On Monday night, 17 year-old Candace Parker won the McDonald's High School All-American Slam Dunk Contest beating out five males who are all heading for big name colleges. Former winners include Lebron James, Vince Carter and Jerry Stackhouse. Read all about Candace Parker at ESPN.com.
Down With Pants! is a big fan of women's basketball having had the pleasure of watching Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson and the Seattle Storm the past two years. When I tell people that I love the Storm games even more than Sonics games I usually get puzzled looks and snickers. Just recently during a Sonics game DWP! witnessed first hand the open contempt and disgust for the women's game. The question posed by a survey on the Green and Gold machines was simply "would you like to receive more information on the Storm?" It was not asking you to hand over $100 right then and there and yet people acted as if they had been mugged.
Ignorance my friends, it is just plain ignorance. It is an unwillingness to look at something a different way. It is an unwillingness to try something new and to learn. It is also a representation that some NBA fans are scenesters and not really basketball fans. WNBA games are still thought of as events only for little girls and lesbians and couldn't possibly be interesting to men. This ignorance has kept the women's game marginalized and shunned in popular culture.
Somebody or something is going to happen to help the WNBA and women's basketball survive and eventually gain a foothold in our culture. One of the best things that you can do is go to a game. Every college has women's basketball and the WNBA is extremely cheap in the grand scheme of professional sports. Why not check it out at least once? I think you will be pleasantly surprised. And keep an eye on Candace Parker. She very well be the next big thing in basketball, and not just in women's basketball.
I know Down With Pants! promised an essay about John Kerry. However, unforeseen circumstances such as spending the afternoon sprawled out on the grass at Gas Works reading the Da Vinci Code on this beautiful, nearly perfect early spring Seattle day, have forced a slight delay. Democracy can wait when it is this warm.
By the way, if you have not read the Da Vinci Code yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up today!
1. Ugly Duckling - Energy Drink
2. Chixdiggit! - I Wanna Hump You
Break - Woo Hoo! It's Brandon!!!
3. Elliott Smith - LA
4. Loretta Lynn and Jack White - Portland, OR
5. The Streets - Fit But You Know It
Break - Whoopity Doo! It's Brandon Again!!!
6. Cake - Satan Is My Motor
7. Oasis - Fuckin' In the Bushes
8. Maktub - See Clearly
9. Mr. T Experience - I'm Like Yeah, But She's All No
Break - Oh boy, it's that asshole Brandon once more...
10. They Might Be Giants - Man It's So Loud In Here
11. The Pixies - Gigantic
12. A word from our sponsor - Meatshake!!!
13. Gemini and Danger Mouse - Ghetto Pop Life
Break - Won't this guy shut up? I mean really. Does he have to say anything? What a dick!
14. Breakstra - Hit The Flo!
15. Breakstra - Family Rap
Well, well, well....only a couple weeks into the Down With Pants! movement and somebody is already slacking with the posts. You may very well have noticed this appalling lack of activity lately. DWP! has spent the last week prepping himself for six weeks without his better half while she is in Alaska and has missed the opportunity to post on a ton of things going on in the world including Richard Clarke's amazing testimony concerning 9/11 and Iraq (more on this soon, I promise) and the NCAA Final Four (more on this too).
Down With Pants! promises more content starting Monday when we will unveil the first in a series of essays on why we are supporting John Kerry and his bid for president in 2004. And we promise it will not be just because he is not George W. Bush (Although that is a pretty damn good reason on it's own!).
Before I can do that though, I must finish the Da Vinci Code....
Down With Pants! has finally found a way to figure out what they are serving us when we go get dim sum. Our favorite Seattle dim sum joint, House of Hong has a great website that includes pictures of all your favorite dishes. Study those pictures on this handy-dandy dim sum menu and you shouldn't have any problem the next time you go!
I know this has appeared elsewhere, but I still love it...
THE SPACE-RACE JOKE!
Youre just downright silly, but thats exactly what
everyone loves about you.
Which Eddie Izzard Joke Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
The Down With Pants! crew got the extreme fortune of taking in a matinee this afternoon and was rewarded by seeing the beautiful and heartbreaking yet oddly affirming film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Without revealing too much, the story is basically boy meets girl, they fall in love, they break up, they try to have each other erased from their memories (it sounds weird but just go with it) but things do not go as planned.
Eternal Sunshine is a movie with twists and turns and a maze of a story, but in the end what really moved me was it's dead on study of relationships and intimacy and everything that goes along with them good or bad. They really captured what makes relationships and love special. The memories of momentous events in our relationship are just as important in many cases as seemingly meaningless moments. They also did a great job of showing what relationships are like, even the totally geeky moments that only that couple could possibly understand.
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet both gave amazing performances. I just realized that I never thought of them as anybody other than Joel or Clementine. I didn't think about them as Jim Carrey or Kate Winslet at all. This is a testament to their performances. When watching Jim Carrey I find it hard to get his other roles out of my head. It is a shame that this movie was released so early in the year because it will be overlooked when Oscar time comes around.
The Stranger's review
The Seattle Weekly's review
The Washington Huskies ended their season on Friday night losing to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazers 102-100 in one of the most exciting games of the first round. UAB's defense was just a little too much for the Huskies forcing numerous turnovers, bad shots and a very long scoring drought in the middle of the second half. Combine that with the foul trouble that Mike Jensen and Bobby Jones got into and you can understand how UAB pulled this one out. The Huskies did get it down and had a chance to win on a 3/4 court shot by Tre Simmons but his shot sailed long and UAB came out victorious.
All in all it turned out to be one of the most memorable and satisfying basketball seasons in Husky history. Down With Pants! got the opportunity to witness two of the best games we have seen since leaving Bowling Green. We also got a glimpse into the future. This team should be excellent next season with only one senior leaving the program. The entire starting five will be back and this team will build on their late-season run and be a powerhouse in the Pac-10 next season.
I could write about Bob Roberts, the disturbingly real mockumentary about American politics that Down With Pants! watched tonight, but instead I will write about the Combine Demolition Derby that we plan to attend in Lind, Washington on June 11th. Check out these incredible photos of the 2003 contestants and the 2003 derby action. Hopefully Down With Pants! will be able to make it to this one of a kind event in Eastern Washington. We will have updates as the event draws nearer.
Down With Pants! favorite comic strip Boondocks tackled the topic of gay marriage last week with amazing skill and real insight. I was amazed to see the laid back tone taken by Aaron McGruder on the subject while still strongly making his point. It clearly illustrates the differences in attitude and comfort that different generations and groups have on the subject. He never actually states his opinion on the subject, but he does paint a great and true picture of how the subject is being handled all across America right now.
We at Down With Pants! whole-heartedly support equal rights for everybody including the rights for gay couples to marry. Down With Pants! will be writing much more on this topic in the upcoming weeks but in the meantime read Boondocks and visit MoveOn.org to learn how you can help rid this country of equal rights biggest threat, George W. Bush.
The Down With Pants! crew spent this glorious weekend on a romantic getaway on the San Juan Islands. We stayed at the beautiful Hotel De Haro at the Roche Harbor Resort on the north side of San Juan Island. It was a nearly perfect early spring weekend on the island weather-wise and we took full advantage of it.
We enjoyed a relaxing weekend of sightseeing, watching the Huskies in the Pac-10 tournament, geocaching, snuggling and much, much more. Amongst the highlights were the Mausoleum at Roche Harbor, the climb to a geocache at the top of Young Hill, watching some newborn lambs playing, fish and chips at Herb's Tavern and seeing the Franciscan Nuns running the ferry dock on Shaw Island.
It was the perfect weekend for Down With Pants! We are now rested and ready to take on yet another week of work, watching basketball and bowling!
Take the test that University of Georgia assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr. gave his Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball students. Oh yeah, by the way, most of the "students" in this class were Georgia athletes and in particular Georgia basketball players.
Exams and class attendance were optional and you got credit for going to varsity basketball classes and games, which the basketball players were already required to be at.
"I thought personally it was a great idea. I took great pride in that class ... Teacher of the Year award, I thought I was going to get," Harrick said.
Where was Jim Harrick Jr. when Down With Pants! was in college? We should have gone to Georgia!
The Down With Pants! crew led our new bowling team to victory on Thursday night at Leilani Lanes in Seattle. Indy team #8 (our team since we are a bunch of individuals that signed up to play and they put us all on one team) tied the first game with the other Indy team but then won handily in the second. Down With Pants! bowled a 147 and a 126. Not our best performance but good enough to help us win a game. We met a lot of cool new people and had a great time. Next week we bowl on our birthday so a rip roaring good bowlfest is sure to be had!
Many thanks go out to our friend at One Notorious Slattern for helping us find out what kind of knitting needles we are. Please visit her site often.
You are interchangeable.
Fun, free, and into everything, you've got every
eventuality covered and every opportunity just
has to be taken. Every fiber is wonderful, and
every day is a new beginning. You are good at
so many things, it's amazing, but you can
easily lose your place and forget to show up.
They have row counters for people like you!
What kind of knitting needles are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
The Down With Pants! crew attended one of their all-time greatest sporting events on Saturday afternoon watching the undefeated and #1 ranked Stanford Cardinal go down in flames at the hands of the Washington Huskies 75-62. The Huskies are now 17-10 and have won 12 of their last 14 after starting the Pac-10 season 0-5.
Down With Pants! arrived at Hec Ed two hours early with only $30 in hand ready to purchase a ticket. We quickly realized that there was virtually no way we were getting in. Nobody was selling and if they were it was for far more than the $30 we had. With only half an hour until tip-off, things looked bleak and the Down With Pants! crew decided they would head home and get in front of a TV. Only a few hundred feet from the car a fan with an extra ticket felt our pain and offered his absent girlfriend's ticket to us for a measly $20. We jumped for joy, shook many hands and nearly cried at the generosity of this great patron who could have got at least $50 more out of someone else.
On this day, Down With Pants! learned that there are still some good people in this world who are not just looking to make a buck. We also learned that Stanford is not nearly as good as touted (although Josh Childress, despite his poor shooting, is an incredible player) and that the Washington Huskies are for real. Here's hoping the NCAA can look past that silly RPI and give these guys a shot in the tourney.
One of our favorite services here at Down With Pants! is Launch.com's awesome personalized radio stations. Although we suspect there is something very evil about this service that we do not quite understand, we use it nonetheless. Please listen to Down With Pants! radio by clicking on the link to the left side of the page or by clicking here.
Well, here we go. Our pearless leader George Walker Bush has kicked off his campaign by making us here at Down With Pants! want to puke. I know, I know, our boy Bushie makes us physically wretch on a daily basis, but today he has taken it to new levels. After telling the American public that he would not use 9/11 as a campaign platform, the little wanker went and did it anyway launching ads using imagery from Ground Zero. Read more about the ads and even more about Bush's constant fibbing at Misleader.org
Please, stand up and shout it with me today! DOWN WITH PANTS! DOWN WITH PANTS! DOWN WITH PANTS! That is right, today a new movement in America is started. We here at Down With Pants! believe in many things and we would be happy to share them with you via this blog.
You may ask yourself, "what the hell does the slogan Down With Pants! have to do with any of this crap on this blog?" Well we will tell you. It is a simple statement we once saw spray painted on a stop sign in Olympia, Washington. We thought that it was such a clever and complex statement that it had to be shared with the world. Was it a feminist statement? Was it a nudist statement? Did someone just find it to be really funnny? We do not know. However, it is a statement that could be serious or could be funny at the same time. That is how those of us at Down With Pants! view the world. It is both a funny and serious place and we'll try to show you both, maybe even at the same time.
Now, one more time for the road and until next time....DOWN WITH PANTS! DOWN WITH PANTS! DOWN WITH Pa........
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