Finally got around to watching the Bird Flu movie last night. It was…eh. A little over-the-top in some areas and a little underplayed in others. However, there were a few interesting moments and more than a few details that I think were underappreciated…
At the beginning of the flick, the American at the Chinese factory is chiding them for being ahead of schedule, saying that no one wants to pay for warehouse space so things should be shipped as needed on a ‘just in time’ basis. What this means, of course, is that when borders are tightened and no imports are coming into the country, once the shelves go bare at Walmart theyre staying bare.
In the background of the outdoor scenes you could see large piles of garbage bags from the cessation of trash pickup. Its not mentioned in the movie but its there nonetheless.
Interesting watching the shoppers racing through the empty supermarket grabbing what they can and hurrying to the next aisle. Same with the mom looking through her cupboards and finding nothing but ‘rice and flour’. (Hey, if you’ve got rice youre not gonna starve…)
The timeline in the movie appeared to be about three, maybe four, months. I figure between the freeze drieds, the MRE’s and the stuff in the cabinets the girlfriend and I could do three months and probably four before things got interesting. This, of course, discounts the last-minute panic buying that I’d do once it became readily apparent that the situation was spiraling out of control.
Anyway, it was an interesting movie but I think it lacked a certain amount of authenticity… the Katrinaesque brutality was missing.
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From everything I read, Mountain House is still a couple months behind on their #10 can orders. Its worth mentioning that there are other FDF outfits as well and they might not be having the availability issues MH is having.
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Since these are disquieting times, and because my girlfriend is burning up around 350-500 rounds of 9mm a week, we’ve gone in on getting a Dillon RL1050 to start producing mass quantities of ammo for ourselves. First up is 9mm and once I’ve got a healthy amount of that sitting around I’ll move onto .45 ACP, .38/.357 and then some .223. Hopefully 7.62×39 will come down in price here within the next few months…I really don’t want to have to reload for it. I’ve about 4k rounds on hand at the moment but you cant have too much ammo, you know?
I went to the Dillon website to look at their presses. They list a press for each of many rounds. Do they just come with a set of dies as a starter?
The RL1050 seems to be pretty complete (and far beyond the scope of my needs) Would you just by different dies for it like with a RCBS press?
plus, you’ve got an EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLY…… FATCAT
Then they can start in on those pesky neighbors ;p
thats
the proplem with movies versus reality, the first is simple, no background music in real life. a friend helping out his neighboring family found two boxes of canned food thrown out because they only eat “real food”, so the woman finding only rice and flour to eat, is a common attitude in an emergency to refuse even mre’s as “food”. if reality does hit in a bird flu epidemic, going to be a lot of real live zombies wandering america’s streets, totaly unable to deal with the new order of daily survival. could even expect canabalism for those needing “fresh meat”.
good to see investment in reloading bullets, maybe better off getting her a pellet gun to play with, cheaper too. Wildflower 06
One thing that got me was teh Governments Pandemic Preparedness website. They recommend 2 weeks food on hand. WTF are they thinking?!
I figure 3 months would be a minimum.
The old FEMA Website (pre-Katrina, no less!) recommended a minimum of several weeks of food and suggested that it would be better to store 2 to 3 months of staples, as in a large, widespread disaster, supplies might be interrupted that long. It even gave directions for storing food in airtight plastic buckets. It was obviously widely ignored.
In a psych class I teach, there’s a section of the text book that covers 911 and talks about dealing with the stress of large-scale disasters. Instead of a test on that chapter, I ask the students to write a disaster plan for their families. I’m pretty sure they’re all going to die (which I cheerfully tell them), probably standing in line at an out-of-order ATM machine (yes, one of them wrote getting money from an ATM into her plan…). I guess sometimes natural selection is just going to have its way…
I skipped the Bird Flu movie, but thanks for the review on it.
This, of course, discounts the last-minute panic buying that I’d do once it became readily apparent that the situation was spiraling out of control.
I can see you doing last minute shopping. I cannot envision “panic” anywhere in that scene.
“Panic” implies shopping with BunkerBabe and her AK hunkered down in the large ruck strapped to his back. (providing rear security, you know)
Somehow I was visualizing BunkerBabe on the turret of a humvee or Attack Deuce with an M2 BMG providing suppressive fire while the Commander acquires extra FatCatFood, topping up the gas tank, and buying a Coke (“Just For The
TasteHell Of It…Diet Coke!”).I dunno, something got me thinking about that hiss-sizzle of humvee ring turret bearings tonight, so I had that in my mind when I was reading this post.
At least One of Us ‘Ain’t Quite Right’….. 😉
such people
are eligible for the “darwin award” for removing themselves out of the gene pool. Wildflower 06
Ah, OK, that I can totally see.
Did you already have the Dillon 550? If I ever become flush with cash again, I’m going to have to choose betweent he 650 and the 1050. I’m wondering why you chose the 1050?
Auto swage of crimped rounds is the big thing with the 1050, and one of the reasons why sometimes I wish I had picked one up. (I set off a damn primer in my 650 yesterday. That fucker was LOUD!)
I had the primer tube in my old 1050 go off. Shot the follower rod up into the lights and turned the follower rodinto a corkscrew.
I can load a box of 50 roudns, start to finish, in 2’20” with the 1050. Since im in the reloading component biz its an easy matter for me to pull 1m bullets off the shelf at a moment and load ammo. Since the girlfriend is going through so much of the stuff it seems that we’ll need plenty, plus the usual amount of stockpiles…and I have less spare time these days to reload in so the faster the better.
Fortunately this was only one primer on the primer seating stage. It was a piece of nato brass, of course.
I haven’t timed myself with the 650, I’m betting I can probably equal you for burst speed, but I’m also betting the 650 starts to fall down pretty fast once you start getting into the big numbers.