Don't Do This.

Don't do this. Just don't. Here's the recipe for a perfectly apocalyptic Friday night. This will do strange things to your mind.

10pm-12pm - Watch the news, check some news sites, fill your head with imagery of the New Orleans Katrina disaster.
12-1am - Read some issues of Robert Kirkham's zombie comic "The Walking Dead."
1am - 3am - Sit down and watch George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead."
3am - 4:30am - Read some more "Walking Dead" issues, and stare at the Zombie Infection Simulator for a while.
4:30am - 5:30am - Swallow the fact that you're not prepared for a disaster of any kind, hurricane, zombie, or otherwise.

Zombie movies are a good thing. In between all the silly special effects and goofy extras wandering around with bad makeup, they provide a public service: to tell you that sometimes bad stuff happens, and that if something major goes down, you might be one of those victims. You could be one of those poor folks trapped at the Superdome.

Don't be complacent. Do something. Prepare yourself. Take some first aid classes. Store some food up. Learn how to get clean drinking water. Do you know how to build a fire? Read up on some survival techniques, and try them out. Do you have an emergency kit, something that will keep you alive for 3 or 4 days? Go out to the shooting range, at least until you feel comfortable holding a gun.

Don't just change channels and see what's on the WB.

No one's going to accuse you of being a right-wing militant. Not after this week. It behooves you to prepare yourself, and not be a victim. The idea is that you learn these things and hope you never need to use them.

What if it's your city next time?