“They broke our back early on in the first half,” said striker John Horn. “After that we just didn’t have a chance.”

The next game was equally grim. Out-manned (not to mentioned out-womaned), Octopi was again able to score early on only to get out run by Turf Stains. The ol’ “no sub cause we be mad skilled strategy” the team was forced to deploy due to a shortened roster meant by the second half, many of the team were lumbering about the field like dinosaurs. The end result, a 4-1 loss, was a bitter pill to swallow for the new expansion team.

Despite two tough games, Octopi came roaring out of the gate this Wednesday displaying a mix of hard strikes and rock solid defense that the team’s manager Kurt Heinrich says he’d always expected.

“From the get go, I always new there was something special about this team. The defense is almost impossible to breach, especially when we’ve got Walters and Hogkins anchoring the line,” says Heinrich. “This is the Octopi the fans were promised and with a little luck, this is the Octopi we’ll be seeing in the future.”

The game started with a series of terrific goals from Octopi strikers Erin Loxam and John Horn. Mid fielder Kristina Pikksalu made beautiful plays happen. Keeper David Willinsky ensured nothing slipped through and into the net.

After the team identified Multiple Scorosis’ primary danger (the tall blue shirted guy), they were quickly able to neutralize the opposing side’s offense.

The end result, a 5-0 shutout for Octopi, put the team on the scoreboard and was a signal to the rest of the league that the pink shirted crew would not be fodder for an easy victory.

The next game will be Wednesday, February 8 against Totti Hots Purr.

Let’s start with the old parties. Liberals are in power since 2003, under Jean Charest. They have sunk extremely low. Charest’ government is an administrative one, stay with the flow, “do not make drastic changes and you might get re-elected” type of government. However, his government has lost most of its important ministers (one died, the other left for good private sector jobs), but most of all, it has been crippled with incompetence, bad decisions, and numerous scandals, notably his refusal for a year and half to implement a commission of inquiry on corruption in the construction sector). In the moment, Charest maintains his support only in liberal strongholds.

The Parti Québécois is also facing a storm after another. As the official opposition leader, Pauline Marois has suffered many attacks coming from inside her own party. Last June, 3 MPs left to sit as independents (Jacques Parizeau’s wife, a well-know actor and a former minister) to protest her leadership; another one left to form his own sovereignist party (Option Nationale); lately, a last one has joined the CAQ (see below). On top of this, different groups or influential personalities have called for her to renounce. In the last weeks, Gilles Duceppe has intended what has been described as a failed coup to replace Marois, without results. We have to remember that the PQ was formed as a coalition, including right and left wing nationalists. Now that a referendum seems very unlikely, even if the PQ takes power, this coalition seems to be falling apart.

While old parties are having a rough time, new ones are growing. Québec Solidaire is getting a lot of love from disillusioned left-wingers and former PQ followers. Based mostly in Montreal, it has one elected MP, Amir Kadhir who is party co-leader with well-known feminist Françoise David (yes, they have two equal leaders). Kadhir has been very effective in giving QS a great deal of visibility and raising new issues at the Assamblée Nationale. Pools are around 10% for them and are obtaining more support outside Montreal, which has always been their biggest challenge.  So much so that rumors are running the PQ is looking to make an alliance with QS in the next election. One thing is for sure, QS is stealing votes mainly to the PQ.

Another party just disappeared, the center-right ADQ (Action Démocratique du Québec) who had offered a disappointing performance as the official opposition in 2007-2008 and lost its life-long leader Mario Dumont. Their positions included usual right-wing reforms, such as limiting immigration, slash social programs, etc. After a very difficult year, the ADQ just got integrated in the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), a recently formed political party. Former PQ minister and businessman François Legault has regrouped individuals from all political families (PQ, Liberal –both provincial and federal-, ADQ). It stands as nationalist, yet no sovereignist, and refuses labels. Journalists describe the CAQ as center-right while Legault says they are neither left nor right but pragmatic. Basically, they want to reform the state, fighting bureaucracy while using the state as an economic force. For example, Legault proposes to increase teachers’ salaries but evaluate them to be able to fire the inefficient ones. The CAQ’s program is not very clear still. Its pool numbers were very high at first, now are around 30%. In my opinion, the CAQ main problem will be similar to the PQ’s, getting individuals with different ideologies working together, in short being a coalition… For example, MP François Rebello left the PQ and joined Legault to “undertake a green Quebec” while former ADQ MPs have always been very critical of environmentalists.

Next elections could be this spring or this fall, it is very difficult to say which party will win. For now it is a tie between the CAQ (31%) and Liberals (29%), PQ (25%) being very close behind. Charest could pass trough, since all the other parties are courting francophone votes and he can almost certainly count on most Montreal West Island ridings. However, things change quickly and Québécois seem to change their political tastes even quicker.

When you’ve made yourself look like a fool, how do you bounce back? Those of us who like a challenge know that sometimes there is a second chance to make a good impression. Jon Bon Jovi once said, “Success is falling down 9 times and getting up 10,” and people love that guy.

1. Acknowledge that, yes, you did make a fool out of yourself. Stating that you have a problem is the first step in any good recovery. So attend some meetings.
2. Laugh it off. Successful people can laugh at themselves. Knowing when to lighten up is an important skill. Psychologists have studied how a blunder can shape others’ perception of us and evidence suggests that a little incompetence can actually increase our likeability and trustworthiness. Of course, if people already think you’re an idiot, you will simply confirm their diagnosis.
3. Make a good recovery. The next move you make better be a good one. There’s nothing like spilling coffee on yourself and then cracking a good one-liner. Even if it comes at the expense of someone else, it’s better to be labeled a jerk than a klutz.
4. Get out clean. Give your quarry some breathing room. If you hang around too long, you will look desperate. Head for the hills or you will end up babbling like Ricky Gervais.
5. If you run into this person again, repeat Step 2 frequently. You are lucky to have a story that people can tease you about as this is the foundation of all good relationships. So laugh at yourself and quietly take note of their flaws. Just find things that are fair game like having no luck with the ladies; joking about your friend’s failure to make child support payments is low.
6. Listen to more Ray Lamontagne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrZkaj37kA0 The guy is good.

If these steps don’t work, run like hell. There are no heroes here. Live to fight another day.

Photo courtesy of JD Hancock

You’re welcome.

Over the past week, our international team of correspondents – many of whom are experts in post-apocalyptic studies (the other one is named “Martin”) – discussed how the world will probably end, what it will look like around the world, what skills you will need to survive, how you will live on anyway, and a general planning guide for the post-apocalyptic world. We wrapped up the week with a special The List and Kurt pulled himself together to complete a rousing interview with John Connor (because Kurt probably believes in Johnism).

Anyway, here is a brief and editorialized synopsis of the week’s offerings:

Day 1: The Apocalypse Project Begins!

• Lesson learned: there is something really, really interesting happening with the planets in our solar system; this being said, the infinite John Horn’s who live in the infinite other universes don’t really think it’s that interesting. Yeah, I just blew your mind!

Day 2: The Many Horsemen of the Apocalypse

• Lessons learned: first, thanks to Lord Hashbrown III for teaching everyone how to spell “Gumboot” in Ancient Mayan; second, while I certainly champion Kurt’s well-supported argument that computers – or, more specifically, “Google” – will rise up and destroy us, it also seems highly likely that Cobra Commander has some sort of zombie-based strategy up his sleeve; third, let’s face it, Mother Nature isn’t too pleased with us and she’s probably going to be the one who ends it all (civilization, not the Earth).

Day 3: The Global Toolkit of Skills You Will Need to Survive the Apocalypse

• Lessons learned: I dunno…something about throwing dinner parties for Marxists?!

Day 4: An Apocalypse Planning Guide

• Lessons learned: community asset maps and outdoor skills are essential in the post-apocalyptic world; we need to know where things are and, most likely, how to fight zombies in the woods. Oh, and cardio is really, really important, too. Because whether it’s a Terminator, a thousand zombies, or a tidal wave, when the world ends you’re going to be outrunning something.

Day 5: The ApocaList

• Lesson learned: Michelle really doesn’t like it when I put her On Notice, even if it’s all in good fun. And, in her defense, she has since come up with a much better survival plan – we don’t want to share it, though, because then you (or worse, Google) will know.

Day 6: Interview with John Connor

• Lesson learned: Kurt Heinrich is an intrepid interviewer who can travel in the future to conduct an interview that is published in the past because he sent his father back in time to work for The Daily Gumbo – they made how many of these movies?

Courtesy of Kookaburra2011

In conclusion, The Daily Gumboot community hopes that you this series made you laugh, made you scrunch-up your face in a quizzical manner, made you angry, and, most importantly, made you think about the end of the world. After all, it’s probably the only world we’ve got. So, before we, as a community, plan how to live once it dies, let’s think about how we can work together to keep it alive!

–

Masthead photo courtesy of Stuck in Customs

Who are you?

I’m John Connor. Voice and leader of the resistance. If you’re reading this, you are part of my cabal of human freedom fighters. My mom was Sarah Connor. She was a great woman. I used to think she was a complete psycho and a “total loser”. Now I understand. She understood the computers were going to take over the world. She taught me how to be tough, how to fight and how to lead people in a military operation. Without her, I would not exist. Without me, the resistance to the machines would have been crushed years ago.

What do you do for fun?

Kill terminators. When I was young, I used to like to play video games and cruise around on my little scooter bike with my buddy Tim. Today, Tim’s dead – killed in the nuclear holocaust that was Judgement Day. In fact, they’re almost all dead. In fact, don’t take this the wrong way, but in the future, when we’re constantly evading hunter-killer terminators and planning offensives against the Skynet, fun just doesn’t seem to exist.

What is your favourite community? Why?

The human communities around the world. The survivors who refuse to go silently into the night. Who chose to find a way to survive and to resist the terrible future of the machines. I love this community and will die fighting to defend it. Why? If you don’t know, then you’re probably a machine and you’ll likely never be able to really understand.

What is your superpower?

An innate ability to kill terminators. I’ve been fighting terminators since I was a kid. Hell, I was at war with them before I was even born. I know what they’re thinking, what they’re planning and I know how to terminate them using everything from MIG fighters to laser rifles to machine guns. In a world overrun by the bastards, my superpower is the best thing our species has got. That may sound a bit arrogant. If you think so, you can go to hell. What are you doing to save the human race?

How do you use it to build community?

It’s simple. The more terminators I kill correspondents directly with the more human communities that will survive. If I can kill them all and destroy Skynet, mankind may once again become the top dog on the planet Earth.

My Three Favourite Things About John Are…

1. He’s scrappy and has a lot of pluck. You see it throughout his life. Be it when he’s a young teen racing through the waterways of LA while being chased by a giant mac truck, dodging military drones when in his late 20s on the eve of Judgement Day or even jumping into the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a horrible storm to swim to submarine in his 40s.

2. His relationship with a machine made me cry when I was a kid. Yup, I don’t get too emotional most of the time. But John’s special relationship with his terminator guardian in T2 is pretty special. That sort of depth of character demonstrates that while he may seem like a arrogant badass based on his comments above, he’s also the same guy that as a kid, taught a machine how to be more human.

3. His pure doggedness. It’s gotta be tough fighting terminators your entire life, especially in the face of such horrible odds. It’s gotta be even tougher knowing you have a destiny and that destiny will likely keep you alone and in danger through your entire life. But John doesn’t give up. His single minded commitment to fighting for our future has made the game of WWJCD (What would John Connor Do?) a popular one in our household.

Check something (if not many things off) your bucket list.
Our time on earth is limited.  We all have lots of things we would like to do someday but it is so easy to let the routine of busy schedules get in the way.  If you don’t have a bucket list of things that you want to do someday, make one, and then prioritize a couple of things that you can do this year.  It will help with the mental preparation for the end of the world if you know that you have a few less things outstanding.

Explore apocalyptic/dystopian scenarios through novels and film.
While the earlier debate in this series of computers vs. zombies may have you convinced of how the end will come, it seems to me that there are lots of other options for how the world could end.  It could be a flood, it could be a nuclear winter, it could be a plague, it could be World War III, or it could just be the end of the world as we know it with corporations, governments, the media, and/or all of humanity changing how we live in terrible, horrific ways.  Thankfully, the human imagination has explored countless scenarios already through the genre of dystopian novels and film, and even has the sub-genre specializing in apocalypse.  Wikipedia has compiled extensive summary, so check out a few to see what we might be in for.

Prepare a community asset map.
When the apocalypse comes, you will not be alone.  You need to look around you to think about how your community will cope.  And this shouldn’t be an exercise in who is the best candidate to be the “Piggy” on your island.  Instead, I would suggest that through your networks and neighbourhood there are many strengths and opportunities that you haven’t yet discovered.  You need to look around you in a positive way to maximize your chances during the apocalypse and work together to leverage the skills, knowledge and resources that are on hand or can be developed.

Develop outdoor skills.
While the world is ending, odds are food, water, energy, transportation and many of the other things that we enjoy in our everyday lives will stop being as readily available to us.  Plus zombies tend to congregate in urban centres. One of the best ways to prepare for this is to head outside and start learning skills like building fires, sleeping outside, purifying water, traveling by human power (hiking, skiing, canoeing), and protecting food stores from wildlife.

Begin a physical training program.
It might come down to survival of the fittest, so a key part of apocalypse preparation should be physical conditioning (as tempting as it might be to live on a diet of beer and cheese the last couple of months).  You might need to doing some outrunning, some climbing, or some squeezing into awkward spaces if you want to survive. So the generally recommended mix of cardio, strength and flexibility training is likely a good baseline for end of the world preparation. Zombies are slow, but persistent, so focus on endurance training.

Pack an apocalypse emergency kit.
Most of us aren’t even ready with a 72 hour emergency kit that the federal government recommends for natural disasters.  So that isn’t a bad place to start and there is already a great Gumboot post on this.  Since we don’t know how it is going to go down, it would likely pay to have the kit remain fairly light weight and portable in case you need to be on the move.  The bonus is that it shouldn’t be prohibitively expensive and if you already have camp gear most of it can play double duty. Thinks about adapting this kit to include tools practical to both dig gardens and for zombie defense.

Have a plan for December 21.
A combination apocalypse and solstice calls for special plans.  Whether it is a grand party or more low key celebration, you should do have something to do that day to keep you busy up until the end, however it might come.  It is a great chance for reflection, celebration, and exploration of the potential if tomorrow does somehow come.  And most importantly, a time to feast and share.

And in the off chance that the Mayans were wrong, by using this list you still have done something you’ve always wanted to do, explored a genre of literature and film, got to know the strengths and potential of your community, are in better shape, explored the great outdoors, have an emergency kit on hand, and had the great party.  Not a bad way to spend 2012.

As a huge Terminator fan, I can say with some certainty that in times like these, with our online lives spread across social networks, ecommerce sites and Google, John Conner would be prepared. And Sarah Connor would be proud.

More of us need to be thinking like John Connor. That’s because, in totally non-resistance fashion, there’s no universal protocol on what happens to our online life after we die.

Facebook, for example and with proper documentation, can turn your profile into an online memorial. There’s also an app that allows you to prepare a video message for your friends and family. The people in charge of releasing that message are called your “trustees” and will only allow it to be sent when you’re gone. Twitter, on the other hand, simply shuts down your account rather than hand it off to next of kin.

There will come a day when it’s left to our family and friends to manage our digital identity. Assuming that Skynet hasn’t tried to destroy the human race and the Resistance isn’t too busy fighting to worry about your digital life which would no doubt be controlled by Skynet anyways, it’s worth considering the following checklist to better help the people you love take care of your memory, both on and offline.

What To Do Online Before You Die

1. To the best of your ability (let’s face it, it’s hard to keep track of it all) list all of the online networks, communities, websites, companies and organizations you belong to that require a password login. This includes Facebook and other social network websites as well as online banks and websites you’ve bought from in the past. Keep this in a safe place somewhere on your computer and, preferably, offline. It’s likely a document you’ll want to update, annually. When the time comes your friends and family can follow your wishes.

2. Tools like 1Password will help keep all of your passwords and login information handy and in one place for your next of kin.

3. Do you host your own blog or website? Prepare all of the hosting information and keep it together in one place with instructions on how to proceed. There are also hosting solutions that, for a price, will keep your blog up and live and operating, indefinitely. Maybe even through Judgement Day.

4. There are online services that can send email messages to your contacts so long as it’s prompted by someone you’ve given control. If final farewells are important to you, this may be a service you want to consider. Personally, I would ask one of my close friends (likely a writer from the Daily Gumboot) to prepare a digital eulogy and send it out to my contacts.

5. It’s important to have a will and there are templates and online tools available to help you create a digital version of it. Keep in mind you will still need a notary to make it official.

6. Finally, think about what you want your online legacy to look like — do you want a place where people can come together to send your loved ones their deepest sympathies? Will there be a digital component to your wake? These may sound like morbid questions but I know they’re the ones my friends and family will ask when I’m gone.

I think we’re going to see a lot more activity and conversation around the topic of how we die online in the years ahead. In the meantime, prepare like you would for the Resistance and against any damage that could harm your online memory and the efforts of your loved ones. It’s certainly what John Connor would do.

Photo courtesy Maxwell Hamilton, flickr.

Have I missed anything? I’d love your feedback and advice on how to better preserve  online memory and build an online legacy. Feel free to post, below.

You will need to know how to throw a great dinner party wherever your apocalyptic survival plan takes you. Morale is vital to survival. Pot-lucks are great for morale.

You must know how to hunt, kill and use all parts of an animal for food and supplies. Vegan’s will not survive the apocalypse – another reason to enjoy bacon while you can.

You need to know which foods provide which vitamins. It would be pretty embarrassing to die from gangrene when there are zombies everywhere.

Survival Strategies from Around the World

By: Martin Renauld and Peter Joerdell

Martin says…

Looking back at history, I would guess Argentina would face the apocalypse using class warfare… Until now, argentinean upper class/oligarchy has reacted with force to most attempts to improve lower class living conditions, especially in tough times. Therefore, if food becomes scarce, migrations from neighboring countries start to flow in, zombies appear everywhere or even Jesus coming back to punish us (except Jehovah witnesses of course)… The rich and powerful Argentinean would do as they have done over the past 200 years, just bring a docile dictator and make sure not the share vital resources. Argentina produces a lot a food (for about 7 times its population), which I guess would help getting the rich richer if famine starts spreading around the world.

Peter says…

And welcome to the German perspective on „the Apocalypse“. And to be honest, it’s going to be a bit of a let-down. Because, frankly, us Germans, we’re quite used to the doom & gloom-perspective. I mean, just look at the end of WW2 – we’ve had the shit bombed out of us like no other nation. And ever since then, German Angst has been on the agenda (it’s no miracle that term is recognized and understood, globally). We’ve always had this imminent perdition-thing going: First it was the Cold War, then it was BSE, now the Economic Crisis and the Post-911 terror-craze… And as I said, if you go back to WW2 – everyone has their own family-stories here, to which to relate to when dealing with the apocalypse. In many ways, the final days of WW2 are the blueprint. How Uncle Willy ran away from his post, ditching his uniform and making for home through the woods. How Grandma, right after giving birth to my mum ran through the firestorm of what used to be Remscheid while the city ceased to exist, losing all her family in just one night. How my own dad stared down the gun-barrels of the Red Army as an eleven year old kid. If we’re honest, we’ve seen it all in the 20^th century. Hyper-inflation, two world wars, a dictatorship made in hell, being threatened to be the first to go in nuclear holocaust…

The only new component in today’s apocalypse is that the environmental-issue is now also on the menu.

So, what would Germany do? I don’t know. Specific survival strategies have always proven to be difficult to maintain in the face of actual obliteration. Experience dictates that a lot of sheer luck is usually needed to come out alive and unscathed.

Maybe we oughta stick to the positive side: There won’t ever be a speed limit on the Autobahn after the world has ended. We won’t have to bail out Greece with our money. We’ll not be sewing T-Shirts for the Chinese market (as we might well do, according to some pessimists, in 20 years).

The best solution might actually be that of my friend Frank. His daughter was born on December 21^st, 2010. He named her Maya. And he’s quite confident that her second birthday won’t be her last.