Not Exactly a Vampire Pacifier

In the world of interesting products that look like good gag gifts, I saw this in a local thrift store:

Man, don't talk to us about kids staying up late

I guess it's better than the BugBite Teether that trains kids to defend themselves from zombies by improving their own biting skills. But as you will note, this vampire pacifier (which probably was a gag gift) is still in its packaging and is shelved at a thrift store and is only 50 cents (which is about 30 pence in British money) and still hasn't sold. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

On the other hand, and I don't want to judge any of you fine readers, maybe you are thinking this would be totally awesome for your own child or for the child of a friend/co-worker/family member. Perhaps you are thinking of a way to ask me to buy it for you and send it along. Why not just pick it up at Amazon? The reviews there are quite enthusiastically positive. Many have used this in baby Halloween costumes with great results.

Ultimate Survival Shotgun

The Art of Manliness blog has a posting titled: Arming Yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse: How to Build the Ultimate Survival Shotgun. It's a step-by-step guide to stocking a Mossberg 500 Pump Action shotgun with all the equipment you'll need to rough it through the worst of the inevitable undead uprising.

The author reviews the basic survival needs for any apocalypse:

Ultimately your survival needs fall into five main categories.  Your situation dictates the order.  They are:

• Water
• Fire
• Shelter
• Signaling
• Food

Every survival kit must include contents that directly or indirectly meet these five basic survival needs.

The article is fascinating and I wish I could make one myself. If only I had the spare time. And the skills. And I'm sure the English authorities might frown on such a project.

My favorite part is at the end, where he explains how keeping morale and motivation high is critical in any survival situation. He added this modification:

Who knew Psalm 23 is really about the zombie apocalypse? "The valley of the shadow of death" makes prefect sense now. I'll never pray it the same way again!

Hat tip to Happy Catholic for letting me know about this post. I am definitely subscribing to the blog!

Product Non-Review: BugBite Teether

The folks over at ThinkGeek offer a wide variety of practical and impractical items to satisfy the geeky needs we all have. I assume you must have some level of geekiness in you if you are reading this blog post. You can assess how high you rate by considering how you are reading this: more points the more recently you purchased the reading item; still more points for how mobile the item is (desktop vs. laptop vs. handheld/smart phone); yet more if you actually are mobile right now. But I digress. Certainly you must have some idea of how much of a geek you are.

One of the items purported to be practical is the BugBite Teether. Consider their justification:

When babies are born, they really can't defend themselves from zombie invasion. About all they can do is hope that their brains are small enough to not be noticed in the teeming hordes of screaming adult humans. If that fails, they need to hope their supersonic screaming drives away the zombies. Luckily, at about six months, babies start to get teeth, giving them a line of defense. It's important for parents to encourage their baby to use these shiny white weapons by giving them a teether.

It's an interesting argument. By "interesting" I mean completely silly. The irony of using biting against zombies who are famous and fearsome for biting is not lost on me. Also not lost on me is the fact that biting a zombie seems just as likely to turn the biter into a zombie. It all comes down to the  mechanics of the zombie epidemic. If a voodoo curse or death has to occur before one can become a zombie, then the little biter would be okay. But if a virus or some such biological contaminate causes zombification, then your setting your child up for failure. And no one wants their child to be a failure, do they?

We have not purchased this product, so I can't comment on the quality or durability of the construction. Or how tasty it is. So I can't recommend or not recommend the teether. But don't think this is a panacea for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Maybe they should make some sort of teether that tastes like brains that you can throw at zombies to distract them while you make your escape. Hopefully they'd be sold in multipacks. Or the teethers could be so attractive that the zombies fight over the teether rather than mobbing you. I'll have to look for a suggestion box on their web site.