Festival of India this weekend

According to a pamphlet handed to me yesterday on Dundas Square by a lean 30-something hippie with a Vishnu tilaka and a german accent, there is going to be a big celebration tomorrow called Festival of India. The festivities will include a parade from Yonge and Bloor down to Queen's Quay followed by a party on Toronto Island (assuming Rudra holds off from raining on their parade).

While I am I great fan of Hindu festivals, I will probably give this one a miss because I get a sense that, although it isn't explicitly laid out on the feedyoursoul.to website, the parade is really being run by a bunch of euro-trash (but in a good way) Krishna Consciousness people (Hari Krishnas), not bona fide Hindus from South Asia.

Not that I have any problem with westerners enthusiastically adopting eastern religions, it is that I fear the experience would seem a bit contrived, relatively speaking.

In case of nuclear disaster

Go inside and turn on your radio or television
Listen to media reports for instructions from the Province on what to do
Follow the directions provided by the Province

Instructions from the City of Toronto's "'Red Page' – Nuclear Emergency Information". (PDF 1.67 MB)

An inquiring mind might wonder what to do if, for instance, there is no electricity to power tv and/or radio.

Or if there was a pandemic resulting in a never ending onslaught of flesh-crazed 'zombies' (this scenario is imagined in 28 Days Later).

According to the Zombie Survival Guide, generated noise like tvs and radios are sure to attract wandering zombies.

I am not sure whether I would rely on the admonishments of the Red Page, regardless of whether the threat is a nuclear accident or an 'infestation'.

Go inside and wait for news? Even if you still have electricity, if you live within 10 kms of the 2 'ground zeroes' portrayed in the graphic above you are probably dead already, even if you don't know it yet.

The advice to keep indoors is probably a governmental attempt to avoid exposing people outside the Death Zone to fleeing Ajaxers and Pickerlings, slowly boiling to death from the inside as they run shrieking and cursing along Kingston Rd. towards downtown.