Summertime means longer days and more unstructured leisure time to do what you will with. Since scientists love to remind us that children get dumber over the summer months because they spend all their time riding their bikes in the street and stealing from convenience stores, schools love to assign Summer Reading Lists.
Summer Reading lists are great but they tend to be geared at children and highly filtered by “The Man.” Also, they always leave out graphic novels…
With that in mind, I’m going to generate my own! I have read all these books so don’t kick me in the junk if you hate them; they’re on the list of books I plan to read or think someone should plan to read.
Tag: wasteland
The Land of The Video Game Apocalypse
Video games and the apocalypse go hand in hand. Player One is always that one guy with shit to do and an appointment on Tuesday trying to make his (or her) way through this mess and help all these people out—how’d they survive before Player One came along?
But, we keep coming back to these needy people in their dangerous world because of some romanticism that we can hack it, fix it, or beat it into submission.
Of all the video game apocalypses, which is the worst; which is the best? Is it the overwhelming zombies of Resident Evil, the galactic invasions of Mass Effect, the aggressive extermination in Halo, or some other hellish scenario?
If given the choice, I’d find this Unicorn Apocalypse from the Samsung Mobile commercials and be there. I don’t know all the details of Unicorn Apocalypse I just know those are two things I need to see in one place in order to die happy.
Some of my favorite and most feared video game apocalypses
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Storing food for the post-apocalypse
So my husband will be going on a week-long backpacking/hiking/camping trip in the depths of the Canadian Rockies. Very soon. Which means, of course, that he’s in the middle of preparing for this week of torture trip into the wild.
Since he, you know, doesn’t want to survive on pine needles and berries, he’s packing food. Enough food to last him a week. Which, when you have to carry all this food on your back, can add up to a lot of weight. (It also added up to a lot of dollars at Mountain Equipment Co-op, but that’s a totally different story.)
Anyway. All of Hubby’s trip preparation got me to thinking: what’s the best way to prepare (food-wise) for the post-apocalypse? Now, I’m not talking about making sure your bunker is fully stocked with canned goods and other non-perishables. I’m talking about that possibly lonely trek on a possibly long, lonely road through a possible wasteland (lot of possibles, here). I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if/when you’re making that trek, you probably don’t want to be carting around three cases of Alphaghetti and two cases of KD. Plus a box or two of instant ramen. And maybe some Girl Guide cookies.
My husband is not taking cans of Alphaghetti. Nor is he taking a bunch of watermelons and half a tub of grapes, like that one guy did last year. Instead, he’s taking those freeze-dried camping meals (well, at least I think they’re freeze-dried). The last time he did this hike, he brought a backpack full of MREs.
Apparently, MREs weigh more than the freeze-dried meals, even though they obviously weigh less than cans of Alphaghetti and a watermelon. Instant ramen would be pretty light, though, so maybe a desperate person could take those? (With Girl Guide cookies. Because to be perfectly honest, I’d miss Girl Guide cookies. Especially the mint ones.)
So now I’m wondering, is it a good idea to stock up on MREs and freeze-dried camping meals? What do you think?
You tell me: What would be your preferred trekking-through-a-post-apocalyptic-wasteland food supply?
Post-Apocalyptic Beauty Ideals
Maybe youll be pretty after the apocalypse… It’s hard to say.
Society often defines beauty by what it finds important or aspirational at the time. Should women look serene because they don’t have to work hard, strong to evidence her ability to preserver, fertile indicating they can convive and bear children, or maybe like expensive acquisitions?
Today an attractive woman by general, societal standards is hardly the first person anyone would choose to be part of their post apocalyptic band of survivors. Shit, most of the women on magazine covers and starring in CW shows wouldn’t even make durable sex slaves for longer than a few days. It would be a waste of a raiding party to go out and grab some flimsy-ass women who’ll last less time than the hunt.
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Race relations in the post apocalypse
I know race relations (or the possible lack thereof) isn’t necessarily something people want to think about, let alone talk about. But. Race relations, racial tensions, and all that other fun stuff that happens now will still be happening after the apocalypse. And I think at some point, those tensions may even get worse.
Personally, I think things might go a little like this: In the beginning, immediately after the apocalypse, people will be so desperate and willing to survive that they’ll join a group–any group–to increase their chances of survival. And as we’ve said numerous times, joining a group will increase your chances of survival. (Assuming, of course, that you don’t do anything to annoy your group members and provoke them into leaving you in the hands of rabid dogs or hungry zombies/vampires.)
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You May Now RAGE on a Mac
Why you’re trying to game on a Mac is beyond me, BUT if you choose to do that, you are now free to play RAGE on your fancy show piece[1. Think someone might not be a Mac person…?].
RAGE is the post-apocalyptic wasteland first person shooter complete with mutants and bandits and dune buggy races, oh my. Bethesda Softworks announced via a press release that the standard RAGE: Campaign Edition will come with features that were previously, on other consoles, only available in the special RAGE: Anarchy Edition:
In RAGE: Campaign Edition you will take on bandit gangs and hordes of mutants with an arsenal of exotic weapons and special items, such as Wingsticks, personal turrets, sentry bots, and remote-controlled bomb cars as you play through the game’s full unaltered single-player campaign. The Mac version will also include bonus equipment formerly exclusive to the RAGE Anarchy Edition, including a Double Barrel Shotgun, the Rat Rod Buggy, Fists of RAGE and Crimson Elite Armor. You’ll also have access to the Wasteland Sewers Missions which feature additional mutant blasting gameplay and looting opportunities.
Luckily for Mac gamers, this isn’t just a port from one system to another. id software worked with Aspyr to ensure that the game was just as good on the Mac as it is on real gaming platforms[2 Why are we encouraging them? They can’t even right-click.].
“Aspyr has been a great partner, bringing id Software’s games to the Mac platform for years,” said Todd Hollenshead, President of id Software. “We’ve worked closely with them again to offer the amazing graphics and intense combat that RAGE is famous for to Mac gamers.”
It’s a video!
What's Better than Fallout: New Vegas?
Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition with VIDEO! [1. anninyn knows what’s up.]
What’s Fallout, and where on Earth is New Vegas?
For starters, it’s a video game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and where bottle caps are currency and you… Well check out the official story:
Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas.
It’s the kind of town where you dig your own grave prior to being shot in the head and left for dead…and that’s before things really get ugly. It’s a town of dreamers and desperados being torn apart by warring factions vying for complete control of this desert oasis. It’s a place where the right kind of person with the right kind of weaponry can really make a name for themselves, and make more than an enemy or two along the way.
As you battle your way across the heat-blasted Mojave Wasteland, the colossal Hoover Dam, and the neon drenched Vegas Strip, you’ll be introduced to a colorful cast of characters, power-hungry factions, special weapons, mutated creatures and much more. Choose sides in the upcoming war or declare “winner takes all” and crown yourself the King of New Vegas in this follow-up to the 2008 videogame of the year, Fallout 3.
Enjoy your stay.
(source)
Fuck YES! Amiright or amiright? Don’t you want to be there? Play there? Maybe I’m just extra psyced because I have a Pip Boy bobble-head and lunchbox incorporated into my kitchen decor. Again, anninyn knows whats up.
What’s in this so called Ultimate Edition that makes it any better than the Blah Edition?
Ultimate Edition presents the definitive edition of Fallout: New Vegas – featuring the main game and all six pieces of game add-on content: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier’s Stash, and Gun Runners’ Arsenal.
(source)
That’s like, at least, six extra missions.
Where is this video you speak of?!
Look out below:
Also, there are pictures:
The end of the world: There's a magazine for that
Last week I was putzing around Target shopping for clothes for my kids. I took a detour through the books and magazines because this is what I do every shopping trip. I don’t normally find anything–local stores never carry the magazines I want to read (Discover, Astronomy, that sort of thing) and I’m a digital reader (I love my Kindle) so I don’t get many paperbacks.
But THIS time, I struck gold. And because I’m always thinking about the apocalypse in some form or another (usually because I’m looking for possible topics to write about), my brain somehow found this one magazine, even though it was sitting in the back of the stacks.
It’s called 2012 End of the World.
I kid you not.
I’m still trying to find ways to show you guys pictures without getting a copyright violation suit slapped on me and ICoS, so you’ll have to wait a bit for screenshots. I was thinking of doing an end-times collage (using images from this and other magazines)…would that be a copyright violation? It would be a piece of art (and I use the term “art” loosely).
Anyway. I’m going to give you an overview of the magazine. And, you know, review it. Because I read this shit so you don’t have to.
WARNING: HERE BE SNARKERY. AND LENGTH.
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Post-Apocalyptic People To Kill
Come the chaos of the apocalypse, people are going to die. Maybe en masse. Maybe slowly, but surely. Maybe by accidents. But definitely by murder. And that’s okay.
Every so often we’ll need to kill some fool who just refuses to act right or find their way to our good side. Congrats, Fool. You’re going to be an example; your life officially has meaning.
Examples of totally justifiable post-apocalyptic times to kill some folks:
A. The other day I saw school bus in the city and a squad of cheerleaders loading themselves onto it. That was weird. No sports team requiring encouragement, just a bus full of high school cheerleaders.
I, and a number of others, looked on quizzically. “hmm, that’s unusual,” we thought collectively.
But then there were a few others who were looking on not quizzically but lustfully. Grown ass men stared with their mouths agape to allow unencumbered panting as their eyes bugged, unblinking and their brows quirked expectantly.
Expectantly? What the fuck were they expecting? A strong wind? A well-timed tumble? A panty apocalypse paired with a strong wind and a well-timed tumble?
a. In an apocalypse situation, that brightly colored band of super-coordinated bitches look like a heard of wounded baby gazelle to the men of the city playing the part of oversized, hungry Serengeti cats.
b. In the post-apocalyptic world, from the first offence, this cheer squad will need to make an example of some fool to prevent further attempts at victimization. Continue reading “Post-Apocalyptic People To Kill”
Post-apocalyptic Video Game: RAGE
Set for release in September 2011, Rage embraces the notion of a chaotic, violent and indulgent future. It has a similar vibe to the Max Max or A Boy and His Dog universes. It’s some how dark and dangerous while still being light and fun.
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