(Author’s Note: This column was originally published in the Bismarck High School ‘Hi-Herald’ on April 20th, 1999. It was titled “Y2K Craze Incites Student to Build Bomb Shelter”. I was only 17 when I wrote this.)

I recently became the proud owner of a bunker. It’s nothing all that special. Just four reinforced steel walls, a plank iron ceiling, and wall-to-wall lime green shag carpet.

Why, you may be asking, would a person need a bunker? You see, I am preparing for the millennium and the ensuing societal collapse, a side effect of the Y2K bug, which will more than likely be the end to all civilization.

Riots will begin. Governments will fall. The populace will take up arms. I won’t be taking any chances. Don’t expect your run-of-the-mill revolution here, people. This will be an all-out collapse. I’m gonna be ready for it, too. Just me, my bunker, and my Browning 12.7mm M2 machine gun.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t the Browning 12.7mm M2 machine gun a little bit large considering the situation? I think not! She may be a big gun, but she is an effective gun. There isn’t a heavy machine gun that I could trust more.

What if some starving vagrant, due to lack of preparation before the Y2K induced collapse, were to attempt to break into one of my food caches? I could pick him off at about 2,400 meters. One squeeze of the trigger and ‘Mr. What-Millennial-Collapse’ would be crumpled on the ground with 40 rounds peppering his torso alone. The Browning 12.7mm is a suitable weapon indeed.

I don’t want to have to shoot any of you, dear readers. you’ll have to plan ahead if you want to be on top of things. As I always say, be ready for anything. Somebody could have used that advice back when granddaddy ENIAC, the first supercomputer, was assembled. Nobody even considered the effects of a millennial change on the revolutionary new machine, which would later morph into the PC. So here we are. Y2K breathing down our necks and nearly all hiding places have been taken.

The software companies claim to have the problem fixed. The experts plead with the world to stay calm. Nothing is going to go wrong, they say. Everybody just tend to your work. Mind your own business and nobody gets hurt. Have they convinced you?

Okay. So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. They have a fix to the problem. But who is to say that they have the problem fixed? You know good and well that somewhere there is a big computer that the software people haven’t fixed yet. A big computer that everybody has forgotten about. A big computer that controls important things like the release of nuclear warheads, or air-traffic control radar systems, or how about the mechanical marvel which is Al Gore.

11:59:59, Dec. 31, 1999. The world revels quietly enjoying prosperity. 12:00:01, Jan. 1, 2000. Chaos and panic befall the earth. Bam! The eastern coastal region of the island nation of Tambula has shown up missing. All attempts to locate the now absent clump of oceanic geography have failed. 15 plane crashes are reported in the Indian Ocean. Somewhere in Washington, D.C., Al Gore busily gnaws away at a statuette of former Senator Rayburn.

The world will then turn to it’s presidents, kings, dictators, and ayatollahs for answers. “We thought you had a fix!” The world will say in unison, as they usually say things. The world, finding no suitable answers from their befuddled leaders, will fling their maddened selves at the government who allowed such an atrocity to occur. This is where those of us with the foresight to prepare will be thankful for our Browning 12.7mm M2 machine guns.

I have a wonderful view from my bunker. I can see the Capitol right out of my viewport. You must understand, I can’t tell you much more than that for security reasons.

I am just moving in the furniture, and I already have a pretty good storehouse of food, water, and fuel. The septic system will be installed next week and then I can move in. I also stocked up on plenty of batteries. I figured that the city will lose power in a relatively short period of time following the collapse. I won’t be able to listen to my Creedence CDs without power to run my CD player. Fresh air was another concern of mine. What if the neighbors start feuding and try to gas each other out of their houses, like they did last week? I think I’ll have a few oxygen tanks brought in next week, just in case.

So my advice to you, dear reader, is to prepare. Make sure you have all of your money out of the bank. It may not be of any value after the crash, but you can never tell with these things. In any event, burning money will make a good heat source for the winter. Hoard the basics in your cellar, basement, garage or closet. Remember that humans need food, water, shelter, and air to survive. You are no different. Even the stupid people are human.

With the right tools we can take on Y2K and defend the land that is rightfully ours. Oh yeah, make sure that you stock up on toilet paper. Other than the obvious uses, you’ll be able to trade it for food and water. Think about it, and good luck.

In elementary school I learned that Benjamin Franklin invented the wood burning stove in 1741. I also learned that sun scientists were busy working on harnessing solar energy to power and heat our homes. This was the future, at least according to sun scientists in the 1980s. It sounded promising.

But today, of the 132 million homes in the U.S., only 40,000 are heated using solar energy. To put that into perspective, there are still 2.3 million American households using one of Ben Franklin’s two-century-old wood burning stoves.

The future was supposed to be all solar powered houses and flying cars, right? But how is it that hermits, hill people and the Amish now outnumber tech-savvy, sun-loving hippies by a margin of 57 to 1? How did the sun scientists get it so wrong?

Looking for more answers, I learned that Americans spend around $7.8 billion on the collection, treatment and disposal of ‘hazardous waste materials’. Which sounds a bit tangental, until you realize that we only spent $1.3 billion more on garbage than we did on ‘fixed-route passenger transportation’. In english this means we spent more money hauling around our old fridges and oil cans than we did on building roads and rails on which to haul them around on. Sure, our cities don’t smell like garbage, but we also don’t have bullet trains or flying cars like they do in Japan.

I know $6.5 billion might sound like a lot to spend on roads and rails, but that’s hardly anything compared to how much we spent on things for our pets. That’s right, $51 billion for goods and services for our pets, including $370 million spent on pet-sized Halloween costumes and $3.5 billion for doggy daycare.

We celebrated the 4th of July last year by blowing up $600 million worth of fireworks, followed by $17 million in fireworks-related trips to the emergency room.

We spent $11 billion on cheeses and $50 million on mouse traps to protect those cheeses. The mouse traps might also explain the $1.5 million in cheese-related emergency room visits. (Mouse traps: Snapping tiny little necks and fingers since 1894!)

And then, after we’ve had our fun, we take all of the chewed up pet costumes and detonated fireworks and emergency room bills and dead mice and we chuck them all in a $1.3 billion trash can and send it all away to a $6.5 billion dump.

The problem is a doozie, but the solution is quite simple. If we want flying cars, we need to rethink everything we learned in the 80s. The sun scientists weren’t wrong, we’re just lazy.

Building a better mousetrap takes time and the first step toward advancement is acknowledging that the mouse of the past is nothing like the atomic super-mouse of tomorrow. That means we can’t have cutting-edge technology and flying cars until we can stop settling for fireworks and fancy cheeses and start living in solar powered houses.

So, is $6.5 billion too much to spend on roads and rails? I guess it really depends on how badly we want to get away from this dump.

-How do you feel about open ended questions?

-Are you double jointed? Because I am. And we now have a policy against bullying. Isn’t that right, Sharon?

-I noticed you listed ‘twerking’ as a skill on your résumé. Is that something you do to get high or something you do when you’re high?

-Do you need a hug? You look like you could use a hug.

-You can multitask, but do you have any experience doing single tasks?

-I see you were a consultant. How was living in your parent’s basement?

-How long can you hold your breath?

-You used a lot buzzwords on your résumé. Does your liberal arts degree come in handy often?

-You have some pretty impressive references. Marry, f*ck, kill?

-Are you single? Because we now have a policy against harassment, isn’t that right Sharon?

-I see you just graduated high school and have 7 years of managerial experience. Please elaborate.

-Elaborate means to tell somebody more about something you just told them. Please tell us more.

-You just moved here? Do you have any friends or family who would notice if you went missing for a little while?

-You’re over-qualified for this position, but we’re basing our decision solely on what’s inside your urine, so would you mind peeing in this cup?

-In a fight with broadswords, who would win? You or me?

-I see you were Pope. What was that like?

-Under skills you list ‘computers’. Do you also know Internet?

-I see you are a Social Networking Marketing Guru/Genius. On a scale of 1 to 10, how awesome is One Direction?

-You say you’re inquisitive. Do you have any questions for Sharon?

-How nice. You’ve listed some of your hobbies. Tell us more about your Taekwondo belts.

-How offended would you be if I took a nap?

-If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you do?

-You have a valid drivers license? If we want an Orange Julius, will you drive?

-You have experience with HTML and CSS, but your résumé doesn’t explicitly say anything about emails. Do you know what an email is?

-Have you seen a psychic recently? Where did they see you in 5 years?

-I can tell by the way you’ve dotted all of your ‘i’s with hearts that you’re a real go getter. Where do you get all of your fantastic ideas?

-I see you majored in philosophy. Maybe you can tell me what was happening in the last season of ‘Lost’?

-Isn’t it fantastic that you’ve decided to make a late-in-life career change? What other names have you performed under?

-Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you’re a cop.

You’ve decided to shave your head. Good for you! Here’s some practical advice before you begin. I’ve been shaving my head almost daily since 2005. I am an expert at shaving my head. The first step to becoming an expert at shaving your head is knowing when NOT to shave your head. Do you have a family picture coming up? Are you drunk or high? Maybe now is not the time to shave your head. Shaving your head isn’t exactly temporary.

Don’t just shave your head with any old razor unless you want the worst razor burn you’ve ever had in your life. Picture how a full-head razor burn is going to feel on flannel sheets. Here’s how to avoid it.

Use a body hair trimmer to trim your hair first. Making your hair shorter helps the razor do it’s job. You can buy a fancy body hair trimmer, but I’ve used a super-cheapo nose hair trimmer before with exactly the same results. Make it work for your budget, just don’t skip this step.

Before your head is buzzed (or you choose to ignore my previous advice) you will need to consider what kinds of tools you have at your disposal. At a minimum, you will need a razor, shaving cream, a mirror and water. Again, if it works for your budget, you may also want to pick up a styptic pen, face moisturizer, a bronzing lotion, and a fancy new hat.

It is important to select a razor with inexpensive cartridges, because you’re going to need to buy many razor blades in the future. Expect to change the blade about once a week and budget accordingly.

Picking the right shaving cream is also important. You’re going to need more than just an abundance of foam to shave your head. You’re looking for a shaving cream or soap that helps the blade glide over the skin without drying out your scalp. Shaving cream is inexpensive, so try a couple of different kinds and see what works for you.

I found a shaving cream specially designed for head shaving and I loved it. It came in a squeeze bottle, was around $8 and was available only in a limited number of stores. But when I moved to Washington, D.C., this special shaving cream was scarce and I had to make an unexpected change.

Now I shave with a $1 bar of shaving soap and a $10 artificial badger hair brush. I put the bar of shaving soap in an old coffee cup with some water and use the brush to make my own shaving foam. Does it work better? I don’t know. The point is you’ve got to find out what’s going to work for you. It might be an expensive boutique shaving creme or it might be a bar of soap in a filthy Fiesta coffee mug.

I use a mirror so I don’t shave off my eyebrows. I suggest you do the same.

Face moisturizer and self-tanning bronzer lotion are highly recommended if you want to look somewhat normal right after you shave your head. Your hair blocks a fair amount of sun from reaching your scalp, so self-tanning cream will help even out your skin tone until you’re able to go outside.

It’s also important to use moisturizer to keep your scalp from getting too dry. At a bare minimum make sure to use sunscreen when you go outside to prevent sun burn. It is nearly impossible to sleep on a full-head sunburn, so take precautions.

You are going to cut your yourself eventually and a styptic pencil will help stop the bleeding. You’re going to want to make sure you have a couple of these handy for when you travel. Unfamiliar and foreign head shaving conditions have been the cause of some of my bloodiest shaving accidents.

A fancy hat is an excellent way to cover cuts while you wait for them to stop bleeding. The bigger and fancier the hat, the less likely people are to notice the color draining from your face. Also, consider using more bronzer.

After you’ve finished shaving, double check your face in the mirror to make sure you haven’t missed any spots and that you still have 1-2 eyebrows. It’s important to note that if you have one big eyebrow you can split it along the bridge of your nose with your nose hair trimmer. If you only have one eyebrow left and it’s not in the middle of your head, you have shaved your head incorrectly and will need to color your eyebrow back in with a washable marker or ballpoint pen. Eyebrows can take between 2-3 weeks to grow back.

Lastly, consider saving and donating your hair. There are many charities, wig makers and weirdos who would love a bag of hair. You could make a cancer survivor or creepy weirdo hair fetishist very happy with your donation.

I hope these tips help you smoothly transition to the new bald you! Good luck and happy shaving!

I had a cold recently and I was pretty sure I was going to die. I decided to dedicate my life to finding a way to live forever. Also, drinking cough syrup with a straw is a great way to learn the secret to eternal life.

I learned that the secret to living forever is never dying. Which sounds easy and should be possible. You may still die, but trying not to die is still the only scientifically proven method of not dying.

If you want to live forever, here are some simple steps to prevent yourself from dying:

• Don’t take life too seriously. Stress is the silent killer. Rattlesnakes with kazoos are the noisy killers and, while interesting to look at, they should be avoided.

• Just don’t get sick. Modern medicine can do some pretty amazing stuff, like put pig hearts in people and grow ears on mice. But modern medicine spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to give depressed people boners, and unless the cure for arthritis, autism or acne is found in cancer cells your best bet is to just not get sick.

• Limit yourself to only three tubes of cookie dough a week. Eating that much uncooked dough is not very safe, so consider taking up baking if you plan to eat more than that.

• Question the use of electronics in the bathroom. Just because something is waterproof doesn’t mean it needs to be taken into a shower. Nothing good can come from trimming your body hair while listening to NPR in the bathtub.

• Always light fires at arms length from your head. You are combustible and so is your head. Your face and brain are part of your head and that’s a very important part of your body.

• Visit an old timey cemetery, the kind where they listed the causes of death on the tombstones. Read all the tombstones and don’t do any of that stuff. It depends largely on your lifestyle, but I’ve found it fairly easy to avoid cholera and cattle rustlers.

• -Never say the words “Look what I can do!” Because you probably can’t.

• -Never participate in a zombie pub crawl or other zombie-themed flashmob event. The public is now well aware that the only way to kill a zombie is with a blow to the head, so you’re just asking for it. Again, protect the head.

• -If someone is pointing a gun at you, do not antagonize them. No matter how witty or heroic you think you’re about to be, just remember that there’s a gun pointed at you. How did you get into this situation anyway? Just avoid situations where people point guns at you.

• -Never jump anything while riding a motorcycle. That’s not what motorcycles are for and probably not a very intelligent use of buses, casinos or the Grand Canyon either. On second thought, none of these things are OK.

• -Never tell anyone how delicious you are when paired with wine. Not to sound paranoid, but do you really know for sure that none of your friends are cannibals.

• -Don’t hold your breath for too long. It’s less of a skill and more of a symptom of being dead.

• -Wear a hat. Presidents have died from not wearing hats, so don’t think you’re so special.

• -Take vitamins. They’re an excellent alternative to basic nutrition.

• -Don’t make enemies. Inevitably they will try to have you killed and you will have to kill them. No one wants that. If you have enemies, kill them first.

• -Read things printed on packages. Reading things like health warnings, drug interactions and expiration dates is a great way to keep yourself from getting sick, and ultimately dying.

• -Wear a bike helmet. All the time.

• -Never attempt to fight an animal you find in the wild. Again, this may sound obvious, but we’ve all had a friend get super high and try to fight a deer. The deer kicked the shit out of your friend, didn’t he? No fighting wildlife.

• -Drink more fluids, specifically water. Water is an excellent source of fluids.

• -If you are related to a super hero, best to keep that to yourself. It might seem cool to tell people that you’re Aquaman’s nephew, but super villains are notorious for targeting loved ones as a psychological power move.

• -Don’t eat mushrooms you find in the wild. You don’t know anything about mushrooms, do you? Some mushrooms are delicious, some get you high and some just kill you. Consult a trained mushroom professional before eating any mushrooms.

• -Never make elephants noises at an Australian. I’m actually not sure why this is, but I’d recommend you avoid it. Things got hostile.

Fashion is “in” this year and everyone is doing it! From colors to accessories, fashion will change the way you dress forever. This guide will help you stay trendy and on the cutting edge of fashion.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average consumer spends around $1,700 on clothing and apparel each year, a small percentage of which is fashionable. Boutiques and retail stores have taken note of this trend and now sell a wide range of fashion for every consumer.

The world’s first shoe, an open-toed sandal, was likely worn by a cavemen sometime around 40,000 B.C. Today, the average American will wear between 1-2 shoes a day. Shoes will continue to be big this season.

Dirty shirts with stuff printed on them are still “in”. You can probably just keep wearing your band shirts without washing them. Same thing with jeans. Just make them extremely filthy. This is your second 90s. Embrace it and you will be trendy.

Men’s t-shirts will continue to be impossibly thin this season. Possibly even thinner. Like, so thin it makes a perfect silhouette of your man nipples and is translucent in moonlight. Ladies love that. Thanks, fashion!

I don’t know a whole lot about women’s fashions, but someone needs to make a purse with an extra zippered pocket for boyfriend things. Like, when I ask my girlfriend to put my iPhone in her purse and it gets rubbed all over a tampon or covered in makeup. That’s just gross.

Girls will still be wearing bobby pins, black elastic hair ties and scrunchies. If you plan to have any interactions with females this year, expect to continue finding those things in your drains, computers and/or vacuum cleaners.

Wrist watches that connect to your smartphone via bluetooth will be big this year. Reading your email, sexts and tweets from the comfort of your wrist has never been easier! Remember when everyone quit wearing watches and started using smartphones to help them tell time, read email and play games? Now, by connecting your smartphone to your watch via bluetooth, you can finally stop playing games and start wearing watches again. Isn’t fashion amazing?

There’s been significant buzz this season around Internet connected glasses, like Google Glass, soon to be offered by designer and fashion leader Google. Ever since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web people have been trying to wear it on their faces. Google’s Glasses are unique in that they make wearing the Internet on your face just as simple as trying to find your glasses.

Belts are “out”. Back when devices were made entirely of plastic, it was so much easier to carry them around in belt-mounted holsters. One single belt could hold up to six Blackberries, pagers or Palm Pilots at a time. But with the recent rapid adoption of glass-faced capacitive touch smartphones and lunch tray sized tablet devices, device holsters and belts are a thing of the past.

Many department stores and retailers have mannequins they use to display the latest in fashion. Mannequins were originally used to display fashions by 15th century French designers, but they can just as easily be used to display modern fashions. You can learn more about mannequins by visiting your local shopping mall or public library.

From cavemen sandals to Internet glasses, it’s never been a better time to wear fashion! So what fashion will you be wearing this season?

Thank goodness, the January 2013 State Farm Insurance goodneighborEXTRA email newsletter arrived when it did. I never realized just how susceptible I was to smishing.

Smishing, short for SMS phishing, is where a scammer sends unsolicited text messages to your smartphone to get you to reveal important information about yourself, like that your ATM PIN number is 7618 or that the answer to just about all of your security questions is ‘YOURMOM’. All caps, one word.

I can only imagine how many times my own mother, who’s maiden name happens to be Parks, might have given out something as sensitive as a pet’s name or social security number to a stranger using only her iPhone and text messages. My social security number, 821-00-2354, is only 9 digits long. That’s exactly the kind of compact information my mother could release to any scammer in a text message. It’s scary how easy it is to get smished.

After reading up on smishing, I learned that the primary dangers are:

– You will unwittingly give important personal information to an evil scammer and they will steal your identity.

– You will be put in the position of telling someone at your bank that you are a victim of smishing. And let’s face it, that sounds like a sex act.

– You will no longer receive email newsletters from your insurance company because they sent you an email newsletter about smishing, which sounded enough like a sex act to end up in your spam folder.

Smishing scammers, like phishing scammers or spam scammers, scam people into being smished by posing as companies by using spoofed links to steal your identity. In brief, robots are out to get you. Panic.

5 tips to prevent yourself from being smished:

1. If you receive an email or message asking you to provide your email password, social security number or other personal information, do not reply to it. Delete the email. It’s probably a scam.
2. If you receive a text message that asks you to call a number or go to a web site to enter personal information, don’t do it. Delete the text message. You are about to get smished.
3. Make sure to look at your browser’s address bar to make sure that everything in the website’s URL looks correct before entering any personal info on that page. Scammers can make realistic looking copies of websites, so avoid clicking on links found in unsolicited messages and go directly to the company’s website to fill out information.
4. Be wary of any email that requests personal information. No reputable organization or business does this. Even back in the 80s, Sears never called you up and asked for your credit card number. Why are you giving it out to someone in a text message? Didn’t we have this exact talk when you started sexting? Don’t be stupid.
5. When in doubt, hit forward and send it to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov.

More information is available through the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the January 2013 State Farm Insurance goodneighborEXTRA email newsletter.

Be vigilant and you will remain unsmished.

I really wanted to hate the LEGO Super Heroes Arctic Batman vs Mr Freeze set. When I was growing up I used to collect and play with Batman action figures. There were a quite a few Batman movies during my childhood so I also owned many variations of the Batman action figure. When a Batman action figure product line was about to go away and be replaced with a new product line, inevitably the time would come for an Arctic Batman action figure. Batman would always be wearing some variation of a blue or white costume and I truly hated these Arctic Batmen. But I had to have them all, because they were so bad they were good, and that is what Batman means to me.

This is one of those Arctic Batmen and I hate it so much I love it.

I saw this set in online previews and saw the minifigs when they were announced during Comic-Con, but I wasn’t really sure what to make of this set when I saw it in person. But I had to buy it.

A neat little construction, the ice chamber is a base with a lever and two blue transparent solid pieces, similar to the rock pieces I hate so much. Didn’t mind them as much here.

The ice chamber breaks apart to release an ensnared hero or bumbling baddie.

The minifigs are very nicely done. Batman has an arctic white suit, and comes with a couple of batarangs. There is an unbearded floppy-haired Aquaman that comes with a trident. Mr Freeze is exactly as I had pictured and comes with some kind of crazy freeze ray.

Batman and Aquaman have the special two-sided heads with two faces painted on them, so you can add a little variety to your already furiously complicated life.

The Batboat is equipped with two side-mounted disc shooters. I’m usually not a fan of this kind of thing either, but the way the designers pulled this off was really clever. Trust me, the batdisc things come out of there with quite a bit of force and they shouldn’t shake loose too easily during normal use.

As ridiculous as this set is, both visually and in premise, it’s now my favorite Batman LEGO set and that is my second favorite LEGO Batman costume.

The boatbat also has one of the big fire pieces I’ve been looking to get my hands one of those.

You can pick this set up from LEGO or over on Amazon.

From the LEGO CUUSOO Blog: In June, four LEGO CUUSOO projects entered the first of what will be regular quarterly reviews of projects that successfully reach 10,000 supporters. These four projects— Back to the Future™ DeLorean™ Time Machine, EVE Online™ Ships – Rifter, The Legend of Zelda™, and the Modular Western Town—have gone through a lengthy review process.

The Back to the Future project has passed the LEGO Review, and has been selected for production as the next LEGO CUUSOO set. The final product, pricing, and release dates are still being determined.