Halloween 2019

Hello everyone! Happy Halloween for another year!

Mine was pretty good this year. Starting out with the annoying, I intended to do 31 reviews this year's october, one for each day of the month, or at least a decent amount. Spotty power and internet hindered me for a couple of early days though, and then I ended up ultra busy with like five different things, and the amount of movies I needed to catch up on just got beyond me. I managed to watch them all, including the ultra-long Indian and Pakistani movies, and my reviews were all just about finished, but I didn't feel confident about mass-posting like 10 reviews all the day before Halloween. So I just figured "Oh hell, it's bad enough Halloween's falling on a work day again. Don't worry about giving myself a heart attack. Just post 'em sometime in november." And so I will!

Moving onto the positives, I had a nice day when I got home, with homemade jelly and custard, as well as chocolatey snacks. I had a spooky marathon of the Lon Chaney Jr. anthology series Inner Sanctum, containing such 'classics' as Calling Doctor Death, The Frozen Ghost, Weird Woman, and Pillow of Death!

Then there's my costume. I had no materials to make a DIY costume this year, so I came up with an idea-Make a sugar skull and use it as a makeshift mask! Since this would be my first attempt at making one of them this size, I fully expected it to crumble, but I figured I could use this to my advantage and hold up part of the mask to my face, like Phantom of the Opera. Perfect planning!

However...

I made my sugar skull out of, well, sugar, and meringue powder, with water to bind it together. I didn't use proper meringue powder though (which has more ingredients than the name suggests). I used literal meringue powder by making meringues. The first mistake came when I broke open the two eggs in the bowl and started mixing, only to realise to late I'd forgotten to separate the yolks firs. Oops! I  guess this means I have ready-made scrambled eggs for tomorrow's breakfast! I tried again and got it right this time, putting them in the oven at 200 degrees. That is what you're meant to do with meringues, right? Blast them in for a short period at/on the highest heat possible?...Yeeeppp, I also realised too late that it's the opposite! You cook/bake them for a long time on the lowest possible temperature. The meringues ended up soft and eggy, with a darker brown exterior Thankfully though these outer parts were crispy and dry enough to crush to powder! This wasn't all for nothing! Although in fairness, no decision that ends up with meringues could be classified as a failure).

I added a dash of cream of tartar to the powder and mixed with the sugar, then left the stuff to firm up in a skull mould overnight, though I was worried because I didn't have enough mixture to fill the mould, so easily popping it out wasn't a possibility. Thankfully it did come out mostly in one piece, but didb't stay that way as I attempted holding it up to my face. Ah well not entirely successful but not a complete disaster either.

The pumpkin carving was fun too, minus the long drawn out process of disemboweling it. He ended up with a happy face on one side, and a recreation of Friday the 13th Part IV's poster on another. Fabulous!

I hope all of you had a pleasantly nightmarish time, and may you do so again next year!...