Well the end of the world as we kind of know it has drawn a few weeks closer and as promised in part one of this historic and important series on Keeping Entertained During the Immanent Apocalypse I did indeed watch The Wombles. I also purchased a solar panel, and planted some tomatoes. With these skills and products in hand I reckon I've lifted my ranking of "ability-to-survive-the-apocalypse-in-style" from 1,800,000th to about 1,250,000th. Not bad. I should be number 1 or 2 in 1.5 years, by my estimates.
Making good use of the things that we find.
First up. The Wombles. Although the guy at the counter thought I was making up the whole concept of rat-creatures that recycle, my local parasitic virus of a video store (blockbuster) did indeed have a copy of The Wombles - Orinoco Springs into Action.
For those who choose not to remember... "the wombles live in a burrow under Wimbledon Common and spend their days building all kinds of ingenious inventions with hilarious and unexpected results!" Maybe hyping it up just a tad, but a good watch none the less.
The first thing I was surprised to learn was that the theme song is "The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we" and not "The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we". I did some searching in to Wimbledon Common and it is true that they are not so common, and perhaps were killed off at some point since the making of this video in the seventies.
XBM stands for X-windows Bitmap, or something-or-rather. It was a standard format on X-windows, which is the main graphics system for Linux, and it has been supported by nearly all web browsers since the beginning-o-the-web. That's one of only 2 things this format has on it's "plus" side. But the other thing is pretttty interesting...
(Editors note: This review will contain spoilers. If you have intent to read this book in the near future then skip the last sections.)
You know the saying "Beware the day that's five days before the Ides of March"? Well today is the day that day. And in-keeping with the annual traditional that dates back to the time of the 486 (some say even earlier) I am releasing karaoke backing tracks that I have messed around with in a sound editor.
Blog. Stupid word, stupid idea. People who no one care about writing about stuff no one cares about while massively increasing the amount of mis-information available on the internet. Blogs are great. Like the bedroom house and techno producers before them, bloggers imagine that banging out some formulaic, uninspired crap will achieve them world-wide super-stardom and the esteem of their peers with minimal effort.
Is 
Either case will have the same result of course - our shortage of fuel/food will be balanced by an over-abundance of commercial television's delightful shock-reports that no family can afford to miss. I might try and tape as many of those as I can actually... If we can dig up a VCR they will be hilarious to watch in 40 years time.