Thursday Thirteen #5

13 Things about Vampires


1. Vampires can only come into your house if you invite them in. Listen up---DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT ask Dracula to dinner or it's your own damn fault if you end up the main course.

2. Vampires do not have to stay in their coffins during the day. They only need to stay out of sunlight. In other words, they'd do just fine in my office 24/7.

3. Wolfbane to vampires is like a mosquito bite to us. Annoying, but not deadly.
4. Vampires really do not like garlic. Some regular folks don't like garlic either. Go figure.

5. Vampires do not need to sleep on their native soil, but do need to rest up in the coffin of their choice. Wood coffins are verboten, simply because one errant hunk of chipped wood and a roll over in your sleep could prove fatal.

6. Vampires avoid drinking the blood of drunks not for fear of getting tanked, but because their blood is thinner from the alcohol content -- you know, like the difference between cream and skim milk. So in other words, if you've disregarded #1 and invited Dracula over for dinner, get liquored up beforehand and serve garlic chicken.

7. Vampires are not monogomous. So if you are the one guy for one gal type, Dracula is NOT for you.

8. Simply draining a victim of blood does not turn one into a vampire. You must drink of Dracula's blood, which is...hmmm, ahhh....icky. So don't.

9. The legend of Dracula is based on the real life of Vlad Tepes, a Romanian prince whose countrymen lovingly referred to him as "Vlad the Impaler". He had his soldiers do very bad things to people which he enjoyed way too much. However, he had no friends, no one invited him anywhere; he had an inferiority complex, pimples as a teenager, was forced to wear whitey tighties, had an unfair 8pm curfew, no car, was forced to listen to "You Light Up My Life" every day and oh, a small, well...never mind.


10. The most famous vampires are: Barnabas -- as in Barnabas Collins, Dark Shadows; Louis -- as in "Interview with a Vampire" by Ann Rice; Lestat -- as in "The Vampire Lestat" also by Ann Rice; Dracula as only Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldham and John Carradine could play him and the original Nosferatu -- played ghoulishly by Max Schreck in the silent classic.


11. Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was published in 1897 by Archibald, Constable and Company of the UK. Bram actually pictured Dracula as a suave, sophisticated gentleman, who was charmingly evil. I don't believe Bram ever envisioned his character to be as handsome Frank Langella though. However, truth be told, if I'm gonna be attacked by a vampire and live with him for eternity, I hope it's Frank.

12. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Transylvania (coincidentally where Bela Lugosi was born Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko). It is part of Romania and the 2002 census showed 7,221,733 happy folks living out normal lives with very large crosses around their necks. This castle right here, which I affectionately call the Vampire B&B, is Bran Castle, located in the foggy Carpathian Mountains. Our Prince Vlad called this his "lovely mountain retreat" -- where the sun never shines, the wolves howl and the bats fly -- in the middle of frickin' no where.

13. If it weren't for vampires, would we still have had Hammer Films?

Thursday Thirteen #5

http://larachronicles.blogspot.com/2007/08/thursday-thirteen-5.html