Zombie Cliche Lookout: The Right Tool for the Job
Survivors of the zombie apocalypse have the unenviable task of getting by without any help from society as a whole. They might have a few other survivors they can count on, but that’s very circumstantial. Because of this, a good survivor needs to be very creative and flexible, always looking for opportunities and innovative ways to solve problems. Once upon a time, they might have been able to carefully select just the right tool for the job, but now they need to make what they have work.
About this Episode:
Hey, remember when Sam had a crowbar? That would come in handy about now, wouldn’t it?
Other News:
Today is the last day of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), so I hope everyone out there has either already finished, or on track to complete their draft today. I’m happy to say that I was able to finish last Saturday. I’m fairly happy with my draft, although it needs a ton of work. My plan is to let it sit in December, and then dig it back out in January and hack out a second draft.
For all those who participated, how did it go with you? What are your plans for your work?
Discussion Question: Giving Thanks
I kind of dropped the ball on this question last week. But you know what they say: better late than never. My readers in the US celebrated Thanksgiving last Thursday, while our Canadian readers did so a few weeks earlier. For those unfamiliar with the holiday, it’s a time to gather around family and friends, eat lots of food, drink, and watch (American) football. But there’s more to it than that: it’s also a day where you’re supposed to think about all the things you have to be thankful for, which is a good thing to do every now and then.
I wonder if Sam realizes just how effectively an axe would go through glass panes? Even toughened glass, unless it’s specially made toughened glass, would be unlikely to be much of an obstacle to a determined thief or looter. It’d certainly be unable to stop zombies if sufficient numbers of them pushed the glass in.
It’s possible Sam just wants to preserve some of the store’s security measures, although how long that would stand up to a horde of zombies is anybody’s guess. 😀
I imagine the axe would work quite well, but he wants to get in without leaving a huge opening behind him.
Well in the fire department we use axes to take windshields out of cars with patients still inside the vehicle. Sam just needs to think slow and quiet not smash and trash.
That sounds like fun. Not for the people in the car, obviously.
What I’m saying is that I like smashing stuff.
The glass may be tougher than you think. I was an EMT, so I’m familiar with auto glass (as mentioned), but the tempered glass on the glass doors in a store is designed to be very resistant to people trying to break in.
See here: https://youtu.be/0i5rycLJ3D8
It would be thicker and tougher than the auto glass in the video, and the edges are concealed in the framing of the door itself precisely to make it harder to break with a hand tool.
Whether Sam could break in or not by hacking the glass, it is likely to make far more noise than would be safe.
Very interesting.
A lot of the stores with glass doors around me have a metal gate the pulls down when the store is closed, to protect it from break in. Not sure what sort of glass they’re using.
They probably have the same type of tempered glass, but the pull-down gates/grates deter the midnight smash-n-grab type of robberies. Depending on the locale, those gates might be required for any insurance coverage. We were surprised when an unknown perpetrator shot a pellet rifle at a front door at our store, leaving a small hole but shattering the glass. They cleaned out the glass and covered it with a board until a replacement was acquired, only a couple of days.
Maybe Sam needs one of those combo axe-crowbars that are marketed as a all-around Zombipocolypse survival tool. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my Spetsnaz shovel.
“Depending on the locale, those gates might be required for any insurance coverage.”
You’re probably right there.
I keep trying to get one of the manufacturers to send me one of those zombie survival tools for a write-up here, but no dice so far.
By the way, Dave this episode didn’t have any typos, and Episode 657’s typos are still not fixed yet! 😀 I know they’re still there, and I’ll politely remind you to please fix them, once per episode, until they’re fixed! 😀
If you have fixed them but for some reason they’re not showing to me as fixed, please let me know, and I’ll happily organize a browser cache clean-up to fix my end here! 😉
No, I haven’t fixed them yet. I keep getting sidetracked. I’ll do it right now.
Well, there’s an old Irish saying that one should never make nor break a tradition.
Technically, dependent clauses starting sentences (i.e. “Once upon a time”) should be followed by a comma, and two directly joined independent clauses (i.e. “But there’s more to it than that” and “it’s also a day…”) should be joined with a semicolon and not a colon.
But who’s counting? 😉
I didn’t flag that one because it made perfect sense as is. I have a common sense rule, if something reads correctly to me, it’s likely Dave might not see a typo in it, either! 😀
He’s also not writing a fairy tale, is he, now? 😉
Further to that, comma placement is heavily context dependent. Not all situations require commas, they’re mostly useful for pausing or simply to make a sentence more readable. “Once upon a time” certainly doesn’t require commas in all possible circumstances. 😉 I think Dave is exploring new possibilities here, he’s certainly got the grammatical and syntactical structure right in the case you’re pointing out! 😉
In this case, BB is totally right. It’s a dependent clause, which means it should have a comma.
Right you are. Comma added.
BB is an English professor IRL 😉
I’m not a stickler for pointing things out to people who are not my students, but in this case, I just couldn’t resist.
Oh no, now all my frequent spelling and grammatical errors are even more embarrassing!
I’ll be completely off topic for this one but man I’ve always dreamed about living a thanksgiving the american way (actually any thanksgiving cause we don’t celebrate this one back in France).
3 generations in the same house, a good US football game on TV I can enjoy with my old man and my child, turkey about to come out from the oven,burning fireplace, and snow outside… Picture perfect huh?
So let me check my calendar… Can’t remember when is Xmas coming!
It’s a great holiday, I love the spirit behind it. The actual history behind it is a little tougher, however.
Maybe Sam could just try knocking?
If there are survivors inside and they hear knocking then they might come to the door, if it is zombies inside, they would come to the door too. Plus it’s not as noisy a trying to break the door in.
However it could be shoot first ask questions later survivors inside, so might not turn out so well. Sometime survival is luck of the draw.
“Sometime survival is luck of the draw.”
Yessir. Often, even.