What's coming and the Walking Dead

Lot's of new products to review.  2011 has been a tough year for Charlz9mm but we are back with a vengeance.   One thing we did in 2011 that was a lot of fun was to drift in to running gear.  What a great experience.  Health was a big goal and therefore it made sense to do a lot of reviews on fitness and running products.  2012 is looking like we are going back to the basics and doing more guns, knives and survival gear like the old days.  This does not mean we will abandon fitness gear but we have to "dance with the one's that brought us to the party".
On another note, we have been enjoying watching AMC's Walking Dead series.  The show is loosely based on the Walking Dead comic series.  It is quite good and focuses more on drama than the "nom, nom" zombie munch fest, although the zombies don't go hungry.  What is fascinating to me is how this show tries to portray the real interactions that would occur if the grid and civilization were shut down.  Many of the products we review on our Youtube channel would certainly be useful if catastrophe were to strike.  We of course do not anticipate a zombie outbreak.  Nonetheless preparation has been shown to save lives in countless occasions.   Hurricane Katrina, the Nashville Flood to name just two major events that come to mind.  Even though Charlz9mm focuses on survival/health/self defense gear without a proper mindset all would be lost regardless of how wonderful one's gear was.  Watching the Walking Dead, Dual Survival, Man Woman Wild, etc. starts the mind thinking of scenarios and allows our imagination to explore our fears, skills and breaking points safely from our arm chair.  Of course watching these types of shows does not replace hands on training from competent instructors but allowing ourselves to imagine and explore our fears and resolve helps in some way to wake us from our sleepy apparently safe world.  Note I said "apparently".  My last note on the Walking dead series is that I really like the strong female characters.  Hollywood has mostly portrayed women as victims and devices for exploitation plots.  It is nice to see women rise among the ranks of the fighters.  I hope strong female icons emerge that will encourage women to defend themselves without the help of a man.  Not just in fighting zombies but in all aspects of life.  That's a lot to hope for in a TV series but when women learn en masse to use equalizers to balance the power on the streets then we can dream of a day when rape, abuse, victimization, exploitation will be unusual and rare.