It's 4:09 on Sunday morning. Half an hour ago I got home. Really good ways to ruin a romantic evening: 1

Girlfriend and I are sitting at the Darling Point wharf, looking out onto Sydney Harbour.

"Aren't those lights beautiful?", she says. They are, of course. Colored lines and shapes on the rippling surface of the harbour.

"Yeah", I say, "You know what makes them even more beautiful? The thought that just over a year from now, they could go out forever."

2

A couple of hours later, only a couple of hours ago as I write this. We're at a 24-hour cafe at Circular Quay. She's a little inebriated; not significantly, not even really noticeably.

Circular Quay is reasonably busy with people at any time. There's quite a number of people, hundreds or maybe even a couple of thousand, buzzing round the vicinity.

"Look at all these people", she says amiably. "You know, each of them has their own life, their own reasons for being here, their own plans and their own worries and everything."

"And eighteen months from now, ninety percent of them could be dead." (Me, of course). Observations: Alcohol will not be desirable in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Getting drunk and letting some thug kill you, is not a nice concept for me. Canned food tastes like shit. Except tinned pineapple. Coke would probably last a long time and be worth good money. Coca cola, NOT cocaine!! A good place to hide out could be at the top of a skyscraper. How many thugs would want to storm up a hundred and ten flights of stairs to go kill you? Condoms will be worth a lot, come TEOTWAWKI. Unless we end up with a President North. Jeeps are cool vehicles now and would be very useful come TEOTWAWKI. Will flak jackets be considered trendy fashion in 2001? If Paris still exists?

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 19, 1998

Answers

LOL, real cool moves Leo. BTW, speaking of jeeps....does it seem ironic to anyone except myself that the rights to produce the Jeep, the single most heralded piece of WWII machinery, is now owned by a german company? Go figure.

MVI

-- MVI (vtoc@aol.com), December 19, 1998.

or how bout the fact that the *Chinese* will be "guarding" the frickin PANAMA CANAL next year???

-- a (a@a.a), December 19, 1998.

LEO;

Way to go!! We said LOW KEY! and what happens? You go and use a 9 pound splitting mall instead of a 9 oz tack hammer.

PATIENCE, DUDE!!!

cr

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 19, 1998.

Leo! a hundred and ten flights of stairs !!!

You figure to haul water up there yourself?

Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger could do that. But where would he go to get it?

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 20, 1998.

Got Prozac?

-- SSRI (prozac@zoloft.paxil), December 20, 1998.

Hauling water up there: You don't. You grow stuff on the roof and catch rainwater.

Failing that, you DON'T haul the water up stairs. You rig up a hoist on one balcony (it would require one hell of a lot of rope, needless to say; 200m or so), and get it up that way.

Now for an intruder.. Even if they knew you were up there, they would have to climb 100 flights of stairs to get to you. They would have exactly one avenue of approach and it would be easy to rig up some warning devices. It would be even easieR to rig up some booby traps; they're running up concrete stairs- simply push a heavy object, such as a wardrobe, down at them!

Yes, you'd be vulnerable to fire. The one weak point. But that'd be moot if nobody knew where you were..

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 20, 1998.