The staff at News-Herald DotComedy has some Halloween tips for all you ghouls and goblins out there. Follow some easy rules and guidelines to make sure the weekend is scary goooooooood …. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Don’t you hate cheesy, cliché-laden rubbish that overplays the sights, sounds and phrases of a particular holiday? That’s the kind of thing Walt Disney, local radio stations and comedy bloggers with very limited creativity resort to in times of desperation … not that we would know anything about it.

Actually, the staff is far from desperate, we are just trying to make a point. There are some things associated with Oct. 31 that you need to know and need to do, and in some cases, need to avoid. So, here we go. Five things we need to get off our collective chest as Halloween nears.

1. If you over the age of 5, don’t go to work in your Halloween costume. It might seem like a good idea in the morning to breakout the King Kong suit and banana shaped briefcase, but the guess is the guys on Wall Street won’t take you seriously if your fur keeps getting stuck in the coffee machine, Curious George.

2. If you are under the age of 5, don’t let your parents make a political statement out of your costume. There are plenty of kids that dress up as cowboys, firemen, doctors, astronauts, skeletons, etc. I don’t need a 4-year old dressed like former president George W. Bush walking around with an activity book entitled, “I Ruined the Country … Color by Number”. Save the artsy, politically-charged outfits for college frat parties assuming anyone is sober enough to care what you are wearing anyway.

3. Decorating your house or your yard is fine. For those of you that go all out and turn the garage into a mini-haunted house, we appreciate your passion for the holiday. But let’s not turn a suburban ranch house on Elm Street in Anytown, USA into Freddy Krueger’s playpen. Kids want to walk around the block and get some bulk candy, not be chased down the driveway by Leatherface until a trail of urine is leaking down their Bob the Builder costume. Tone it down, Psycho.

4. If you are handing out candy, hand out candy. If you run out of candy, turn off the lights and go get a drink at the local pub. Don’t start giving away balls of masking tape, pennies stuck together by strawberry jelly that leaked in the drawer, or used dental floss. If you misjudged how much candy you are going to need, accept it and move on. One grape per bag or two dill pickles in a Ziploc bag is also not a good idea.

5. Attention dentists - please, this would be a perfect time to take a 2-day junket to a molar convention in Boise, Idaho. There’s nothing worse than the occasional blast from the dentist industry lecturing us all on how bad candy is for the teeth and that Halloween does nothing but promote cavities and gingivitis. Next up is Weight Watchers protesting Christmas because it is an unfair characterization of fat guys in red suits who like to hang out on rooftops with flying elk. Just give us one day to be ridiculously irresponsible with our sweet tooth.

Above all, have fun, but be safe. Halloween can be scary … especially if your co-worker decides to show up for his Power Point presentation dressed as Hannah Montana. Come on, Big Al, you win, we are very afraid, now take off the glittered boots and blonde wig.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Freddy Krueger.

Btilton@News-Herald.com

Election Day can't come soon enough - or be done even sooner.

Republicans, democrats, independents, Dennis Kucinich, sewage treatment plants, school levy, millages .... EXCEDRIN HEADACHE NO. 909 is more like it.

It's not that it isn't important, life-changing, world-altering stuff, folks. But, can't we get back to a world that doesn't revolve around smear tactics, cheese-laden pleas to the common people and endorsements from 4th-party candidates that know as much about the issues as Homer Simpson knows about Bosnia?

Not that the staff at News-Herald DotComedy is political in any way or beats the bushes with any party bias, but these TV and radio ads and pre-recorded phone messages to households around this area have got to find a nice retirement spot in the field soon before sanity in these parts is permanently gone.

Where's Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and the mutants from "Men in Black" when you need a good erasing of the memory?

Nothing is worse than enjoying a nice respite in the comforts of your own home when some hack, third-rate, B-movie, Ed Wood-directed, truth-strained, credibility-deprived, manure-filled buffet fills the HD 45-inch plasma screen on the wall. Or worse yet, some 1-800 number we want to ignore anyway is an automated plea for a vote.

By the way, when you answer the phone, and it sounds like an old recording of R2D2 or C3PO on a four-day cocaine bender babbling on the other end of the line, do you pay much attention? Does that make you want to run out and vote?

The staff realizes the importance of Election Day and the power of the vote as a freedom and a benefit we as Americans should appreciate. But, come on. The ads leading up to the first Tuesday in November are enough to drive us to want to time-share a condo with psychotics in some country who is so anti-USA that they watch the film of the 9/11 attacks as some sadistic pre-Christmas festive event.

Who endorses such and such commercial? Who has been in office for so long that Moses used to be his treasurer? Who cares?

Here's what the staff at DotComedy endorses ....

Anyone who can put a stop to this ridiculous spin-doctoring, and amateur infomercialism has our backing 100 percent. Run for office, stump for the issues, do what you can to make Northeast Ohio and America a better place to live.

Just stay off our TV screens, radio airwaves and most importantly, our phone lines.

Every day life is tough enough. The first Tuesday in November doesn't need to be so painful and stressful.

Got a problem with that?

Take it up with The Men in Black.

BTilton@News-Herald.com

Dogs who Twitter.

Yep, folks, that's what the world needs. Canines with laptops letting their owners know in 160 words or less that the water in the toilet bowl needs a little more flavoring?

The staff at DotComedy thought about this one long and hard, and after shaking our collective heads more furiously than 3 Stooges B-lister Shemp missing his cheese underneath a strobe light, we figured, whatever ... let's take a whack and try to make some sense of this.

So social media has spider-webbed so insanely that it's not enough we as human beings update each other every 4 minutes to inform each other on our bathroom habits, we now need our dogs to be on the information superhighway just in case anyone missed Fido's last scratching or fire hydrant sprinkler show.

Is there anything so important in Spot's life that we need to get on Twitter to be clued in on a timely basis? I'm sure the daily bath or refill of kibble is right next to President Obama's latest move in Europe, but the staff can't imagine following a four-legged celebrity like it is life or death?

What's next? Cats who do Facebook? Hamsters who blog? Squirrels on Bill Gates' Microsoft payroll? Sound ridiculous? We thought so too until we found out that DOGS DO TWITTER!

There are a lot of things in the world that make you have a V-8 moment and smack your forehead in disbelief, but admittedly for the staff at DotComedy, this one takes the can and crushes it upside a temple. There are some people out there whose lives are so devoid of purpose or meaning that they get on the Internet to check the hourly progress of Fifi scouring for fleas on her back. Ouch, that doesn't exactly fill out a reference sheet for a job interview on Wall Street now does it?

And we can only imagine the dog twitter sensation will cause in homes across America. Consider the following scenario: You get home from a long day at the office and want to jump online and check your e-mail. Instead, the dog has its paws up on the keyboard, tweeting about his party in the backyard that afternoon with a bone and a hole in the ground.

RIVETING.

This is so silly that not much can be added.

Just make sure your next bag of doggie treats has a wireless Internet code on the bag. Because if Spike needs to get some crap off his chest, a text message isn't going to be enough.

Got a problem with that? Take it up with Shemp.

BTilton@News-Herald.com