This is hilarious!!  A discussion on the vagaries of vampirism?!!

I'm, uh, glad you're enjoying it, hee hee!!  I love the subject of vampires-- it's the hook that brought me to DS, though of course it's not what kept me coming back.

I also love the different interpretations of vampirism among different works, but I think the bigger discussion here is about how the rules changed (what some call inconsistencies) for vampires and their victims within the DS story itself.

It's just my POV, but I don't think you can compare Barn's and Angelique's vampires to the others simply because they were victims of a curse and a spell respectively.  And

SPOILERS AHEAD...

I think the difference between the vampire Roxanne of 1970 and, say, Megan's vamp stems from the fact that the former had 130 years on the latter.

This is a topic that a lot of writers of vampire fiction, including I, have addressed in different ways, inconsistency within DS itself notwithstanding. DS offered the somewhat landmark idea that vampirism was a preternatural "disease" rather than an explicitly supernatural condition. Thus, since different people have different reactions to bacterial and virile infections, based on their individual constitutions, it's conceivable they would have different reactions to the bite of a vampire. Not only that, different vampires themselves might carry different strains.

I recently rewatched House of Dracula (actually, re re re re re rewatched would be more like it) that also dealt with this issue, explaining vampirism as a "peculiar parasite" that could be isolated and treated.  Actually, it bugs me that this last installment in the Universal monster rally had a simple explanation for all the creatures' problems, but I digress.  Anyway, after Dracula (yay for John Carradine!) takes one look at the doctor's gorgeous nurse and changes his mind about being cured, he reverses the procedure (and a valve or two) by transfusing the doctor with his own infected blood.  Then I guess we're supposed to believe that what the doctor becomes is a vampire since his image isn't reflected in a mirror, yet he's able to freely walk in the sunlight, and even more confusingly changes in Jekyll/Hyde fashion at what seem to be the points in which the writers needed to up the intensity and violence of their story.  I guess the point I'm making is that here's a movie, and a short one at that, that doesn't even make sense within its own time frame-- the lack of explanation as to how the Wolfman and Frankenstein survived the last movie notwithstanding-- so perhaps it helped inspire DC & Co. to change the rules of vampirism on DS at their own whim as well.

In DREAMS OF THE DARK, for example, the bite of Thomas Rathburn, whose characteristics are somewhat different than Barnabas's, causes very severe personality conflicts in Victoria Winters (to the point that some less-enlightened soul decided it was "character corruption").

I like that explanation best of all.  We saw so little of Charity Trask pre-attack that we don't really know what she was like under all the repressed emotions.  And the changes she undergoes even further into the storyline, though for a different reason, are even more surprising and entertaining.

Does anyone know how the fire started that destroyed the mansion? Anything about its owners?

This page has some interesting history about the mansion, including that the cause of the fire was arson:

http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/spratt/spratt.html

Wow, I can't tell either.  I know the rest belongs to Tim Curry...

but can any Selby afficionados (PFS or otherwise) even tell where the face is from???

Congratulations, Anubis!  Trust me, no one here thinks you're nuts for getting excited about being there.  I'm happy you got to see it and recommend the pilgrimmage to other DS fans.  I've been there twice and still want to visit again (and again...).  I hope you'll be able to get inside some day.

Gothick, the Careys have done some repairs on the house since we were there in '99, but sadly there's still much to be done.  I noticed deterioration just in the 2 years between my visits.

Well, at least I was able to finish reading the board before the problem returned.

Cassandra, the following link will take you to a definition of a bottleneck in case you're interested.  The 1st and 3rd paragraph apply to this situation; this is a problem affecting a network, and not all our visitors are experiencing it.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bottleneck.html

I'm sorry to say there's nothing that can be done on this end until the congestion along the route is resolved.  Once again, thanks for your patience.

no problem i'm too busy pahking my cah in Hahvard yahd
then going to eat chowdhar with Uncle Teddy at the compound!
oh wait thats a Boston accent Maine's is much different!

That's so funny, jennifer!

Don't know if you heard since it's local news, but L.A.'s new police chief (William Bratton) comes to us from Boston by way of New York.  After a press conference announcing his appointment, I couldn't help but giggle with Raineypark over his accent, which is Bostonian with a little New Yahk, er, New York thrown in.  He had even joked about it, saying he hoped we'd be able to understand him because he forgot to bring his interpreter along.  Anyway, not a minute goes by after saying that when he tells how pleased he is to be speaking from, get this, Pahkah Centah.  I'm so not used to hearing Parker Center said that way that I thought I'd fall over laughing.

Yes, I'm easily entertained.    But the accent is cute, and the LAPD badly needed some fresh leadership.