Friday, January 22, 2010

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

Tuesday night, a work colleague and I went and saw the movie The Road, (based on Cormac McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel of the same name). If you’ve ever seen it, you can relate to my actions upon coming home in a daze... grabbing a beer, a cigarette, and immediately searching for guns on the internet.

After a couple of sleepless nights, I realized that living in New York City would allow for scant disaster survivability, whether natural or terror induced. Chances are, I’d be a quick and handsome corpse, but in the event that I had to grab my girl, my bro and go, I’d need some essentials on my Escape From Nueva York.

Springfield Armory M1911 .45


Classic, powerful, and truly an American native.
The quick story is that the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) proved the .38 caliber round to be less effective against determined opponents (most notably Moro Warriors fired up on drugs). So the US Army went shopping for a replacement pistol with bigger punch. In heated testing against the German Luger (?), Mr. John Browning took the contract with the soon to be named M1911, which was built around his newer and stouter .45 ACP cartridge. In fact, he designed the gun so well in 1911, that it became the standard side arm for US forces until 1985. Considered one of the most popular semi-automatic pistols ever made. And it’s styled like a Cadillac.


Ultimate Survival Technologies StrikeForce Fire Starter



Metal to Magnesium will give you sparks three times hotter than the standard match. Also has a built in waterproof tinder compartment to get things going. Need a ready-made fire starter? Take an empty cardboard egg carton, add lint from a dryer lint filter into each cup, pour melted paraffin wax about 2/3 full. Freeze. Cut carton into individual little starters. Done. When needed, put a little toilet paper, dry grass, whatever on one of these things, hit the magnesium striker and you’re ready to keep the wolves at bay. Finally my childhood Boy Scout knowledge goes to use.

Gerber LMF II Infantry Knife

4.8” blade will cut anything from firewood to seat belts. Pointed buttcap can shatter glass. Sheath has built in sharpener. My quick internet research has concluded that hollow, compass-ended “Rambo” knives are more Hollywood than practical. Quick note on Gerber Legendary Blades courtesy of Amazon: “Joseph Gerber started Portland, Oregon's Gerber Advertising back in 1910, and one Christmas, he hired a local knife-maker to craft 25 sets of kitchen cutlery as client gifts. The knives were so popular, Mr. Gerber ultimately left his agency to launch Gerber Legendary Blades in 1939.” —Just in time for the impending “Nazzzi Scalp” business.

Etón FR600B Solarlink


Alright. It’s got AM/FM, SW (Short-Wave), all 7 NOAA weather channels plus S.A.M.E. Technology. S.A.M.E. (Specific Area Message Encoding) is a must for any emergency radio, as it allows you to receive weather warnings to your area after punching in your county code. On top of that, it has a hand-crank dynamo, solar panel on the handle, four white and one red LED light and USB cell phone charger connectors. It has gotten some reviews stating it’s dinky, but for a portable that’s not military grade, it seems to have a variety of ways to grab energy (dynamo crank, battery, solar) and keep you connected.

Good Night and Good Luck.

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