I was told today as a joke to write about Ghosts vs. Vampires. so that's what I'm going to do. It was a random choice and I could have as easily been told to write about turtles vs. sweet potatoes, and thank goodness I wasn't because really how much can you say about a turtle vs a sweet potato. One is green, one is orange. One is delicious and one makes a great soup. Oh lord, I'm just kidding! But the point is (which the producers of The Colony will apparently never know) randomness can be entertaining. ;)
So ghost vs vampire. Which one would I pick to be if I had to make a choice? Not that its likely to come up, but then again neither is my salary and sometimes I sit around and contemplate that. So in the interest of fairness I spent some time thinking about this.
If you are a ghost you are dead. If you are a vampire you are dead. Well, that's a tie.
If you are a ghost you get to pass through walls. If you are a vampire you have hands and can open the damn door. One for the vampire I'd say, unless you are a peeping tom and then its one for the ghost.
Ghosts wear white sheets. Vampires wear whatever they want, but it must apparently be made out of silk or velvet. One for the ghost in terms of frugality in these recession hit times, buuuuuut one for the vampire for providing jobs to tailors, salespeople and silk worms.
Ghosts get to appear out of nowhere and startle people, which could be a lot of fun if you think about it. However, vampires can turn both into mists and bats to startle people. While being a bat I would think you run the risk of being hit by an outraged housewife with a broom and as for mist, well just shut the damn window and it can't get in.
Which reminds me, ghosts can go anywhere as far as I can tell and vampires have to be invited into your house or they have to stand on your porch like the Avon lady. (just kidding about the Avon lady, I love Avon - in fact go buy some right now! from Maggie Cockerell at www.youravon.com/mcockerell -accepting cash, check or credit card!) So that one definately goes to the ghost.
Although, once in the house the ghost is limited to wandering about, making ooooooooooooh sounds and maybe, if they are incredibly strong, moving your keys from the counter to under the couch. Vampires on the other hand, once invited into your house are as a corpreal as you are and can play Wii Fit, sit on your couch, or have a snack, which is hopefully not you.
Ghosts and vampires are both restricted to the night so no points for that one on either side.
Ghosts live in houses for the most part and so do vampires. However for the ghosts that house is usually someone elses and for the vampires its usually a fabulous castle somewhere on a rocky crag in the werewolf infested mountains above Luthuania. I'm gonna have to give that one to the vampires. Being a homeowner is far better than being a renter even with the pesky neighbors and their all night howling.
And finally, I'm not sure if ghosts sleep during the day or if they just sort of "Poof!" out when the sun comes up but vampires, they have to sleep in coffins or dirt depending on where they are at the time. I'm going to give that one to the ghosts for being mysterious. And because coffins are just plain creepy and claustrophobic.
Ok, you'll notice, I hope, that I kept to the standard definitions of ghosts and vampires. No new-fangled teenage vampire legends with semi-vegetarian vamps, who even though they are 400 years old still mope about with teenage angst and oozing with teenage boy hormones. (ooohh I detect a note of animosity here). And I stuck to just your garden variety ghosts, no House on Haunted Hill or Poltergeist types which might tip the scales mightly one way or another.
So by my book it looks like they are tied. Since I know which would I would pick, I guess the question is, which one would you?
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
It Really Wasn't Much of An Apocalypse After All
There is a new show on the Discovery Channel called The Colony. The premise is that ten very randomly chosen "apocalypse survivors" are put into a wasteland and cameras follow them while they attempt to rebuild society using only things they can scavenge and their every day type ingenuity. As my mother, my sisters and assorted others would tell you, I love me the post-apocalyptic fiction. There's a quaint little book called The Stand by Stephen King, The Postman by David Brin (made into a movie wherein Kevin Costner got to wear a postman's hat, ride a galloping horse, fight mutants and single handedly rebuild the ENTIRE world) and also Swan Song by Robert McCammon a great book that nobody has ever heard of. (not that that should matter, no body has heard of this blog and yet I pretend I am rebuilding the ENTIRE world every time I sit down to write. Ok, not really the entire world, just maybe this desk, and this chair and maybe that small corner of the wall with the scratch on it)
But anyway, The Colony. A random selection of society, put into a wasteland. Yeeeaaahhh, not so much. I want to try an experiment. Go stand on a busy street corner in Any Town and close your eyes, wave your hands in the air and spin around three times. After you've done that and after the gathering crowd of people have stopped staring, pointing and laughing, randomly pick ten people. I'm willing to bet fifteen filet mignons and a harbor seal that The Colony did NOT use this particular random method. Their randomness netted them a Nurse, a Doctor, a General Contractor, a Computer Engineer, a Machinist, a Martial Arts Instructor, a Solar Tech Tech, an Aerospace Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer. Really? Cause if I concentrate reeeeaaly hard (which I can only do for about 10 seconds tops) I don't think I could some up with a group better suited for this. Except for maybe McGyver.
Where, you may ask (because I did, loudly at my T.V. and fortunately none of them answered me) is the office clerk, the Sparkletts delivery guy, the advertising executive, the manicurist, and where is the stay at home mom or the unemployed welfare recipient? Apparently statistically there are not enough of them to be picked out of a group of 100 people. Nope, in their universe solar tech techs (I just love saying that out loud) are much more plentiful then grocery checkers.
Ok, so we've established that their so called randomness is frightfully transparent to everyone but a blind, goat raising monk living on a remote mountain of Tibet. But the wasteland and scavenged items? That's got to be real right.?Well...........no.
They have a big, huge, actually gigantic warehouse to use, with the words SANCTUARY spray painted on the side in case the cameramen and producers failed to point them in the right direction. Helpful. Inside, of course there is no running water and no electricity, but oh my god - what's that! A pallet full of cell type batteries. Just lying there like they would be doing in any abandoned industrial warehouse. Hmmm, they say to themselves, what can we do with these since nothing runs on battery current around here. Wait, says the engineer "Look what I've found "abandoned" on this shelf over here, suspiciously close to these peculiarly abandoned batteries. An AC converter!" (He doesn't actually say that, he mostly picks it up over his head and runs around, shouting victoriously. Good lord people, its only been one day and already you've gone round the bend.)
Because in ALL post-apocalyptic true life scenarios you are going to have not only batteries, but an AC converter AND the one guy with the job experience who can figure out how to put it all together so they can run their electric shavers and can openers. Hooray!
Then there is the water, which they have to get from the L.A. River. This is almost too nasty for me to contemplate, since even mutant fish/crab hybrids with eight fins and claws growing out of their heads won't live in the L.A. River. But don't fear for our Random Ten, because not only do they have the one guy left in the world who can light up their lives, but they also have the one guy who knows how to make water clean by filtering it through stacked layers of sand and charcoal. And a twenty gallon plastic trash can. But I'm deflated by the thought that while its a great idea, where are they going to get that much sand and charcoal while holed up in an abandoned industrial warehouse. Oh, silly me, it was right there by the front door the whole time. Next to the wheelbarrow and the push cart. And the twenty gallon plastic trash can.
So when do these guys have to start living on their own? That's a great question. I'm waiting to see if next week someone cuts themselves shaving with their battery powered, AC converted electric razor and the doctor and the nurse (cause yes, you'll find lots and lots of doctors in a random selection of the general population) have to perform minor surgery. But where? Where in the industrial wasteland will they ever find someplace sterile enough perform surgery, some placed stocked with gloves, scalpels, sutures, clamps antibiotics, and the worlds ONLY battery powered, AC converted surgical light? Oh yeah, there it is, right behind that row of canned peaches "someone" left there.
Well one week down only ten more to go. If we're lucky they'll find the solar panels on the roof they can convert to run the big screen television in the basement. :)
But anyway, The Colony. A random selection of society, put into a wasteland. Yeeeaaahhh, not so much. I want to try an experiment. Go stand on a busy street corner in Any Town and close your eyes, wave your hands in the air and spin around three times. After you've done that and after the gathering crowd of people have stopped staring, pointing and laughing, randomly pick ten people. I'm willing to bet fifteen filet mignons and a harbor seal that The Colony did NOT use this particular random method. Their randomness netted them a Nurse, a Doctor, a General Contractor, a Computer Engineer, a Machinist, a Martial Arts Instructor, a Solar Tech Tech, an Aerospace Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer. Really? Cause if I concentrate reeeeaaly hard (which I can only do for about 10 seconds tops) I don't think I could some up with a group better suited for this. Except for maybe McGyver.
Where, you may ask (because I did, loudly at my T.V. and fortunately none of them answered me) is the office clerk, the Sparkletts delivery guy, the advertising executive, the manicurist, and where is the stay at home mom or the unemployed welfare recipient? Apparently statistically there are not enough of them to be picked out of a group of 100 people. Nope, in their universe solar tech techs (I just love saying that out loud) are much more plentiful then grocery checkers.
Ok, so we've established that their so called randomness is frightfully transparent to everyone but a blind, goat raising monk living on a remote mountain of Tibet. But the wasteland and scavenged items? That's got to be real right.?Well...........no.
They have a big, huge, actually gigantic warehouse to use, with the words SANCTUARY spray painted on the side in case the cameramen and producers failed to point them in the right direction. Helpful. Inside, of course there is no running water and no electricity, but oh my god - what's that! A pallet full of cell type batteries. Just lying there like they would be doing in any abandoned industrial warehouse. Hmmm, they say to themselves, what can we do with these since nothing runs on battery current around here. Wait, says the engineer "Look what I've found "abandoned" on this shelf over here, suspiciously close to these peculiarly abandoned batteries. An AC converter!" (He doesn't actually say that, he mostly picks it up over his head and runs around, shouting victoriously. Good lord people, its only been one day and already you've gone round the bend.)
Because in ALL post-apocalyptic true life scenarios you are going to have not only batteries, but an AC converter AND the one guy with the job experience who can figure out how to put it all together so they can run their electric shavers and can openers. Hooray!
Then there is the water, which they have to get from the L.A. River. This is almost too nasty for me to contemplate, since even mutant fish/crab hybrids with eight fins and claws growing out of their heads won't live in the L.A. River. But don't fear for our Random Ten, because not only do they have the one guy left in the world who can light up their lives, but they also have the one guy who knows how to make water clean by filtering it through stacked layers of sand and charcoal. And a twenty gallon plastic trash can. But I'm deflated by the thought that while its a great idea, where are they going to get that much sand and charcoal while holed up in an abandoned industrial warehouse. Oh, silly me, it was right there by the front door the whole time. Next to the wheelbarrow and the push cart. And the twenty gallon plastic trash can.
So when do these guys have to start living on their own? That's a great question. I'm waiting to see if next week someone cuts themselves shaving with their battery powered, AC converted electric razor and the doctor and the nurse (cause yes, you'll find lots and lots of doctors in a random selection of the general population) have to perform minor surgery. But where? Where in the industrial wasteland will they ever find someplace sterile enough perform surgery, some placed stocked with gloves, scalpels, sutures, clamps antibiotics, and the worlds ONLY battery powered, AC converted surgical light? Oh yeah, there it is, right behind that row of canned peaches "someone" left there.
Well one week down only ten more to go. If we're lucky they'll find the solar panels on the roof they can convert to run the big screen television in the basement. :)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Its My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To!
If you are one of my inexplicably growing amount of daily readers you know that Saturday was my birthday. (and if you've wandered here by accident looking for, oh I don't know, an intelligently written essay on the merits of thermonuclear powered mass transit vs open air solar powered vehicles then boy are you lost, but maybe you should stay and read a bit, since you are obviously much too serious)
The day included the spa (a topic already covered) and a birthday party (delightfully new territory). The party's events included a woman in dire need of knee surgery standing on a folding chair to hang up paper streamers on my patio in the wind, the baking of a frightfully pink, but strangely delicious strawberry cake made by someone who has never even baked a brownie, not one but two blood stains on the concrete of my patio, grown ups singing karaoke, kids screaming about wanting to sing karoake, margaritas made by me without all that pesky measuring, and a broken toe! (There were also some amazing gifts that made me cry for all the right reasons, and friends and family and food to die for although fortunately no one did)
I'm going to call my gimpy friend Matilda, not because I'm trying to protect her, but because she would probably want royalties or billing above the title for being used herein. Matilda is a great friend. She needs surgery, in fact is having surgery in a week, and yet when I got home there she stood, her legs shaking while trying desperately to balance on one of the wimpiest folding chairs that have ever been mass produced. Since Maltilda yelled at me that it was my party and I wasn't going to hang up my own darn (stronger words may have been used, but I want to keep my PG-13 rating) decorations I very meekly stood by and handed her strips of tape. I didn't tell her but I was waiting for her to fall. I figured I could break her fall with my body since I don't seem to have any sharp edges anymore to hurt anybody when they land on me. Although she didn't fall, she did apparently have a brain cramp and hopped down off the chair like she was 18 and hopping a fence after illegally skinny dipping in the neighbor's pool. This caused her knee to collapse which caused lots of pain and strange facial contortions. An ice pack was quickly fetched.
All the while, in the house Lee was masterfully handling the worlds pinkest cake. Cotton Candy pink, Hello Kitty pink. Whichever, it was really, really pink. Sydney picked it because Mommy LOVES STRAWBERRY! Mommy loves chocolate. Sydney loves pink. But he mixed and he baked and he frosted and then he stuck the cake in the freezer. Huh? Apparently it was part of the MASTER PLAN (please read that in a loud masculine voice inside your head) that involved my pink and frothy cake being placed inside the dead body freezer in the garage two hours before the party. But, he even wrote on the cake (with Pepto colored icing) AND remembered candles! He is quite the guy!
In the middle of the guest arrivals, during a heated conversation, I decided that one of my metal dining room chairs would be better off if it was two feet from where it was so I picked it up, took a step and in the middle of a sentence, apparently to vehemently drive home my point, I slammed the chair down with feeling. Onto my toe. Which broke. An ice pack was fetched.
Outside the kids were playing a game that I was told (much, much, much later) involved one five year old laying on the ground, being a "bridge" while all the other five year olds tromped across them. Somehow in the midst of this incredibly safe and well thought out game, Sydney trampled across the the "bridge's" nose, squashing it. She said it was the bridge's fault for not being a good bridge. Uh huh. Learn to pass that buck early Sydney, its a skill that will come in handy in your later life, as a lawyer. Anyway, there was blood staining not only my patio, but both Sydney's and the victim's beautiful pink dresses. (Yes, more pink) And at this point I'm running dangerously low on ice packs.
But poorly measured margaritas, a cooler full of beer, sticky pink and delicious cake made everyone feel better. Fortunately, since we had come to the end of my ice packs, no one else got hurt. Some neighbor dogs may argue about that in relation to our karaoke but since I have to listen to them howl off key every time an siren goes by, it did them good to listen to me for once.
The day included the spa (a topic already covered) and a birthday party (delightfully new territory). The party's events included a woman in dire need of knee surgery standing on a folding chair to hang up paper streamers on my patio in the wind, the baking of a frightfully pink, but strangely delicious strawberry cake made by someone who has never even baked a brownie, not one but two blood stains on the concrete of my patio, grown ups singing karaoke, kids screaming about wanting to sing karoake, margaritas made by me without all that pesky measuring, and a broken toe! (There were also some amazing gifts that made me cry for all the right reasons, and friends and family and food to die for although fortunately no one did)
I'm going to call my gimpy friend Matilda, not because I'm trying to protect her, but because she would probably want royalties or billing above the title for being used herein. Matilda is a great friend. She needs surgery, in fact is having surgery in a week, and yet when I got home there she stood, her legs shaking while trying desperately to balance on one of the wimpiest folding chairs that have ever been mass produced. Since Maltilda yelled at me that it was my party and I wasn't going to hang up my own darn (stronger words may have been used, but I want to keep my PG-13 rating) decorations I very meekly stood by and handed her strips of tape. I didn't tell her but I was waiting for her to fall. I figured I could break her fall with my body since I don't seem to have any sharp edges anymore to hurt anybody when they land on me. Although she didn't fall, she did apparently have a brain cramp and hopped down off the chair like she was 18 and hopping a fence after illegally skinny dipping in the neighbor's pool. This caused her knee to collapse which caused lots of pain and strange facial contortions. An ice pack was quickly fetched.
All the while, in the house Lee was masterfully handling the worlds pinkest cake. Cotton Candy pink, Hello Kitty pink. Whichever, it was really, really pink. Sydney picked it because Mommy LOVES STRAWBERRY! Mommy loves chocolate. Sydney loves pink. But he mixed and he baked and he frosted and then he stuck the cake in the freezer. Huh? Apparently it was part of the MASTER PLAN (please read that in a loud masculine voice inside your head) that involved my pink and frothy cake being placed inside the dead body freezer in the garage two hours before the party. But, he even wrote on the cake (with Pepto colored icing) AND remembered candles! He is quite the guy!
In the middle of the guest arrivals, during a heated conversation, I decided that one of my metal dining room chairs would be better off if it was two feet from where it was so I picked it up, took a step and in the middle of a sentence, apparently to vehemently drive home my point, I slammed the chair down with feeling. Onto my toe. Which broke. An ice pack was fetched.
Outside the kids were playing a game that I was told (much, much, much later) involved one five year old laying on the ground, being a "bridge" while all the other five year olds tromped across them. Somehow in the midst of this incredibly safe and well thought out game, Sydney trampled across the the "bridge's" nose, squashing it. She said it was the bridge's fault for not being a good bridge. Uh huh. Learn to pass that buck early Sydney, its a skill that will come in handy in your later life, as a lawyer. Anyway, there was blood staining not only my patio, but both Sydney's and the victim's beautiful pink dresses. (Yes, more pink) And at this point I'm running dangerously low on ice packs.
But poorly measured margaritas, a cooler full of beer, sticky pink and delicious cake made everyone feel better. Fortunately, since we had come to the end of my ice packs, no one else got hurt. Some neighbor dogs may argue about that in relation to our karaoke but since I have to listen to them howl off key every time an siren goes by, it did them good to listen to me for once.
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