Living in the Bay Area is scary right now. With San Francisco remaining as the only major city in the Pacific Ring of Fire yet to be shook (shaken?), I can’t help but be paranoid. If you don’t already know this about me, I grew up in(on) Guam, a tiny island in the middle of the biggest, most badass ocean – surrounded by 360 degrees of water, where earthquakes are as frequent as diarrhea, and cement buildings are as abundant as your mother’s love for you.

So, if I’m paranoid, you’d better be crapping your pants.

Ok, now that you’ve cleaned yourself up, let’s talk about this. Imagine no power and no water. Next imagine not being able to use your cell phone or the internet. NOW, imagine ZUCKERBERG FLEEING THE STATE ON HIS PRIVATE JET. That’s right. NO Facebook. NO Twitter… Not just for us, but for a bajillion other folks on our side of the continent (at least for a little while, during the time it takes to power up the secret bio-fuel powered generators they’ve got tucked away somewhere in Palo Alto, which won’t matter to us because we’ll have no means of getting online anyway — just feel comforted that people in other parts of the world who are still able to Tweet and Facebook, are updating their statuses with messages of condolence directed towards us, that we can’t even read). What a sucky feeling.

Anyway, last weekend, I went out and purchased a bunch of goods to form what is now known as
Big Al’s Disaster Blaster. It will melt all your fears away and give you a sense of control in an unpredictable scenario. Here’s what it’s comprised of:

1. Walkie Talkies – long range. takes rechargeable and alkaline batteries. keep one with you and the other with your lover at all times.

2. Bottled Water – a lot of it. for drinking and eating. you figure, 2 weeks is about the amount of time it will take for things to get somewhat restored.

3. Other Water – this is very important. fill up a giant trashcan thing with water. i know what you’re saying – “Ugh. I don’t have room for that in my apartment.” Stop whining and MAKE ROOM. you need this water for flushing the toilet. you need this water for brushing your teeth. you need this water to keep your cats alive. just freaking do it.

4. Spam – ew you say? well guess what, it’s delicious and it doesn’t perish. you can eat it straight out of the can or you can fry it up using #5.

5. Coleman Camping Stove or BBQ Grill & Propane - because everyone likes their food hot.

6. Flashlights, Batteries, Candles & Matches - if you don’t know why you need these things then you’re an idiot.

7. Booze & Cigarettes - to take the edge off.

8. Battery Operated Radio – or better yet, a CD playing boombox/radio combo, so you can listen to all the stuff you kept from the 90′s, while hitting up AM stations, to listen for Twitter status updates and emerging hashtags in regards to your predicament.

9. A deck of cards – you can play alone or with friends.

10. Alkaline Battery operated Digital camera that also takes video -  a lot of weird shit goes on and you want to be able to submit interesting footage and collect royalties from CNN.

Other things you may want to think about purchasing and keeping with you at all times: sleeping bags, an air mattress with battery powered pump, a water filtration system that you get from a camping store, a life jacket, a helmet, a raft, sneakers, a gun, a crowbar, a leather jacket and a knife.

Feel free to add and subtract as you please and share your ideas with me. I’m always down for adding to my disaster blaster / stuff that could also benefit me when camping list.

Hopefully the information contained above will help you survive if we’re not all crushed to death first… and perhaps limit you from jumping off a cliff out of boredom now and after the quake.