Here’s an excellent primer on How To Find The Perfect Pocket Knife. At some point I’d like to downsize my Leatherman to a simple one-blade knife; there’s a bunch of great information to work from here.
Hmmm. In light of Hurricane Sandy, I’ve been doing some more research on preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse. I’ve been working on this project slowly over the course of several months, but it’s taken a back burner while other things have come up. The other day, I found this list of emergency tools and gadgets for when the water starts rising. Some of these are pricey, but there are some good suggestions there.
Here’s a partial list of the stuff I’ve got already, and the stuff we still need (noted in bold).
- Waterproof container for supplies – I’m using a standard Rubbermaid tote bin
- Collapsible water jug (3 gallons)
- Camp shower–solar
- 8 gallon hard water container
- Purification tablets – Bleach will also do in a pinch
- Propane stove (4-burner, Coleman) – I found through camping experience this bungees neatly to the top of a standard Rubbermaid tote bin
- Propane campstove (1-burner) – mine is AWOL, but they are relatively inexpensive.
- Propane camp cylinders – I need about 4 of these
- Freeze-dried meals – I have 4 Mountain Home meals right now, but $40 for 10 is a much better deal compared to individual pricing at Wal-Mart.
- Matches and magnesium fire starter
- Headlamp – I have 1 right now, but I’d like to get three for all of us
- Dust Masks – great idea.
- Flashlights – currently these are in all of our cars and there are two in the house.
- First aid kit – ours is hopelessly out of date
- Backup documents – I started doing all of this, but there’s a lot of stuff to compile here
- Radio – the one listed in the article is beautiful and versatile. I think that’s the one we’ll go with.
- Wet Wipes
- Hand/Body Warmers
- Multitool – I’m asking for a Skeletool for Christmas, so I’ll drop my old Leatherman in the bin
- Solar charger – I like the one recommended in the article
- 2-way radios – Point taken. When the cellphones go down, these are the thing to have.
I know there’s more stuff in there that I’m forgetting, but it’ll have to wait until I’m in the basement and looking in the bin to complete the list.
Dear AT&T: Fuck you. Unless Verizon has negotiated some draconian sort of data plan, or pre-installs shitty apps on each phone (According to Ars Technica, this will not happen), I will be on line on the 10th of February with cash in hand to bounce, bounce, bounce off your lousy network.
Love, Bill.
PS. Verizon? That page design sucks donkey dicks. Really? Who’d you hire for that one, the accountant’s kid brother?
Dear AT&T: From what everybody says, Verizon is going to announce that they will be offering the iPhone tomorrow. And when they do, I’m going to ditch your shitty service as quickly as possible. And then I’m going to buy this phone cover.
There’s a wide variety of beautiful lighting fixtures at Barn Light Electric, although I don’t know how the prices stack up to other suppliers.
I used to regularly visit the Detroitblog back when the author was spending a lot of time doing urban exploration—Detroit is full of empty historical buildings. The author has shifted focus to profiles of local businesses and people, which adds a face to a town much like Baltimore: blue collar, economically depressed, ad fighting to find a new identity. This profile on Damon’s Record Center is a great example.
This is a Google mashup which highlights restaurants on a map based on zip code. It’ll be helpful after a few months when more restaurants are entered, but it’s a great start. (via)
The $500 LEGO Millenium Falcon. As a Star Wars geek, LEGO geek, and 36 year old American male, I don’t know whether to charge this to my credit card IMMEDIATELY or run screaming from the computer. (I don’t want to be that guy with two kids, a mortgage, and my Star Wars figures on display.) If I was 13 again, however, I’d start the daily Christmas pestering reminders right now.
From The Consumerist, 14 Secrets from a former HP Employee. As if I didn’t already have enough reasons not to buy an HP printer. Number One illustrates perfectly the amount of contempt and corporate malice that the company projects.
Hey, before I forget, special dark props to our buddy Jason, who sent up a can of french roast Cafe Du Monde coffee from New Orleans. (We bought a yellow can of coffee & chickory at the local asian supermarket, and after the first few cups we started complaining about the taste.) This is very, very good coffee. We’ve finally killed the can, and I think I’m going to be buying some more, along with a T-shirt or two.
Speaking of coffee, I stopped by Zeke’s on Sunday to git me sum beans, but they were closed due to lousy weather. I’ll be back!