2 days before the end?

It's December 19th, 2012, two days before the end...

OK, I personally think the December 21st Mayan apocalypse is going to come and go with little more than a few people dying in drunken end of the world revelry but... I can't see myself letting this big date go by without at least making a marginally comical blog post about it.

Yes, I know there are a lot of crazies out there who think the world is going to end because that's what the Mayans said when the Mayan calendar ran out of dates. And yes, I know there is a mild amount of freaking out going on.

But my gut says what this apocalypse panic hub bub is really based on is a secret wish to be that guy. All the armchair gun aficionados, survivalists and after the bomb movie fans out there kind of want the Mayan doomsday to be real, because they think if given the chance they could be the real Mad Max / Postman / Eli (and his book) / Rick Grimes / the Road guy... OK maybe nobody wants to be the guy in the Road. That ain't the future anyone dreams of.

But let me put the record straight. If the apocalypse did happen, you will not be a hero.

And here's why:

5 End of the world scenarios, and why you don't want them to happen:

1. Zombies. This is an easy one. If the end of the world did come at the scratching hands and biting mouths of zombies, it ain't gonna be pretty.
   
   You know why? It either happens because of a toxin/disease and you get the fast zombies from 28 Days Later and you're fucked
   
   Or the zombies are a real undead curse and in this case you will have tons and tons and tons of gun owners realizing too late that zombies don't die from a bullet to the brain. Game over.
   
2. Asteroid. This end is also real bad, because Nasa has stated already that there isn't anything coming. Meaning if there is, then no one has a clue. We'll all be dead so fast you won't even have time to turn on an Aerosmith CD.
   
3. Nuclear War. OK, IMO this one probably has the most secret dreamers out there, simply because of all the video games and movies set in a post-WWIII world. Yes there may be mutants and people living underground, but if you survive the blast you can be a real hero, right? Wrong.
   
   A: You won't survive. Even with the fall of the Soviet Union there are still just too many big nukes floating around so if you live even remotely close to a city you're toast.
   
   Or B: OK so you did survive because you live in the middle of nowhere like in Jericho, right? Ever hear of fallout, nuclear winter, or other stuff no one mentions like whole river and ocean ecosystems dying out? Even if you did survive the initial war your shitty existence won't be very nice, and you'll probably die of radiation sickness, starvation, exposure or death by bandits. Watch the Day After or the Road, and then imagine it being a wee bit worse than that.
   
4. The big shift. This is a common version of the apocalypse idea where we have some huge climactic shift like a sudden cooling (the Day After Tomorrow), heating (2012), or other big change that causes mass death and destruction. I will give this one a bit more credit than the others. If you were very very lucky, you could in theory survive but most of us wouldn't. If you have any doubts watch the scene where they fly away in 2012. See all the cars and houses falling into holes? Yeah, that's how most people would go. Or in a blazing inferno, freezing storm, or whatever.
   
   And if you do survive and save a few friends and family then... you're left in a ruined world, possibly flooded or ripped to pieces, and with nothing left at all. Imagine living in Little House on the Prairie, except that in this version you have more bandits, less schools or food, and soon catch a nice case of Tuberculosis. Fun!
   
5. The slow collapse. OK, my post is waay too long now, so I'll do just one more. The slow collapse is what I call what would happen if Dec 21st is a tipping of our collective luck to shit. So you get the Deepwater Horizon oil spill re-erupting, another quake topples Fukushima (sending possibly a global-killer amount of radiation into the atmosphere), multiple terrorist attacks as all hell breaks loose, and plagues and ruin coming from every corner as civilization collapses under its own weight.
   
   Maybe, just maybe a few lucky Aussies would then live long enough to get killed by raiders in a Road Warrior style attack. As for the northern hemisphere? Forget about it. Too many old nuke plants, rickety infrastructure and chains of supply would send it all to hell if something like the slow collapse really happened.

So, that's all for now. Enjoy the end of days! I know I will!