Ealra halgena mæsseæfen

(In case you're wondering, the title of my post is the Old English term for Halloween, or All Hallows' Mass Even, the oldest form of the word I could find.)

I don't know about you, but I feel like Halloween was more than a week ago. It seems like it's been a long week. Not because of anything bad or boring, it just seemed long. It wasn't a very eventful Halloween. I just watched some Halloween movies and occasionally gave candy to trick-or-treaters. I think we had about nineteen, which is better than it's been in years past. Probably because there was no stupid trunk or treat.

I was also happy to see a new (unofficial) Jan Terri video. I have enough new friends that this merits an explanation. In 2012, I had this fascination with Jan Terri, a YouTube singer whose songs and music videos are so terrible, they're unintentionally hilarious. It's a long story, but I ended up with an autographed picture, and some friends and I even had a Jan Terri party. Her "best" video is "Get Down Goblin," a Halloween song, and in 2012 (about six months after I got CDs from her), she released a second Halloween song, "The Count," which was a ripoff of "Get Down Goblin." But someone made a video for "The Count," and it's a shame it has so few views, because they really put in a lot of effort. Most significantly, they made a Jan Terri puppet that looks just like her!

Permit me to spend a few moments complaining about things that drive me crazy. Last week, I updated to Microsoft Word 2016. I was hoping that the new version would have fixed the single most annoying thing. But nope, it' still stupid.

And what is this stupid thing? Well, if you go a few seconds without moving your mouse, the scroll bar on the right fades out. That means if you want the visual representation of how long the document is, or where you are on it, you have to move your mouse. It's terrible. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea. And what's worst about it is that there are absolutely no benefits of it. If you shrink the window so that the scroll bar is covering the words, when it fades out, it still covers the words. In the below image, the blue is a different window. The blank space is where the scroll bar is--it's faded out, but it's still covering the words. Dumb dumb dumb.

I want to punch whoever did this in the face. Not really, because I'm a pacifist. But they need to fix it, and they need a lecture on not doing pointless things that are more work and just make it worse. Ugh.

Another thing that bugs me is unintelligent people on Facebook. One of the things that is a sure sign you are unintelligent is if you find a moderately amusing meme or video and then tag fifty people in it. I'm not talking about two or three of your closest friends for whom it is relevant, but when you do half your friends list and it doesn't have anything to do with them. It's not that doing that is unintelligent per se, but all the stupid people seem to do it. I can say this because I don't think any of my Facebook friends do that. Just their dumb friends do.

I sent in my ballot this week. And in an unexpected twist, I cast my ballot for Evan McMullin. Now, before you tell me, "No! A vote for McMullin is a vote for Hillary!"--well, I was going to vote for Hillary anyway. I have two hopes for this election. The first is for Trump not to win. I just don't understand how the GOP picked him. There were lots of Republicans who wanted to be president, and not all of them were good, but all of them were better than Trump. They picked the worst possible candidate--a bully ("Lyin' Ted Cruz," "Crooked Hillary"), a bigot (banning Muslims), and a pervert (the lewd audio and his subsequent non-apology). I legitimately lose respect for people when they support Trump, especially when they supported him before he was the nominee.

The second hope I have is for Utah not to vote Republican--not just because of Trump, but in general. I hate the whole idea of "I'm a Republican, so I have to vote for the Republican nominee," or "I'm a Democrat, so I have to vote for the Democrat nominee." No. One party does not have all the answers. I want Utah to see beyond that.

I was going to vote for Hillary for these reasons. People call her crooked and dishonest, but outside of the email scandal, they rarely provide evidence--and when they do provide evidence, it's from conservative click-bait sites that are less reliable than Fox News. A few months ago, I took some political quizzes, and I sided most with Hillary.

 I actually voted for a third party in 2012 (when my vote didn't matter), but this time around, I thought Hillary was the most likely to defeat Trump. But then the polls showed McMullin beating Hillary in Utah. And then I thought I would take the quiz again, because I recognize that my opinions might change a little from day to day. So I took it again, and McMullin was my top pick! He hadn't been part of the quiz when I took it previously. (I don't have an image, sorry.) I was shocked. Most McMullin supporters seem to be conservative, and while I don't consider myself a liberal, I think I'm more liberal than most of my friends. So I gladly voted for McMullin. But then after I submitted my ballot, I learned Hillary was beating McMullin in other polls. So maybe I made the wrong choice. But I think she'll win the election, which will be just fine with me.

I voted for Governor Gary Herbert, because I've been impressed with him for the most part. I think he does what he thinks is right, regardless of what the party thinks. I haven't agreed with everything he's done (most notably, buying into the anti-Planned Parenthood fake video), but for the most part I've liked him.

I was shocked that Super Dell Schanze was on the ballot for governor. How ridiculous! What an insane person! ...And then I remembered a certain presidential nominee on the other side of the ballot.

Since November is my favorite month, and it has been dry, I had to go to my favorite place, North Canyon. I've never been there in November before. Remember that deer carcass two weeks ago? This was all that was left yesterday.

These plants--I think they're dogwood--are bright red in April. Then they get leaves and are actually less pretty. Then in November they're kind of purple.

I see random things sometimes. A baby boot is one of them.

November may be the least pretty month I've seen there, but I still love it. North Canyon is the prettiest trail around, and it's just enough of a challenge to feel accomplished. But I didn't completely make it yesterday--I ran the whole way up, but I walked a lot of the way down.

***

Pumpkinundation roundup is changing, now that Halloween is over. I don't consider caramel apples a Thanksgiving thing, so they're out now. But I'm adding pecan pie and apple pie to the mix, because those have become increasingly common this year. Pumpkin is staying, as is candy corn. After Halloween, I tend to go overboard getting leftover candy corn. I went overboard again, but most of it wasn't candy corn. I have a lot of things that I bought that I haven't been able to try yet.

 I'm glad they still had this Dairy Queen Apple Pie Blizzard, because DQ seems to have moved on to Christmas. Because of the nutmeg, at first it tasted like a pumpkin or eggnog Blizzard. But there are pieces of apple and "crust" in it that genuinely make it taste like apple pie à la mode. But the crust bits were a bit crunchier than I would have liked for a pie. 4.5/5.

 So Apple Pie Tic Tacs are a thing now. I pretend Tic Tacs are mints, but they really don't make my mouth feel clean. These taste like apple at first, and then some sweeter flavors kick in. These are definitely the best fruity Tic Tacs I've had--and maybe the best Tic Tacs period. But they're still just Tic Tacs. 3.5/5.

 These Thick & Fluffy Pumpkin Spice Eggos were part of my Halloween breakfast. I thought they'd be more like a regular waffle, but they still have that styrofoam texture of regular Eggos. But I like the texture. They also did a good job with the pumpkin flavor. Lots of pumpkin items just pretend to have the flavor, but this is the real deal. 4/5.

 These Franz pumpkin spice English muffins are less clovey than their bagel counterparts, but clove is still the dominant flavor. 3/5.

 I hadn't had a Kneaders pumpkin chip cookie this year until this week. It's hard to go wrong with this kind of cookie. This one has more of a spicy flavor than most, which is neither a good nor a bad thing. 4/5.

 Subway doesn't get a lot of my money because they don't do many seasonally themed things. That's why I'm delighted they have three Thanksgiving-themed items now. They have an autumn carved turkey sandwich with a cranberry mustard (a tasty sandwich--5/5), and pumpkin spice cookies (which I had last month), and Subway apple pie cookies. It has a strong apple flavor--definitely dried apples, but apples nevertheless. The one I had was baked to perfection, as far as softness goes. 4/5.

 We still had some fresh apples from our neighbor's tree, which hangs over into our yard, so I had to make a homemade apple pie. 5/5.

 My mom brought home Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread. It's basically a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie in bread form. 5/5.

 I also had a sample of the chocolateless Kneaders pumpkin bread. It's tasty and pumpkiny. 4.5/5.

 This Candy-Ville Harvest Pumpkin Pie Pop is an unusual item. Thankfully, it's not a hard candy, because that would take forever to eat. You know those melting candies you buy at the craft store to put in candy molds? Those are made for their prettiness, not for taste. This pop is a crust with that kind of candy in it. It didn't taste pumpkiny to me. And then I found the stick totally pointless. I think it would be easier to eat with your hands. 2/5.

 Believe it or not, these Pumpkin Pie Toaster Strudels are the first Toaster Strudels I've had in my entire life. I can see that I've been missing out. I loved them. But I didn't find the pumpkin filling that noticeable, and I don't know what other varieties taste like. It was the crust and the icing that were the star of the show. But they're a big enough star to merit 5/5.

 I've had some astounding pumpkin pie almonds, so these Brach's Double Crunch Pumpkin Pie Almonds were disappointing. There's a candy coating (like an M&M or Skittle) on top of a white chocolate-like confection on top of an almond. These were supposed to taste like fall, but to me they tasted like Easter. I'm not sure why. These should have been so much better. 3/5.

 The Archer Farms candy corn trail mix isn't as good as its pumpkin spice counterpart. It's peanuts, raisins, candy-covered pretzel balls, and candy corn. Candy corn goes surprisingly well with nuts, but I thought the other things were a little much. 3.5/5.

And then, not technically belonging on here, I made some mincemeat pies, also using fresh apples. But I used canned beef. Most recipes call for suet rather than regular meat. I don't even know what suet is. But I like this recipe.