It's Halloween -- It Must Be Vampires

Kevin Jackson, author of Bite: A Vampire Handbook: A Vampire Miscellany, lists the top 10 vampire novels.

He intelligently leaves out Rice and Meyers:  "(Anne Rice needs no plugging here; nor does Stephenie Meyer, nor Charlaine Harris ...)"

Signs That Too Many Still Haven't Figured It Out

Running errands this afternoon on Halloween, I walked past Dave's Army-Navy Surplus store on 8th St. all bedecked as usual with American flags and other U.S.A. patriotic bunting. It was about 2 p.m. and it was crowded with customers, customers actually standing around waiting to get in. Trust me folks, it is never like this otherwise, particularly not at 2 pm on weekday.

The customers were all young white males in suits frantically buying up military uniforms and fake arms for the expression tonight of their fantasy selves. Of course, these uniforms were all of the "Special Forces" sort, not yanno, privates in the Army or anything so, well, mundane. Surely these clowns are all extra sooperdooper snipers and assassins. They're all probably pretending to be Matt Damon pretending he is Jason Bourne ....Scary.

If they are so enamored of the soldier's life why the frack are they being all pudgy and out of shape, wearing expensive suits and coats, all excited about playing soldiers? Really. They are too old for this. Blech.

I used to like Halloween a lot. But as the annual Village Halloween Parade began attracting 4 million viewers, and that the parade gathers on my street and jumps off from here, not so much. We get either locked in or locked out. We can't eat out or buy beer, and the level of people peeing in our doorway is way too high. So maybe we need to make allowances for the foxie feeling cranky today. Besides, Vaquero is very sick, and he is cranky too.