Wishing everyone a fantastically spooky Halloween!

Check out this year’s OrangeYouGlad Halloween promotion.
More cemetery photos can be found here.

Check out this gallery of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster parodies.

The Alfred E. Neumann one is another fav of mine.

Funk 4 Peace by our friends at Fort Knox Five

F-Train is in town for a short stay so we decided to hit the new Southern food/whiskey joint in the neighborhood, Char No. 4, tonight. At the bar we enjoyed our drinks (Connemara peated single malt (produced by Cooley Distillery, the only independent, Irish-owned distillery in Ireland) for me and a Scotch whisky (not sure exactly which one) for F-Train and chatted about his latest jaunts to Macau and Korea.

We had to try the bacon appetizer as they make their own bacon–and the restaurant certainly smells like they are making it in-house.

The bacon was tasty–not too salty and nicely smoked.

We also had the home made pork sausages (yummy) and the scallops (delicious) to complete our meal. In lieu of dessert we both had a glass of Jamesons 12 year.

Definitely good company and a good meal.

Okay, not a great restaurant review but the true purpose of this post was to put up the photo of the bacon appetizer.

Who wants to join me and one of my Bacon of the Month packages at the First Annual Reddit Bacon Party in Prospect Park this Saturday?

It’s technically not a kitchen but hey, I’ll be cooking the bacon somewhere other than my own kitchen.

Rocco from BaconFreak.com is helping to sponsor this party with bacon

Mmmmm….grilled bacon….

DawnSummers and I decided to head to AC Thursday night - trying to allay the possibility of us going there during the Bash. We stayed at the Tropicana. This painting was on the wall. What the hell is that?

We left AC around 4:30 and wandered through Philadelphia according to the crazy Mapquest directions. We passed through the University zone (U of Penn, Bryn Mawr, Villanova), the ghetto zone (stopping for gas we were limited to only $40 on a charge card, otherwise you had to go see the cashier), and the McMansion zone. We came to a fork in the road with a choice of covered bridge or dark and scary road. We decided on the non-covered bridge path. I thought if we crossed over the bridge we were destined to be sacrificed a la The Dark Secret of Harvest Home. Our choice put us on a dark and rainy Revolutionary War road where ghost soldiers were poised with muskets to take us down. I guess you really can’t die from ghost bullets.

After checking in to the Flea Bag Hotel, we headed out to the Japanese restaurant for the chartity poker tournament. I was looking forward to the promised free all you can eat sushi but alas, no sushi and only some fried appetizers, fried rice and some kind of Italian pasta was available. And we had to pay $20 for this! I was starving and unhappy.

Two more of our New York crew (Alceste and Jordan) showed up in time to play. I made it to the final table but was busted when my AA couldn’t stand up to the mighty KJ. We gave Drizz, BadBlood and Otis a ride back to The Flea Bag hotel. The boys were highly entertaining - DawnSummers and I could not stop laughing. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing her muttering “pesos” and “sad and lonely” and chuckling loudly.

The next morning I noticed something in the daylight that we missed the night before. Above my bed the ceiling had blood spatter! There were some drops on the wall too. The Flea Bag Hotel just went up a notch in my book!

The Pub Olympics were scheduled for Saturday afternoon. I was not participating other than cheering folks on. Team Al took an early lead in the competition. Jordan (Team Al) put in a valiant (and comical) effort in the Buffalo Wings eating contest but Falstaff handily scored a victory for Team Otis.

The final event was the Car Bomb Relay and despite Otis’ split second quaffing of his drink, Al was victorious over Big Mike in the final spot to score a win for his team.

The actual Bash was held that night. I need to consult with my lawyers before posting anything - I want to make sure I avoid any defamation of character lawsuits!