Things. With Vampires.

1. The insomnia still continues. This means that I am now the person people dread to meet as I insist on being all babbly about how little I sleep and how tired I am. I know this is horrible to my colleagues but because I am very sleepy most of the time my 'how to behave and not trap people into pointless conversation' conditioning is failing. Also I sent off an abstract to a colleague which I am terrified to read because I bet it is quite mad. I remember there being something about verse metre and the urban landscape of Rome and that's about it.

2. I read some more books. Including one about a newly minted vampire queen who liked shoes and hated her sexy vampire king who kept turning up and trying the usual macho 'you is my woman now' stuff to no avail. I don't think I've ever read so many vampire novels in succession and it worries me a bit. Next thing you know I'll be off reading things about hot werewolves and the women who love them too much even though I can't really work out what is sexy about werewolves. Who wants to spend their days vacuuming up after their boyfriend or worrying about him eating you on the full moon? Mind you, vampires have their issues what with the whole suck your blood and possibly go 'boom' when the sun comes up problems. Can you imagine the guilt if you accidentally left the blinds open? Plus if they're actually the walking dead that's rather unpleasant.

3. This brings me to the point that calixa brought up once before: why are vampires always rich? How do they make their money? I maintain they do it by mugging people or having their henchmen mug people (they *always* have henchmen) but novels are always suspiciously quiet on the subject of vampire investments. I think Blood Ties to its credit brought it up but that's it. How do vampire economics work? It's not like they can work what with whole sun and wanting to drain people dry bit.

4. Aren't there any novels anymore where the vampires are the bad guys? They seem to always be misunderstood or (at the worst) not all that bad if you get the right one. They drink blood! Does that strike you as something nice people do? I think not.

5. Completely unrelated to the above: I really like fizzy wine. I rarely buy champagne as it's a bit too pricy in Canada but a nice bottle of prosecco will do. I currently have one in the fridge and I plan on seeing what happens when you mix it with ginger liqueur and vodka because I am pretty sure that was what was in the best champagne cocktail I ever drank. This may result in my lying at some point on the bathroom floor and groaning but I will persevere.

ETA. And in exciting (um) news, the Galway trip over Christmas was scrapped in favour of one to Cork for a couple of days. I feel like I am betraying Dublin but I couldn't get the hotels I wanted in Galway and I really wanted to go back to this restaurant as did the person I will be going with: http://www.cafeparadiso.ie/. The food is so unbelievably good there and it's so hard to get really gourmet vegetarian food of this standard. Maybe I'll drag my sister down to Galway for the day after Christmas once the trains start up again. But thanks so much for your help lucy_bliss; I've kept the names and maybe next year I'll book earlier and have more luck.

I blame Meyerlemon for this.

So. I made a completely pointless new community fandom_duels

Here is my first post:

Has your honour been affronted? Do you feel the need of a champion? Have you ever cheered for issues to be resolved by pistols at dawn? Then, sirrah, WE ARE THE COMMUNITY FOR YOU. Join and challenge other people to name their seconds!

Come on, you know you've always longed to resolve things with 18th century rubbish guns!