Well it’s summer again, so here’s another amusing checklist.

Fire extinguisher
I really shouldn’t have to explain this one. Leftover fireworks. Drunken hipster BBQs. Flaming couches. Flaming machetes. Your beat up car overheating and bursting into flames. These are all very real and sometimes funny threats that will put you, your house, your friends and furniture in jeopardy.

Rush Inn drink tokens
I know you have a few and chances are you’re going to need to cash them in.

Warm Clothes
Santa Cruz Nights can be deceptively cold at times.

A working bicycle
Most of us have put this off for a long time, but it’s time to mount up and drunkenly run into inanimate objects.

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
The blood god is always going to need blood. This summer is no exception.

Bike helmet
Your brain is soft and mushy.

Coffee Places that are 3/4 of a mile from your house
If you’re (f)under-employed & sedentary like me, you can definitely appreciate the allure of having somewhere to walk to in the late morning. The Abbey may have mediocre, over-priced coffee, but it’s just the right distance from my house to get my blood moving and snap me out of the Firefly marathon that could easily consume my entire afternoon. Tomorrow I check out the news stand on Mission for the first time. Having goals is awesome!

Vacations
Hiram & I (Ethan) recently fled Santa Cruz for the sweltering relief of Davis. We lounged around in cut-offs, baring our pasty limbs to anonymous strangers instead of to cute girls we would run into at the bar later. Allegedly some screen-printing got done, and a vicious black widow was slain with a hammer, and I lost at Munchkin.

We also jaunted up to the Yuba River and climbed up-river through boulders & water-slides until I got tired and almost threw a tantrum… then beyond. We ended up at a 20-foot-rock that we all jumped off of, and there was much jubilation. I fell a whole bunch of times, once really hard onto a rock that looked like a goomba from Super Mario Bros. I was pretty concerned that I had fallen onto my liver and was probably going to die, but it just left a wicked bruise that healed from the center outward so that for a few days I looked like I had gotten a hickey from a Fraggle, and now it’s almost gone.

Austin didn’t get to go because he’s not on our insurance, by which I mean he was at Comic Con taking shots with famous authors and jump-starting his writing/film-making career. Sucks to be him.

Have a wonderful rest of your summer, everyone!
Check back soon to learn about more must-have summer life-savers that we forgot.

I trust that everyone has had a fun-filled summer full of misadventures and bouts of missing or unaccounted-for time. Now that fall is here with winter biting at its tan-to-brown-colored heels, all of us here at Vitamin C4 have compiled a checklist we hope will help prepare you for the harsh times ahead of us in our sleepy little coastal town. Good luck and godspeed.

Canned Food
We cannot stress this enough. Nothing will brighten your day more than eating fresh-out-of-the-can, two-year-old pineapple slices to remind you of the almost tropical days of summer here in Santa Cruz.

Whiskey
To cheer you up after being reminded that you wasted your summer sitting in a bar that smells like cat urine and Dan’s feet. It also keeps you warm, I guess.

A certain special someone
Hopefully you’ve had your fill of summer flings and romance. But now it’s time to settle down with that special someone and hunker down for winter. Nothing sucks more than being cold, drunk, wet and alone.

Post-Apocalyptic Novels
World War Z is a good start. Nothing is quite like curling up on a couch with a blanket and a baseball bat dreaming of a world consumed by the living dead.

Firearms
You never know.

Coffee & Cigarettes
When you don’t feel like braving the rain to go to your local bar/liquor store, sleep deprivation is the next best things. Try to read Infinite Jest in one sitting, disassemble household appliances, whatever. The sensation that you are walking on the moon at around eight in the morning is the real “good shit”.

Salad Dressing
Adds valuable calories to lettuce. Cheap, cheap lettuce.

Towel
I think this goes on every checklist.

Chicken Soup
Your house does not have insulation. This is Santa Cruz, and that is a fact. Every moment spent with your head bent over a steaming pot of awesome is another reason to drag yourself out of bed.

The new BATTLE /MTN\ record
Cause it’s off the mother fuckin’ hook! Uh, I mean chain. Yeah, chain!

Facial Hair
I can’t grow any personally, neither can Ethan. We tried once but we ended up looking like preteens.

Strobe Lights
C’mon guys. It’s about time we bring back the dance party. YEAH!

A second job
Less free time, more tattoos. Woo!

Little pocket-sized moleskines
Being able to read your palsy-drunk chicken scratch is marginally more realistic than being able to remember where you were, what you did, who she was & that one great idea you promised never to let yourself forget.

Sit tight guys! More to come on Vitamin C4.