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The ancestors were weird

YAVB (yet another vampire burial). This one had a sickle buried over her throat business side down so she’d decapitate herself if she sat up. Spoiler: she didn’t.

Also, she had a padlock around her big toe. There’s a bit of vampire lore I didn’t know.

She was eighteen. She had a wonky front tooth, which might have contributed to her identification as a blood sucker. She also had a tumor under her breast bone that might have caused her to look weird, faint a lot and bleed randomly, which couldn’t have helped her reputation. Probably killed her.

She was found in a Polish graveyard but she was Scandihoovian. This was during a 17th C war between Poland and Sweden, so maybe that had something to do with it. It was also the century of Peak Vampire.

She was in a graveyard with 100 unmarked burials, 30 of which had bodies restrained in some way. This is now called the Field of Vampires, because Sky History is doing a two-part special and it sounds sexy.

I had to take minutes for two meetings today and I’m feeling crispy and put-upon.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: November 4, 2024, 6:57 pm

A thought just popped into my head (that happens a couple of times a year) about meeting minutes. Here’s a question you might pursue, Stoaty: Have AI tools progressed to the point where you could ask one to make a transcript from the audio feed (or a recording of same) and then to generate minutes. This is such a common (human) process I’d be surprised if it hasn’t been AIutomated.


Comment from ExpressoBold Pureblood
Time: November 4, 2024, 8:44 pm

Have a gander at History Calling on the web and as YouTube entrepreneur. The Irish dialect and sarcastic humor are enough to entertain, without the history and facial reconstructions.

Highly recommend!

https://www.historycallingofficial.com/


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 4, 2024, 10:50 pm

@Uncle Al—that’s a great idea. My DAR meeting is this Saturday and I think I will try using my phone to record the business meeting. I’m not the Recording Secretary, but I don’t think anyone will care. I frequently take my own notes just to help me remember particular things.

In the mid-80s I worked for a newspaper editor who took rapid-fire shorthand notes, which impressed me so much that I enrolled in a shorthand course at the local community college (which may have been the class of shorthand ever taught), but I wasn’t very good at it.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 4, 2024, 11:48 pm

I commit meetings to memory.

And then purge it.

I really like “feeling crispy” and
shall endeavor to use it.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: November 4, 2024, 11:54 pm

JavaMan says Microsoft OneNote will record and transcribe.


Comment from Pupster
Time: November 5, 2024, 12:38 am

Mrs. Pupster uses an app called Audioshare to record meetings, but also has an iPhone which came with a program called Voice Memos which she uses sometimes too. She’s the secretary for a Board of Directors and has to do meeting minutes every month.


Comment from steve
Time: November 5, 2024, 12:33 pm

The worst thing about taking minutes for a meeting is that it forces you to actually pay attention….

…FOR THE WHOLE MEETING!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 5, 2024, 4:00 pm

Yes, but the best part about taking minutes for the meeting is that I can BEND REALITY TO MY WILL. By the time the minutes come out, nobody remembers what happened in any detail, so I can MAKE SHIT UP.


Comment from Bob Mulroy
Time: November 5, 2024, 4:48 pm

Of course, I can’t find the case at the moment, but there was an American family that kept loosing children to TB.
The preacher convinced the parents that the first child to die was a vampire. They cremated her and the survivors ate the ashes.
Then they also died.
Of TB.
They don’t call it “consumption” for nothing.


Comment from Pupster
Time: November 5, 2024, 7:37 pm

Uhm…what?


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: November 5, 2024, 11:10 pm

@Pupster
“Back off man, I’m a scientist”

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