I have a friend who works in finance
When the banks started to look wobbly a few years back, he said that colleagues were seriously discussing how much food and how many weapons they should stockpile on their country estates to wait it out as law and order broke down.

And then we gave them all our money...
( chthonic, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 21:05, Reply)

Ahem!
Credit where it's due thank you.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Thu 14 Jun 2012, 21:04, 2 replies)

I've always fancied my chances
Being brought up on a croft, hunting shooting and fishing, much of my youth spent in one wilderness or the other, not to mention the fully equipped gun cabinet.

I think I'd be happier living in the post apocalypse hell than the modern world. Right up until the moment Amorous Badger was sawing my leg off cos a splinter's gone septic.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 14 Jun 2012, 20:21, Reply)

Camping indoors
Around age 11 or so, my mother and I left the Midwestern US and moved to Columbia, South Carolina. I believe it was just after our belongings arrived via moving van that Hugo wandered ashore. We were without power for 3 days and since we didn't know anyone in the area and hadn't yet unpacked much, we spent most of our time playing cards by candlelight. The first night, mom uncorked the bottle of champagne the property managers had given us when we moved in and we shared a glass. I remember sleeping in my sleeping bag in the hall, because I was unfamiliar with the layout of the apartment and there were moving boxes everywhere.

Sorry for lack of lulz, but I can honestly say that surviving something like that gives you a whole new respect for hurricanes and the people who survive them.
(WillF http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverfischdotnet/, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 20:13, Reply)

Save the spreadsheet
At 2 p.m. on a Saturday, I was at work, busy assembling a large spreadsheet, when the lights started flickering. I immediately and successfully saved the large spreadsheet I was working on. I was secure and happy in the knowledge that I lost no data and did the right thing.

The reason the lights were flickering was that a tornado was knocking down power pylons and slicing high voltage lines just a short distance away, but I didn't learn about that until later.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 18:16, 3 replies)

Apparent nuclear apocalypse in the 1980s
All the warnings were slightly pointless, "unscrew some doors, lay them against a wall with a mattress against them, spend 2 weeks hiding eating tinned food and shitting in a bucket" when it was obvious from watching Threads that once it popped, that nuke was going to incinerate everything out in the open and blow over any houses you were hiding in. Why survive when the post-attack anarchy would result in the downfall of society and a smorgasbord of misery?

Fast forward 25 years.

I'm going camping. Airbed, LED lanterns and torches, 12V jumper start pack to power the 240V inverter, 3G dongle so I can get online, many litres of clean bottled water, eating tinned food from a gas camper stove, tent is self-erecting and flexes with the wind- I reckon I could sail through nuclear Armageddon now*. Just have to paint the tent white to deflect the blast. Plus get a Remington 12 guage to deal with the radioactive mutant horde.....

*may still have to shit in a bucket though
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Thu 14 Jun 2012, 17:59, 8 replies)

I may be the only one who does this, but on odd occasions when I have the house to myself, I'll masturbate to internet porn
Careful to maintain the illusion that I don't, I'll clean up after myself, then delete my browser history. I find this order works best, so as not to get the mouse sticky. It was on one occasion last year when I had a rare few hours alone, several tabs open buffering away on their videos, that the power went out. My wife came home later and the power was still out. She announced she had some important work to do on the computer when the power came back on. Now, I'm aware that firefox has a feature that will reload all previously open tabs when it's reopened after a shutdown. I could not let this happen.
Like a guard dog, I stood vigil near the computer for the afternoon. The one time I went to the kitchen, the power came back on with a whirring of the fridge. I returned to the living room to find the missus already sat at the computer and windows booting up. I stood behind her in rising panic, trying to think of a distraction.
"Can I show you something in the kitchen, babe? Come and check this out"
"Just let me do this quickly"
Fuck! Windows was open now. Should I kick the power button? That would be too obvious. What about taking the mouse off her? But what reason would I give, and I'd have to open firefox in front of her anyway then close it without saving to fix the problem. No time! She's about to open it....
I'd forgotten the wife prefers IE.
Nowadays, when I have the desire for some Gentleman's Time, I'll use the Private browsing feature in advance.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 17:47, 6 replies)

Internet down? Not a problem.
Like many of your fine selves, I'd like to think of myself as being somewhat "tech-savvy". This is to the point that I don't think a proper internet outage has affected me. Our ISP's DNS servers decided to fall over a few weeks back and we didn't even notice because I use 2 different sets of DNS servers as a backup (OpenDNS and Google's, if you must know).
A few months before hand, our entire street's internet was down because someone set fire to the green cab, the thoughtless bastards. Not a problem though, I just enabled a wireless tether on my phone and we were back online with good enough speeds for all your facebookings and such. We even did our big monthly tesco shop without an issue. Dead PSU? Replaced in minutes. Graphics card fried? Not a problem! I've got a spare everything that'll do in a pinch.

What a shame I'm completely useless at anything else.

When we first moved into our new place we had trouble getting the heating on. We were on to the landlord within minutes, screaming blue murder and how we had rights, how it's disgraceful that they'd let us move in without a working boiler knowing full well we had a 3month old child. The lady on the phone promised she'd get someone out immediately.
Not 30s after hanging the phone up, she called us back and said "erm...just to be sure, before you tried turning the boiler on, did you turn the gas supply on?".

Apparently when you move into a new house, you need to turn the gas supply on. Fucked if I knew that.

A similar conversation took place a few months later when the boiler broke down. How dare they not get someone out this very picosecond, we have a 6month old child! Once again, she quickly phoned us back and made sure we hadn't already done the usual things like switching the boiler off and on, topping up the water in case the pressure dropped, etc.

Apparently when your boiler breaks down, usually the way to fix it is to top up the water pressure. Fucked if I knew that.

Honestly, if the internet goes down I'm largely confident that I can conjure it from thin air somehow, but if so much as a screw comes loose from a shelf, I'll be panicking and screaming.
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:50, 7 replies)

My better half is a great fan of disaster films.
Unfortunately she also tends to get drawn into them and forget that Hollywood has a habit of exaggerating physical laws as well as just plain making shit up.

In the past six months as a direct result of her seeing numerous films in which the world nearly ends (Thank you very fucking much Sky and your free film channels!) she has requested the following modifications to the house: -

A large fireplace, A basement, an electrical generator, a reinforced roof, a fuel storage tank, a water storage tank independant of the main supply, a solid fuel stove and my absolute favourite, a fucking raft.

We live in a smallish two-up two-down terraced house on the outskirts of Derbyshire.
( Muns, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:46, 5 replies)

The Apocalypse.
People go on like it's the end of the World.


Nani?
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:26, 2 replies)

Apocalypse isn't such a bad ass
The X-Men are able to beat him on a regular basis.

{edited, thanks to MM for the correction}
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:24, 1 reply)

Irish and nuked
So when chernobyl went boom we couldn't eat sheep on the hills because it would make us grow a third arm.

Then Sellafield started leaking, so the irish sea now glows in the dark. But its ok if anything more major than a pipe pumping nuclear waste into the sea or drums being dumped, again into the sea (anyone want some fish btw?) we have plans...

Plan A) Iodine tablets were sent to every single home in the country....

Alas slight issue with that was not every house got them, and ones that did didn't always have enough tablets for everyone in the house. Oh yeah and they only lasted a year or so. So you'd think the Government would send out more right? Nope. We got nothing.

Plan B) we'll send them a postcard asking them to shut down... and cut down thousands of trees in the process.

In all fairness if the apocolypse is anything nuclear related we'll either be the first to go or the last ones standing.
(Samantha Bricks Better half done a poo on, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:11, 2 replies)

It was a terrifying time.
I was about 8 years old, out on the moors with my school, and I got separated from the main group. Then, I was surrounded by large woolly creatures. My thoughts of them taking care of me and sharing their warmth were cruelly dashed when they all started attacking me.

Truly, it was the alpaca-lypse.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:06, 2 replies)

really?
I mean, I like steel drums and limbo dancing as much as the next man, but I don't see how this is going to generate interesting answers.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:05, 2 replies)

No mint sauce
A long time ago when I was at school. Myself and a bunch of class mates were on an outward bounds course. I was really foggy and when we stopped for a breather we realized that one of our group was missing.

He was the scruffy ink stained kid that every class seems to have. He was a bit of a a loon and on the bus on the way to the hostel we were staying at he showed me the hunting knife he had brought along "just in case"

We were organised to to teams to spread out and search for this numpty. Luckily the fog was clearing making our job easier. When we found him he had taken his shirt off and tied it around his head. Smeared mud on his cheeks and was chasing sheep around brandishing his knife and shouting "baaaaaa ya bastards" He later confided in us that if he'd caught one he'd have "eaten the fucker raw"

he had been missing for less than 1/2 an hour. Also it was the Brecon Beacons hardly the back of beyond
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:05, Reply)

As a nipper lived in the country in a cottage supplied with less than robust electricity cables.
So inevitably the first bit of wind or snow would trip out the power requiring a team of engineers to reconnect a cable or two.

When the power went it was fantastic!

Out would come the Black and white portable TV which dad would connect to a car battery. Out would come all the candles and the oil lamps would be lit. We'd have beans on toast, cooked on the open fire instead of those boring old meals that mum would cook every evening.

And Dad would go down to the pub leaving me to my Lego and mum to her soaps. Fantastic.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 16:02, 1 reply)

January 2011
It was very, very cold, for a long, long time. Everything in my house froze - washing machine, dishwasher, and the main water pipe. While I was thawing that with a hairdryer my wife collected snow and melted it in a pan in order to have water to wash, brush teeth and make cups of tea. The kids thought this was great. I was less amused.

Even when we had running water we had to do the washing up by hand (ok, not too much of a hardship) but couldn't wash our clothes because of frozen pipes on the washing machine. Faced with having to go to the launderette we chose to build up a higher and higher pile of dirty washing, while finding the last pairs of pants and socks at the bottom of drawers. Luckily I got it thawed before we ran out of clothes.
(Smale is stuffed, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:50, Reply)

Panic buying
My adsl filter gave up the ghost one saturday night, couldnt get one at PC world and Maplins was shut. Couldnt get on Xhamster and was forced to purchase a jazz magazine from the newsagents.
You try finding a gentlemans interest periodical on a sunday teatime.
(Finster Ate a cat biscuit for a bet, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:29, 4 replies)

climbed a mountain in wales
My brother had the genius idea of cooking hotdogs when we got to the top.

So we carried the stove up, buns, flask of tea etc.




2 hrs later... we drop our bags, get the stove out and realised we had forgotten tomato sauce...

gutted
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:16, 2 replies)

Now, just the other day
I woke up to find that no-one was home, so I took the car, drove around for a while until I got a flat tyre in a dodgy neighbourhood, had to tell a blathering priest with a face like a three a.m. kebab that I didn't want his leaflets, then climbed a mountain of shopping trollies and drank crème de menthe with my chubby mate before we went ram-raiding to the local Asda; it all went a bit pear-shaped when he got gobbed on by a crow and had an allergic reaction. Anyway I ended up in a big house up near Manchester being chased by some soldiers and a zombie rapey gimp in a dog collar before I got away and made a modern art installation by chucking blankets around in a field.

Average sort of weekend, really.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:15, 2 replies)

This one time I was at Notting Hill carnival
and this bunch of faeces were banging out some cool tunes about the end of the world on steel drums. Man, that was a poocalypso I won't forget.
( broadsword now that's fresh, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:10, 1 reply)

Adding bottled lemon juice to my gin and tonic
as we'd run out of fresh limes. Oh the humanity.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 15:00, 2 replies)

I was on holiday
I was at the bar sipping cocktails... when quite out of the blue, I thought of the concept of death, and that one day - I was going to die.

That impending sense of doom sent me into a horrible 15 minutes of internal panic. My GF at the time, kept talking, and i tried to cover up my expression of complete dread... Thankfully i was a little drunk, and so a few minutes later, I had completly forgotten of the episode.

Next day I cold kind of sense the feeling i felt from the thought. I keep that locked in my brain, like a door i dont want to open, I know whats in there. and i leave it well alone.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:58, 2 replies)

I recently ran out of QOTW ideas
so I had to repackage this:
www.b3ta.com/questions/firstworldproblems/
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:57, Reply)

I've run out of swans
And had to resort to wiping my arse with mere ducks.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:38, 2 replies)

Referring back to the previously mentioned fuel strike.

I was a student who was only happy giving money to pubs, but the pumps had run dry at the petrol station. I had enough in the tank for a few small journeys but I was going to need some more petrol.

Word had gotten round that there had been a delivery at a petrol station nearby. I made my way there and joined the snaking queue down the road and proceeded to wait. It took about 45 mins to get to the pump, everyone filling up their tanks and additional fuel storage was taking ages.

I parked up, got out the car, and started to fill my car… stopped at £5.02. put the cap back on the petrol tank and paid with a cheque.
(Pat mustard, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:36, Reply)

Last time I had a power cut,
I discovered that I owned a glow in the dark T-shirt.

Best. Power Cut. Ever.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:31, 6 replies)

Petrol shortages and panic buying
A few years ago when the tanker drivers were on strike, people went mad with panic buying in the shops to the point that anyone seen piling up their trollies was seen as a huge anti-social bastard hoarder.

So, there I was in Asda, doing the weekly shop for a family of four with all our usual purchases. It was as I put twelve pints of milk in the trolley (as you do), that I became aware of a whispering around me.

"Look at him," the proles said, pointing. "Fucking panic buying."

People pointed, stared, whispered to each other. Somebody actually said out loud that I "ought to be ashamed".

Fuck it, I thought, the house is virtually bare, and the shelves were well stocked. I piled the trolley as high as it would go, and it came to over a hundred quid. Then, with even the till operator and the usually cheery Asda greeter giving me the skunk eye, I fled.

The next day the tanker drivers went back to work.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:24, 4 replies)

Last Tuesday I ran out
of olives.

I had to drink my Martini with a twist of lemon peel instead. It really was the most beastly situation.
(username failed moderation, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:21, 1 reply)

First

( SteveFrench Cardio is for homo's. do you even lift bro?, Thu 14 Jun 2012, 14:18, 6 replies)