Sleep depravition

Do paranormal people ever suffer from sleep depravition. I mean think about it. Stay up to long and you start to hallucinate and stuff. So what happens when you have to stay up to long and you have super strength?
So what's the likelihood you could have sleep problems as different paranormals.
Werewolves - I think this group is most likely to have sleep problems. I mean they have the full moon. I doubt that their human selves is getting rem sleep while they are running around as a wolf. Some of the stories I've read have them changing three nights in a row to account for the nearly full moon on either side of the full moon. How could you hold down a job calling in sick 3 times a month.
Vampires - Most stories it would be hard pressed for a vampire to suffer sleep problems. At sunrise they become like the dead. However some stories they can force themselves to stay awake. Now I would think because it's so hard for them to stay awake they should have extra problems when they do.
Magic users - They would probably have the same problems us average humans have. Stay up to late and you act funny. Sleep enough and you are more productive.
Demons - I don't think demons sleep. I just can't picture it.
ghosts - same deal. Don't think they sleep.

You Suck (a love story) by Christopher Moore

You Suck (a love story) by Christopher Moore. Prerelease fiction. Pages 328. This is the sequel to blood sucking fiends. The redheaded vampire known as the countess whom is about 21 yrs old decided that she wanted her lover Thomas flood to join her in eternity. To bad she didn't bother to ask him first. Bring a bronze statue would really suck. But he loves her and decides that eternity couldn't be to bad. Well maybe no bad but it sure gets a lot more interesting once you involve a blue prostitute, a lot of money, and an ancient vampire bent on getting revenge. Check it out when it's released.

Guest Commentary: Religious Vampires

Here is some guest commentary to pass your time with.

Religious Vampires
In most stories vampires can be repelled by crosses. The only explanation I have heard for this is that they are cursed by god and can not look on a manifestation of their power. If this is true why is it only crosses? Is it a curse only by the Christian god? If so it seems like it should be equally as good to use the Star of David or the Crescent Moon and Star of Islam.

Or maybe it is the vampire's personal religion that matters? Would an atheist vampire be unrepelled by the sight of a religious symbol? Would an agnostic vampire be repelled by the sight of any religious symbol?

Or is it the faith of the wearer that is most important? Is it an intercession from the deity of their choice? If so it seems that the most pious priest has a better chance than your average Joe. Then again many find faith in dire situations so maybe anyone would be fine.

No matter which tactic an author makes use of, it does make for a dramatic scene.

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Life after death

The number one cause of death in vampires has got to be boredom. Think about it. You've lived like 500 hundred years, you didn't have hobby's while you were alive let alone dead, and now you can't even get a tan. Ok so I can't get a tan and I'm alive but still it matters to some people. I mean I have 6 grandparents to look at and I can tell you that three of them without hobbies have very dull lives. I mean they just sit in their easy chairs and watch TV. They don't even sit down and read. So one day they get to thinking well I haven't done much in the last hundred years I wonder what it's like outside and boom crispy vampire. So what would you do to keep busy and alive? I would be reading books like crazy but I do that now so no big shocker. You'd have to do something that got you outside of your house and looking like a person once in a while. I can't imagine clubbing would be to attractive an option after 100 years. You could try going to sports games. A lot of those play at night. Of course I would be bored out of my gord. Ok someone needs to develop new things to do at night. I've apparently gotten old. I don't recall having this problem in college. No we did if you didn't go to the club you hung out and played video games or went to a frat party to watch everyone else get trashed. Of course now I go grocery shopping at night and play video games. Ok I'd do nuts as a vampire. Of course if you lived in a posh enough area maybe art viewings and opera could hold your attention. I can't imagine it being to interesting but I know a few people that would. So what would you do to keep yourself feeling alive after death?

Ninja

There are many ninja myth. Some say they are just trained martial artists that work hard to bring mystic their art. Others say they have magic powers that lend to their art. Yet others say they are completely mystical creatures. There are a number of popular ninja things now.
I laugh every time I watch this guy on his site http://www.askaninja.com/
There is a game ninja burger. Basically you are a ninja and you must deliver the burgers to impossible locations without being found out.
And possibly my favorite is naruto. It's an anime on cartoon network Saturday nights. I TiVo it. Naruto goes with the magical powers to compliment their art form. Really they are much like witches who can also do martial arts. They call upon power they call chakra (spelling?). Some of them command elements such as earth, fire, and air. I haven't seen water but I think it might be because it isn't available everywhere in large quantities. Some of them control animals and insects. It's really very interesting. Some of them can even call upon demon energy. I find they share a lot of common practices with witches. I'd love to show you more compare and contrast but I have to go to work. ack the holiday gag me with a spoon. :)

Guest Commentary: Getting the Myths Wrong

Some guest commentary to fill some space.

Getting the Myth Wrong
As a warning this is a bit of a rant. It is a pet peeve of mine when they do not get the myth of a supernatural creature right. There are countless novels where they just seem not to care if they follow the well established rules of that supernatural creature. Some examples are:

• Werewolves hurt by holy water.
• Vampires hurt by silver bullets
• Ghost hurt by crosses

There is a reason that these stories are popular. Feel free to drop some elements if needed, but adding in wrong ones really annoys me.

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Happy Holidays

Have a happy thanksgiving. I'm busy stuffing my face with two holiday dinners and plenty of pie. If I don't post tomorrow forgive me I'll be shopping till I drop and I do mean pass out. I don't plan on sleeping until I've hit all the stories. Oh boy werewolves would be good at this. Ok well maybe not they have the stamina but hate the crowds. Vampires would make good place holders in line while you slept but would do really poorly at bring home stuff. Witches and wizards really have it great staying nice and cozy while they make you all late. So have lots of fun. Eat lots of goodies. But mostly dress warmly if you plan on hitting stores cause they'll make you wait outside for an hour or more.

Mistral's Kiss by Laurell K. Hamilton

Mistral's Kiss by Laurell K. Hamilton. Science Fiction. Pages 212. Ok Now this is a review of the uncorrected proof so it may not be the same book when it comes out. Now I want to start with I loved the book. I finished it in one day. I do have some criticism but that doesn't mean I didn't find it a fun read. My criticism is that again it's one day. Are we going to read all of Merry's life one day at a time? In fact it's not even one day very far away from the last few days we read it's the next day. Now to the story. I liked the story. Merry again finds herself at her aunts whims. Her aunt is going to pix on the spirit of a deal she made. Merry's guard don't think it's right but because she isn't actually breaking they can do nothing about it. Except of course to make her an deal she can't refuse. If they can bring some sign of life back to the dead gardens then Merry gets to punish them instead of Her dear Aunt. You know how well her Aunt handles being told she's wrong so you can guess how well the entire process went. Check it out. Oh and it's definitely x rated.

Dark Celebration by Christine Feehan

Dark Celebration by Christine Feehan. Romance. Pages 301. Yes everyone I'm still reading her even though I've given some of her books not so favorable reviews and boy am I glad. She broke out of the rut in this one. It was great to have all of the Carpathians together. I loved seeing the ancient ones trying to put on a Christmas show for the little kids. It was funny watching people who don't eat cook. I'm interested to see what she'll do with the mages helping the vampires. I really enjoyed everything. I haven't yet looked over the recipes in the back to see if there are things I'm going to cook but I'm going to later. I just really hope that she doesn't fall back into her pattern for the next book. I mean it would just be great if MaryAnn hunted her intended wouldn't it. Instead of her hunter hunting her.

Ok so here's a bit of a tease. I was given a signed copy of strange candy by Laurell K. Hamilton. Nice huh. Well even nicer I was given a prerelease of Mistral's kiss. I'm reading it now. I'll let you know how it goes. Of course they were given to me by the boss I don't particularly love so I think it means I have to be nice for a bit. Or maybe it's her making up for not being nice.

Guest Commentary: The importance of magic

Here I am again with another guest commentary to fill your daily requirement of the paranormal.

The Importance of Magic
In most paranormal stories involving witches or other magical using creatures there is little consensus on how often magic is to be used. There are two schools of thought.

Use as little as possible:
This school of thought generally chastises those who would use magic for everyday tasks. Heating a cup of tea, cleaning the dishes, levitating a book off a table into your hands, are all examples of frivolous magic usage. Only the oldest and most powerful magic users in these stories are allowed these luxuries while they chastise the young and inexperienced when they would like to do the same.

Use as much as possible:
All magic users in these stories almost continuously use magic. Anything they might effect they try to change. In these stories the maximum power that a character can control seems to be significantly less. They might be good at making tea warm few could stop and arrow.

Yet in all these stories there must some sort of practice times. Seems like there is no better way than a constant flexing of the magical skills, but some authors seem to disagree. What do you think?

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Natures limiting factors

I was thinking about natures limiting factors and one of the big ones is how many kids your body produces and how long they live. If you look at things the shorter the life span and the more predators you have the more babies you produce. Look at mice. They have a large amount of babies but their life spans are short. Humans have usually one or two babies but our life spans are much longer. So for those paranormal creatures that can reproduce and life a very long life span it shouldn't be a huge surprise that most of them have trouble having babies. I mean if you have a vampire like creature who could give birth all the time to large groups of babies humans would be hunter out of existence. Even if they didn't purposely kill their food the population just couldn't keep up with that kind of attention. Another limiting factor is the bigger a predator you are the fewer kids you seem to have. Look at bears. Usually bears only have a few kids. So is it a surprise that werewolves have trouble having kids. I think a lot of that has to do with the stress you're putting on the body as well as the fact that if you had to many the population just couldn't support it. I would also think that were babies would hit the ground almost ready to get going like puppies. Within a short period of time they can walk. They can't maybe say fight but they aren't helpless. Unlike human babies who would die within a day if they don't have someone to take care of them. Just a thought from the book I'm reading now. Have fun.

Destiny

I have been reading a lot of books where the characters are fated to be together. And although I haven't been thrilled with her writing as of late I've found that Feehan has illustrated a very good point on this topic. What happens to those people who are fated to be with someone they don't particularly want to be with? Of course usually they find that they are indeed magically in love with the person and it's no longer a problem. There is nothing wrong. But what if there are those who either never work it out or don't work it out in time? Love isn't so simple. The books would have you believe that there are no rough times. There aren't times when the stress is getting to you and you're going to hit someone and the person who you love just happens to be the last straw. They don't talk about realizing you love someone after they're gone. In the cases in the books the person would be dead but in real life it could be as simple as having moved on. Knowing for your entire life that someone is going to pop out of the woodwork one day and say I'm your fated lover just makes things worse. It would be better if you could have no clue what was going on. You could look across the table and say oh my. But in so many of the books people know from the time of childhood that one day they will help save someone one day by being there and loving them. Well what happens if they have bad breath or sleep all funky? What happens if you have nothing in common? I don't like the concept of destiny. Fate is something I have a hard time throwing myself behind. Well hopefully we'll soon have a book up. I read one but it turned out not to be paranormal. Authors shouldn't trick me like that LOL. TTFN

Sorry this was posted so late.

Guest Commentary: Undead Integration

Here is another bit of guest commentary to amuse you while your queen deal with life.

Undead Integration
Zombies marching in the streets, vampires draining someone of their blood, ghouls haunting the living, these are all images from horror movies. Yet when it comes to most horror novels there is little mentioned on how the undead managed to take these long ingrained images and overcome them to live in society. At best most novels list it as a footnote in history.

All novels require some sort of invention to change how the undead need to feed. Synthetic blood is one common device for vampires to obtain acceptance in society. Yet they always continue to feed upon the living. How societies in these novels so quickly accept this when we are still struggling with the inequities unsolved by the civil right movement I will never understand. How these struggles would really be resolved is plain to see.

Legal Battles:
In the end bigotry will probably never end. At best society can be legislated to act in a civilized manner. Likely there would be numerous battles as being dead in our legal system strips you of all rights. Upon the moment of your death all contracts you have made are void, and even marriages ended. As such some sort of continuation and extension of current laws would have to be enacted.

These laws would have to extend to how one may consent to becoming undead. Is there some sort of age restriction? Would there have to be legal paperwork filled out beforehand? What arrangements would have to be made with morgues so you were not embalmed long before waking.

Civil Movements:
Some sort of outward sign of reformation would have to be shown to the public to identify those who have decided to live within the rules, at least at the beginning. In the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett those vampires who no longer drink human blood wear black ribbons and are part of a movement that resembles Alcoholics Anonymous. This allows them to not only be recognized as not drinking blood but also be part of the public so they might eventually change the minds of the people.

As for the zombies they would likely have to be somewhat better off than those who haunt horror movies. Someone shuffling around and only being able to mumble or at best cry out for brains is likely not to do well. However someone who is dead, preserved and retains their former personality and intelligence is likely to integrate fairly well with the right application of deodorizer.

In the end there would still be quite a bit of political upheaval and social stigma to being dead. Would the dead even be allowed to vote (other than in Chicago where there is some history of this). In the end it should be something more than a footnote in history.

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Invented by the paranormal.

I was looking at wiki and saw that today is the anniversary or the invention of the vacuum tube. It made me think what things have been invented by paranormals in books? I came up with a few off the top of my head.

Vampires - new sunscreen, pills that allow vampires to withstand everything from silver to sun, cures for diseases... Those are mostly medical. We have seen some new uv protection car windows and really cool electronic traps. But mostly they work on over coming their downsides instead of improving their upsides.

Werewolf - Again I've really only seen medical inventions. Things to improve their faults. Although I've also seen things to make their assets better. You're looking at things to make them stronger. Things to make them change to their animal faster.

Magic users - I have seen a few weapons used by magic users that go with their powers. In Kim Harrison the main character carries a splat gun. It's a paintball gun with magical spells stored to be fired at people. There are a few drugs to increase performance.

If you know of more inventions feel free to reply. I admit I'm coming up a bit short. Have a nice day.

Guest Commentary - undead interogation

Here is another bit of guest commentary to amuse you while your queen deal with life.

Undead Integration
Zombies marching in the streets, vampires draining someone of their blood, ghouls haunting the living, these are all images from horror movies. Yet when it comes to most horror novels there is little mentioned on how the undead managed to take these long ingrained images and overcome them to live in society. At best most novels list it as a footnote in history.

All novels require some sort of invention to change how the undead need to feed. Synthetic blood is one common device for vampires to obtain acceptance in society. Yet they always continue to feed upon the living. How societies in these novels so quickly accept this when we are still struggling with the inequities unsolved by the civil right movement I will never understand. How these struggles would really be resolved is plain to see.

Legal Battles:
In the end bigotry will probably never end. At best society can be legislated to act in a civilized manner. Likely there would be numerous battles as being dead in our legal system strips you of all rights. Upon the moment of your death all contracts you have made are void, and even marriages ended. As such some sort of continuation and extension of current laws would have to be enacted.

These laws would have to extend to how one may consent to becoming undead. Is there some sort of age restriction? Would there have to be legal paperwork filled out beforehand? What arrangements would have to be made with morgues so you were not embalmed long before waking.

Civil Movements:
Some sort of outward sign of reformation would have to be shown to the public to identify those who have decided to live within the rules, at least at the beginning. In the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett those vampires who no longer drink human blood wear black ribbons and are part of a movement that resembles Alcoholics Anonymous. This allows them to not only be recognized as not drinking blood but also be part of the public so they might eventually change the minds of the people.

As for the zombies they would likely have to be somewhat better off than those who haunt horror movies. Someone shuffling around and only being able to mumble or at best cry out for brains is likely not to do well. However someone who is dead, preserved and retains their former personality and intelligence is likely to integrate fairly well with the right application of deodorizer.

In the end there would still be quite a bit of political upheaval and social stigma to being dead. Would the dead even be allowed to vote (other than in Chicago where there is some history of this). In the end it should be something more than a footnote in history.

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Freaking Cold!

So this morning I woke up and realized I was very very cold. So I started thinking which creatures have ways to keep themselves warm.

Vampires - It depends on which myths you are looking at. In some they can regulate their body temp. I always thought that would be sort of neat. A self heater would be nice to have. In other myths one of the way to tell they are a vampire is to check their temp. Vampires in these myths are always cold. However, They don't seem to mind it to much so that could be the way to go.

Werewolves - I have never really seen much in the way to address this question. My guess would be that in human form they would be just as ffffreaking coooold as the rest of us. In wolf form they would be like wolves. I don't think I've ever seen a cold wolf with all that fur.

Magic users - Well I've heard of spells to keep you warm and spells to make fire so I guess a magic users ability to stay warm would depend on their prowess in those spells. I mean a can't imagine that a mage who does ice magic would be to good at warmth but I would also hope he didn't mind it to much.

Demons - Cold is probably a welcome difference from the burning sulfur of hell. Probably not thinking well if I could only be warmer.

Gargoyles - Can stone feel cold? I mean we know it can get cold. Hell anyone with a stone tile floor can tell you that ick. But can they feel cold? I don't know. I have no idea. They don't seem to when they are sitting atop buildings.

Gargoyles

Not much is really heard about Gargoyles. Generally we see them as the little stone statues that sit on our desks, bookshelves, and on top of church's. The idea of those gargoyles coming to life when we aren't looking is interesting. But what would you do sitting as a stone statue for most of your life. Gargoyles have been said to have amazing healing factors, extremely long lives, and are great for fighting because of their natural armor. Plus they fly. I used to love the cartoon gargoyles. It was great they looked for evil during the day and fought it at night. They had a leader and they were looking to do good. It would be very hard now a days to go unnoticed however. Most of the statues are crumbling. How do you explain the ones that are not. On top of that people stay up much later. Something large flying around at night in a urban area would most likely be seen. You'd have to depend on peoples abilities to ignore what's in front of them for logic. Now I'm wishing I could watch the cartoon again. Have a nice day everyone. If you have more gargoyle info please let me know. I know very little of them.

Dead like me

Dead like me is a show on the scifi channel. It's really good and I highly recommend watching it. Just so you know you do not need to watch the shows in order. Basically there are grim reapers. I like this it's like Santa Claus. You know there is no way one person is collecting all the souls of the dead. It's a bunch of people. There are groups of reapers that only handle those who die from accidents. Those that only handle groups that die of infectious disease. You get the idea. How do you get assigned to the different groups. It's based on how you died. I just love the main character George. George is a girl. She is 18 years old and will now be that age for forever. I know one of the reasons I love the show so much is cause I identify with George so much. She has the best attitude. Basically don't get your hopes up because if you do they'll get dashed and both the good and the bad are punished it's the lucky who get away with things. Well back to the paranormal. There are gravelings which kind of cause deaths. They are these little icky creatures that look a lot like gremlins gone bad but furrier. But basically the grim reapers collect souls. It's interesting really.

A dream of stone and shadow by Marjorie M. Liu

A dream of stone and shadow by Marjorie M. Liu. Pages 149. Second story in dark dreamers. Romance. Ok I know there is a major romantic thread in this but it is so wrong to have romance story lines and child abuse story lines run hand in hand. Ok no they aren't interacting but come on the people falling in love are catching child molesters together. Ick. I so didn't need this in my romance novel. Ok for the good parts. The female lead has a really cool power. She can see the probabilities of different futures coming to be. So like what is the likelihood so in so will die if he does this. You get the point. Big thing that makes it great she uses it all the time. I love it. If I had that power I'd wanna know things too. Of course she can't see herself directly but she can kind of see her future by looking at the people around her. Ok the male he's a gargoyle. Also really cool. Only problem is he's locked up by a witch. Really cool but since I don't want to spoil it for anyone reading it I'm not going to say anymore.

Guest Commentary

Well, Laura was a bit busy today and did not want to miss giving you a post so I decided to post something for her. So for today we will touch on one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett.

Currently his discworld series is an amazing 35 books long with four of those being children's books. Do not let this intimidate you. Unlike Robert Jordan or other long winded series these novels do not continuously follow the same characters and therefore avoids stagnation.

These novels often tread into the world of the paranormal in both comic and serious ways in these novels. Take for example the psychic Ms. Cake who often answers questions before they are asked, but gets a headache if the person does not ask the question. There is also Reg Shoe who was a lawyer before he died and came back as a zombie. Upon finding himself discriminated against he went on to fight for the right of all differently living peoples.

The most serious and by far funniest characters in the series are the witches, Nanny Ogg and Esme Weatherwax. They have powers far beyond anything they would show to the outside world. Why would they not show off like the witches of other books? Because common sense and physical work often yield better results, especially when dealing in life and death. The showing off is left mostly to the wizards of Unseen University who prefer theoretical magic to actual work. Instead the witches tend to their communities; being midwives, healing the sick, settling disputes, working as a vet, etc. They are by far the closest things to the way witches used to be portrayed before the rise of the church.

Granny Weatherwax repeatedly talks about "headology" which is different than psychology because it is about perception and not psychological problems. In general it says that what people believe is real is what is real. Why make someone into a frog if you can make them believe they are a frog>? The results are the same and there is less work. It also gives a witch their sense of themselves. They know who they are, and therefore can not be strayed from being that. This has allowed them to avoid mind control, corruption, and even talk with death without problems.

There are also vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and other paranormal entities. But that I will save for another time. So if you don't mind a lack of romance you will love at least most of these books.

Happy Hunting
-Bill

Dark Dreams by Christine Feehan

Dark Dreams by Christine Feehan. Pages 182. Romance. This is an anthology but I'm going to post about the stories separately. First I want to say that I enjoyed the story. I read it very quickly. However it was very much like her other stories. The girl doesn't use her magical abilities very much. It's mostly about the guy. I know the series is about the Carpathians but I would like to see the girls actually do something other then OMG it's the bad guy save me save me. Ok so now about this one a bit. The main female character knows the past attached to an object when she touches it. It's a cool gift I'd liked to have seen her use. What she does is help these kids that live in the sewers to survive. It's a good goal. Her Carpathians is close to taking his own life so he doesn't became an evil vampire when he finds her. She is very excepting because she's found his journal at a dig. If you've read her books before I'm sure you can figure it out from there. Of course I'm still going to buy more of them LOL.


Sorry there wasn't a post yesterday I had my allergy shots and was feeling crappy.

World War Z by Max Brooks

World War Z by Max Brooks. Pages 342. Fiction but should be science fiction. Awesome book. I didn't think I was going to like it. In fact I only picked it up because I was told how good it was and it was almost Halloween. I figured Halloween deserved a good zombie tale. So I picked it up. It was so good before I was 40 pages in I was recommending it to others. Usually I wont do that until I'm at least half done with it. So much can happen with a book before then. It could get bad. Luckily it didn't. World War Z is a collection of stories from people who survived the zombie wars. The main character is collecting the stories and lays them out so that they follow the time line of the war. I admit it doesn't make for a hugely powerful ending but it's so worth it to see things as they happened. Ok as they would have happened if there were actually zombie wars. This author does have another book. I haven't read it but as soon as I get a bit more caught up I'm going to take a look at it. Maybe it'll show up under the tree for Xmas. Hint hint. Have a nice day everyone.

Trackers

I had a funny thought yesterday. What if you were a werewolf running with a wolf pack when a nature group found you and tagged you. Wouldn't that just be hilarious. Of course the only way that could happen is if you were running with them during the daytime cause tagging at night is to dangerous. So you're pretty safe if you avoid hanging out in wolf form during the daytime. Then you just have to be worried about illegal activities. As far as I know there aren't many illegal activities surrounding the capturing and killing of wolf. I could be completely wrong there though. I thought they would probably just say you were attacking them and they could kill a wolf though.

But I was telling my honey about the wolf thing when he asked me about how many vampires end up burred. I don't think many would end up buried. I wonder though how many end up in the morgue mid autopsy. I mean if someone finds a john or Jane doe and they don't know how or why they died they do an autopsy. It would so suck waking up on a mortitions table with half your organs removed.

Well I think I've babbled enough for today. Talk to you all tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a book write up for you I'm like 30 pages to the end.

Women's suffrage

On this day Susan B Anthony voted for the first time. She incurred a large fine and brought about change that allows women to vote today. How is this paranormal well other then the fact that it's above and beyond the call of duty I'm sure it impacted women of all groups not just human women.

Werewolves - did they give women the right to vote in everyday pack business or was it considered a mans duty? If it was a mans duty how long did the women wait to get their right to vote within the pack? I'm sure human women struggling to be part of he democratic process would effect that. Knowing pack mentality votes aren't usually the way they go. It's usually a kind of do or die thing.

Vampires - unfortunately voting takes place during the day. I don't know how far back away ballets were available but I would guess that the only way for a vampire to vote in human society would be through the use of away ballets. However the same questions you have under werewolves apply here. Were female vampires allowed a voice in any democratic votes within the vampire community? Now vampires always seemed a bit more emotionally in control of themselves to me. However that doesn't mean they voted or allowed voting. Sometimes it's good to be king or queen.

unfortunately that's all the time I have today folks.

Set spending

This is a bit of a funny post but I thought I'd share something that happens to me every Friday. Every Friday no matter how many coupons I clip or how many things I find on sale I spend 70 dollars within 5 dollars one way or the other. I don't count when I'm putting things in the basket. I don't have any special systems. I just go round the store and put in what I need to buy. Yet ever Friday it comes out to the same price. I thought that was interesting and fairly paranormal in it's own silly grocery shopping way. Have a nice day.

Why do people have to die?

I heard that question on TV the other day. The answer the person gave was to make life sacred. I thought that it was a very good answer. Which of course led me to thinking is life less sacred for the immortal? The problem is that vampires aren't really immortal. While they life a long time and if their life isn't threatened much they might start to take things forgranted they really don't fit the life isn't sacred motif. Really you'd have to be truly and absolutely immortal. Like Gods and Goddesses. Those two groups are usually truly immortal and frequently throw peoples lives around like chess pieces. Life isn't sacred because nothing can hurt them. People have come and gone for so long that most of the time it's just safer not to think of them much. So even those who are mostly immortal would find life sacred usually. Of course there are always the completely insane. They never find things sacred.

How would you hold up if the civilized world came to an end?

I'm reading a book where everything we know and love becomes a thing of the past. There is no internet because there is no one available to operate it. Everyone is to busy just trying to live. So if the world became a place without electricity to drive machines, without gas to drive cars, and without safety from our government (like police and army). I know I'd have problems. I hate the outdoors. I'm not good with nature. However I can knit and fish. I'd have to live off fish (icky) but I might live. Now for the paranormal.

Werecreatures would probably be ok. Most wereanimals are highly based in nature. If nothing else they could go into their animal form to hunt and keep warm. Also they would avoid any human threat while not in human form.

Vampires might have some problems with people becoming hard to find and more vigilant but if they can take from animals they're all good.

Witches would have the same problems every human had. Can they cook over a fire? Can they forge for food? Are their skills able to protect them? It is so individualized amongst this community.

Ghosts would be unaffected unless they were bound to a building that was destroyed.

Demons would be on the up and up for a bit answering peoples cries for help. A lot more people would be willing to sell their souls for comfort and peace of mind.

Day of the Dead

Since the day of the dead is celebrated in Mexico from the 31st of October to the 2nd of November I decided I should talk about it a bit. To oversimplify things a bit the Day of the Dead is when the souls of the departed come to commingle with the living. Because this celebration dates back to pre Christian times the actually celebration changes by the region you are in. In all the regions this is a day of celebration. It's a happy time not a time of morning. Now here is where things will start to vary. Altars are made to honor the departed. Items from the dead such as pictures and clothing adorn the altar. In some locations flower petals are laid down to create a path from the cemetery to the altar. This path is used to guide the spirit to the family to ensure they make it to the celebration. Special foods ranging from breads to sugar skulls are made for the celebration. This celebration also celebrates children. It was originally a mark of the transition from life to death. In Aztec culture death was not an end but a transition like a catapiler changing to a butterfly. When Christianity was integrated into Mexican culture the celebration was moved from a summertime celebration to a fall celebration to put a more positive spin on things. It also changed the meaning of death for the culture. It went from a transition to an ending. In America the day of the dead is mostly celebrated as a day to get drunk just like St. Patrick day. I would be very interested in seeing a traditional celebration.

Have a nice day. There are a number of good websites out there which will explain things much better then I have. I am not by any means an expert on cultures.