[lostech]

I've been reading about peak oil for 3 years now, starting at good old dieoff.org in the campus computer lab and moving through pretty much everything on the net and also 'The Party's Over' and 'Hubbert's peak'.
(I'm 21 btw)
I've had different phases, but now I'm feeling more of a depression scale event with wars and an eventual transition to a lower energy, but still industrial, economy.

Although some days I start to think more along the line of complete collapse.


Anyway, here's my own bizzare personal reaction to Peak Oil- Although a saxophonist since junior-high, I'm a big fan of electronic music, having fallen in love with the the sound of analog synthesizers. I've got some synthesizers which allow me to produce this type of music.

Now I quickly saw the problem, in light of a possible industrial meltdown soon into my life, that my favorite musical sounds require some of the more complex and high-tech instruments out there. After some thinking, I realized that the sound of stringed instruments can fill the same need for me, and now I'm learning to play the cello!

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst right?

A great consequence of this for me is that I'm loving the cello! It's revived my musicianship after gradually playing less sax over the years, and I feel like I may have finally found my 'axe'

I find it amusing that I became interested in a traditional instrument by route of liking a device originally designed to emulate it.. I bet it's even funnier for you geezers who don't like synthesizers

Anyone else got a story?

[tokyo_to_motueka]

I'm into electronic music too (in varoius forms over the last 20 years) and i now realize that just about any intersting synthesised sound can also be made with non-electonic instruments too.

I've seen so many amazing musicians over the last few years that have been all over Asia, Africa and the Americas and can produce and incredible array of sounds and music using traditional instruments developed over thousands of years.

My favourite electronic music incorporates samples of real instruments or live musicians combined with electronic sounds and rhythms.

[Specop_007]

I'm giving up toilet paper in preperation. It hasnt been too bad actually, just dont shake my left hand.

Ok ok, in all seriousness, I've found out alot about my friends and family. NO ONE really sees it coming but me....

[Sencha]

I don't know if this really fits in the topic, but I do have a funny reaction or perhaps more appropriately, an afterthought to peak oil. I was thinking about a possible drastic event, similar to the Great Depression, where everything seems to stop dead in its tracks.

Everyone around me would have these blank, deer-in-headlights stares. Like, "WTF?" "How could this happen?"

And I'd be like, "I knew about it all along."

Then, I'd watch the reactions ensue. The freakiest thing I ever thought of would be finding out that someone I knew in real life, (not online) also knew about Peak Oil. That would be so weird, because we both probably wouldn't be guessing either of us knew about it.

[Kris]

I started riding my bike to work 3 years ago to, of all things, keep the miles on my sports car low. After a few weeks I was hooked, the best part of my day was the ride to work. After a while I was a bikeaholic, now I've got 3 bikes (winter beater, mountain bike, cyclocross bike), love to ride, HATE to drive. We got our first dump of snow for the season yesterday and people at work (newish job) look at me like I'm insane for riding a bike over snow and ice covered roads. To which I reply: I bet I'm the only person here who had FUN coming to work this morning!

Bring on the Peak, get more of my fatass coworkers get on bikes!

[lostech]

biking seems to be a great 'adaptation' for a sports car enthusiast.

I sometimes wonder what to tell my friends whos entire lives are so involved with the informations age.. growing up on video games, moving into careers in IT and programming..

Where does the programmer transfer his interests without electricity?

[MrGresham]

Two great adaptations to these changes: cello and biking.

One of my friends was a leading cellist in Poland during the Solidarity revolution, and she used to play concerts to support the movement. When she was forced to migrate to U.S., she then used worldwide concerts to support them. Now she teaches it at university, and both of her children are accomplished musicians.

I don't think you need to think of this as life without electricity, computers, or even the Internet. These things will price higher, but even small villages in China have the diesel generator powering a lightbulb in everyone's house. We just won't afford the big mega uses anymore.

In many countries they get by with the electric power on just a few hours a day in each neighborhood.

Bikes were a big healthy part of my youth, and knowing now how crazy and random drivers are, won't come back for me until there are many less cars on the road. Might not be too long, eh? (I have some wonderful country roads to look forward to enjoying them on.)

Sencha expresses a mood as if everyone is waking up from a dream, or hypnosis. That is probably an apt analogy, and why you should go easy on expressing this to others who don't yet "get it." When they do wake up "on the other side", however, some may surprise you and find it as easy living as riding their bike to the garden, while listening to their favorite cellist on their Walkman. Just watch out for the farm trucks passing by!

IMO, much of the talk about violence and guns -- while worthwhile in some respects -- is exaggerated to oneself AS A WAY of waking ourselves up from this collective dream we are living in. (They DO call it "The American Dream", don't they? Hmmmm....) Thinking of violence is a way of symbolizing sudden, radical change, and the need to commit to different choices not being currently presented.

Expressing the fear that one will be caught napping, you know, like pinching yourself to stay awake in a boring math class

Yes, do physically prepare for the worst. But mentally wake up as much as possible, and then the "worst" won't appear to you in your dream, and you lash out at something that wasn't really there at all...

[jpatti]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lostech', 'b')iking seems to be a great 'adaptation' for a sports car enthusiast.

I sometimes wonder what to tell my friends whos entire lives are so involved with the informations age.. growing up on video games, moving into careers in IT and programming..

Where does the programmer transfer his interests without electricity?

[Muffin]

Am I ever glad to have found this thread. I felt a little hot turkey-ish jumping right into discussions ruminating on PO survival tactics without doing the intro thing first. Maybe I'm just being a girl, but its a relief to get to know other like-minded people and their reactions to PO. I personally have coined a new (as far as I know) term: "PO Vertigo" to describe my present state.

I first came to the site lifeaftertheoilcrash on this past Thursday evening. I stayed up until four a.m. reading through it (I'm a fool). On Friday (yesterday) I called my brother and had a long conversation with him. It turns out he stumbled upon it in the spring and had done his research before tipping me off just a week ago. After our conversation he emailed me the book The Oil Age Is Over by Matt Savinar. I stayed up late again last night reading it, and finished it early this afternoon.

My brother is now trying to alert his friends to the coming collapse. So far we have at least two others on board. We are all young; I am the youngest and in the twelfth grade. I am glad to have good friends in a time like this. The way I see it, my responsiblity to my friends and family is simply to inform them as best I can. From that point on their welfare is their own responsibility.

My situation is peculiar: I am seventeen, in grade 12, living on my own. I had to leave home three months ago because it wasn't safe for me to be there (details unnecessary). God has provided for me in an extraordinary way; friends and strangers and people I never thought I would see again have all come together to help me, so I'm doing alright. I'm going to stick with my brother through this mess.

My background is actually connected to the oil industry through my dad. I am Canadian, born in Fort Macmurray, Alberta, where oil sands make a way of life. I spent my early/mid childhood in Leduc, where more oil sands are. I now live in Edmonton and the rest of my family, excluding my older brother, moved up to Fort Mac again over a month ago because of my dad's job. In his own words, my dad "makes multi-million-dollar decisions for major oil companies". Yet despite his heavy involvement, he may not know about the impending oil crisis because he deals mainly with engineering innovative fiber-optic telecommunications networks for the actual rigs themselves. Interesting stuff...I remember swimming at the "Black Gold" pool in Ledus as a child. How ironic.

Must go do English homework. :) ...So that I can write legibly and intelligently in my acid-free journals about the events of my life as civilization as we know it collapses, so that future generations can put my books in a museum and at least be unashamed of their ancestors' level of literacy.

[savethehumans]

I don't want to live in a world without music! So I'm glad so many of you are preparing to continue to let it play!

Yeah, it's very weird. You know what coming, you want to tell family and friends, you know it's useless, and you'll probably end up in a padded cell. All you can do is be ready to help and advise when they finally start to See The Light (or lack of it!).

[Grace]

I, on the other hand, have always been attracted to the "yeoman" lifestyle -- my parents read me the Little House books starting at age 4, and I was probably 11 before I realized that the rest of the world didn't share my desire to return to the days of long skirts and horse-drawn carriages! Of course, growing up, I realized that those came accompanied by lots of shitty societal restrictions, slavery, misogyny, etc., but I have always had a craving for the authenticity of a non-technological lifestyle. I ride horses, sail, sew, garden, and sing, and would probably do all these things even if I weren't deliberately cultivating skills for the future.

Which is not to say I'm not also a huge internet addict. If driving down the highway blaring music weren't a sin against the planet, I'd enjoy that too.

[stepka]

Great thread guys, and muffin, if you weren't so far away, I'd adopt you!

I love to play music on real instruments, because it seems to me like the electronics lack depth, though the combinations you can make with them are interesting and endless. Music will never go away til the last one of us is gone. The blues oughta get real popular.

I've always been a bit of a Luddite myself, and cheap into the bargain, so most of my hobbies will continue on as necessities PP. Gosh, housewives have been so undervalued these last 30 years or so, maybe we'll start to get a little respect.

[Muffin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he blues oughta get real popular.

[lostech]

This weekend some of my friends and I went out for an evening around a campfire, and I actually got them to sing. It was difficult since we don't know that many songs that are good for singing- time to buy some songbooks!

[Freud]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stepka', 'G')reat thread guys, and muffin, if you weren't so far away, I'd adopt you!

I love to play music on real instruments, because it seems to me like the electronics lack depth, though the combinations you can make with them are interesting and endless. Music will never go away til the last one of us is gone. The blues oughta get real popular.

I've always been a bit of a Luddite myself, and cheap into the bargain, so most of my hobbies will continue on as necessities PP. Gosh, housewives have been so undervalued these last 30 years or so, maybe we'll start to get a little respect.

[slacker]

I think it's really funny that aside from the initial shock and depression (or in some cases resolve) that comes from the realization of Peak Oil, a lot of us are thinking about music. I myself am an electronic music enthusiast. Heck, I write the stuff. Lately I've been trying to get my hands on a banjo though... need to keep pickin' while humanity takes a lickin' I guess...

[savethehumans]

Slacker: I don't want to live in a world without music, and anyone who thinks they can will learn better than that!

Whatever communities evolve, they'd better have music included, or I'll just leave and go die. (I'm not kidding. The soul needs sustainance, too, and music is a very nutritious "soul food"!)

[Laurasia]

I was very depressed & shocked upon learning about Peak Oil, and among others, one of my reactions (once I calmed down a bit!) also involved music. I decided I needed to learn how to make a rudimentary instrument, and so I planted gourds this year. I managed to harvest about six big ones and they're drying in my kitchen right now. I hope to make something like maracas (with the dried seeds left inside the gourd) and maybe some sort of drum-type thing. So if nothing else, I'll have rhythm! I also bought a cheap ocarina AND a penny whistle, and one of these days I'll attempt to teach myself to play them.

Regards,

L.

[chris-h]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4579477.stm


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Pizza rage lands US woman in jail


Instead of a pizza delivery, Mrs Densmore got a different caller
An 86-year-old US woman arrested for incessantly calling the emergency services to complain about a pizza parlour has spent two nights in prison.

Dorothy Densmore of Charlotte, North Carolina, called the emergency 911 service 20 times in 38 minutes.

Angry she could not get the meal delivered to her home, she demanded police arrest the pizza proprietors.

But when she refused to stop calling, police arrived with their own delivery, arresting her for abusing the hotline.

She told police that she had been called a "crazy old coot" by someone at the pizza shop.

Mrs Densmore - who is 1.5 metres (5 feet) tall and weighs 45kg (98 lbs) - has also been charged with resisting arrest.

A police spokeswoman said the octogenarian scratched, kicked and bit the hand of the officer who didn't feed her, after her repeated calls provoked a police response.

[OilsNotWell]

Thanks, I needed a laugh.

"crazy old coot"! Give that man a raise, I say. Just because you are in a 'service' job, doesn't mean people can crap all over you, and I love it when they stand up for themselves (justifiably and within reason of course)..it brings a reality check to an all-too-prevalent "You OWE me" society....