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Snappy answers to Sappy Headlines (October 2014)

15 Oct

October 15, 2014

The Editors and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride have been doing a little market research. It turns out that the Snappy answers posts are some of the most read blogs by women over 80 who are also members of my great-aunt’s sewing circle. In fact, all 5 members of the Newkirk Needles received a phone call from me asking if they had ever heard of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride and the one who took my call said yes! Then she asked me to please stop,.(I’m not sure what.)

If you ask me, that’s a mandate. So here is the fourth installment of Snappy Answers.

newserclown

‘Wasco Clown’ Terrorizing California… Kind Of. Clown Posting On social Media Inspires Rash of Apparent Prank Calls.

Jerry Brown. Has to be. What bigger California clown is there than Governor Jerry Brown?

This seems to be an epidemic. Not long ago, the same thing was allegedly happening here on Staten Island. This is the kind of thing you wish really was going on. You wouldn’t want it to happen to you, no sir, you would not want to run into a creepy clown in the middle of the night, but as far as an internet story goes, this is top of the heap. A creepy clown hanging around a deserted train station at 2 in the morning? Boo yah! Internet gold! And the basis for umpteen episodes of Scooby Doo.

 

newserbird

Parrot Missing 4 Years Returns Speaking Spanish. Bird Keeps Talking About Someone Called Larry.

*SQUAWK* “Larry? Donde esta Larry?”
*SQUAWK* “Tomaste tu medicina, Larry?”
*SQUAWK* “Llame al 911! Llame al 911! URK, GAWK! Por desgracia es demasiado tarde, me ha ido!”

newserobit


78-Year Old Man’s Obituary Opens With A Penis Joke. Howard Cocks Dickinson IV Apparantely Loved Women, too.

I would guess that this man did not die with his boots on. Condom, sure, but not boots.

Howard Cocks Dickinson IV. You win Newser. I can’t beat that.

 

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This is a post where I get annoyingly obsessive about Dracula.

1 Oct

October 1, 2014

Hey, you read the title. You’ve been warned.

I’m really annoyed by the marketing campaign for the upcoming movie Dracula Untold. It claims to be the true origin story of Dracula. Of course, it is all nonsense.

Dracula-Untold-lee von count

The character we know as Dracula is a fictional vampire created in 1897 by Bram Stoker. In the novel, which takes place in the 19th century, Dracula has been a vampire for a great many years, yet little is revealed about his past. Through the passage of time, the character has become linked to the real-life tyrant Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad the Impaler, who took that name “Dracul” when he joined a satanic order in the 1400’s.

There is no basis for this link at all. None is provided in the book.

However, Bram Stoker became passingly familiar with the Tepes legend as he wrote his book and used a version of his name (“Dracul” became “Dracula,” and in fact a branch of the Tepes family uses a variation of that name) for his creation.

And that’s it.

In fact, the original name of the character was going to be the laughable “Count Wampyr.” (As you can guess, “wampyr” means “vampire” in German. So we were spared from Count Vampire.)

Now this movie comes along and I have nothing against it, other than it stars yet another pretty-boy, bare-chested, tormented vampire designed to appeal to the Twilight crowd. But this movie claims to provide the link between Vlad Tepes and the vampire Dracula.

I need to tell you right up front that this is fiction and they can do whatever they want. Dracula (character and book) are public domain and anyone can make any variation of the legend they so desire. I’m fine with that.

But Vlad Tepes is such an amazing historical personage (hey, he didn’t get the name The Impaler for nothing, he earned it) that any movie based on his life can skip anything having to do with vampires. This guy once invited his enemies to dinner to talk peace, then locked them in and set fire to the building. So he was a bad ass without having to wear fangs. He was as brutal and bloodthirsty as any fictional vampire, and he didn’t have to turn into a bat or sleep in a coffin.

I guess what it comes down to is that if the movie is a hit with the brain cell-challenged Twilight crowd, this is going to define the “origin” and “history” of Count Dracula for years to come. It is going to taint the legends of Vlad Tepes and muddy the Stoker tale. Dumb kids will think this shirtless angst-ridden dude is what Count Dracula was and is, when in fact, just for example, both the fictional Count and the real-life Impaler were much older men. And attractive? Read the section where Stoker described the Count’s hairy palms and unibrow.

I just don’t want this teenage fantasy to become Dracula. I want Dracula to stay Dracula.

If you stuck with me to the end, sorry for being so annoying.

 

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