> TEOTWAWKI Blog: Entertainment after TEOTWAWKI

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11/22/11

Entertainment after TEOTWAWKI


While it falls lower on the priority list, entertainment and distraction can be an essential thing after TEOTWAWKI. Low morale is a bad thing. Going insane from stress and boredom is a bad thing. Having something to look forward to or to get your mind off of the situation is a good thing.

If you have kids, some forms of entertainment become even more important. Kids can turn most anything into a game/diversion--an empty box will keep 'em occupied for a while--but having something to boost their spirits and keep them occupied during downtime is worth prepping for. Heck, even in an extended power outage, having something to keep the family happy is a huge help.

Board games and card games are an old standby--no power necessary! Many modern families, with video games out the wazoo, don't usually have many on hand. Garage sales are good way to get board games for cheap--we've found unopened games (Risk, Clue) for 50 cents. Generic chess/checkers sets can be had for cheap at big box stores, and a deck of playing cards is only a couple bucks. Point is, you can put together a decent little library of games for not much money.

Good ol' fashioned books--printed on actual paper are another good thing to have around. Garage sales and thrift stores strike again here; Amazon and eBay are good backups for used copies if you're looking for something in particular. I'd recommend some non-TEOTWAWKI books here--if things do get bad, you're going to want a break from the end of the world.

With small source of off-grid power, you can keep technology going after TEOTWAWKI. We have iPhones with games, TV shows, music and movies that distract our son on roadtrips. Eli from Book of Eli had an old school iPod, still going strong decades after the apocalypse. Tablets like the iPad and new Kindle Fire get you a bigger screen that small family could actually watch together, etc. All of these devices can be charged easily via a small-ish solar set up. There are also numerous AA battery powered "backup chargers" on the market for smart phones and iPods--a bulk pack of AAs could keep your device charged for a long while.

If you have a slightly more powerful off-grid power setup, a laptop and a hard drive of movies/DVD collection would be a pretty good thing to have around, too. In both Patriots and Survivors, Rawles' characters have movie nights on Macbook Pros, though he doesn't seem like a Mac guy to me. If you're tight on power supplies, an efficient laptop (long battery life, low power draw) will be what you want. If you're curious, the info written on the power adapter will tell you the laptop's power draw (look for watts and volts).

The classic eInk Amazon Kindles demand a special nod--you can store thousands of books and manuals on them, and the eInk display draws so little power that they can last for two months on a single charge. Pretty good--a lot easier than carrying a big box of books around with you! Amazon has a bunch of classic books available for download for free, too.

All these electronic devices have added advantages (except maybe music-only iPods) in that they can do other work and store other information. Multipurpose and very valuable, if you can keep 'em running.

Anyways, something to give a little thought to. While entertainment is certainly lower priority, it's something that you can easily "check off" the list without too much trouble or expenditure.