Scott Bakula - Esoteric Investigator

Two things on the Scantabulous Technodojo today. First, I wanted to link to this excellent highly scientific and totally rad article on how a zombocalypse is just around a corner.

Here's an intro snippet:

"We found out recently that if you try to leave a little kid in a graveyard late at night, he'll freak out. Even if you offer to leave him a gun to protect himself. Why? It's because on some instinctual level, all humans know it's just a matter of time until the zombies show up."

Also, I wanted to quickly give props to a horror movie that didn't make the Halloween list, but would easily make the best horror movies list here on the Scantabulous.

Lord of Illusions (1995 - Clive Barker)

This movie has got it all, Lovecraftian horrors, non-time-jumping Bakula with a sweet eldrich tattoo, and the best cultists of all time. That's right, I said it, the best cultists of all time. Its worth watching this movie just for the scene where the cultists are "called home." Highly recommended.

Sam Beckett, no Al
Floating wizards and demons
Shoot him in the head!

Waterfalls and Werebeasts

Since the zombocalypse is just around the corner, Mary and I have been going hiking every weekend in different national parks and forests. We are hoping to find a defensible bug-out area with plentiful food, as well as catch sight of the elusive Sasquatch that roams Lane County, OR.

This week we went to Silver Falls State Park, and this time I actually got Mary to wear her survival backpack (the training exercise needs to be as real as possible, you understand) as it was now all contained in a nice new camelback backpack (thanks Mom!), and she was now willing to wear it. Unfortunately upon arriving at the park I found out she had gone through it and removed some major items that she deemed unnecessary, such as kinetic flashlight, first aid kit, and slim jims. She justified this by saying that since our survival packs are virtually identical, we don't need two of everything. She scoffed at my entirely plausible scenario in which I get kidnapped by the Sasquatch tribe and the only way to rescue me is to ransom me for slim jims. I know, I know...she takes a lot of looking after.

Anyway, holy shit there's a lot of waterfalls at Silver Falls state park! The place is ri-god-damn-diculous in its natural wonders. We only made it about half way around the park and decided to turn around as it was getting late. I was identifying edible plants with my handy-dandy west-coast plants guide as we went, as I normally do when we hike, so it takes longer for us than most folks when we go hiking due to me constantly stopping and going "Ooooh! Look at that! I bet that's edible!" (Note: 75% of the time it is not edible, and a surprising 20% of the time its actually poisonous). Also Mary and I had a good time pointing at plants and whatnot and making up stupid scientific names for them and "explaining" ridiculous and totally fabricated "science facts" about them as we walked by people trying to make each other laugh.

That's me actually behind a really high waterfall. The trails go all around the waterfalls, it is pretty awesome. The only downside to the park is that it is over an hour north of where we live, making it impossible to quickly get to in case of EMP attack (as seen on 24; season 4; episode 6:00-7:00pm). Nevertheless, its a good source of freshwater.

As for eating, I did find some Salmonberries, which taste neither like salmon nor berries, they really just taste like crappy water. They should be called Blandberries.


Note: Its fun to act like you're eating the berries and flowers at random (though you've identified them -- mostly) on a trail when a church group or family with many small kids goes by, as the adults stare at you in absolute horror and the kids immediately start reaching for the colorful plants. You've never seen kids get picked up so fast and put back in the child-chariot backpack all demasculated dad's must wear to keep them from eating the moss and red berries.

Holy crap, more waterfalls!



That is a tall-ass skinny waterfall. I couldn't get the top in the picture even though I was really far away and in full panoramic mode.

Check it out, I also found pantloads of this stuff in the woods: Foxglove.


That crap is super-poisonous (to ingest). Don't eat that.

My woodland craft skills have been improving rapidly since I returned from Thailand. Especially my ability to blend in with the natural background (depending on the brightness setting of your monitor). Here, check out this picture. Now, you wouldn't know it at first glance, but I'm actually in this picture!


I'm totally serious, that's not just a picture of another waterfall, I'm in there (and if you can actually see my face then your monitor is turned up way too high and you're burning out your eyes). Uncanny, isn't it? And I probably don't have half the skill as your average forest-born Sasquatch. Now we understand how Sasquatch has eluded us all these years -- we just can't see them in the pictures they're so well camouflaged. But don't worry, I'll stay vigilant and keep looking. Scantabulous readers deserve to know the truth!

Final Tally:
Number of Waterfalls found: 5
Number of edible plants identified: ~3
Number of edible plants actually eaten: 1
Number of poisonous plants almost eaten: 1
Number of Sasquatches caught on camera: ???

Southern Fried Zombocalypse

So I went to North Carolina this weekend. My mom had knee surgery and I flew down there to check out her new cybernetic limb. My aunt also went down there to take care of her for a couple weeks. Its healing up pretty good, so she'll be back to fighting off the samurai hordes pretty soon. After the nerve-circuits are fully regenerated and the patellar-computroller calibrated, she should be able to do flying jump kicks through walls and ningiants, which was the whole point of the surgery in the first place.

While I was there, my parents gave me their new backpacks they had gotten for hiking. They won't be able to use them for a while now that she's bound to the bacta tank until she heals up, so I get 'em. They're sweet camelback backpacks, those ones with the crazy straw that comes out of the back and holds 2 liters of water. I immediately, like the same day I got home, repacked Mary and I's bug-out bags, each slightly personalized for our own special zombocalypse needs.

Speaking of zombocalypse, I made my mom and aunt watch Dawn of the Dead (2004) and now they're totally on the zombocalypse preparation train. The movie scared my mom so bad she had a nightmare that night, so that's a win. They finally understand the problems we will face when the zombocalypse erupts. The following rules of zombie engagement were especially poignant:

5) Aim for the head if you're a good shot. Actually, run away and let other people stand around aiming for the head regardless of whether you're a good shot.

4) All government-suggested 'safe and secure zones' will no longer be safe or secure by the time you get there. Also, the helicopter you signal will not pick you up.

3) Always hide your bites from your fellow survivors so they don't shoot you. Who knows, maybe you're immune to the zombie virus!

2) Assume everyone else is hiding bites and be ready to shoot them. They're selfishly putting the party in danger by hiding their bites, no one is immune to the zombie virus.

1) That cute puppy you adopt will only put the party in danger. The orphan girl will get attached to it and chase it into the sewer when it runs off, forcing you to lead a search party on a highly dangerous and pointless mission to save her. This will undoubtably result in the loss of some of your best shooters in the process. Shoo away the dog now.

Thank goodness you don't have to worry about the dog being a zombie though. If dogs could be zombies we'd all be screwed. Fortunately, there's no way for the zombie virus to infect animals. Isn't that right Nibbles?

...Nibbles?

The Zombocalypse is inevitable...

...because people are selfish pricks.

As an example, oh say..take this guy, to protect his identity we'll call him Personal Injury Attorney Andrew S. On May 10th of this year he was told by the CDC he was infected with multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis, and told not to go on any flights as it would take a while to determine what kind of TB it was. Instead, he flew to Rome in Mid-May with his new wife for their honeymoon. The CDC then tracked him down in Rome and told him that his form of Tuberculosis was actually the extensively drug-resistant form (the most dangerous type), and to turn himself in to Italian health officials or US Embassy immediately for quarantine. Instead of doing that, he avoided Italian health officials and bypassed the USA's no-fly list (which he was on) by flying to Canada, getting on two separate flights, and then drove into the US.


Upon arriving in the United States, he then contacted the CDC about his condition. Of course, this is after he was already home, meaning that the people on those flights were already who-knows-where. Then the CDC flew him in a private plane to Denver for treatment (which they would've done from Rome), and now has been tracking down all the passengers from those two international flights and asking them to get TB tests (its hard enough to get people to call you back). Keep in mind a lot of these people aren't even US citizens, and the CDC is hardly swimming in cash.

Now, there's already plenty of reason to hate this guy...but, besides the fact that he's a lawyer, he also put all those other people at risk of contracting a highly dangerous infection, who by definition are traveling to all parts of the world. Its not like he walked into Lost Nation community center where the folks infected could be kept track of, he got on two separate flights of travelers who by definition were in transit to other places. Probably a lot of them to see their families. Probably quite a few hugged and kissed their kids when they got home, or will hug and kiss their kids sometime in the future when the bacteria has even more time to incubate.

Andrew's father-in-law works on highly drug-resistant TB at the CDC, coincidentally enough, but regardless of how Andrew got infected, he chose after being fully informed of its dangers, to put a lot of other people at needless risk of being infected. Now imagine this wasn't the fairly well-understood drug-resistant tuberculosis, but was the T-virus developed by the Umbrella Corporation. Now you're starting to see the big picture.


Even if a person is told in crystal clear terms that they have a very dangerous and infectious disease, they will still put many hundreds or thousands of others at risk if it means they can be slightly more comfortable. If even lawyers can't be trusted to care about the public good, what hope is there for us?