands of zombies without alerting every Zack in a two mile radius to your position.

3) Defense against other humans. Zombies aren’t the only danger during a zombie apocalypse. More dangerous still may be the hordes of frightened, hungry and desperate humans fighting over the last cartons of Top Ramen. And once they’ve blown all the ammo for the guns they might have, they’ll be coming at you will melee weapons. And we’ll take our own blades over a Louisville Slugger, pitch-fork, agricultural machete or cheap katana any day.

Ok, if you listen to one thing regarding the current situation in the economy, listen to this. It’s a This American Life program about a lot of money-related stuff, but most importantly they talk about Credit Default Swaps, and why they aren’t bad in theory, and why the way that they’re being used is pretty much causing the credit freeze.

It’s a long podcast…Sara and I listened to it on the way home from Portland last weekend…but incredibly worthwhile.  Then, if you want to keep up on what’s going on, go to http://npr.org/money.  They have a daily podcast, since the money thing is changing so quickly.

Interestingly, Sara and I were going to go to Iceland next summer to see her relatives, and also, as it happens, have her do some work.  It should be fun, because by that point we should be able to buy a house there for about $10. 

FAIL

You have to wonder if they just picked some guy off the street and said, “want to break the world record for smashing coconuts with your hand?”

Via

My company’s (Rovidica) bank just got fucking siezed by the Feds!

Thankfully, I had all of about $300 in there, and the rest in an Ing Direct savings account making 4%.  Still, it’s nice to have a piece of this colossal meltdown going on right now.

I don’t think there’s much more to say…

…and I’m not condemning her very existence. It’s causing me near-physical pain to admit, but I laughed at this.

Since we seem to be running a little behind here in culturegeeks-land (for myself, I blame running after a toddler who can crawl faster than I can walk), let’s post something which should have made it up a week and a half ago.

Yep, Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s what’s currently stuck in my head at all times. Let’s hope Clint can get a group singalong without anyone cease and desisting his ass.

This is the entire episode, 45 minutes with perhaps commercials? I’ve seen it too many times to watch it all again now…

The animated series!

I’m sure Portland-west has had this for awhile, but I can’t be bothered to check…

I was at the library the other day and noticed a download station for audiobooks.  Thought that was nifty, so I looked it up on their site today.  Here it is!

Now I need to see if there’s anything good.