Various And Sundry Bits

[ladysprite]

True love is having a husband who, when you climb into bed at 2:30 in the morning (two hours after said husband crashed) after unexpectedly prolonged online roleplaying sessions and other miscellaneous babbling, not only doesn't scold you, but moves over so you can put your cold feet on his shins. Truly, I am blessed - both in my friends and in my choice of significant other.

In other news, I am tired.

CNN just had a news piece about yet another person writing a book about yet another person who Really Killed Kennedy, And This Time It's Really Him For Sure. And all I can think of is that I really want there to be a Mary Celeste-style LARP, set on the grassy knoll and in the book depository, where every single damn character is there to shoot JFK. Or prevent his shooting. Including aliens, an alternate version of Kennedy himself from a dark future, and Jack the Ripper.

I also plan on making a deathbed confession that I shot JFK. Just so y'all know. It seems to be the new trendy thing to do, and hey, it guarantees that someone will write a book about me.

Normal people never have to ask their spouses, "Honey, what do you think would happen to a vampire in a sweat lodge? Would it work at all?" Of course, normal spouses wouldn't give the question the serious consideration it deserves.

The new Strawberry Santa Shower Jelly I got from Lush yesterday really does look alarmingly like a baby-sized version of The Blob from that horrible 1950's horror movie. Perhaps I should wait to use it for a day when I'm not quite this sleepy.

Don't do a Google search on 'The Blob' to find out the year it was made. Just don't. It's not quite as bad as the time I wanted to look up the name of the Japanese luck goddess and couldn't find my copy of Deities and Demigods and stupidly decided to search on 'Japanese Goddesses,' but.... it's close.

I had something else to say here, and it was quite profound, but it has been lost in the fog that is my brain this morning....

Comments

[multigeek.livejournal.com]

I couldn't resist, but my search on "The Blob" returned pages about the movie, including IMDB saying that it was 1958. I just saw the movie for the first time last year. The ending made global warming a lot scarier.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I was going to say that IMDB is the better search engine here :-).

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Thirded.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

The Glob (USA) (working title)
The Glob That Girdled the Globe (USA) (working title)
The Meteorite Monster (USA) (working title)
The Molten Meteorite (USA) (working title)
The Night of the Creeping Dead (USA) (working title)

"I want this motherfucking glob *ungirdling* this motherfucking globe!"

Ah, but for the absence of the internet. (And I don't know if they were allowed to say "motherfucking" in that day and age.) (No, no, no, *not* in the movies, I mean, at all. I get the impression that it was a gentler time back then.)

re: JFK

[etherial.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite books has a secret agent, sent to the Grassy Knoll to prevent said assassination, upon counting how many assassins were present, deciding to join them to ensure no one would ever be sure who did it. [Names deliberately withheld to preserve the mystery of who the assassin(s) were].

Re: JFK

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

(Flashes to Buffy, season 2. "If every vampire who claimed to be at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.")

Re: JFK

[etherial.livejournal.com]

The Crucifixion, Live from Golgotha! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_from_Golgotha:_the_Gospel_according_to_Gore_Vidal)

Re: JFK

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Argh. I've read that book, but now I can't remember what the hell book it is.

Re: now I can't remember what the hell book it is.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Fnord.

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Will you title your book "How I Killed Kennedy Before I Was Born"?

[jiggliusceasar.livejournal.com]

I prefer the Red Dwarf version, where the person who shot JFK is JFK. If this game ever happens, there need to be at least three JFKs running around.

I would ask if the fact that you were slightly not alive at the time JFK dies would be an impediment to your confession, but knowing the people who write these things, probably not.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Normal people never have to ask their spouses, "Honey, what do you think would happen to a vampire in a sweat lodge? Would it work at all?" Of course, normal spouses wouldn't give the question the serious consideration it deserves.

And that makes me very sad for them. Poor people having no idea what they are missing...

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

It depends on what sort of metabolism you assume for your vampire.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

yeah I agree - i assumed if they sweat, it would be blood, in little tiny droplets, perhaps with some clear liquid.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Why assume they would sweat blood? We don't. Nor do we sweat hamburgers, french fries and pizza (or whatever else we've been eating). Sweating blood makes very little metabolic sense -- there is too much in blood that is too valuable to lose that way.

I was thinking temperature control -- we sweat to try and maintain a temperature. Do vampires need to maintain a temperature? If so, what temperature? Is the range wider or narrower than for humans?

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

probably because in some lines of vampire fiction - they bleed tears, and are more empty vessels with no fluid. It depends on how you view the vampire, and the amount of phsyiology versus magic/occult you include.

As for temperature control, the same thing applies - why would a vampire need to control its temperature if it isn't really alive. The problem here is applying living physiology to something that is more classically seen as undead.

Now with the above and sweating, I could also see a breakdown of the bloods component parts, and their being something more aking to water if they did sweat.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Exactly -- how is the metabolism explained? Is it biological, mystical, or what? Do they have or maintain a body temperature? And so on. Before you decide on what (if any) effect a sweat lodge would have on a vampire you have to decide how your vampire works. Lots of different fiction postulates different ways -- though many bits of fiction don't try for, or at least, don't achieve a coherent or self-consistent set of rules.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

you see part of the problem with the idea is vampires are in some traditions always cold - so if they have sweat they should either be running at a constant lower temperature (compare us with say cats), covered in a fine sheen of sweat a lot in hot conditions (slimey vampires....ewww) or maybe panting, or well yeah..you get the picture.

I still say they don't or if they do its the answer above. your interpretation may be massively different, and that's fine.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

Or to put your analogy to work - we don't sweat french fries but we do sweat the component parts of salt and water.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

We sweat the major available liquid - salty water - minus the (biologically) expensive bits. Sure that does come in through our mouth, most everything in our body is ingested. (Well, some of the water probably comes partially from being breathed in, but that's not the issue.)

[tafkad.livejournal.com]

Normal people never have to ask their spouses, "Honey, what do you think would happen to a vampire in a sweat lodge? Would it work at all?" Of course, normal spouses wouldn't give the question the serious consideration it deserves.

I suspect normal spouses would give the question EXACTLY the amount of serious consideration it deserves. I suspect the consideration would begin with the words, "Honey, are you feeling all right.

[ferretd.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily...it deserves at least as much attention as any other discussion of mythology.

Well, in my household at least.

[tafkad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mine too. But I don't claim to be normal. :-)

[ferretd.livejournal.com]

According to your definition- I have true love!!

YAY!!

[laurion]

At one point I'd imagined up a skeletal framework for a horde-ish game set at the Ford Theatre the night of Lincoln's assassination, with a partial premise that Booth kept coming back in to try killing Lincoln until he got it right. (And it had aliens too, because, yaknow, why not?)

So I support the notion that Kennedy was assassinated in a bad Larp plot.

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

Booth kept coming back in to try killing Lincoln until he got it right.

Nobody expects the Confederate assassin. Amongst his weaponry are such elements as fear, surprise - I'll come in again.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

"I really want there to be a Mary Celeste-style LARP, set on the grassy knoll and in the book depository, where every single damn character is there to shoot JFK. Or prevent his shooting. Including aliens, an alternate version of Kennedy himself from a dark future, and Jack the Ripper."

This reminds me of hungrytiger's notion that The Titanic sank because of the added weight from all the time travelers.

[jducoeur]

And all I can think of is that I really want there to be a Mary Celeste-style LARP, set on the grassy knoll and in the book depository, where every single damn character is there to shoot JFK. Or prevent his shooting. Including aliens, an alternate version of Kennedy himself from a dark future, and Jack the Ripper.

... that would work. In fact, it writes itself so well, I should probably stick it in a back pocket for the next time someone comes up to me with, "Could you write a game for this con in three weeks? Just a little one? Pleeeeeese???"