13 days of Hallowe'en: 1

The day of!

Man. What a busy time! The post went up empty - I wrote titles but left the posts blank hoping that would encourage me to return and fill them in.

I didn't.

Until now, Nov 2, where I will now share some Oct 31 photos from the senior's centre I work at.

I call these things 'baby ghouls' and consist of a baby's onesie stuffed with crumpled newspaper and small balloons, with a mangled coathanger for framing and to hook into the dropped ceiling. I made one and helped the residents of the seniors' home make the others.

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 2

I don't know that this image really worked. I like the idea of connecting Hallowe'en with knives and blood remover but maybe the text is too small.

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 3: Stross's Laundry Files

I have emphasized how much I like fun and comedy in my horror, to the point of the genre not really being horror any more. As I have aged, my tastes have moved toward more 'scary' horror and Stross's story has shifted in a similar way.
A skilled computer programmer learns that electronic intelligences - computers - are attractive of other supernatural intelligences. At least some of the intelligences are similar to the Elder Gods of Lovecraft's writing. The spy agency involved first met above a laundry.  The first few books are an introduction to the problem and characters and are Cthulhu meets James Bond meets The Office. Later, the bureaucracy snafus fade and the horror digs in.

I post on the subject today because tomorrow, another book in the series is being released!

Stross's website
Wikipedia on The Laundry Files
A reading order or timeline
Book launches for the Labyrinth Index

The Labyrinth Index on Kindle, available August 30!

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 4

My wife is skilled at the Korean art of Hanji, or papercraft. This jack-o-lantern is made of thick paper, heavier but similar to cardboard but with no corrugations, and thin orange paper. And hours of careful cutting.

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 5, mind control!

I have a few good hallowe'en posts still up my sleeve. "Good" meaning some sort of spooky fun or humourous takes on horror themes. So I may double up in the future. To be sure of Hallowe'en content now, let me compare science and some science fiction regarding mind control.

Parasite that control the minds of their hosts:

Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that normally infects cats and rats. Among other things, it seems to make rats less sensitive to the scent of cat urine, meaning that if they smell it, they don't immediately run away. This makes them easier targets for cats. The thing is, lots of people have cats. And this means that lots of people have also been infected by T gondii. From Wikipedia:

Looking at humans, studies using the Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor questionnaire found that infected men scored lower on Factor G (superego strength/rule consciousness) and higher on Factor L (vigilance) while the opposite pattern was observed for infected women.[75] This means that men were more likely to disregard rule and were more expedient, suspicious and jealous. On the other hand, women were more warm hearted, outgoing, conscientious and moralistic.[75] Mice infected with T. gondii have a worse motor performance than non-infected mice.[76][77] Thus, a computerized simple reaction test was given to both infected and non-infected adults. It was found that the infected adults performed much more poorly and lost their concentration more quickly than the control group. But, the effect of the infection only explains less than 10% of the variability in performance[75] (i.e., there could be other confounding factors). Correlation has also been observed between seroprevalence of T. gondii in humans and increased risk of traffic accidents. Infected subjects have a 2.65 times higher risk of getting into a traffic accident.[78] A similar study done in Turkey showed that there is a higher incidence of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies among drivers who have been involved in traffic accidents.[79] Furthermore, this parasite has been associated with many neurological disorders such as schizophrenia. In a meta-analysis of 23 studies that met inclusion criteria, the seroprevalence of antibodies to T. gondii in people with schizophrenia is significantly higher than in control populations (OR=2.73, P<0 .000001="" a="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#cite_note-TorreyMeta-80">[80]

More recent studies found that suicide attempters has significantly higher IgG antibody levels to T. gondii than patients without a suicide attempt.[81] Infection was also shown to be associated with suicide in women over the age of 60. (P<0 .005="" a="" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#cite_note-Ling2011-82">[82]So crazy cat ladies? The behaviors may be caused by parasites.
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There are a lot of tabloid-esce posts on the subject of parasites that affect human behavior. Here is a relatively measured post from Discovery Magazine that looks at a few parasites, including rabies.

Wikipedia has a good introduction to a wide range of parasites that affect the behavior of their normal hosts. One they describe is the horse hair worm that, after eating the insides of their insect prey, cause it to leap into water and drown. I have personally seen such parasites in South Korea and in Canada. Both photos below were taken in Korea:

I sure made the ten-year-old boys who carried this worm in their bare hands wash their hands repeatedly and thoroughly! 

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One science-based comic I read often offered this comparison of how a parasitic fungus of ants might similarly affect humans:

Follow the link to see the end -not really punchline - of this comic. Click on the red dot below the comic for an extra panel.

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This is probably my most horrific post based on Hallowe'en. Lighter fare coming!

13 days of Hallowe'en, day 6, Halloween photo editting

I really like Photofunia.

fotor is okay, too.

Funny.pho.to is good. A strange effect with my glasses, though.

13 days of Hallowe'en. Day 7, Jonathan Coulton

With only 13 days to manage, I have still managed to mess up my scheduled posts. There will be 13 posts, I, uh, hope. But we are going to have two today.

I know Coulton as a novelty song musician. Here is his Wikipedia page. He has at least one heartfelt song about how having a daughter has changed him and I like it. I mostly know him for the x-rated First of May and for his many horror-themed songs that fit this time of year.

Brett J Talley agrees and has JC included in his dyslexic version of my theme, 31 days of Hallowe'en. Ah, I might have independently chosen the same songs at BJT; he has three videos in his post as I do.

13 days of Hallowe'en: Day 8, Louisa May Alcott!

I am actually uncertain how horrific this story is, but I will soon read it. The book caught my eye as I normally think of Little Women, not Egyptian Pyramids when I hear of Alcott.
Curse of the Mummy on Amazon - $1.36 Canadian

Or from Gutenberg, free but without special formatting.

13 days of Hallowe'en: Day 9, Handy Spooky music.

Haunted house sounds. Below is an image - don't try to get the sounds by clicking on it. Or do, I would find that hilarious!

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Other Haunted house sounds.
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Spookhaus.

13 days of Hallowe'en: Day 10, Central Ontario Events I am interested in

Meet the Ghosts of S.S. Keewatin.

The Keewatin is a 111 year old ship that was built in England and sailed across the Atlantic. Then, because it wouldn't fit through the locks, it was cut in half and brought through then rebuilt. It is a cool ship with features that would later be reused in the Titanic - not the vulnerability to icebergs but the elegance and luxury. The tour looks pretty cool.

Pumpkin Inferno at Discovery Harbour

The pumpkins in these photos look pretty cool, don't they.

Too bad they're fake! I was impressed with the craftsmanship that went into the carvings until I found the 'pumpkins' were some plastic material like expanding insulation. The event is still good, but not as great because of the materials.

Coldwater had its Witches Walk already and I missed it. But I have heard great things about it so look at going next year! It's Steampunk Festival was fantastic.

13 days of Hallowe'en, Day 11. Tim Burton

I am of the right age that Burton's movies probably shaped my views of Hallowe'en, but of course I figure it is the other way around; His movies best fit my Hallowe'en expectations.

 Tim Burton (Wikipedia)*

Burton's own website. Requires updated Flash Player and may be the first good reason I have seen to update!

Image from IMDB.

Image from Mt Rushmore Podcast's episode on Tim Burton, which I only just found for the image for my blog and will shortly listen to.

Naturally, this means that Johnny Depp was one of my favorite actors. I don't know much about his recent troubles but enough that I do not say he remains a favorite.

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* In preparation for Nanowrimo, I recently donated to Wikipedia. During Nano, I often have five to fifteen different Wikipedia tabs open. The detail there is perfect for me; enough for a general familiarization but not so much I get bogged down.

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 12, Trunk or Treat

In South Korea, few Koreans understand the Canadian -and probably American - concept of Hallowe'en. Typically, they learn that they can wear masks and get candy.
As a youth, I would visit several dozen homes, walking several kilometers, in the process. In Korea, you could visit a hundred homes or apartments without leaving a single building. That would bankrupt the families offering treats and overload the kids with sugar even from a Hallowe'en perspective. So it would be strange to knock on doors in Korea and expect people to know why you were there.

So one my fellow ex-pats in Korea created an event, Trunk or Treat, for the local foreigners. There were problems with ESL schools visiting and cleaning us out or expecting ESL assistance so we had to make the event on Facebook private.

But when it worked, it worked very well! Images from 2014's Busan Trunk or Treat event.

We all met early enough to park the cars in good light and not threaten the children we had brought with us. Then we decorated the cars. I always arrived too late for the games but before dark the kids had a few games and then when it was dark enough, the kids went car to car, having their costumes admired and asking for and receiving candy.

Here is a how-to, if you want to organize your own. Or ask me in the comments for details.

13 days of Hallowe'en: day 13

My big holiday is Hallowe'en. In part this is because Koreans don't really do Hallowe'en and so my friends and I needed to work hard to fit the meaning - scary but also fun - into classes.

This is the first of 13 scary but fun, or in this case funny but a parody of horror, Hallowe'en treats.




You don't tend to see hospital directors carrying shotguns that often.