Few activities are as enjoyable and deeply satisfying as a meal with an entertaining dinner companion. Even the worst food be ignored if the conversation is good enough, and I'm pretty sure the people below could make me overlook dog food as a main course.
10. Vlad Dracula, aka Vlad the Impaler - Aside from being the reputed inspiration for Count Dracula, Vlad was known for being a less than hospitable dinner host. He's said to have been directly responsible for the deaths of 40,000-100,000 mostly innocent people, which is quite a feat when you consider that he lived in a time where you had to do those things by hand (or stake, or boiling, or by nailing hats to their heads...). Just don't complain to him about the food.
9. Michael Jackson - Hollywood has created a lot of stars who make you wonder where things went wrong, but few are as eccentric as The King of Pop. The Moonwalk, the one glove trend, the private zoo and amusement park... the child molestation charges. Oh, and his nose fell off. On second thought, it might be difficult to eat across from that...
8. Albert Einstein - Who wouldn't want to meet the man who inspired countless mad scientist depictions in cartoons AND Mariah Carey's latest album, e=mc²?
7. Tim Burton - He's most famous for films like Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and The Nightmare Before Christmas; but here's something I bet you didn't know, courtesy of Wikipedia. You know those creepy black and white stripes that appear frequently in his movies? According to his fiancee, they're also tattooed along the width of a body part that you and I should hope never to see...
6. Howard Hughes - If the name doesn't ring a bell, it should. Hughes inspired the movie The Aviator, and he was well-known as a renaissance man and generally eccentric person.
5. Oprah Winfrey - Although I've never seen her show, I have no doubt that she'd be a fantastic dinner companion. Who else can control the New York Times Bestseller list based on her own personal whims?
4. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain - If he was even half as interesting as his quotes make him sound, he'd make a meal to remember. A few examples:
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? --Mark Twain
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. --Mark Twain
3. Bill Clinton - Who knew the phrase, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," could be so funny? I get the feeling you'd walk away from this meal with enough off-color jokes and funny anecdotes to last a lifetime.
2. Harry Houdini - Perhaps he would answer the question that most of us have wondered at one time or another: Why would anyone put himself through all of that? Among his feats:
- Escaping from a rapidly-filling tank of water while suspended upside-down. This particular trick required him to hold his breath for about 3 minutes.
- Escaping from a Siberian Transport Prison vehicle on the way to Siberia from Moscow.
- The Mirror Escape - It's said that the lock used in this escape took a master locksmith 5 years to create.
1. Abraham Lincoln - Is this really a surprise? More biographies have been written on Abraham Lincoln than any other person in history. Although his accomplishments are nothing short of incredible, I'd choose to have dinner with him because he's just so darn reasonable. Consider a few of his most famously attributed quotes:
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" --Abraham Lincoln
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." --Abraham Lincoln
"Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be." --Abraham Lincoln
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