So... Alright - Vampires, bird races, and the Devil's Hole

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

This week Geoff learns about the history of vampires, the interconnectivity of the planet, the holiday patterns of most countries, and a little bit about bird racing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And chik-chig-chig-tuk-tok-tok-tuk-tuk-tchik-chik-chik-chik-chik-puk-pike-chik-pah-poh-d-dh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-old. So a lot I want to get to get to docket, I'm just going to list it out. We'll see how close we get. Number one, vampires. Number two, devil's hole. Number three, holidays. Number four, bird speed. Let's just jump in with bird speed.

I was riding my bike yesterday. God damn it, here we are. Every episode, I'm riding my bike. It's all I do in the world. I'm either opening baseball cards where nothing exciting ever happens. I certainly don't ever open any packs that have good baseball cards

that I tell you about. And even if I did, it's not like anything wacky happens opening baseball cards, or I'm riding my bike. It's my only window to the outside world at this point in my life. And so apologies.

Regardless, I was riding my bike. yesterday. And I was bombing a hill. And as I was bombing a hill, a bird flew at about eye height next to me. And we just kind of matched each other's speed for a minute. And then he veered off to the right and I kept going straight. And I was thinking, I should have looked to see how fast I was going. I would guess I was going like maybe 24, 25 miles an hour. Like, not super fast. But I kept up with the bird. Like he was matching my speed. And then he took off. And that got me thinking, could I be faster than a bird on a bicycle? could I race a bird

and I realized I have no idea at all in any way whatsoever how fast a bird is. So let's find out how fast can a bird fly you guys are going to hear a lot of Google in this episode a falcon can

fuck ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Jesus Christ fucking kill me oh Jesus oh sorry hold on a peregrine falcon everything

always comes back to falcons I'm honest when I say to you I wasn't even thinking about falcons I was thinking about like a wren or a sparrow or whatever the fuck it was a dove that was flying next to me of course it's falcons of course falcons are the best the peregrine

can achieve a speed in its downward dive, which is called a stoop. A paragon falcon can reach speeds of up to 240 miles an hour. Well, there goes that theory. I'm definitely not faster than a falcon. I don't care how downhill my bike ride is. List of birds my flight speed. Okay, here we go. Maybe there's a I got to find a bird I can outrun. A lot of falcons. A lot of, here's a slow falcon. The Peregrine Oh, maximum horizontal speed is only 68 miles an hour. Interesting.

It's average horizontal speed is about 50 miles an hour. It's that, it's that, what did I, what do they call it, the stoop? They really just like fucking bomb you. Let's see. What is the, that list actually doesn't help at all? What is the slowest flying bird? American Woodcock. Oh, look at this motherfucker.

The American Woodcock is widely considered the slowest flying bird with a recorded flight speed of 8 kilometers or 5 miles per hour during courtship displays. So I just need to catch an American woodcock when he's horny and trying to display his courtship skills, then challenge him to a race on a bike, honestly, or a brisk walk. I think I could walk faster than the motherfucker at 5 miles an hour.

and then I can, yeah, and then I'm faster than a bird. I'm way faster than a bird. What else can we learn about this woodcock? It's a great name, by the way. This guy has the best nicknames I've ever heard. Listen to this. The American woodcock, sometimes colloquially, I've got to get the word colloquially out of my vocabulary

because it keeps coming up and I keep stumbling over it. Okay. The American Woodcock, sometimes colloquially known as the timber doodle, the mud bat, the bog sucker, the night partridge, or the Labrador Twister. That sounds like an entire league of minor league sports teams. I'm going to send this to the guys. I'm going to copy that. I'm going to bring this up on regulation. I found an animal with the best nicknames. I found an animal with the best nicknames. American Woodcock Okay Sorry, it's a little note for the other podcast The American Woodcock is one of the only species of woodcock inhabiting North America

Although classified with the sandpipers and the shorebirds And the family of Scola Pesidaia I absolutely brutalized that pronunciation I apologize to all the ornithologists out there The American Woodcock lives mainly in upland settings Its many folk names include Why we already went that Yeah. Oh, they also call them

a brush snipe and Hokeem poke. Holy fuck. It has more. Let me copy this too. That's awesome. Okay. Its population falls an average of about 1% annually and has since the 1960s.

Dang. That's sad. It gets hunted a lot, I guess. Probably because it's so fucking slow. Woodcocks migrate at night. That's a good call. They fly at low altitudes individually or in small loose flocks flight speeds of migrating birds have been clocked at 16 to 28 miles an hour

however the slowest flight speed ever recorded for a bird 5 miles per hour was recorded for this species okay so they are slow they're not always that slow but they are slow I could outrace I could probably on a bike

beat the fastest woodcock in the world in a row I think I could 28 miles an hour I could definitely go faster and 28 miles an hour. Especially if it's an e-bike. Is that unfair? Yeah, that's unfair.

That's unfair of me. I bet the bird wouldn't complain, though, or even know. I'm going to cheat in a race of the bird. Hmm. Okay, well, that's birds. But what other animals could I beat in a flick at a foot race? What animals are humans faster than? There we go. This is what I wanted, an infographic. Okay. Humans versus animals in an ultra-marathon.

So according to an infographic, I've seen on the internet, an interactive infographic, if an ultramarathon is what? An ultramarathon is 100 kilometers. So if a lion, if a lion, a human, a camel, a horse, a wolf, a cheetah, a bear, and an ostrich all had a foot race. The human would win, the camel would come in second, and the horse would come in third, and it wouldn't even be close. Now, that's in an ultra-marathon. Obviously, initially, the 500 meters, the cheetah fucking destroys, right? A lion actually gets second, horse gets third, I think.

It's pretty close, hard to tell. Ostrich comes on strong with the horse at the 5K. Ostrich actually wins a 5K. Then a horse second, then Campbell brings up third. God, this is fascinating to watch, actually, as a race. Moving on to the 35 kilometer. So I guess that would be roughly the marathon, right? That would be horse is going to take first.

Camels taking second. Human takes third. And then it's all human camel horse all the way to the 100 kilometer mark. Whereas I said, human has a pretty solid lead. Then it's camel followed right behind by horse. And then honestly, not that far behind in fourth place. Oh, I looked at the, I read the results wrong. I'm sorry, I have fucked this up.

It goes human, camel. Then out of nowhere, ostrich shows up and barely takes third place from horse who ends up with fourth place and no medal in the 100-kilometer ultramarathon race between human, lion, camel, horse, wolf, cheetah, ostrich, and bear. It is, once again, human. Please forgive my ignorance. It is human, camel, ostrich, then horse. Damn.

How much would I have to train to run an ultramarathon? How much would an average person need to train to run an ultramarathon? Training for an ultramarathon typically requires 16 to 24 weeks of focused training with a mix of long runs, I'm out, speed work, I'm out, strength training, I'm out. The specific amount of training depends on the runner's current fitness level, I'm out, and the distance of the ultramarathon, but generally involves gradually increasing weekly mileage and incorporating back-to-back long runs to build endurance.

Ah, see, I'm out. Yeah, I can't do that. Damn. Weekly mileage varies, but many runners training for a 50K or, or a 50-mile ultra aim for 40 to 75 miles a week. This would be twice that. This was 100K ultramarathon. All right, so 16 and 24 weeks, I'm out.

40 to 75 miles a week, I'm out. Long runs are crucial. I'm out. Other key workouts, I'm out. Gradual increase, I'm out. Race-specific training, if possible, training on the actual race course can be beneficial. am out. Not going to run an ultra-marathon. Not going to run a marathon. Not going to run.

All right. What was next on the list? Okay. Have you ever wondered what country has the most yearly holidays? List of countries by number of public holidays. Okay. There's a minimum and a maximum number. Let's just go with maximum, okay? Well, and I get no information on explanation of It's just I can sort by number of public holidays. There's a notes that's almost completely unempty, and then the name of the country. First off, I'm in the United States. I know not everybody that listens to this podcast is in the United States, but I am. So I'm going to look and see where the United States is on the map.

Okay, so we are almost at the fucking bottom. Here are the countries with the least yearly holidays. Vietnam with six, Mexico with eight, the Netherlands with nine, Serbia with nine, the United Kingdom with 10, Ireland, 10, Denmark, 10, Belgium, 10, United States, 11, Canada 11, Ukraine 11, Luxembourg, 11, Kosovo, Israel, Ecuador, and, No, that's it. And then Ecuador, all 11. Brazil has 12. Dude. So, United States has 11 yearly holidays. Canada has 11 yearly holidays. UK has 10. Mexico has 8. Those are like all of our neighbors and friends for the most part. The number one country. If you guessed Nepal, you would be right with 43 public holidays a year.

I am living in the wrong fucking country. Number two, Iran, 26 public holidays a year, which is tied with Myanmar, who also has 26 public holidays a year. Sri Lanka, 25, Malaysia, 24, Fiji with 23. What are we doing wrong? Fiji, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Iran, Nepal, you clearly have it figured out. Nepal is over indexed. on yearly holidays. Holy shit.

What is that? Like almost four holidays a month? Right? That's, there's almost a holiday a week in Nepal. Is that too much? Nah, that's not too much.

That seems just about right. All right. I'm going to talk about something that I'm going to be real dumb about, apparently, because my wife knew this and looked at me like she couldn't believe I didn't.

But did you, know that Dracula wasn't the first vampire? I mean, I guess I must have. It's probably one of those things. And as you get older in life, you accumulate these. There are these things that you learn over and over and over again because you just cannot keep it in your head. You know, like for me, it's Roman numerals. I have solved and figured out Roman numerals on four or five different occasions and went like, oh, I got it now. Now I know Roman numerals. And then like two years later, I look at a Roman numeral and it's like, I've never seen it before. And I know I have a a litany of those things that I have been taught or that I have learned or that I've

been like, oh yeah, that's cool. I know that now. And then it immediately gets flushed down the toilet of my brain and it's gone. So it's entirely possible I knew that Dracula wasn't the first vampire. But it caught me by fucking surprise the other day when I found out that Bram Stoker's Dracula was written more than a hundred years after the first vampire novels and poems were published. More than a hundred years. I had no fucking clue that there were works upon works of vampires and vampires in literature that it was built off of. I just assumed that Mary Shelley created and invented Frankenstein and Bram Stoker invented the concept of a vampire based off of the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler. Couldn't have been more wrong.

I'm going to read this Wikipedia definition just so that we're all on the same page, okay? A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence, generally in the form of blood, of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead humanoid creatures that often visited

loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhoods, which they inhabited while they were alive. They were shrouds and were often described as bloated, ew, and or ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt pale vampire, which dates back to the early Robert Pattinson. It's an early 19th century, but you see what I did

there. So they've been recorded in cultures around the world. The term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in southeastern and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants of southeastern Europe were also known. known by different names, such as Striga in Albania, Virocalicus in Greece, and Strigoi in Romania. Cognate to Italian striga, which means which. Okay. The exact etymology is unclear, but the term vampire finds its earliest records in English, Latin, and French, and reference to vampirism were found in Russia, Poland, and North Macedonia. Okay. All right. And this is all going to be

early 18th century from the Serbian word bam which means vampire so there were forms of vampires or

vampiric creatures going way back into the 1600s 12th century England they had different names but it was like essentially variations on a theme

but when we're getting into what we consider to be vampires it seems like the early 18th century, despite the decline of many popular folkloric beliefs during the Age of Enlightenment, there was a dramatic increase in the popular belief in vampires resulting in a mass hysteria through much of Europe. The panic began, this must have been what I was reading about earlier, the panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in Prussia in 1721 and in the Haddsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. The infamous first vampire case involved the corpses of Peter Blagojevich from Serbia.

Blagojevich was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death, asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. He supposedly returned and attacked some neighbors who died from loss of blood. So there's a couple of these cases, interesting. These are well-documented cases that created the hysteria commonly referred to as the vampire controversy. It continued for a generation. At least 16 contemporary treatises discussed the theological and philosophical implications of the vampire epidemic. Dom Augustine Calmet, a French theologian and scholar, published a comprehensive treatise in 1751 titled, Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on the Vampires or Revenance,

which investigated and analyzed the evidence for vampirism. So this is in the next. mid-1700s yet they've been around for fucking ever i am i am genuinely stupid for not knowing this so what is the first first work of vampire fiction the vampire the literary first vampire appeared in the 18th century poetry before becoming one of the stock figures of gothic fiction with the public of polidori's the vampire in 1819 okay i have to get this i have to get this Vampire fiction is rooted in the vampire craze of the 1720s and the 1730s, which we just read about, which culminated in the somewhat bizarre official exhumations of suspected vampires, Peter Blagojevich and some other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the first works of art to touch upon the subject is the short German poem, The Vampire, by Heinrich August Austenfelder. I need to get that. This is from 1748, where the theme already has strong erotic overtones, a man whose love is rejected by a respectable and pious maiden threatens to pay her a nightly visit, drink her blood by giving her the seductive kiss of the vampire, and thus prove to her that his teaching is far better than her mother's Christianity. Furthermore, there have been a number of tales

about a dead person returning from the grave to visit his or her beloved spouse and bring them death in one way or the other, the narrative poem Lenore from 1773 by Gottfried August Berger and the gear, being a notable 18th century example. One of its lines, Dendai Toten, writeen schnell for the dead ride fast, was to be quoted in Bram Stoker's classic Dracula. A later German poem exploring the same subject with a prominent vampiric element

was the bride of Corinth in 1797 by Goethe, a story about a young woman who returns from the grave to seek her betroth. I bought that recently. I was a Goethe fan growing up. up. And so when I saw that that was one of the poems, I bought it. But it seems I also need to pick up the poem Lenore and the, what was it? The Vampire. Yeah, from 1819. That was one. Yeah, definitely going to have to explore early vampire. Have any of you read all this stuff? Is there anybody

I thought? Surely there's somebody out there who's like, oh, yeah, this is my wheelhouse. I know everything there is to know about this. Could you steer me in the right direction? Tell me which ones are worth reading which ones aren't, you know? Clearly, I'm assuming you're a person who's forgot more about vampires than I'll ever know. And if you are, that person, send me an email to Eric at jeffsposs.com, or even if you've just read any of this. I'd love to know your thoughts. So then Bram Stoker's Dracula comes along in 1897. It's considered the definitive description of the vampire in popular fiction for the last century. Its portrayal of vampirism as a disease, with its undertones of sex, blood, and death struck a chord in a Victorian Britain where tuberculosis

and syphilis were common, and so it became an instant classic. But it came out in 1997 more than a hundred years after some of those poems and early works. So I have a lot of reading to catch up on so that I truly understand the origin of the vampire, because I very incorrectly thought it began with Bram Stoker. Have you guys ever heard of Devil's Hole? I saw a TikTok about it the other day. It's a geologic formation that's in like the middle of fucking nowhere in the Death Valley National Park. Holy shit, it's in Death Valley? The coincidences, guys, it's just ridiculous. Falcons and now Death Valley, we're just in a Death Valley loop right now. If you don't know, I recently did a whole episode about Death Valley's because somebody

recommended a British television show and I watched it. And then I got a movie about Death Valley. Then I got a song about Death Valley. Then I got a book about Death Valley that I'm still reading. And now here we are talking about the devil's hole because it's in fucking Death Valley. I had no idea. Regardless, it is a geothermal pool inside of a limestone cavern in the Amargosa Desert, right?

This is in Nevada, like I said, Death Valley. It's at an elevation of 730 meters, which is 2,400 feet above sea level. And the water in this geothermal pool is a constant temperature of 33 degrees Celsius, which is 91 degrees Fahrenheit, which is pretty fucking warm. The surface area of this thing

is about 22 meters by about three and a half meters wide, so that's 70-ish feet by about 11 feet wide, right? Pretty small. Why is this thing interesting? Well, it's interesting for a few reasons. One, it's the only naturally occurring habitat

for a population of endangered fish called the pup fish, the devil's hole pup fish. So it's the only place we can study them and a bunch of other fish that only exist in devil's hole. hole, but it branches into caverns that go at least like 400 feet deep. They've never been able to map the bottom. They have sent professionals into map it. There have been enthusiasts that have gone into map it. Geologists have said that the caves are more than 500,000 years old. People have

gone in to try to map it and have been swept away and died and never been found again. At the very bottom, when they get as low as they can go, there's currents, and those currents will rip you Nobody knows where those currents are coming from or where they're going. It's kind of crazy. And the thing that blew me away is that it frequently experiences seismic activity from earthquakes as far away as Japan and Mexico. Mexico's not as far away. Chile, not as far away. Indonesia and Japan very, very far away.

It has in the past shot water six feet into the air because of an earthquake in Japan. Like that's fucking crazy. This is in Nevada. That's how connected this all is. I think that because of the endangered nature of the pupfish, they don't allow a lot of diving or a lot of work around it in general anymore. Seems like a pretty crazy place. Blows my mind that an earthquake in Japan can cause a geothermal pool

in the desert of Nevada to shoot water six to 12 feet in the air. Like, that's fucking crazy. The interconnectivity of our earth is just, it boggles the mind. I owe you guys a song of the episode. Today it's going to be Eugene by Arlo Parks. I really like this song. I don't know how it ended up on my playlist. I'm assuming it was recommended because of somebody similarly who I listened to, but I don't know who that would have been. I don't know that I've ever heard any other songs by Arlo Parks. I didn't know this song was by Arlo Parks until I took a screenshot for this episode. I just knew the song was called Eugene. Anyway, it's a really good

song and I hope you'll like it. And I hope I'm not under or overselling it. Speaking of under or overselling stuff, thank you for listening to another episode of the So All Right podcast. Please, if you get a chance, listen to some of the other podcasts I do, the Regulation Podcast chiefly, the Good Morning Gustavo podcast,

to a lesser extent. My wife and her friends have a podcast called Clutch My Pearls that I think is fantastic. I am on Twitch at twitch.tv slash fake Jeff. Regulation is on Twitch at twitch.tv slash the regulation pod. Check me out on Cameo at Jeff L. Ramsey. on YouTube at Fagie Jephy. Love you. All right.