Vampire 101

This post is about one aspect of Twilight I hate. There are many more, ones that actually  have an impact on REAL life, a post on that will come later.

So. Vampires. They are powerful. Frightening. Sexy. They are predators.

Take a look at this picture with a selection of popular vampires over the 20th and 21st century.

Can you see  the one thing all these vampires have in common?
That's right, they have FANGS.

Meet Edward Cullen:

Do you, dear reader, find a difference between Edward in all his vampire glory and the vampires above?
That's right, Edward SPARKLES! In sunlight. He has no fangs.

 These three things tell us that Edward is not a real vampire.

In Sunlight? WTF? Sunlight kills vampires.

As non pretty as it is, this is what happens to vampires in the sun: they go up in smoke.

 Vampires are creatures of the night. They cannot, much to their frigging chagrin, walk in the sunlight. Many vampires long to walk in the sunlight, some succeed in it, but they have to go through major hassles to achieve that. Drinking fairy blood, getting a daylight ring from a powerful witch. Real vampires do not frolick around in the sun sparkling like a unicorn.

Why do real vampires have fangs? Because they are dangerous PREDATORS!

What do you think will be better in catching prey? A sparkling unicorn or a fanged velociraptor?

Granted, some vampires go veg, but even that deer might be hard to bite without fangs.
(this really is basic evolutionary logic)

That they are dangerous is one part of the immense sex appeal of vampires. Sparkling really ruins that dark, dangerous vibe for me.

I am aware vampires are not real and authors can alter the existing lore as they damn well please. And I am aware that Meyer is laughing all the way to the bank.

But how can she expect anyone to take a SPARKLING vampire seriously?
I'll tell you how: For many of the young Twilight fans, Edward is their first exposure to the vampire world. This became clear to me the other day when talking to a good friend of mine on Twitter. I have had the blessing of an early birth, so my first tryts with vampires were Buffy and Ann Rice (where, btw, it was made clear that stalking is a creepy, intrusive, disrespectful and aggressive act, not the ultimate romantic gesture). So young Twilight fans are not to blame, but they are to be pitied, for they do not know any better. And this pretty much is killing me. (Also, older Twilight fans do not have this excuse! :P)

I leave you with a quote of Damon Salvatore and rest my case:


“Why don’t you sparkle?”
“Because we’re in the real world where vampires burn in the sun.” 

P.S.  Vampire newbies being stronger than really old vampires makes no sense at all. Think about it.

Bru Guatemala

I like all the Bru ads, but the new one is my second favourite one (after Exotica).

Bru Guatemala Ad

Shahid's facial expressions are marvellous as always.

And how adorable is he with that sombrero!

The ironic thing is, I don't even drink coffee. :)

Happy Independence Day 2012, India!

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Kaminey!

Kaminey is the movie that sold me on Hindi Films. Back in spring 2010, as a complete Bollywood newbie, I had watched a couple of Bollywood movies before I stumbled on Kaminey. They were typical song and dance, lip sync, brightly coloured movies, as I expected (what I didn't expect was Shahid Kapoor's charm that simply overwhelmed me in Chance Pe Dance and Dil Bole Hadippa. Also, the dude was hot :D) In Western ignorance I wasn't aware that Bollywood, like Hollywood, is a place, not a genre.

So the very first frame of Kaminey puzzled me. Why was it so dark? (I have to say that the first Kaminey DVD  I bought was super super dark. I guess that's the DVD's fault. I'm talking about the infamous MoserBaer DVD, that quite a few of you know, I'm sure. The one that has like 15 mins of unforwardable ads in the beginning). I was intrigued. What unfolded before me was a tarantinoesque action thriller, that wasn't insulting the intelligence of its viewer and brilliantly bringing together its various storylines in a fulminant climax. I was very impressed. Nevermind it being a Hindi film, I count Kaminey as one of the best movies I have ever seen, be it BW or HW.

My extended Kaminey review, where I rightfully sing Shahid's praises, can be read here .

In celebration of its 3rd anniversary I watched it again yesterday, and I still love the movie. Poor Charlie trapped by his dreams and Guddu, forced by circumstances to put his core of steel to use.

Due to the first DVD I bought being crap quality (see above and it has a huge MoserBaer logo displayed througout the movie) I bought the blu ray when it was released and since REM released Kaminey in German, I had to buy that one too, because all REM DVDs come with posters!

Here are my Kaminey DVDs, all 3 of them :)

 Here is the poster inside the REM DVD (double sided):

Here are my Kaminey 3rd anniversary creations:

And for this occasion I changed my twitter dp and bg:

A Nice Medieval Castle

I went on a 4 day holiday, and ended up seeing three castles. Here are some pics of the most impressive and most medieval one, Castle Rappottenstein in Lower Austria. It is located in a region called Wood Quarter, some of the pics may tip you of why :)

Pics were taken either by my friend with a super fancy camera, or by me, with my iphone :D

I love how they used the rock formations to build the castle on and into.

These cannon balls are from when the Swedish tried to take the castle. But they failed, in fact this castle was never conquered.

This thing to the right of the small window is the toilet.

This got added post middle ages, which you can tell because it's fancy and pretty. And the guide told us :D

Kitchen. That's a really big pot!










Pics from inside:
 

We got to lift the swords, which probably means they are replicas. Still pretty cool.

 Now for some outside and garden pics with landscape:

Did I mention I want my own castle?! :)

Dungeons, not  nice place to be, cold, dark and wet:

Landscape pics:

Ok, this one is more clouds than landscape :)

Kitty didn't want to hold still!

Goats: