Happy Halloween Chumps!  Well, it’s actually the night before Halloween and Jaclyn is taking all the pumpkins and Halloween decorations off the porch. 

RKDeem:  Hey Jac, why are you taking the Halloween stuff off the porch?

Jac:  It’s mischief night!  I don’t want anyone ruining my stuff!  I like things fun and festive and if someone ruined that stuff, I’d be heartbroken.  (she did carve an intricate design into one pumpkin, a scary looking cat)

RKDeem:  You ever experience mischief on mischief night?

Jac:  Yeah.

RKDeem:  Really?  What happened?

Jac:  In my neighborhood, there’d always be smashed pumpkins the day after, but my family was always good about pulling in our pumpkins.  Sometimes toilet paper would be thrown and cars would be egged, but you’d have to ask for that.

I can’t say I’ve ever experienced mischief night mischief, but I guess it’s good to be vigilant. 

For Halloween, I’ve pulled together some wacky costumes I’ve found on the net.  There’s even a website that’s entirely dedicated to weird costumes, I highly recommend it.

These are awesome dog costumes, but you know the lady who did this is crazy!

Great costume, but it’s even better that they’re just chillen on a street corner

I’m pretty sure this is awesome, but I think the outfit makes her look fat.

This kid won’t need sex ed classes for another 40 years

Oh wait, here’s the Ghostbuster kid 40 years later, nevermind, he’s never getting laid.

You know he’s thinking, “I can’t wait to parlay this costume into inappropriate sword jokes!”

Nacho Baby

Million dollar question here folks…did he paint himself or did someone else paint him? (inappropriate for work, so look at your own risk!)

S
C
R
O
L
L

D
O
W
N

How come no one’s ever Steven Hawkings for Halloween?  I guess nerds just aren’t cool, but I disagree, less Supermans and more Hawkings!

Hello my friends.  I have an election prediction for you.  I predict McCain loses with a fairly large margin between him and Obama. 

Two elections ago, I voted for Ralph Nader because I thought both parties offered terrible candidates.  After seeing Ralph’s votes give the election to Bush, I decided to select the lesser of two evils and vote for Kerry in the following election.  I wasn’t a huge Kerry fan, but I never understood why we were fighting in Iraq, I still don’t.  People are dying every day, good people, for a war that was an absolute mistake.  It’s horrible that we made that mistake and I think we owe the Iraqi people our services to get them upright and functional, but that’s not a war, that’s a humanatarian effort. 

Here we are now and the election is upon us.  No matter who’s elected, the candidate won’t be able to please everyone.  In Bob Dylan’s “Talkin’ World War iii Blues”, he says:

Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
And some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
‘I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.’
I said that.
 
The point is, it sucks for about 15 minutes when the guy you voted for doesn’t get elected.  Then you lean back into your chair and think, “You know what, my life’s okay, this election isn’t going to ruin my immediate future, it just moves the needle slightly one way or the other.”  So, for all you McCain supporters, I offer you this, just relax, the world’s going to be okay.  In fact, if all of us citizens just made a larger effort to be better human beings, that would make a bigger impact than any president.  If you’re against abortion, do your best to not have one.  If you’re against guns, don’t buy one.  If you want more alternative energy, buy a hybrid, install solar panels, or grow your own food.  All I’m saying is, you’re your own president and you can make a bigger impact the Barack or Mccain in your own world. 

Lots of ambiguous talk on taxes, here’s the breakdown according to the non-profit Tax Policy Center:

I was thinking about McCain & Obama and how they drastically differ on diplomacy.  The expression, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat” came to mind.  I started thinking about the expression and started to think – that’s the weirdest expression I’ve ever heard.  I’ve probably said it a number of times without ever thinking about it.  So let’s search the net and see what we can find:

http://www.worldwidewords.org suggests that the expression dates back to 1889 when Mark Twain wrote “she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat”, this was from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

That’s about it, no explanation as to why you’d skin a cat, why you would need multiple ways to skin it, and if cat skinning was ever a necessity of American life.  I tried searching cat skinning in general to see if it was ever a cool thing to do, but didn’t get much information on that subject either.  It’s just a weird saying that’s somehow stuck with us.  I would love it if some of you readers offered some new ways to express that saying in the comments section. 

I did manage to find a University of Cincinnati website dedicated to cat skinning and how it can properly be done.  It turns out they buy them from pet shelters to help control pet population and then use the dead cats to teach anatomy.  Here’s the link, but beware, it’s fairly graphic.  By the way, I wonder what weird ads this entry will generate?

Back to McCain, he made a really funny mistake the other day, here’s the video, it’s hysterical:

Here’s a great cat video, it gets funnier each time I watch it:

It’s Sunday night and the Phils are about to take the field for game 4 of the World Series.  Speaking of baseball series with historical implications, the Bulldogs were swept in the Championships and continued their futility in the big games.  We’ll get to more on that later. 

After losing the Championship series, we headed to the Perk in Perkasie.  I’ve heard nothing but great things about the place, but all the positives remarks were mostly around the $1 drafts or the half priced appetizers, I think they even have $1 cheesesteaks on some nights.  When people talk about the Perk, they talk about excellent value.  When we arrived at 11:30AM, I was amazed at how clean they keep the place, it was spotless, no smoke, no sticky floors, just a shiny clean little bar.  We ordered a couple of pitchers of beer and everyone ordered lunch.  The cheeseburgers were huge, the cheesesteaks were delicious, and the fries were just right.  I am now officially in love with the Perk. 

Holy smokes, Patti Labelle just sang the National Anthem and it was awesome!  I don’t usually like when people drag it out, but she just rocked it.  I teared up a little.

Back to the Bulldogs.  We got off to a slow start and lost the first game 12-5, the second game we lost 6-5.  The totally frustrating thing was that I had multiple opportunities to win the game, we had the bases loaded with 2 outs and I came up to hit and hit a grounder back to the pitcher, it just sucks to not only let yourself down, but to let your team down.  The good news is that I have another Championship series coming up for my coed team and hopefully I can redeem myself, if not, Jaclyn will probably kick me out of the house and insist that I never see Winston again.

My Ebay advice.  Don’t place a maximum bid, just bid enough to put you in the lead.  I think a lot of sellers have two accounts, one account where they sell their goods and another account where they bid and try to raise the price.  If the raise the price too high and no one buys the product, they can just sell it again or offer a second chance to the buyer.  If you place a maximum bid, Ebay automatically raises your bid to that amount if someone else bids on the product.  I just had an excellent Ebay experience, I got a $160 Swiss Army computer bag for $50. 

The Bulldogs at the Perk (Ed & Andy look cute!)

This is a handmade sign from the Steak & Hoagie Factory in Doylestown, it cracked me up!  I like how the turkey is giving the thumbs up as he’s about to go into the flaming hot cauldron.

I sat on Google’s toilet seat and got ads.  

Here’s the dealio.  When I set up my website with GoDaddy.com, they gave me a free blog.  I’ve been posting things pretty steadily over the past year and a half.  I think about 30 to 50 people check my blog on a regular basis, friends, colleagues, family, stalkers, etc.  Then there’s a large amount of people who end up on my blog through search engines.  

GoDaddy posts your blog for free because they have these Google ads that run across the top of the screen, I’m sure you’ve seen them many times before.  If you think your blog is big time, you can decide to pay for your blog ($2.99 a month) and then use Google Ad Sense to run ads on your web site and if enough people click on them, Google will send you a pay check.  I have been telling Jaclyn that I will consider making the jump to a paid blog once I have 500 hits a week.  This week I had close to 1,000 so I bumped up to the paid account (this is part of the reason my blog was down for a couple of days, a problem occured during the upgrade).  

Google’s pretty smart and the ads adjust to whatever content it finds on your blog, with the randomness of my blog, I will be interested to see what ads it posts.  

If you ever see anything remotely interesting on the side, please click it because that click will probably make me 1/10th of a cent, well, I’m not sure how much it will make me, but I’ll keep you posted.  I’ve made some adjustments to the blog layout as well, I think it’s cleaner and more focused.  

Can’t wait to post pictures of the Bulldogs winning the championships on Sunday.  GO PHILLIES!!! 

Winston and I have been watching a lot of Disney movies lately.  In the past couple months we’ve watched the Jungle Book, Cars, Finding Nemo, Peter Pan, and Ice Age 1 & 2.  I looked deep into my DVD collection to find a copy of Milo & Otis that Jaclyn picked up from the bargain bin at Walmart a couple years ago.  I remember her saying that she absolutely loved the movie and it was one of her favorites growing up. 

I quickly read the back of the movie and saw that it was rated “G” and about a cat and dog that go on an adventure.  It sounded pretty cool, a nice departure from animated movies.  I fired up the DVD player and became suspicious when I saw the opening credits.  All the names of the producers, writers, and directors were all Asian, like Masonori Hata, Satoru Ogatu, and Haruo Shikanai (thanks IMDB for refreshing my memory).  I hope this doesn’t come across racist, I’m not sure if it isn’t, but I was immediately jumping to conclusions that this would be a weird film. 

The movie immediately boarded the crazy train with a somewhat graphic and gratuitous birth scene, with a slimy newborn cat coming out of the mother cat.  The baby cat is named Milo and he becomes friends with a pug named Otis.  Milo hops into a crate tied to a dock, the crate somehow dislodges, and then Milo drifts down a river on a crazy adventure.  Otis chases after Milo to help him out.  It’s a good premise, sounds like a good time, but the events that follow are just a series of horrible cruel experiments designed to test the limits of a poor cat and dog.  I’ve managed to find a couple clips on YouTube and I implore you to check them out.  If I put animals in these types of situations and recorded it, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was put in jail.  The director of this movie makes Michael Vick look like he could be the president of PETA. 

EXHIBIT A
Please scan ahead in this movie to the 5:50 mark, watch the cat get attacked by sea gulls and jump off a 100 foot cliff into the ocean.

EXHIBIT B
Crab Attack – Need I say more

EXHIBIT C

Horrified cat goes down a two story waterfall 20 seconds in this clip

After the movie, you get this message “the animals used were filmed under strict supervision with the utmost care for their safety and well-being”, but it doesn’t go so far to say that no animals were injured or harmed.  I’m too lazy to dig up the microfilm at the library, but there’s allegedly an article in the UK’s Economist magazine that says 30 cats were used in the making of this movie and 10 of them didn’t make it down the red carpet for the premier of the movie. 

Winston and I watched the whole movie, I couldn’t turn away, just plain old morbid curiosity I suppose.

Some follow-ups:

• Awhile back I told you that I would let you know when I could do 185lbs. for my 50th rep, I did it!  I also managed to do 225lbs for my 25th rep on the bench press.
• I tried sipping tequila again for the opening game of the World Series.  It’s not working for me, I just can’t do it.
• Both softball teams I play for are going to the championships.  Sunday we play for the championships in the men’s league and Wednesday we play for the coed league.
• If you’re looking for a mellow CD perfect for a nice dinner with a hot artsy babe, pick up Ben Sollee’s Learning to Bend.
• If you need another blog to keep you busy, definitely check out San Diego Dave’s blog, www.destroyedbymadness.com – he’s been dropping new entries left and right and they’re real good.

We took Winston to None Such Farms for some pumpkin pickin’!  He loved walking around the fields in search for the perfect pumpkin.  I went to school at Buckingham Elementary School and once a year we’d walk over to None Such and we were allowed to pick a pumpkin, I think they charged us a quarter.  The only rule was that you had to pick a pumpkin that you could carry yourself.  I usually came home with a weird looking gourd and Winston continued the tradition by picking a strange looking green pumpkin. 

The pumpkin festival had live bands, hayrides, petting zoo, and good food, but the best part of it was being on a farm with incredibly fresh air. 

Here’s some pictures:
Can you find Winston?

Here he is in the thick of things

The Jac-o-lantern & Count Winston

Random Notes:

A friend of mine gave me a bottle of Patron Tequila for my birthday. It’s the good kind of tequila, too good to take as a shot or mix into a drink, this is the sippin’ kind of tequila.  I poured a little glass on Friday night and sipped it.  Each time, I’d gag a little, need to chase it with some water, and hope that it got easier next time.  It never got easier, but I’m dumb enough to keep trying.  When the Phils start playing on Wednesday, I’ll pour another little glass.

Laurie completed the 10k this weekend. YAY!

One last thing, can you do me a favor?  Please write to Wawa and ask them to place recycling bins in front of their store.  It will take you about 15 seconds and I think it would end up being a major help, here, you can just copy and paste this letter:

Dear Wawa,

I notice lots of plastic containers in your trash cans, I think you could really help out the environment if you offered recycling bins in front of your stores. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Love,
Hot Kelly

Click on the link to contact Wawa:
http://www.wawa.com/WawaWeb/Contact.aspx

When I was a kid…

Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I swear girls used to aspire to be pretty.  It happened slowly, I think it might have started with leggins, but the outfits girls started to wear became more and more absurd.  I’m not saying that Bucks County fashion world is getting worse or better, but it’s a long way from the Gap outfits that dominated RKDeem’s high school years.  I think there’s definitely more experientation, intentional clashing, and a confident trashiness about it, it seems so European.  I think a pretty girl in a pretty dress might just get made fun of or beaten up now days. 

Last night I played the last game of the regular season for my Wednesday night team.  If you recall, I was trying to become the MVP of the league, I may come up just short.  I hit a homerun and almost hit another, but the outfielder reached over the fence and snagged it before it went out of the ballpark.  We will see what ends up happening, but it was a good season for me none the less.  After the game, The Edman and I went to the bar and caught the end of the Phillies game and saw them clinch their series allowing them to proceed to the World Series.  Everyone was happy, shots were being poured, people were celebrating, and for the next week, smiles will be on the faces of all things Philadelphia.  I think we need to watch some World Series games together, who’s going to host the party, I nominate Jay, I’ll bring the Miller Lite.  I also promise to clean up any mess if Jaclyn gives birth at your house while the game is on.  

By the way, speaking of Jaclyn, I want to say women are the best.  I came home from work yesterday to see little snakes on our sidewalk, a bat on the mailbox, and a spooky sign on our door that says, “Enter if you dare”.  My amazing wife decorated the house for Halloween.  She does so much to make things festive, that is very cool. 

I read a quote by Mark Twain today, it made me want to take Winston all over the world:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Dumb and Dumber is a very funny movie, one of my favorite parts of the movie takes place in front of a 7/11.  Here’s a website dedicated to that scene:
www.biggulpshuh.com 

A couple more photos from Jim Thorpe:
Deer Slayer = Cool


Luckily for these turkeys, I am no Turkey Slayer.  I am a Turkey Photographer.  I shot these turkeys with my camera while driving to our house in the Poconos, they were about a block away and didn’t care that I was in my honda pulled up right next to them.  Ben Franklin knew what he’s talking about, they are bad ass birds. 

The Mighty Deem has turned 30 in style. 

On Friday, we took off for the Poconos around noon and we made a pit stop at the Big Brown Fish Trout Hatchery.  Big Brown Fish Hatchery is the perfect place to take a kid fishing, or a guy who just turned 30 and really wanted to easily catch some trout.  They stock the lake and absolutely pack it with trout, there’s so many trout that it’s impossible not to see them, every square yard of the lake probably has 2 or 3 trout swimming in it.  We spent about 30 minutes walking around and checking out the fish, then I tied on a lure and cast it into the lake.  The first fish was a nice brown trout and the second was a smaller rainbow trout.  We had enough for dinner and the dude working there filleted them for me.  Admission, the fish, and the cleaning of the fish came to less than $20, not bad for a dinner for two and some fun fishing. 

Here’s a picture of me with the brown trout, I pretended to bite him before Jaclyn took the picture.  He shook out of my hands, the lure came out of his mouth and went deep into my finger.  I really had to yank the lure pretty hard to get it out of my finger, it was the first time in 30 years that this happened to me, it was a mistake that I hope takes at least 30 more years to happen again.

We took the trout to our house in the Poconos and put them on the grill while the Phils put a beating on the LA Dodgers, as my friend Lou Reed would say, “What a perfect day”.

On Saturday, we explored Jim Thorpe and the nearby park called Glen Onoko.  Apparently, there’s huge waterfalls at Glen Onoko, but they required a 2 mile hike that wasn’t suitable for a woman almost 9 months pregnant.  Jim Thorpe is a picture perfect town.  The chamber of commerce said it used to be the #2 honeymoon destination on the east coast, right behind Niagara Falls.  It was referred to as America’s Little Switzerland because of similar geologic traits with the mountains, gorges and the town nestled in the valley.  Jim Thorpe never lived there, in fact, he never set foot in Jim Thorpe (while alive), but when he died, the town purchased his remains and buried him there to boost tourism.  If some town wants to name themselves after me, I give Jaclyn the okay to sell my remains/ashes to Deemtown or should we just call it Rob Deem? 

I asked Jaclyn how Jim Thorpe died, she said it was a “death that came too soon, it was tragic, I’m pretty sure alcoholism had a part in it too”.  I said, you’re crazy – you’re confusing him with Ira Hayes or some other Native American, Jim Thorpe was a sports hero, he couldn’t have died in such a depressing fashion.  We asked the old lady working at the Chamber of Commerce, I asked, “How did Jim Thorpe die?”  she said, “His heart stopped”.  I felt vindicated, see Jaclyn, he died because of a heart attack.  But then the old woman continued, “it is actually quite depressing, he became a terrible alcoholic and that had a lot to do with his downfall.”  Shucks, chalk another point up for Jaclyn, she must prove me wrong at least once a day. 

By the way, Jim Thorpe was a pretty good athlete, he won gold medals at the Olympics for the pentathlon and decathlon and he played professional football, baseball and basketball.

One last bit of Jim Thorpe history.  America’s coal minors in the 1800’s unionized to fight for better wages.  A secret detective sniffed out the leaders of this secret union (who were called the Molly Maguires) and ratted them out to the coal bosses.  The coal bosses had them sent to prison and 20 of them were hung to death.  7 of them were hung at the prison in Jim Thorpe which is still there, including the gallows.  One of the people who was hung stuck his hand on the wall in his jail cell and said his hand print would remain there forever to prove his innocence.  We saw the handprint and had a good time strolling around prison on our vacation.

I want to thank the great friends for coming and showing me a wonderful time.  It really made this monumental birthday one hell of a celebration.

Now for some pictures:
Here’s a weird tunnel we found at the Glen Onoko Park, I pretended to be a mythical creature walking in the cave.
 
Jay was sad that the Bulldogs had to forfeit the next day.

Jack and I chillin’ in the hot tub

Laurie and Lev or Abercrombie Models?

Lauren’s famous taco dip was an official highlight of the party

Ed & Rose and a Miller Lite that came up to celebrate.

Scariest picture of birthday cake ever.

I listen to NPR on my way to and from work.  With the whole financial crisis, the radio announcers keep referring to “bad assets”.  I get excited every time because I think Terry Gross is going to say “bad ass”, but she always finishes it off with the “ets”.

I’m heading to the Pocono’s tomorrow.  We’ll take some pictures, I’ll post a story, but here’s something to look forward to, everyone’s bringing a mix CD and I’ll grade them and tell you my favorite songs from each of them. 

The Phillies are down 2-0, Jimmy Rollins is up with 2 men on base.  I am posting now before I know what happens.