Some movies are so good at building tension and a sense of impending doom that they don't even need to have a monster or a boogeyman in sight for you to get the 'heebie jeebies' and I think that sometimes that can be the mark of a truly great movie. I love the horror genre and I cannot deny that sometimes I genuinely thirst for an all out gorefest, which lately has been more than sated by the Ash vs Evil Dead Series on Stan; if you haven't seen it yet make the time - it is comedy-horror gold! But I am getting off track here, what I am trying to say is that just because I enjoy an all out horrorfest in every sense of the word, that does not mean that I do not appreciate the art of making gripping and engaging movies that are slow burning or subtle in their interpretations of horror. 
I know that I often get annoyed about thrillers being marketed as horror movies, because it seems to happen so often these days, but that does not mean that I don't appreciate the art of a well made, edge of your seat, thriller. And there have been so many of these gems over the years that have been sadly overlooked by people that claim to "not be a fan of horror." Just because you don't want to see someone getting disemboweled or decapitated by a chainsaw in a movie, that does not mean that you don't like all horror, especially today with so many movies being incorrectly marketed. 
In my opinion there are actually a large number of horror genres, not just one, and it all usually just get tossed (quite incorrectly) into the one 'horror' basket, which is really disappointing and drives away hordes of non-horror fans who think that it is all the same. 
I am here to help you out, because in my opinion, there are at least 10 horror sub-cateogories that range from face meltingly scary to pre-teen safe, and I have listed them all below. 
Intense Graphic Horror (always rated R 18+)
You wouldn't take your nanna or your kids to these movies, they are gory AF and even some seasoned horror fans struggle with the intensely gross and disturbing footage in them. These are most definitely not for the people that say that they do like horror. Examples: Wyrmwood, Hellraiser, Raw, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead, Silent Hill and 28 Days Later.
Horror Comedy 
Can be gory as well, but doesn't have to be. This genre is not taking itself seriously at all and is extremely good fun, as many laughs as scares. Examples: Ghostbusters, What We Do in the Shadows, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead and Beetlejuice. 
Monster Horror
Creature type action here, some malformed or completely unnatural abomination stalking about with generally ill intent. All of your classic horror icons like vampires, Frankenstein and werewolves would fit in here. Examples: Dracula, IT, American Werewolf in London, Let the Right One In and It Follows.
Supernatural Horror
Ghosts, ghouls, spirits, ouija boards and things that go bump in the night, sometimes the ratings can be as low as PG and there isn't usually much blood because ghosts don't bleed. Examples: Paranormal Activity, The Others, Insidious, The Shining, The Orphanage and The Exorcist.
Slasher 
Axe wielding, chainsaw carrying or knife totting (sometimes inbred) sicko on a rampage. Thin on the ground storyline, tonnes of blood. Examples: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hush, You're Next, Scream and Sweeney Todd.
Torture Porn Horror (always rated R 18+) 
Slasher gone wild or weird arse experiments and long torture scenes with lots of bits getting sliced off people in the name of experimental surgery. Not for the faint hearted and generally my least favourite type of horror, often banned in certain countries. Examples: The Human Centipede, Martyrs, Saw and Hostel. 
Science Fiction Horror
Usually set in space or on another planet, generally has aliens in it but not always and often has an R rating because it can sometimes be quite graphic in content. Examples: Alien, A Quiet Place, Event Horizon, The Thing, Annihilation, Cloverfield and Under the Skin.
Thriller/Psychological Horror
Just about always incorrectly marketed as horror and is often rated M or MA 15+, generally uses more subtle and atmospheric forms of fear to scare and can be crime based. Examples: Get Out, Don't Breathe, The Visit, The Silence of the Lambs, Rosemary's Baby and Psycho. 
Art House Horror 
What the fuck is going on here? Weird, sometimes violent and more often than not utterly indescribable. A lot of unfulfilling endings, creepiness out the wazoo and confusing interludes. Examples: Kill List, Creep, Suspiria, A Field in England, The Skin I Live In and The Wailing.
Intense Slow Burner Horror
Increasing states of paranoia and dread, not a lot actually happens on screen and the horror is usually implied. Can be PG rated and is generally very subtle and left open ended. Examples: It Comes At Night, Here Alone, The Jacket and Monsters. 

So, in light of all that, you can now see that dread does come in many, many forms. Horror is most certainly not just one category, but comes in many subtle variations, and that there is more than likely some horror movies that would appeal to just about everyone's taste. You don't have to be a hardcore slasher or gorefest fan to get something out of a gripping and engaging thriller that won't necessarily keep you up at night. Don't be put off by the horror label, it is so often very misleading. 

Whilst perusing Pinterest yesterday an advertisement popped up for Neuralink's new 'Smart Drug' which is basically a mind enhancement medication, which is now on the market and being promoted by Elon Musk who is offering free trials. These revolutionary tablets apparently improve a person's mental performance, problem solving abilities, concentration, efficiency and memory by (aka. up to) 97%, which sounds way too good to be true doesn't it? 
However, people that have trialled the drug are claiming that all of the above is true and more, in fact the people that took them said that they felt more focused and calm than they could have ever imagined that they would ever be, but to be honest I do wonder how much of a mess they were to begin with. Regular users are quoted as saying outrageously sensationalised statements like "it makes me into a Godlike sponge" whatever the fuck that means, or "I have never felt so engaged and capable before" which does sound positive, but again probably way too good to be true. 
There is absolutely no doubt that the idea of optimising yourself is appealing on many levels, but on a more realistic level, I also have a million questions to ask about these wonder tablets. Firstly, and foremostly, what the hell is in these tablets? Who or what have they tested them on? What are the long term effects of taking these kinds of enhancers? Are they addictive? And what happens if you just stop taking them?
I have watched way too many science fiction movies where people in the future quite innocently start to take human enhancing drugs only to wake up with something god awful growing out of them or one day just realising that they have totally lost their minds and the idea of eating their pet cat seems completely plausible. Yes, everyone wants to gets smarter, better, faster, stronger but no sane person wants to be a human guinea pig. 
However, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't curious and maybe even a little keen to try them for myself, but then on the other hand I do feel sad that we all feel so compelled to be continually pushing and stretching our personal limits as humans. I mean this is really just another prime example of us not being enough isn't it? Is this hunger to be more and perform better actually driving us further away from our own true natures as human beings? What will the world look like if we are all operating at a genius level anyway? And what happens to the people that choose not to get on board, or cannot afford to get onboard because the tablets will clearly come with a hefty price tag? Will being 'super smart' only be for the rich or elite? And how is that going to be fair?
Nope, there are too many unanswered questions for me at this point and there are way too many variables that I have serious concerns about before I am willing to get on board with this 'smart drug' of the future. I am all for enhancing the quality of life that I live and I am most definitely all about being alert and active, but I am not sure that being 97% more focused is really what I need in my life right now. If I was 97% more alert than I am already, then I think that my head would explode. If anything, I think that I need to get about 50% less focused!
However, regardless of how you feel about the progression that is being made in the field of human enhancements, they are occurring and it is absolutely inevitable that they are going to become a part of all of our futures, whether we choose to engage in it or not, and I do wonder a lot about what that future will look like for us all. 

It is always around Earth Day that our attention is drawn to our impact on the environment and our carbon footprint. No-one wants to be responsible for fucking the planet up for future generations, but on some level many of us actually are. After taking a quiz about my carbon footprint on the Earth Day website this morning I was horrified to learn that if everyone lived the same way the I do than we would need 4 Earths to deal with the impact that I am making! Woah, heavy! And I always thought that I was trying harder than the average bear when it comes to being ecological! Clearly, I am not doing nearly enough and the whole thing made me feel absolutely dreadful and completely guilt ridden, but I think that we all probably need a really good kick up the arse when it comes to our personal levels of environmental awareness, because being environmentally sound clearly takes a lot more effort and attention than most of us actually giving it. 
It is very easy to forget about our impact on the environment, and most of the time we don't even consider it at all. We allow ourselves to believe that someone who is far more passionate about environmental issues than we are is already out there fighting the good fight for us. This rather ridiculous belief allows us to become extremely flippant and lazy when it comes to being personally responsible for the environment, and for the most part dreadfully irresponsible. 
It is only in the last few years that I have really started to become more aware of my global footprint. I have made a concerted effort to try and be more eco-friendly and globally conscious. For example, we have installed solar panels on our home, we grow our own produce, we do errands and shop whilst we are in town to save on fuel consumption, we don't use plastic bags, we compost all of our green waste and we are avid recyclers. However, although we have made some positive changes, we are still not doing enough and with 4 Earths hanging over our heads, we need to do a hell of a lot more! 
In fact, Australia has one of the worst global footprints per capita than most of the world. We may have incredible beaches and an awesome lifestyle, but that all feels pretty shithouse when you realise that we are actually fucking up the globe by being dreadful unecological and environmentally unaware. The average global footprint per person in Australia is actually 4.8 Earths, which is something that we really need to do something about, and I do believe that awareness is key when it comes to change. 
The good news is that there are simple ways that each of us can reduce our global impact immediately, and they don't need to be huge changes, just small consistent ones. Here are some simple ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint and start to make a difference:

• Ride, walk, take public transport or carpool whenever you can.
• Don't speed when you drive! Speeding and unneccessary acceleration increase your mileage by up to 33% which wastes fuel and money. 
• Drive an eco-friendly car.
• If you must fly, always fly economy, it works like carpooling by sharing the emissions.
• Insulate your home and windows and only buy appliances with high ENERGY STAR ratings. 
• Turn off lights and appliances that are not being used, and only use LED or compact fluorescent globes. 
• Keep your heating temperature set to 21 degrees celsius or below and grab a blanket if you're still cold. 
• Install solar panels on your house.
• Eat locally sourced organic produce or better still grow your own!
• Eat less meat and if possible eat none. 
• Install water saving devices on showers, toilets and appliances like washing machines and dishwashers. 
• Never use plastic bags and become an avid recycler. 
• Start composting.
• Use grey water on gardens and only planet climate appropriate vegetation on your property.

Small changes are a great way to start, and doing things a little a lot of the time is the best way to make significant changes for the better. We really do need to be more personally responsible about doing more for our environment. Look around you, it's a wonderful place this world of ours. So precious and beautiful and obviously completely fragile, and each of us is having our own impact on that, an impact that we all need to be personally responsible for. Make one small change right now and help to reduce your global impact today because none of us can afford to pretend that what we do doesn't make a difference. 

I am not afraid of the dark. I know of some adults that still find the dark quite terrifying and being severely afraid of the dark is a very real phobia called Nyctophobia. Some researchers, beginning with Sigmund Freud, consider a fear of the dark to be a manifestation of separation anxiety, but to be honest, with most people that I know of, it appears to stem from watching a horror movie or seeing some other scary as all shit 'unknown' thing in the dark that seems to tweak people's fear of the night. 
Unfortunately, at night time it is quite hard to see, so it can allow people's imaginations to run amok. There really is no greater fear than that of the unknown, and when you can't see things properly the unknown can easily transform into a myriad of horrific possibilities. Suddenly a sheet on the clothesline is a ghost, an animal scurrying about is a robber, a tree rubbing against a house is a witch, or a ghoul or a serial killer. Quite often when people say that they are afraid of the dark they are really just afraid of what they cannot see - the unknown, and the possibilities of what it could be masking. 
Night time is exactly like the day time in my mind, in fact for me personally, I generally think that the night has a lot more to offer in many instances. In the evening the noise pollution lessens, the stars come out and generally everyone is a lot more chilled out than they are in the day time. When it gets dark all the naughty children are quiet and sleeping, everything looks prettier in candlelight and no-one judges you for watching a movie marathon. Another night time plus is the moon, which is constantly changing and far more interesting and observable than the sun, which looks pretty much the same every single day and is impossible to look at because it burns your eyes out of their sockets if you try; now what's to like about that?
​I think that when you live out of town, you kind of have to make your peace with the darkness. When we are facing the dark side of the moon out here in Enfield, it is black and I mean complete and total darkness. You can struggle to see your own hand in front of your face on nights like that, and I have spent many dark evenings on the porch listening to the sounds of the night. Even someone like me who isn't even afraid of the dark can appreciate how easily one's mind can run away with itself if you let it when it is really dark.
There a lot of nocturnal animals scooting around in the dark out here and I have spotted foxes, owls, bats, feral cats and even echidnas foraging about in the cool, calm, quiet of the night. It was only this evening that I had a bunch of kangaroos give me a start when I was taking the recycling out and didn't see them until I almost stood on one of them. But there is nothing scary about a few animals going about their business so none of those nocturnal activities has made me love the night any less. 
Nope, I am not scared of the dark. There are far more scary things in this world than the dark that's for sure, and a lot of those things are very comfortable in the daytime. If anything that I consider to be 'scary' was going to try and get me I would rather that it came for me at night time anyway because it so much easier to hide at night, and I actually feel safer with better hiding options.
There are way too many cool things about the night to not love it completely, but if you do suffer from Nyctophobia, then I deeply sympathise, and I also suggest a total avoidance of horror movies and a really good night light. 

It is important to have some routine in your life. A repeated pattern and commitment to following a routine can actually be really healthy and exceptionally beneficial. Routine allows time for the cultivation of ritual into your life and is the best way to ensure continual growth with whatever it is that you are putting your energies into. If you want to make positive changes in your life, you really do need to enlist a bit of self discipline and have the ability to follow a certain amount of routine.
I have managed to make some significant changes to my life over the past couple years and it has only been possible through routine and ritual. I actually prefer to use the word ritual over routine. Routine sounds so damn boring, laborious and repetitious, whereas ritual sounds like something profoundly soulful and spiritually aware. Whenever I attempt to take on something new, try to rid myself of an old habit or I'm just try to find more meaning in the mundane, I always like to look at the work ahead as the cultivating of a new ritual into my life. An undertaking that will essentially improve me and make me stronger, better, faster and wiser in mind, body and spirit. 
It is through this holistic way of thinking that I have been able to create several daily rituals that have allowed me to master many things that I never thought that I would be able to do; things that I probably would have laughed about if someone had told be that I would be doing them a few years ago. Quitting smoking, getting up earlier everyday, taking a daily yoga class, meditating, incorporating mindfulness and visualisation techniques into my daily life; all of these things I have managed to cultivate into my daily life through repetition and ritual. 
When you think about it, there is the beauty of ritual in almost everything that we do if we can manage to do it mindfully and with that word 'ritual' at the forefront of our thinking. Eating, cleaning, showering, driving, speaking, working, walking, listening, standing still, brewing tea or even sleeping. The list is absolutely endless, we do most of these things thoughtlessly and on autopilot, but we can get so much more out of what we consider mundane if we just start to see it all as some sacred dance, some magical ritual of the self that we get to celebrate every single day of our lives. 
Take some time to try it for yourself. Create a new ritual where you allow yourself to be lost in the rhythm of your own life. Get up a little earlier, try something new, enjoy the mundane by looking at it all with fresh eyes, it is easy to cultivate and celebrate the ritual of your own life everyday if you allow yourself to. 
The American philosopher and motivational speaker Wayne Dyer once said If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, and he is not just some holistic nutter, he is 100% correct. Let every moment matter, let everyday be steeped in something marvellous and let yourself enjoy ritual over routine and before you know it, you'll have a lot more to love about your life as well. 

Time and tide wait for no man is a phrase that originated way back in 1225 and even predates modern English, however it is no less meaningful today than it was back then. For never has a truer word been uttered that we can all relate to so completely than those few simple words that highlight our own mortality and the relentless passing of time.
No-one is powerful enough to stop the marching of time, and in spite of all of the things in our lives that we do have the power to control, time has never and will never be one of those things. One day you wake up, look in the mirror and barely recognise yourself anymore. A moment from a decade ago seems like it occurred only a year ago, your parents have entered the realms of the elderly and your children are no longer children at all; and you ask yourself, where the hell did all of those years go? 
The days just seem to go faster and faster every year. I start another school year and suddenly Easter has come and gone without me even coming up for air and all of the things that I had planned to have done by this point in the year are not even close to being completed. Has someone tipped the world into overdrive? It feels like it wasn't that long ago that I was planning my fortieth birthday holiday, or sending my son off to primary school or teaching my daughter to read for goodness sake! If the next forty years of my life go anywhere near as fast as the last forty did then I am going to need to not sleep at all in order to fit everything in that I would like to do.
I suppose that no matter how long you get in this life, you just never feel like you have enough time. Every time that you take a holiday or embark on a new task, you feel like you have forever to indulge it, and then before you know it, that time has somehow gone, just gone without you even realising where it all went to. It is the weirdest thing really, because we all want the time to go slower, and yet we fill our lives to the very brim with activity, essentially making everything speed up exponentially, making it impossible for time to slow down anyway. And perhaps that is what keeps us alive after all, the longing to live and be vital and busy in some way, and if we just stopped doing things then we would lose our lust for life and not want it to go on forever at all. 
I spent some time with my folks these school holidays, and I just marvel at how motivated and resourceful they are. My father is in his 80's and my mother is in her late 70's and they have been retired for years now, but they still keep themselves busy volunteering at local charities, tinkering with antiques clocks and knick knacks and working in the garden. Their garden always looks terrific and they spend entire days in the kitchen together cooking up thrifty old school recipes, pickling, making jams and preserves and making breads and cakes from scratch. They seem really content and happy doing these things and their days are generally full and busy, and they too feel like time is passing them by way too swiftly. I suppose that they would be feeling the passage of time in a way that I cannot possibly fathom just yet, because they also know that they don't have another 40 years to get the things done that they may have wanted to do and I wonder how genuinely difficult the twilight years of your life must be for that very reason. 
However, my parents do not appear to be bothered about aging and they never complain about being old either. Everyday, they say, is a gift to them now and they just live one day at a time, enjoying what they have cultivated together over the years. My in-laws say pretty much the same thing as well, and they too are in the same vintage as my parents, and they seem very content with their lives as well and do not appear to be at all worried about not having enough time. 
So I suppose that it is wise to listen to your elders and take a leaf from their book on getting older, and essentially it really shouldn't matter. Just take it one day at time, do what you can and love what you do and don't worry about running out of time. Let the time pass you by gracefully and slowly but surely cultivate the life that you want so that when you get into your own twilight years, you too can just sit back and enjoy what you have created for yourself.

I love to imagine that one day I will be able to earn a decent living from watching and reviewing movies. It's a pie in the sky dream I know, but sometimes I like to indulge myself and escape into pleasant daydreams that feature me being important enough to be invited to exclusive movie launches and international film festivals. In these daydreams, I get to see new release movies before anyone else, which would mean that I was constantly ahead of the game and also, because I would be so very important, I would probably also have the opportunity to schmooze with some of the actors and directors behind the scenes; the big wigs and I would be on a first name basis! It's a totally nutty and exceptionally self indulgent daydream, but there is no harm in having gigantic aspirations and as far as I know, no-one has ever died from having ridiculous daydreams. 
I actually think that it is very healthy to have immense and often impossible dreams, even if you know that they are probably, absolutely never, ever, going to happen. I believe that we live in a world that is generally very intolerant to dreamers. Let's be honest, lollygagging and wistfully whiling away the hours are a very frowned upon preoccupation and from a very early age we are encouraged to focus, grow up, take on extra responsibility and make wise (often safe) choices to ensure that our futures are protected and provided for. And yes, some of that is certainly important, but it leaves very little room for flights of fancy, frivolity and the entertainment of intensely improbable dreams. 
I realise that we can't all run away and join the circus or throw caution to the wind and chase the impossible all of the time, but that doesn't mean that we should squash our dreams or ambitions entirely either. Is there any chance that I will become the next David Stratton, Margaret Pomeranz or Roger Ebert? Probably not, but that does not mean that I should never imagine myself sipping champagne on a balcony overlooking the canals at the Venice Film Festival whilst chatting to Martin Scorsese or Michael Fassbender, should it? No, it shouldn't! In fact, my general compliance and commitment to the monotony and repetition of the daily grind should allow me an open all areas, free backstage pass to slip into these crazy and improbable flights of fancy whenever I damn well feel like it!  
Dreaming of the perfect job, the ideal home or a better life doesn't mean that you are not happy with the life that you have now, because I totally love my life and have a billion reasons to be grateful and satisfied with the hand that I have been dealt. However, that doesn't mean that I am not allowed to fantasize about a life that permits me to indulge in all of my passions and receive financial benefits to do so, who doesn't like to daydream about stuff like that? Keeping your dreams and imaginings alive is a way to keep yourself vital, engaged and inspired, it is in no way a sign of displeasure, it is rather the opposite in fact.
Escapism people! It's awesome and it can make a lot of really crappy things a lot more tolerable. Sometimes when I am having a particularly shitty day, it is my daydreams and imaginative flights of fancy that draw me away from my worry and strife. Without these trips down 'in a perfect world' street, who knows how I might feel? Who knows how much of the daily grind I could actually tolerate without a little escapism from time to time? It is much safer to let the dreamers dream I say, there's no harm in dreaming. 
And I am happy to keep my daydreams, however impossible, working vividly in the background of my regular life, and even if nothing even close to those dreams ever does eventuate, who cares? I'm not harming anyone with my hoping and my dreaming, but in my minds eye, I am having all kinds of impossible fun that no one can ever take away from me. And seriously, can you imagine a world without dreamers? That is not a world that I would want to live in, because for all of our discouraging of daydreaming and escapism, we all know that it is the dreamers that really make all of the magic happen in this world.

One thing that I have learnt, albeit rather painfully, to accept over the years is that money comes and money goes, and that there is absolutely no point in getting stressed out when everything expensive seems to happen all at once. Sure watching all of you hard earned savings slip through your fingers isn't the most enjoyable thing to endure, but it happens and that is what savings are for - for a rainy day. 
These things have happened before and they will most definitely happen again as well, and no amount of worry has ever made any money problems magically subside. Worrying about money is about as fruitful as trying to dig a hole in the ground with the power of your mind, in other words it is a mentally exhausting and utterly useless kind of worry.
However, regardless of how zen you may feel about money issues or how easily you relinquish the control of your cash flow,  every now and then we all still get caught up in a little financial hardship that makes us feel shitty, a tad destitute and just flatout broke. 
This week has been one of those weeks for me. I have experienced a serious drain on my financial resources, and it has made it really difficult for me to feel happy and excited about being on holidays because I am flat broke. I actually think that I was just blindsided by the events of today and now I have to make my peace with it.
It all started when I took my car in to have a simple and routine wheel balance and alignment done, and then it turned out that I needed four new tyres as well. Right, well there goes another $600 dollars, not to mention the termite inspector that came out yesterday and cost me $220, and I also had to find the money to lock in our New Zealand holiday this week which meant juggling and draining accounts to no end. Oh and my rego was in the letter box when I got home as well, and I got a text from the dentist to book in for a routine clean and scale and another one from my GP to go and have my lady bits inspected, and there's a passport renewal sitting on my desk and....and.....and. You know how it goes, when it rains it pours and there is nothing that you can do about it. 
However, on the bright and exceptionally zen side of it all, I now have a safe and smooth car to drive around in, I have an incredibly fun holiday to New Zealand planned with my family to look forward to, I don't have termites, my teeth are going to get a good clean and having my lady bits checked will offer some peace of mind. So, yeah I am broke, but for good reason and purpose. I am not wasting money or resources, and now because I am so broke then I have no choice but to stay at home for the rest of the break and watch movies and read books all day long...oh dear...poor me!
This sudden lack of funds could actually turn out to be a big blessing in disguise, and an excuse for me to batter down the hatches and not leave Enfield for days on end, hmmm....I can really make this work for me, I sense some B grade horror movie marathons coming my way!

The time of too many chocolates, stodgy doughy buns, sugar rich treats, alcoholic tipples and spreading waistlines is upon us. It is Easter, which always means too much of a good thing for me and generally always leads to me needing a decent detox after the event to rid my body of all of the toxic sludge that has been produced after placing myself into an alcohol and sugar induced coma for the four days of the Easter long weekend.  
You would think by now that I would be much better at practising moderation, but no....there is something about the lure of a Cadbury chocolate bunny and a bottle of good red wine that has an overwhelming power to reduce me to nothing better than a lush over the Easter break. I always find myself eating and drinking way more than I normally would, happily indulging well into the wee hours of the morning and always wishing that I hadn't later on when I feel like a lumpy bloated mess.
However, this holiday period hasn't all been about over indulging, I have done some other really cool things to kick off the April holiday season. To get the wheels in motion I went to the movies on Good Friday, I actually went to the movies twice last week, but who's counting? I also spent an entire afternoon hand painting hard boiled eggs with Zoe, Seth and Helen on Easter Saturday and I hosted a lovely Easter family lunch on Easter Sunday which unfortunately did involve eating way to many proteins, sugars and carbs, so needless to say, I am a bit of a puffy sloth today. 
I cannot deny that it does feel good to throw caution to the wind and eat and drink with wild abandon, but I would also be lying if I didn't acknowledge how dreadful my body feels after I have done that. Generally, I live by the 'everything in moderation' standard, however sometimes I do things to excess and I always feel like a shit sandwich for days after. I think that it may have something to do with getting older, because when I was younger it really didn't seem to matter what I shoved down my gullet or how much I drank, my body could always process things pretty easily. These days I only need to stare at a slice of cake for longer than 30 seconds and my hips get wider, and if I drink too much, the hangovers that I get have been hand picked my Satan for my pure displeasure. Agony would be downplaying it, and they last for days not just the day after, so drinking beyond moderation is out of the question for me. 
So I willingly farewell the Easter season and its over abundance of caloric nightmares and carb loaded gorge sessions and look forward to a week of clean eating and a bit of self nurturing to get my system back on track for the rest of the holiday period.