Halloween 2025

I thought I wouldn't be able to get pumpkin this Halloween. Because fresh pumpkin is a lot of work and there's only a little bit of edible part left. And because the last time the pumpkin puree exploded all over the place. Well, I bought frozen pumpkin puree. Maybe it won't explode when opened? Except the instructions say to thaw it in the fridge for a day before using it. I'm scared of what will happen this time.
 

I always want to use this pumpkin picture in my Halloween posts. It's from a wall calendar from years ago.

 

 

Pluto TV has been showing Friday movies again, and this year Saws too.

But it was hard to decide which movie to watch for Halloween. I've been wanting to watch Skeleton Key again for years, but I don't dare. It's too haunting. I'd be interested in Langoliers too, but that's too horrible.

I finally decided to watch It, it's been a while since I last watched it. I already missed Pennywise, the original. Tim Curry ❤️

But then I realized that it's been even longer since I last watched Interview with the Vampire, so I watched it first. That vampire movie has been a scandal for many reasons. Tom Cruise chosen as Lestat. Homoeroticism. Kristen Dunst and Brad Pitt's kiss. I guess the moral of the story is that you shouldn't seek out other people, it only leads to suffering and death.

What's annoying about It's DVD release is that the scenes during the opening theme of the second episode have been cut out completely. And now there's was problem that there's something wrong with the disc, it freezes at the very end and complains that "the disc can't be played". Even though the cheapness of the TV miniseries is obvious, It still manages to entertain me.

 

 

Today's big plan is (of course?) to play Friday. Before, I had true horror of Halloween in Friday, playing as Lachappa. But then I realized that playing as Deb is even more terrifying for me, because I can't stand seeing the bunny die. Last Halloween, I did it so that if a small map was selected, I played as bunny, otherwise as Lachappa. And that's what I plan to do today too. My dream would be to survive as bunny at least once.

 

 

These days I play Friday on PC and my body can't stand sitting for long periods of time. So I take a lot of breaks and then watch the (original) Pet Sematary movie. It was the first Stephen King book I ever read, by the way.

 

 

I thought I wouldn't have much time to play Friday because I was supposed to go to Gloria today, Friday, which is the official Halloween, even though there are no parties. But I was very surprised when I found out that Gloria is having a Halloween party tomorrow, Saturday, which is All Saints' Day. Has there ever been one there before? At least not before this decade. The last time I went to a Halloween party was in 2019. We were at a certain bar's Halloween party, where we didn't stay for many minutes. Then we went to Gloria, where there wasn't a Halloween party, but it was still fun.

I did such a radical thing that I washed my "Halloween" dress even though the washing instructions say it shouldn't be washed with water. Why shouldn't a dress made of 100% polyester be washed with water? It seems to be still intact after washing. Still, I'm afraid that the dress won't fit me properly anymore because I've lost weight. Too many clothes hang on me like a garbage bag. Although judging by the clothing ads, that's the fashion these days...

 

 

But inspired by a certain streamer, I came up with an urge to dress up as cat Claire someday. That would be the perfect combination for me. So that's a life goal? I think I've already thrown away the shorts from my previous Claire "costume". The Made in Heaven shirt is still there, and unused... While searching for my cat ears, I also found black gloves, a purple grenade "bag" and... a water gun. The Claire wig is of course still there, but it gave me a headache. Unfortunately, the Claire costume I looked at years ago doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere anymore. I want to be original Claire and not remake.

I bought purple tortilla chips from Lidl's Halloween selection, so the party can begin!

 

 

Ps. Found the perfect Halloween shirt, but unfortunately at Target, which doesn't ship to here. Cat + Friday ❤️ Of course, there would be shirts for sale elsewhere with the same theme, but with different images which are not as good.

 

My favorite word in the English language: Arse

Well, that's how it happened, on Kali's memorial day, internet problems hit and I couldn't play or stream the game Cats and the Other Lives. I took it as a personal insult because the internet started working better the second I would have stopped playing. The internet only worked while I was cooking and eating. When I started playing, it stopped working again. Well, in the end, I managed to get it working for a while in the evening, but I had to stop playing when ER started on TV.

And finally, late in the evening, it turned out that the internet not working was not even due to DNA, but to us. Since I wanted to stream the game, I was afraid that the wifi wouldn't work well enough through the door, and so I wanted a LAN cable for the PS5 just in case. That's why the internet went haywire! So the wifi would have worked normally all day, but the wired internet wouldn't. Resetting the router helped. 

That's never happened before. However, I always had a habit of changing PS5's internet to wired when playing Friday, as wifi is not necessarily enough for online games.

And again I was disappointed because the episodes of ER are censored and cut. The last episode of the 12th season 21 Guns had been cut from everywhere. From the beginning, from the shooting and from the end. Because of the latter also the song, Snow Patrol's "Open your eyes", (beware of shameless promotion of my own video) ended in the middle... It's been a while since I've had any of my favorite episodes on my computer, they were lost when I replaced my computer because there was supposedly no space on the hard drive. I used to watch these episodes often, but now it's not possible.

 

 

It really scared me how much of the next day's episode, the first episode of the 13th season, Bloodline, had been cut. There's a lovely song, David Gray's "Slow Motion", during which some gory things happen. I found on Youtube German dub version of that scene. It was a big surprise then that Bloodline wasn't censored at all. I guess it would have been too difficult, just because of that song.

Another pair of leggings fell apart from the arse in the wash. Will this buying of clothes never end?

When I realized that my newest socks, Happy socks, were broken, I realized that they probably aren't a very durable brand. Luckily, Facebook was able to immediately advertise to me what I need, namely customizable cat socks. They are expensive though and of course plastic, so I won't buy them.

 

 

Now you can have it, fill your pots with porridge! I was so happy when Forsman's Christmas tea went on sale at Prisma. I calculated that I would need more than 24 packages to last me the whole year.

 

 

I guess I shouldn't buy a tea advent calendar, because those teas are always crap.

I went to Lidl mainly for the sugar-free chocolate. I was afraid it would be out of stock, and there seemed to be only dark chocolate on the shelf. Luckily, I realized that behind all that red there seemed to be a hint of blue. The sugar-free milk chocolates were hidden behind the sugar-free dark chocolates.

Chocolate is still amazingly cheap at Lidl, only 2.49. I think it's very similar to Lindt chocolate, which costs over 6 euros at Siilinjärvi's supermarket, for example. In that same store, Stephen King's The Long Walk costs 19.90, while everywhere else it costs no more than 13.90. I feel like saying that some people are fucking greedy bastards. 

 

A year without cats

My last cat, Kali, died exactly one year ago at the age of 19. My other two cats died in August 2024.

 

 

I guess I should be ashamed to admit that out of my three cats, Kali is the only one whose death date I couldn't remember by heart, I had to check it.

 

 

Kali was always the third cat I got when she was already 4 years old. Tabitha was my firstborn, and Olivia was my youngest and my lap cat. What was Kali?

Personally, I think Kali's heart broke when the other cats mysteriously disappeared, and her body just gave up. Without the urinary tract infection she had a month before her death, we would not have known anything about the tumor.

 

 

And again I thought I'd play some cat game to honor the day. 

Stray I meant to play already on the anniversary of Olivia's death, but Cat and Ghostly Road's white cat suited better for that. 

And now I've been saving up the game Cats and the Other Lives I bought on sale for this purpose, let's see if it is any good.

 

 

The worst thing is that all three cats died in such a short time. After 17 years of daily care, life fell apart.

 

 

Some might think it's crazy that the cat scratching posts, beds and toys are still in their original places here.

 

Movie review: The Long Walk

Damn, this is bullshit.

That was my first reaction when the changed ending of The Long Walk (affiliate link) movie started to be revealed.

This article contains some plot spoilers.

50 young men participate in a walking race. Only one makes it to the finish line alive.

I had worked hard and painfully to protect myself from spoilers. I knew that the ending had been changed, and that people thought the new ending is crap. But I didn't know what the changed ending would be.

At some point, I first hoped and then feared that the ending would be a dream or hallucination of a character, but no. Fortunately, the very last seconds were faithful to the book, meaning the character's final fate was left open.

Making a character evil (and stupid!) who only thirsts for revenge and corrupts his friend into the same thing is not good. Making everything and everyone's deaths pointless in the end, even the father's. Of course, it was all pointless from the start. The point is that no one ever really wins the Long Walk.

And one character has been made into a saint, representing all that is good in the world. Well, he certainly wasn't like that in the book. On the contrary, he got his scar from trying to rape his girlfriend.

And I didn't think it was believable that the main character would suddenly just give up and betray his mother, especially after he had just realized that she was right. Mothers are always right about everything.

And then there's the fact that an alternate ending has been filmed, because an upcoming home release 4K will have it. 

 

 

Of course, I understand that the book's ending had to be changed. The ending of the book would have been too bland, more drama was needed, and that's certainly what's at the end of the movie.

Besides the ending there are of course a lot of other differences between the book and the movie.  

I'm not a fan of blood, gore, and guts, not to mention (diarrhea) crap. I knew in advance that the movie was going to be incredibly violent, and I kept my eyes closed at many points. There was also a lot of swearing, even the f-word was only used a few hundred times.

I liked it when the major said "Good luck, son" to one of the characters right at the beginning. 

But the true star of the movie was of course the eyeless cat, which I wondered already in the trailer.

 

  

 

The Long Walk is one of my favorite works by Stephen King, and I had been waiting for decades for it to be made into a film. Still, it was hard to find time in my busy schedule to go see it, and it was almost a month after the premiere. There were a total of 8 people in the audience at a Tuesday night screening. 

 

Ps. One of the trailers shown was for The Running Man, which will premiere in November. That's also one of my favorites from King's books, but I don't like the fact that this film has gone in a more comedic direction. And the ending has been changed from the book, apparently because of WTC...

 

Party girl

I had been wanting to have a day of light drunkenness on other days than my birthday for years, but I had never gotten around to doing so before. Now I had a rosé sparkling wine that I had never had before. It wasn't that long ago that I first learned about the existence of such a type of wine.

 

 

I wanted to party a month ago, but I was feeling unwell at the time. Now I was also waiting all the time for the nausea to strike.

I had wanted to eat at Amarillo after its menu changed a few months ago. Now, appropriately, there is an offer valid for the month of October, two main courses for the price of one at S-Group restaurants.

At eight o'clock on a Saturday night, Amarillo was full, luckily we had a table reservation. We had to wait over an hour for our food. The flank steak was quite edible. I usually don't dare order steak in a restaurant, because they are too often not tender enough.

There were also too many people at Gloria for my taste right after ten. Even though I had already drunk about 2/3 of the bottle of wine at home and a half glass of wine at Amarillo and then three Caipiroskas at Gloria, I couldn't get drunk. That's what you get when you eat and drink at the same time.

The price of a Caipiroska at Gloria had already gone up since the summer, it now costs 11 euros.

When we were leaving home after 1 am, I started laughing when there was a long line at Jolene's. It wasn't until later that I started to wonder have I even been to Jolene's? What do I have against that bar?

It was raining a little, but luckily it didn't bother me.

 

 

There was no real hangover, but of course made my heart pound so hard that it was difficult to sleep. But I didn't have nausea.

Now there are negotiations for changes at these restaurants, hopefully Gloria won't be threatened with closure.

World Animal Day: Sun Cat

I had a habit of posting photos of my cats in the honor of World Animal Day.

My late cat Tabitha in the (autumn) sun.

 

 

 

 

I miss my Tabitha. 💔

 

 

When I saw the headline "October is Pet Month" in a flyer, I cried.

 

A futile and tearful life

I'm at the point in my life where everything is pointless and worth crying about. Although I've started to wonder why not all people cry all the time.

In the morning I check what's wrong today. One morning the internet didn't work on the TV. The next morning Star had disappeared from the channels, I wondered why the TV was on the BBC News channel. And the TV complained that it was full. Why did it ask if I wanted to free up storage space now, when there was only one option to choose, "now"?

And then the joint pain hit, for example in my hips and legs. I can't even get my feet up on the table when I'm at the computer. I wonder how women of a certain age are able to do their jobs, take care of their families and so on. This fun is just beginning for me. Although I can't know for sure if this is due to menopause or the strong rheumatism genes in my family.

 

 

September 28th, daylight

 

I knew something would go wrong on September 28th, daylight. When I started converting an mp4 file to avi, the program I used before refused to do it anymore. Maybe with the update nothing works in that program for free anymore, I don't know.

Anyway, I've learned that you should never update any program, because after that you can't use that program anymore.

So I had to start looking for a new program for that purpose. The first one I tried left a watermark in the middle of the image, so it doesn't work. But then I found a program called Prime Video Converter. It does what it needs to and doesn't leave a watermark.

But then when I tried to continue playing RE3, the game always crashes. When I load any save, or even start the game from the beginning. Only normal, non-randomized RE3 works. So apparently I can't play RE3 Biorand at all anymore. Sheva's adventure was left unfinished, so Sheva wasn't saved? Obviously she didn't manage to save herself (because Sheva was both Jill and Carlos).

 

 

 

Recording ER

 

I always schedule the recordings of the following week's episodes of ER on the weekend. On Monday I noticed by chance that the broadcast times had been changed. Before, the episodes of ER always started at 7:55 PM, now it's only 8:00 PM. That's why the TV had wisely moved the recordings to start at 9 PM. So I had to reschedule them again.

And the next day, DNA made channel changes, and so I had to schedule the same recordings for the third time.

Nice translations in ER, by the way. Kerry is often Carrie. And the character's name Lucien is "listen". 

 

 

 

HS confirmed what I already knew: I'm not an adult. So I can freely goof around for the rest of my life.

 

You should check out Disney's new movies.

Ps. One morning a few weeks ago I woke up to a terrible bang. I thought it is now really happening, the end of the world. Or a Russian invasion. But it was just thunder.