The problem with vampires

"That's the problem with vampires," said Doru Morinescu, a 30-year-old shepherd who, like many in the village, has a family connection to the current case. "They'd be all right if you could set them after your enemies. But they only kill loved ones. I can understand why, but they have to be stopped."

According to Knight Ridder (the news service, not the show about the talking car), some Romanian villagers are upset that the police are investigating their re-killing of vampires. The police say vampires aren't real, and are out to put a stop to what they call grave-robbing. The locals disagree and are mad that they might be in trouble for merely defending themselves:

Before Toma Petre's relatives pulled his body from the grave, ripped out his heart, burned it to ashes, mixed it with water and drank it, he hadn't been in the news much.

Villagers here aren't up in arms about the undead - they're pretty common - but they are outraged that the police are involved in a simple vampire slaying. After all, vampire slaying is an accepted, though hidden, bit of national heritage, even if illegal.

"What did we do?" pleaded Flora Marinescu, Petre's sister and the wife of the man accused of re-killing him. "If they're right, he was already dead. If we're right, we killed a vampire and saved three lives. ... Is that so wrong?"

"Vampires? How ridiculous!" you might say. Well, that's because you don't know about real vampires; you only know the pretty vampires that look like Tom Cruise (who's actually a Scientologist, and not a vampire - a common source of confusion):

Theirs is not a Hollywood tale, and they laugh at Hollywood conventions: that vampires can be warded off by crosses or cloves of garlic, or that they can't be seen in mirrors. Utter nonsense. Vampires were once Catholics, were they not? And if a vampire can be seen, the mirror can see him. And why would you wear garlic around your neck? Are you adding taste?"

Via Volokh

Beware

Foods: Urgent Safety Notice Regarding Ice Box Rolls

Southern Living puts out an urgent safety notice about ... a recipe for rolls.

Link via Crooked Timber

Contextual

Ezra at Pandagon (it's the Pentagon, but with Pandas!) hates interludes: the little interstitial skits, found sounds and nonsense that some bands like to stick between the real songs on their CDs. Sadly, I am growing to dislike them too.

Long long ago, in the before time, when I didn't have an iPod, I'd just listen to CDs as nature intended, from start to finish. All those little bits of connective tissue made some kind of sense usually (talking to you, Trent Reznor and your 100 song CD). But now that I'm hip and technosavvy, I only listen to my iPod on shuffle, and those cutesy little songlets occasionally show up in contexts that make no sense: The Beatles' "Her Majesty" only belongs at the end of Abbey Road, but now I can hear it with the little automated greetings that A Tribe Called Quest sprinkled through their Midnight Marauder album, or next to a little noise burst from the Swirlies or at the end of the 26 minutes of "Bitches Brew".

So, what to do about them ? I could delete them from my song list. But, then I couldn't hear some whole albums in their original form. That's no good. But, if Apple came up with a way to filter songs that are shorter than a given length, when using the shuffle feature, my little problem would be solved.

On a side note, I wonder if I could put together a compilation of these little things that would be interesting listening. Perhaps I'll try.

Pecker

FinanceAsia.com has some clever writers. This story is just throbbing with innuendo:

Misys gives Pecker head job

After 14 years inside Misys in Europe, Rudi Pecker has been elevated to the financial technology company's Singapore office, to become head of Asia Pacific sales. In this role, Pecker will head all Misys' strategic and commercial activities in the region, aiming to grow the business and enter into long term relationships. Pecker's breadth of experience, with over 20 years in the financial services industry, will enable him to rise to the challenges of growing the business in Asia, a region fertile for expansion.

Well, at least he's going to try for long-term relationships - none of that fuck-and-run stuff his predecessor was known for. My sisMisys deserves better than that.

My doctor says my nose would stop bleeding...

Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it: "Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor."
...
He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up.

Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system.

"Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine.

Hmm.