Exploding Stuff

The basic rules, principles and techniques of epic guns and kickass explosions.

                 

          Now that we’ve covered knives, swords, and when you should/shouldn’t use them, let’s get to the stuff you really care about; The Showman (or “Michael Bay”)

                 

          There are very few problems on earth that can’t be solved by the careful application of guns, high explosives, and guns that shoot high explosives.  Therefore it is extremely important to have access to all of those when defending yourself from an army of darkness.  Now, you may be thinking, “Jack, I’m just a normal, white, middle class suburbanite living in a nice neighborhood in a two store house with a white picket fence with my 2.5 kids in the middle of the American Midwest.  Where am I supposed to find things like shotguns and nitroglycerine?”  Never fear my friend, for if you truly are living in the American Midwest, I guarantee you that at least one of your crotchety, racist old neighbors are exercising their second amendment rights; so when they inevitably die soon after the infection spreads due to their inability to live without social security, it will be perfectly okay to raid their garages for enough ammunition to turn god-mode on and never turn it off.

                

          The most important thing one should understand about The Showman is that it is completely unsafe.  Seriously, if you have any sense of personal safety, this is not for you.  You have to physically override every survival instinct you have.  Having said that, it’s also so much fun!  Seriously, if you’ve ever just wanted to light something on fire just to see what would happen, this is absolutely for you.  If you were that older brother who strapped his little sister’s Barbie dolls to bottle rockets just for sadistic pleasure, The Showman was designed specifically for you!  Survivability aside, there are a few things that must be made clear; your end-goal should always be survival.  However, where The Chef prefers survival that looks something like a field domination and final score of Humans: 5.7 Billion-Zombies: 0, The Showman looks more like an epic fourth quarter win after coming back from a half-time drop of somewhere around 1 million points.  Ideally, your chance of living is slim, but your chance of complete awesomeness, has never been higher.

Sharp Stuff

Pointy things, why you should have them, and which ones you should have.

          

          The most defining characteristic of The Chef is that it’s flexible, and adaptable.  Anyone can become a Chef through the careful application of kitchen knives and/or samurai swords.  Essentially speaking, so long as it has a blade, you can use almost anything to put together your own undead re-murdering kit.  It should be made clear though that there are two types of blades; the kind that have reach, and the kind that (applied incorrectly) will get you killed. 

           
          For example, when Aunt Jennie is coming at you with Uncle Bob’s intestines falling from her mouth, and covered from head to 60’s mini-skirt in blood and zombie juice, you don’t want to get any closer to her than you have to (you never wanted to in the first place, but it’s especially more so now).  In this specific case, you do not want to be armed with a chipped Miracle Blade left over from when your mom was on her telemarketer kick.  You want something with reach.  Meaning a fire ax, a chopping ax, a throwing ax, a freaking hatchet, etc.  Reach means not only that you’ll be able to keep Aunt Jennie back, but also that each strike will have a reasonable amount of momentum behind it.  Momentum means force, and force means cutting power, and cutting power means Aunt Jennie’s double chin’s gonna become single real fast.

          
          However, one shouldn’t rely on being able to constantly go medieval on the undead, because we all know that there will be times when six foot tall claymores (more on them later) will not be as effective as your 1 ½ foot long machete.  Say you’re in an elevator at your local library, and Sally Sue, branch manager, is stuck in there with you.  Now she’s trying to eat your brain, and naturally, being a sane, normal, uninfected survivor, that’s the last thing you want.  If you had a three foot long fire ax in the elevator with you, it’s gonna be difficult to swing that thing around hard enough to finish things before they finish you.  It’s for reasons like that to be prudent and logical about your choice of weaponry.  If you’re going to be fighting in broom closets and small hallways, than you might not want to be carrying that katana around.  If you’re fighting in your local state park, by all means, bring the katana.  If you’re fighting in both kinds of environments, bring everything, preparation is key.

Overview of Important Stuff

Weapons, Sports Gear, Gardening Tools, and what they mean to you.

           

          There are a few pieces of must-have tech necessary to survive a storm of flesh hungry corpses.  These items can be found anywhere from your local Lowe's to your softball-playing little sister.  And I figure that it would be simplest to divide these pieces of precise, technical equipment into two unique load-outs:

#1 The Chef:   

          The gear here is sharp, quick, and has the Kentucky-Fried guarantee to disembowel anything that limps within a 6 foot radius or your person.   There’s no technique here beyond knowing which end is pointy, and how hard you want to swing.  Simple, deadly, and incredibly low maintenance, the tools here create an image of carnage and awesomeness singing a duet at your local nightclub. 

#2 The Showman (or the “Michael Bay”):  

          Top of the line tech that blurs the line between performance and pleasure, the equipment here is designed for one thing, and one thing only:  to create the biggest spectacle on the face of the earth, regardless of effectiveness, cost, or personal safety.  If you want to have the most fun you have ever had in your life, with the intense possibility of dying young, then the Showman is made for you…and the enjoyment of everyone who’s ever known you.

          From now on, all weapons discussed will fall into one of these two categories, learn them, live them, love them.

Introduction 'n' Stuff

          Let’s say you’re alone, in the dark, around 2:30 in the morning in the middle of the woods of Montana, and surrounded by zombies.  Now, there’s obviously a lot wrong with your current situation, firstly; you’re in the middle of the most god-forsaken part of the most god-forsaken state in the country, and secondly; you’re alone.  As a good rule of thumb, you carry your backpack everywhere you go.  As a bad habit, you fill said backpack with Fiber One oat bars and your Fantastic Four comic collection.  Naturally, your incredible lack of foresight, poor comic choice, and inability to fend off the demonic, flesh hungry horde with only a few oatmeal raisin nut sticks, you are quickly eaten alive.

           

          Now imagine what it would have been like if you had actually filled that backpack with more than just the bare essentials.  Would your fate have been any different if you had a sawed-off shotgun attached to the side strap?  Or a Bowie knife in the front pocket?  These are things that must always be considered before one takes a trip to Montana(hereafter referred to as Hell) after CNN tells the world that the dead have decided that their coffins weren’t roomy enough.  My name is Arnold Jacobi Windheim Anderson Carpenter IV, or “Jack,” and it’s my unofficial job to explain to you the right weapons, and the right ways to put dearly departed grandpa Ernie (and his entire bingo club) back where they belong.  You are now reading:

Jack’s Highly Classified Zombie Survival Guide