Log - 31 October 2011 - Hallowieners.

Up until now, I've been at several meetings held by the local stone museum about the annual Halloween event that they have started arranging each year, though I didn't really contribute with any other ideas that me wandering around in my Xanador Nekrid costume again, scaring off the kids and showing them which way to go and such. On the day before, most of the people involved with this event drove up to the mines where it would all take place, there we were told that one of the air shafts of the lower mine had collapsed, pouring rocks and other sediments all over the entrance of the lower mine, leaving quite a crater by the higher mine that had to be sealed off for the event, so this year the lower mine was closed, rearranging the path through the mines quite a lot. Ever since I made up the character Xanador Nekrid all those years ago, I had one costume in particular in mind, looking like a blue, long version of the red jacket worn by Michael Jackson in his music video "Thriller", so this year I wanted to finally make that jacket from an old blue leather jacket I had bought just for that purpose many years ago. The jacket itself turned out looking great, only half the jacket was missing from the waist down. I was supposed to color some light tan leather with a blue wax color I had bought earlier for this jacket, but the colors just didn't match, then I started experimenting with various blue and green markers and even bought several more expensive markers that still didn't make the color match. With Halloween right around the corner, all of a sudden a large flea market took place nearby, so I came along with my parents to this place where I luckily found an old blue leather chair for only 50 NOK that very much matched the color of the jacket. I also got to stay there long enough for the "bag sale" to begin, then I filled a whole bag full of clothes made of various neat fabrics that I can make other things from, and I even grabbed a black leather jacket into the bag as well, something that might come in handy for either my Darth Vader costume or my Alien costume. Later when returning home, I decided to peal apart the old chair at my parents house instead so they could easily discard of the rest later on instead of me dragging the whole thing to my apartment. Later when all of the real leather and pleather was isolated, I colored the blue leather a bit darker with black shoe polish until the color matched well enough with the jacket, then the whole thing was completed shortly after at last. And so Halloween was here, and I was preparing my makeup and costume at my parents house before being driven up to the mines where I was told I was free to do what I wanted to in there. At the entrance, we were told that a news team from the main national TV station called NRK was filming around in the mines, so I grabbed a helmet and walked into the middle of the mines and hoped that they would film me too. I removed the helmet of course and started sneaking around in the mines, probably even freaking out the people who were also there to scare the kids. That's what I love about this costume, it doesn't even look like me when I'm wearing all that makeup and the veneers in my mouth that somewhat alter my face, and all the people whoever they are think I look completely insane and scary like a nightmare. Even having a soar throat gave me an even darker, scarier voice than usual with a growly breathing sound, so that added a lot to it too. Eventually the kids and their parents arrived, and I had to show them the way down the stairs even though I was not supposed to point out the way this year, but since the lower mine had collapsed at the entrance, this years path involved the people walking in the upper mine's entrance, down the middle stairs, around some tunnels, back up the stairs and into the meeting hall next to the stairs that I had to keep them away from unless they had come back up the stairs. Not much of an interesting path this year, but the kids thought I was scary as hell and started screaming and running when they saw me. I didn't really say or do much though since I was not feeling too well and was still sick from before, but I'd say I scared them well enough even so just by looking like I did. Apart from me, there were people jumping up from crates, jumping out from holes and from behind poles, plus ghosts, spiders, skeletons, witches, bats, and even a grave yard that I had helped put up the day before. The TV crew that was there had filmed many of these things, then all of a sudden they came over to me and filmed my scary face and costume for quite some time, so I was hoping they would use that footage later and was almost counting on it since I was something pretty darn out of the usual standing in there. After sneaking around the cave tunnels some more and scaring kids for a while, I decided to start taking some photos of everything and my own costume in the mines before the whole thing ended, then in the end I got a bag of candy and was pretty much pleased that I got to wear this costume this year after having planned that blue jacket for years already. Walking out of the mines, I wandered around at the camp-fires they had set up everywhere and even scared a few kids there too, then I got back to my parents house after that to see if I would be on TV or not, and sure enough I was featured in both the local news program and the national news program on the same night, making it the second time I've been on TV wearing a costume. Before taking the costume off again, I asked my mother if she could take some photos of me in the forest right outside their house now that I was wearing it in the first place after having planned that costume for many years, then a few different photos were taken of me, sitting on the ground looking insane and leaning against trees and such. This was a good day to be Xanador Nekrid indeed.