753 Gama.

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I don’t know why, but I find famous figures of the age of exploration funny.

There is a wildfire blazing more or less out of control a few miles away from here. It is possible that the fire could come this way. You can see the plume of smoke from here. I often wonder what things I would save if it ever came to making that choice. I don’t own a lot of flame retardant stuff. A lot of my books are out of print. In fact, most of what I own can’t be replaced. I know it’s not good to be too attached to things, but it is difficult trying to decide what things I “can’t live without”. If it came down to it I’d save my computer and stuff first. I have a hierarchy of what things get saved first depending on the situation. If I have to leave in seconds I can quickly detach the archives and make off with my content. If I have more time I’ll take that, the tower, and the tablet. Anything past that is superfluous. Given more time than that I’d save the things mentioned, Akira, Nausica, two Batman books, The House With A Clock In Its Walls, my desk books, my dvd season sets, Xbox 360, Wii, and some games, in more or less that order. My handheld stuff comes too, but that stuff is usually on my person so I don’t have to actually think about saving it. I pick it up without thinking. If I had more time than that I would pick out a few choice toys to save as well. My Transformers Alternators, and Masterpiece figures top that list.

If it came down to it, what do you grab before things get real?

29 Comments

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and the fire doesn’t burn your stuff to the ground.

This has been on my mind since years ago, I always picked my computer first but technology has come far since then and most of my important stuff are on my hard drive and flash drive, one which is as big as my DS and the other as big as my thumb…all in all, if wearing the right kind of pants, all the things I consider “can’t live without” worthy can fit in all of my pockets. Also, because of my mild ocd all the stuff on my desk is very neat in a row and i have a bag here so i can just push everything onto the bag with a wave of my arm, sling it over my shoulder and run. I could save the xbox and then just rebuy the cables later.

Oh explorers. They amuse me so, always lookin’ for things that don’t exist.

How much time do I have to get everything out? Not a lot of time: my roommate (If I know him, he’d sleep through the disaster), my dog, my phone, my ipod, and my flash drive (important things on there). About an hour: the aforementioned things, my Camus novels, my seasons of Doctor Who, my sketchbooks, and a couple of choice video games.

If I have to evacuate for any sort of emergency, the first thing to out with me is my laptop, I cannot part with my laptop. I’d then proceed to stuff my pockets and laptop case with small electronics such as my iPod, cell phone, camera, and headphones, as well as various computer programs and DVDs, my wireless router, and my wallet. Next comes my violin, if for no more reason than it’s valuable, and being a poor college student I don’t really have all that much of value. Finally, if there’s time, I would dig out my important paper documents and such, just to be sure not to lose all that information. Past that, I don’t know what I’d take if there was more time (I’d say my TV, but I can’t carry my TV on my own), my PS2 perhaps?

What I really need is a giant glass garage with a U-Haul, and an “In case of fire, break glass” sign.

Outside of family members and the cat, the computer data would come first, but I have a lot of stuff I can’t replace after that. None of it is big-money valuable, just stuff that isn’t made anymore or was done by friends/family.

The first panel just made me think of “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, too.” Probably doesn’t help that I watched the trailer for the new movie coming out in the summer.

Both cats pretty much would take up my arms, and then I spose my xbox harddrive, external harddrive, and a couple of books/games/handheld stuff -whatever would fit in my backpack. Most of my nicer stuff is furniture so I’d really be SOL.

Lol man everyone on here is crazy. You need to run for your life from a fire and you stop and grab stuff?

1. Make sure my sister is out safe.
2. Make sure I’m not naked while I watch all my things burn up.

I wouldn’t stop for shit lol.

Actually had that scenario happen up here, grabbed everything fittable into a dufflebag and GTFoed, upon getting to the evac line I had: PSP, camera, cahrgers, phone, glasses, MP3 player, 2 sets of clothes and some PS2 games unfinished yet. not bad for a 4 min notice

Actually had that scenario happen up here, grabbed everything fittable into a dufflebag and GTFoed, upon getting to the evac line I had: PSP, camera, cahrgers, phone, glasses, MP3 player, 2 sets of clothes and some PS2 games unfinished yet. not bad for a 4 min notice. Lesson learned, keep important stuff on a thumb drive, have goods prepacked that you know you’ll want then but don’t use often and save the box a computer tower comes in.

Well… Apart from there being no way how my apartment building could ever be threatened by a wildfire (or any other save one that started right in the house itself), I have the slight advantage of having rented a hobby room in the basement with heavy stone and concrete walls and a window and door that both are fireproof to a high level and go out towards the gateway to the underground garage with nothing flammable at all in a good distance. So I’d just move as much of my stuff into there as possible and then make a run for it with an extra set of clothes, keys, wallet (with my id and stuff), cell phone, mp3 player, and an extra set of clothes. Maybe add a sleeping bag and small tent to the list, if there was no obvious way to stay with friends or relatives for the next days after.

Just realised I wrote “extra set of clothes” twice. XD

I should stop writing comments at 2AM, I guess.

My baby and my great-great-grandma’s velvet scrap patchwork quilt that she made with her daughters. My husband’s too heavy; he’s on his own.

i love this comic no only do i get to laugh but i get to laugh at historical explorer jokes some im learning or at least re learning stuff double win

To go comment on the “save this bitch from fire” stuff… I was actually thinking about this last night. I was watching the 2nd or 3rd to last episode of Buffy, when everyone was leaving Sunnydale, and I saw a truck packed to the gills. What stood out to me was that they had packed their vacuum. Now, I don’t know about you, but, apocalypse a-comin’, I’m not reaching for my vacuum. I’m sure they packed all they could into that truck. I’m sure they weighed things carefully. But, in the end, they went for a vacuum? It must be one hell of a vacuum.
This begged the question: what would I save?
I forgot about the cats, but let’s just assume that living things are at the top of the list without saying so. That aside, I couldn’t really think of anything. All the stuff I have is for entertainment purposes. Books, movies, tv shows… I would love to take them, but that would just be silly. If time permitted it, I would get my journals. Aside from that, I don’t know. Even my computer would take more effort to collect than I would want to muster but I suppose I should probably take it and my hard drive.
When you get right down to it, everything we have is useless. It would be horrible to lose all this junk but, in a way, it would also be freeing.

Considering the fact I am somewhat of a paranoid geardo and I carry a lot of stuff wherever I go, including my laptop, I could be out the door in twenty seconds flat.

However, when fleeing a natural disaster on a larger scale it’s best to think about immediate survival, so I’d choose accordingly: cold weather clothing, sleeping bag, water container, knife (stuff like compass, small toolkit, hygiene bag, chargers, I already carry on a regular basis). The only “luxury” items I would take would be my drawing instruments. Luckily I keep them in an old MG ammunition musette bag, so they’re easy to pick up.
In fact, most of my stuff is in various bags (many of military origin) and somewhat categorised, so in the end I can simply pick the bags I want.

Still not as good as Zombie Magellan.
I would really like to see a “Zombie Magellan” said by Carol wallpaper

I understand that different people are different and nobody but me has lived the life I’ve lived. But it still feels strange reading the comments here about people talking about what they would take *if*.

When I was in elementary school and high school, the schools I went to would have at least one evacuation per year; usually they had several. I think most of these were drills, but I remember some weren’t. My family did evacuation drills less often; I think I remember two drills where we lived up until half way through second grade, one drill at the next place, and two drills at the place we lived from fourth grade through high school. We also had two evacuations at the latter house.

There were at least a dozen evacuations in my dorm at college, plus a bunch of tornado shelters, both drills and warnings.

Things were kicked into high gear when I got my first post-college job. They had a requirement from their insurance company of at least one evacuation (drill or real) per month. We were told that we could tell if it was a real evacuation by whether the fire trucks showed up – but anyone who was not at the muster point before the fire trucks arrived or the drill was over would be reprimanded, and enough such incidents could result in termination. I think we generally had fewer than 6 drills per year there (as in, more than 6 real evacuations – probably more like more than 10 real evacuations per year, as there wasn’t anything preventing multiple real evacuations in one month. But drills were almost always the last week of the month, so rarely was there a real evacuation after a drill.)

So, when there’s an evacuation, I put my laptop in my backpack and go. If I’m at home, I’ll also dump the storage box in which I keep my meds and vitamins into my backpack, and assist with herding the cats towards my apartmentmate who is best at putting the cats in their carriers.

I justify this lack of panic by asserting that we generally have pretty good warning systems for weather-related emergencies, and I live in a building with relatively good built-in fire suppression systems. We’ve lived in the current building long enough to have been around for quite a few real fire evacuations, and none of the fires have ever spread outside the unit where they started. This is our fifth high-rise apartment building. I don’t recall any evacuations in the first building, but the other three were more or less the same story as the current one. (We were not in the first building very long; there were issues with it and the landlord.)

Just thought to qualify my evacuation plan: the backpack always has spare chargers for my devices, my previous shaver, my next deodorant, my next toothbrush, my next toothpaste, my next floss, a small first aid kit, and a change of clothes.

This is not something I particularly think about often, except when I’m changing out the stuff that’s stored in the backpack, when there’s an evacuation, or when I have to travel somewhere.

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