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Well, that was a waste of a mouseclick and a few seconds.

Please, I've already heard that song about eight times today ...

What?

Some kind of Halloween song.
Halloween here serves two purposes: to throw all sort of things at random houses, and to see friends getting drunk. I think the purpose of this festivity has been misinterpreted here in Portugal.

You forgot that halloween also exists for women to dress in rather odd and revealing clothing without the rist of being called a whore.

Traditionally it's known as All Hallows Eve, or the eve of All Hallow's day, which was renamed All Saints' Day, though the whole idea of spooks and spirits stems from the festival of Samhain.  You can blame the Irish, primarily, for starting the tradition.  It was believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead became somewhat thin on this day, and so it was associated with the dead.  Pretty much the modern tradition of Halloween is what remains of the old Samhain festival and its superstitions.

The modern holiday also has a nasty upstart cousin that usually happens on Oct. 30, and goes under various names.  Some call it Mischief Night, Damage Night, Hell Night (no, not the Doom kind, that starts with a K), or Devil's Night, among other things.  This is primarily a night of vandalizing and causing trouble by older teenage boys or men in their early 20's.  The consumption of alcohol or partaking of drugs often is part of this as well, as drunk or otherwise intoxicated individuals are a bit more likely to engage in the mischief making, though inebriation is not a prerequisite.

Halloween also seems to be associated with a lot of modern revelry of its own sort - drinking of alcohol being the primary component to any form of human revelry it seems, but the theme of ghosts and devils and ghouls of all kind I think appeals to man's darker nature to some degree, or at least, he sees it as another excuse to get together with other humans and get drunk anyway.  I think in addition, it's one of the few times that, barring a career in theater or as a sports team mascot, adults get to play dress-up without looking or feeling like complete buffoons.

In America, Halloween is mostly associated with children dressing up in costume, death-themed or otherwise, and going from door to door saying "Trick or Treat" and in return being given small amounts of candy.  Spooky decorations of property such as mock grave stones, fake spider webbing, spiders and bats and such, and the color theme of orange and black are present as well.

Now it is true that the association of the night with the dead and evil spirits I think has a certain appeal to people who actually are fascinated with the dead and/or evil spirits.  I would wager that a lot of people that believe in occult practices take Halloween quite seriously.  One could naturally assume that attempts to communicate with the dead or at summoning evil spirits would be more prevalent on this night than most others - especially by people who have no idea what they're doing and are just looking for a scary thrill.  Now there are many religious types who dislike Halloween because of its connection with death, and spooky imagery, and the dominant themes of evil undead and demonic-looking things.  My experience with Halloween has been that the night itself is mostly harmless unless it is humans, through the usual careless action associated with festivities, causing the problems.  I have dealt with more evil things on nights one would not associate with any tradition of the dead, and as for the demonic... I've yet to meet a demon that looks like something from a Hollywood movie, though Al Pacino comes kind of close.  ;)

I have a question for you Pho, did you know all that, or did you look it up?
Just wondering.

I did not need to look it up.

Halloween (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween) is quite clearly the best holiday ever.  And you bastards need to start coming to my house this way I don't have five pounds of candy left over each year.

Also, Halloween leads up to the Day of the Dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead) for Mexico with similar holidays celebrated elsewhere.

I would disagree that Halloween is the "best" holiday ever, but thank you for linking to a wiki article on it.  I think holidays are what you make of them.  I'm not much on observing holidays myself simply because tradition for tradition's sake is meaningless to me.  If you don't know why you're celebrating something, or where it came from, then what is the point?

It's like the commercialization of Christmas and Easter.  It's not about a guy in a red suit, or a bunny that gives out candy eggs, but those are what are remembered since they're the shortcut to corporate profits.  I care about what the day stands for, not what commerce has turned it into.  But then, who remembers the old ways anymore?

Should we? :P

I see what you're getting at, but I think there's room for both.  Look at it from another perspective, if you celebrated Yule, wouldn't you be upset that a Christian holiday has become synonymous with your own?  Yet there are still people who observe Yule and several other seasonal holidays.  I do agree with you that the names of both Christmas and Easter have become associated with entirely different traditions, but that doesn't mean you can't continue to practice the way you observe those days.  Who knows, maybe the secularized versions of Christmas and Easter will be called something else in the future.  (I just hope Christmas isn't called Wintereenmas.  Tim Buckley's web-comic leaving a lasting impression on society will make me a sad, sad panda.)

And as for Halloween being the best holiday, I was being facetious.  It's my favorite holiday, and I find it depressing that the people around me now do not celebrate it like those around me when I was younger.  I suspect you have a similar source of resentment towards the commercialized versions of Christmas and Easter.  I can respect that, but I myself prefer to celebrate the ideals of Santa Clause rather than the birth of Jesus Christ.

Indeed I am aware of the Christianizing of Yule (or Yuling of Christmas, however one chooses to see it), but do you know the history behind Santa Claus?  Did you know there was a real Saint Nicholas? (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=371)  He did not fly around in a sleigh pulled by enchanted reindeer, but he's the inspiration for the merry fellow in the red suit, and yes, he is a cannonized Catholic Saint.  I invite you to read about the history of the real man behind the beloved figure of tradition.  The ideals of St. Nicholas are very much Christian ideas, so what you're actually celebrating are the Christian ideals of charity, compassion, love, sacrifice, and generosity - the same ideals that Santa Claus is supposed to represent, but one should also note that Santa Claus rewards virtue and punishes wrongdoing, as did the living St. Nicholas.  That is, those children who are "nice" are given presents, those who are "naughty" a lump of coal, or that's how it's supposed to work anyway.  The problem in this day is that, since it is parents doing the gift giving, the naughty children are far too often rewarded along with the nice ones, and Santa Commerce only rewards the retailers and stock holders, but I digress...

My only point is that you can celebrate a holiday however you choose, indeed personal meaning is more important to me than anything else in these matters, but knowing the history behind traditions adds depth that would otherwise be lacking and helps one greatly to better appreciate them.

This is, by the way, the same Saint Nicholas that led to the "Children's Holiday" "Sinterklaas" (Sint Nicolaas) in the Netherlands. Perhaps interesting to note: Sinterklaas looks a lot more like a classical saint (wearing a mitre, tabbard, and lugging around a staff), than the oddballish Santa Claus.

More or less.  Those ideals are not limited solely to Christianity, but I respect any person who exemplifies them.  I see holidays as a means for human beings to be excellent to each other.  It's a shame we need an excuse to justify it, but I'd rather have peace for a day than linger in uncertainty.

An official product of the Coca-Cola Company. :ninja:

The oddball one, that is ...

Kain:  I wholeheartedly agree with you.  I just wish that humans would learn to be excellent to each other all the time as a rule.  I'm not content with having peace for just a day.  I'm hoping for having peace for eternity, though a good day here and there is never unwelcome.

Tab:  I've seen several depictions of Sinterklaas in both painting and sculpture.  Personally I like the Dutch version better than the "Coca-Cola" version as Scalliano puts it.  He's less commercial and more believable, much closer to the fact behind the myth, as it were.

Now that's a strange subtaciation of a useless post.

This started as a stupid and useless topic about a song about halloween that, somehow, you managed to twist into a fairly intelligent topic.

 :slippy_love:

I don't subtaciate.  I subvert. -_-

 I bought my nephew a new Sony PSP slim & lite for Xmas. It says you can connect to the TV, great, except no cable bundled in the box. A trip to the local games store revealed that you can get the cable but it costs ?12.99, and if you want to display games on your TV then you need a component (RGB) connection, which  I haven`t got. To convert the RGB to the TV I will have to buy another adapter RGB to Scart, another ?25.

 Next I find out that you will need a memory card to save games and play music ?25, or to play music i could get a USB cable, no not a standard USB cable costing ?2 but a special USB cable costing ?9.

 To top it all I cannot get the damn thing to connect to the Network and I feel that I have been well and truly ripped off.

I read "Sony Ripoff" and immediately thought that we were going to talk about Sony stealing their tilt-controller idea from Nintendo...

I gave up on Sony products about a decade ago anyway. Everything they make nowadays is shoddy, low quality junk it seems.

Much like the X360 then :ninja:

I find a lot of what is made is shoddy, low quality junk in this age.  The pyramids are still standing, yet what made today ever lasts?  Newer is not always better.

Well, to be fair, there's plenty of pyramids that aren't still standing, having crumpled or collapsed. Most of the newest (latest) pyramids are fairly intact. Ofcourse, tons more would have been built and would likely have collapsed, if the pyramid would have become a mass-market product like the junk of this age. Finally, although big pyramids still stand tall, very few of them, if any at all, still have working yakuzi's and hi-fi systems..

;] This Has Been A Tongue-In-Cheek Interjection -- Proceed.

Amen to that. I just had to ditch a bunch of fairly new furniture because it was retaining moisture and starting to grow mold! Now mind you, none of my older furniture has had this problem. It's all actual wood with a fine finish. This newer stuff though is some sort of mashed together man made wood-like substance. Particle board, I believe is its proper name. The stuff comes with an almost plastic finish, and none of it is entirely finished at that! Only the visible areas are, not little lips that could be seen if you bend down even. The sad thing is, this kind of stuff is far, far more expensive than going out and buying real wood and putting something together myself would be.

I think I'm just going to replace it all with some sleek, modern looking metal/glass furniture actually. :P

Particle board is the correct name, and they build houses with that now too.  I've seen what tornadoes do to them.  I've seen what fire does to them.

Tab:  Yes, but you can't take down the Great Pyramid by flying an airplane into it now can you?

Just wait until some Egyptians start offending the right people; there'll be a van parked next to Cheops's pyramid and before you know it, there'll be a whole the size of ballpark in that thing!

Or.. maybe not. :]

yeah, I don't quite recall there ever being an attack on a pyramid...

In Soviet Russia, pyramid attack YOU!