"I’d like to play a game…"

The picture is from the downloads section of Saw III’s official website.
Click on it and it will take you there.

It’s been a painful wait, from finding out Saw III is in our cinemas, to actually getting to see it. I love the first two Saw movies, a friend of mine got me hooked even though I generally don’t like horror movies. I found the Saws to be different. There still is the excessive gore, a psychopath and a victim… however, the twist and the motive are original and, at least for me, have been completely unexpected.

During the movie there were quite a few times I wanted to close my eyes shut, not seeing the broken bones, the skull being cracked open, the man swimming in liquid pigs… but I did, never the less, out of fear of missing something important. I think it needs to be said at this point that I even have problems watching bad kung-fu movies, the sound and almost-sight of bones breaking isn’t too good for me. I can almost feel the pain and I’m not very good at dealing with it. However, the Saws… Curiosity got the best of me, I love a good plot line - or a good psycho movie, preferably both in one, as in the Saw.

It’s a little tough, writing about the good parts of the movie without actually giving away the plot. But I suppose my point is, I like the movie, it’s worth seeing even if, in my opinion, I and II were better. III just has a more emotional, background-ish feel to it and I liked the coldness in the previous ones.

Korpiklaani in Maribor

On a Saturday, two weeks ago, my cousin and I sat on a train headed towards Maribor. I’ve only been there once before and most of that visit was spent being lost, where the rest of it was spent in a very small venue, enjoying a Korpiklaani concert - and that was exactly what I planned to do once more.

When we arrived to Maribor we began our quest - for a map! We found one outside the train station and because we both have equally horrible memories, we entrusted the directions to a digital camera. In the end we didn’t really need it because it turned out my memory isn’t as bad as I thought, and I actually remembered the right way from last year. Finding Pekarna was also quite easy because it looks a lot like Metelkova Mesto in Ljubljana.

This year’s venue was a little bigger than last year’s but the Finns still managed to turn it upside down. Polka dancing, mosh pits, headbanging, jumping around, singing are all normal and seen on any gig, but Korpiklaani just make it so much more intense. However, I wasn’t up to all of it, my blood pressure fell again and to avoid blacking out I was forced to move to somewhere where air was actually available. The last half of the show was spent next to a wall with a cold beer. (Not that it stayed cold for very long.)

Jonne, the singer had the most horrible of colds and virtually no voice. However, he warmed up quite fast and was full of energy never the less. The only thing that disappointed me was the duration of the gig. Korpiklaani played only for around an hour and a half. Due to Jonne’s sickness I suppose. Though, at the after party, when I saw how much they drank, I started to wonder if it was really a cold or was it just nights of drinking that piled up. :P

I still believe they are one of the best live bands to be seen, but even though it was a great show, nothing could really surpass last year’s.

A video of Cottages And Saunas

Samhain, Halloween and the Day of the Dead

So I have survived! Go figure…

I’m not a big fan of the neo-pagan view of the Sabbaths, but this year I decided to celebrate Samhain never the less. It seemed appropriate to welcome the coming of autumn, since it is my favourite and to me, the most beautiful season. I lit a candle and put some food out on the window shelf as an offering for the dead. The dead, I believe, came in the form of a stray cat. ;) I hung maple leaves around my room and generally enjoyed the day.

As for Halloween, we got some pumpkins from relatives and attacked them with knives, forks, spoons and all that jazz usually intended for eating. I carved a Jareth - David Bowie face into one, or better put, I tried to. My cousin and her cousin did a Helloween pumpkin, as a way of paying respect to German metal, I suppose. But that pumpkin was specially impossible to carve and in the end, dad came to the rescue with a saw.

We invite the dead over until midnight and after midnight we just seem to move the party to their place. This year I avoided the mass pilgrimages to burial sites, cemeteries and churches, I don’t like huge masses of people very much. For me, paying respects to a departed loved one just can’t be done when there are a hundred people next to me, chatting about the weather and how much the candles cost this year. I’ll go to my grandfather’s grave tomorrow, with my grandmother, I haven’t been there in a while, the cemetery is too far for me to randomly stop there. Sometimes I stop at my town’s cemetery when I’m going home from a friend’s house. It’s on the way, calming and quiet, candles and streetlights throwing a soft orange light on the church. I’ll have to take a camera with me sometime, it’s really a very beautiful sight.

This picture always reminds me of autumn, of dried fruit, of mittens and scarves and freezing in the morning…(Gustav Klimt - Sea Serpents)

Preface

I changed my blogsite - again. I thought I’d never find something suitable, but I was wrong, I stumbled upon this jewel of a blogging service. The speed with which it responds to my desires is strangely pleasing at best and very relaxing, after Wordpress’s torture, at worst. There was only one problem - the templates. I hated all of them. The current one I liked best, but the spaces behind each letter in the title bothered me too much, after a few hours I figured out how to fix it. (Is it obvious I’m not a computer person?)