security blankee and two reviews

SECURITY BLANKEE AND TWO REVIEWS


I’m really not sure why everyone is looking at me all funny when I profess a desire to minimize myself to electronic and internal combustion engines. When you are frugal, and when you are yourself convinced ( obviously I’m convincing very few others ) that the oil is very near to being unavailable, it makes perfect sense to limit your downside to items/habits that are soon to be relics. I could buy an electric or gas weed wacker and keep my weed lot cleared in anticipation of fires. Instead, I use a laborious scythe type tool. I could keep putting hundreds into the truck to keep it going, but gas won’t be imported in a few short years so I’m just throwing money down a pit. I can do 80% of the trucks work with a bike, at less than 20% of the price. I could run an electric fan on the earth pipe but I need the juice when there isn’t any sun ( it is butt ass cold here most of the year-the summer cooling is secondary ) so now I’d be doubling my problems keeping the 12v batteries going long enough if I go that route. My generator, which I only bought after two years of just using solar panels, is only for the computer to write on the weekends. If the gas runs out, the Internet is down also and writing then ceases. I won’t drill a well because it needs electricity and replacement parts. Which is why I’d prefer to just haul the water from town now, and from the river when needed. Okay, perhaps it’s true that I’m losing my mind as our friend Mohave Rat states. I defer to his advanced old age and wisdom. But on that journey to madness, I’m trying to throw off my security blankee that is petroleum dependence.

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Obviously you can’t severe your ties when you are dependent on petroleum to ship your groceries to you and keep you employed. I’m just trying to minimize my personal exposure to the electric and transportation grid. I’m asking myself how I can keep living at minimum exposure as long as possible. Keeping a truck to keep salvaging the surplus of our wasteful society sets yourself up for a sudden drying up of supply and the fuel for the truck. Trying to keep your water consumption to city dweller levels is not only damn expensive but will bite you in the ass sooner than later. All I’m doing is anticipating what is to come and ease into that mode of living. When you struggle to keep the petroleum age alive to the last minute you waste treasure and sweat and don’t allow yourself the time to adjust to the difference. Why am I crazy to think scarcity will be coming and the time to adjust to that is now?

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I read several books over the weekend ( sitting in front of my 12v fan, which IS most needed during sunlight hours and hence is a good candidate for post-collapse use ), two of which were “Indivisible” and “The Raggedy Edge”. “Indivisible” by Troy J Grice was strictly Militia Porn, not post-apocalypse. But it was extremely well written, with great characters and one of the best economic cause and effect chain of action I’ve seen in fiction or non-fiction for a long while. He threw so much detail into the economic collapse it felt real. This wasn’t just a one dimensional disaster but a long drawn out detailed description. Towards the end that lead to more government oppression ( which is where the militia stuff came in ). If you like your collapses to be realistic and long on detail, this is your book. It is a bit expensive at 225 pages, but I felt it was worth it. “TRE”, on the other hand, although about a third longer, was stiff and unbelievable. You got the feeling that the author looked up “survivalist” on Wiki, or read a few old pulp series to bone up on the concept and then started writing. Really? A town is going to survive off the leavings of those that bugged out? But let me start at the beginning of this turd.

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The “disaster” that starts all this is that The Terrorists ( now capitalized so as To Point Out Its Vast Importance- like The Communists Menace ) develop bombs that you swallow. If the target gets near, you detonate. If not, you crap it out and try another day. Hence, undetectable. I don’t know how realistic that is, probably right up there with bio-diesel. So now, many more recruits for The Dreaded Evil Anti-Westerners go around blowing stuff up, but unlike, say. Britain, it totally screws up our economy. Because, you know, it was doing perfect before The Evil Muslim Spawn started detonating explosives. Now, while we were doing so poorly economically, somehow we turn every transport vehicle in the place over to electric vehicles. Sure, no problem, we have the resources to switch a quarter billion vehicles ( it wasn’t just cars but motor bikes and snow mobiles also ) to battery. Are you friggin kidding me? No, evidently not, the book was quite proud of this and detailed it several times. Then, all the countries grid goes down. And since no one read papers anymore, they were all on a new magic machine that was a TV/Internet connection in one ( because, you know, doing so well financially a hundred million homes could buy more electronics ), no one knew what was happening. There was some weak crap about two communities thinking they’d have to fight each other but then two characters saw each other and it was love at first sight and so OF COURSE the two places had to All Just Get Along. The antagonist was unbelievable, and his presence waxed and waned over time. As far as surviving, like I said, it was off the slim pickings of abandoned cabins. Like everyone would leave without the food. And of course, the M-16 was introduced as The Mighty Military Assault Rifle That Would Make Our Hero Invincible. Skid this book, it sucked. I would have forgiving bad writing for a good information manual or bad info for a great story, but you get nothing here.

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