DOWN WITH PANTS!

Brandon : Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
Frank : Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Nate Robinson throws it down over the Wildcats...

I've for the most part avoided making this blog about sports. I don't know why considering a huge part of me is all about sports. It just hasn't seemed appropriate. However it's time to get those sports nerd tendencies out. Starting today I will be making at least one post a week about the Washington Husky men's basketball team. I'm a partial season ticket holder and am absolutely geeked for the upcoming season. It's going to be a big part of my life starting in a couple of weeks and it's time to bring it to this blog.

ESPN just released their first poll for the season and the Huskies are ranked 23rd. Pac-10 rival Arizona is ranked sixth while Stanford is ranked 25th. The Huskies were 19-12 last season made the NCAA tournament losing to UAB 102-100 in the first round. They knocked off Arizona twice and beat Stanford at home in the last game of the regular season in one of the most exciting sporting events I have ever been to.

They return all of the main cogs from last season losing only guard Curtis Allen who graduated and center Anthony Washington who transfered to Portland State. Guard Nate Robinson declared for the NBA Draft and was a huge hit at pre-draft workouts but decided to return for his junior year as a Husky. He is arguably the most exciting player in the nation and should become the team's leader. They also add forward Jamaal Williams, a transfer from New Mexico who averaged 11.3 points per game for the Lobos in 2003 before sitting out last season.

The Huskies last year snuck up on alot of teams. They started the season poorly and turned it on in the end upsetting team after team in an improbable run to the NCAA tournament. This season however they are a known commodity and will be the hunted. Season tickets for the season are almost sold out and Hec Ed will be packed to the rafters for just about every game. Expectations are dauntingly high. With the football team stinking up the joint they will have the weight of the entire University on their backs. Can they stand up to this pressure? We'll find out soon. The Huskies open the season against Seattle Pacific on November 19th. Their first test will be in the Great Alaska Shootout against Utah on November 25th.

Leave it to the Stranger to come up with some pretty fucked up Halloween costumes. All of them perfect for your little ones. My favorite is the costume on the cover...



From the Stranger..."Your child will be the hit of the neighborhood costume parade in this recreation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal's most indelible image. As an added bonus this easy-to-make costume will remind everyone on your child's trick-or-treat route of our national shame! Simply roll a cone from a sheet of 24"x 38" black cardstock, making sure to cut out a hole for the face. Drape with two yards of black felt, and add leftover wires from your last lamp-rewiring project. VoilÀ! So easy, so quick, and so terrifying!"

While writing my Week Seven Preview for my Inland Empire Fightin' Combine blog (my fantasy football team - a really dorky thing to have a blog about, I know) my boss asked me an interesting question...

"So does anybody really read this thing?"

To which I replied "nope."

"So why do you do it?"

"Because I am a nerd who likes to write."

After a moment pause my boss countered with "well, cheers mate!" and left for the weekend. It was a fair enough response I suppose.

Today one of my coworkers and I were confronted with a terribly difficult and pained decision to make. It's times like these that really make you reflect on your life and question decisions you've made in the past. When faced with a decision like this you automatically think back to all of the poor decisions you have made. Why did I make such a bad decision? Did I learn anything from that and how can I use that knowledge to make a better decision this time? You agonize and struggle for the right justification for the decision you are about to make.

When you finally come to a decision you start to doubt yourself. Did I make the right decision? How will this decision affect me? What are the long term consequences of this decision?

So faced with all of that internal strife, my coworker and I agonized until we were forced to make a choice...

Brian will be having the Chicken Katsu for lunch with a Coke, I will be having the Chicken Philly Sub Special with fries and a Coke. Damn you John's Wok for supplying us with so many delicious options and making us question our entire lives.

Down With Pants! would also like to congratulate the St. Louis Cardinals for knocking off those Texas bastards. If you have spent any time in Texas, you would be happy too to see them lose. It's too bad that the Astros play in Houston because I really like most of their players but it's nearly impossible for me to root for a Texas based team.

The Down With Pants! crew would like to congratulate the Boston Red Sox for finally knocking off those Yankee bastards!

Now Boston fans, please remember one thing...the curse has not been lifted. The only way that can happen is if you win a World Series. Coming back and beating the Yanks was great, but the ultimate prize has not been achieved yet. The curse will live if you can't pick up the win. Don't ever forget Bill Buckner in '86. Anything can happen...

Although I love Albert Pujols and the Cardinals and am a big fan of Carlos Beltran, I'll be rooting for the Sox to finally win one and get rid of that awful curse that has haunted them since 1918.

I only fear for the city. What would be worse? Another World Series loss or finally a World Series win. Another loss would be horrible but some argue that the one thing that bonds Boston together is the misery that is the Sox. Would a World Series win destroy that bond or would it re-energize the city to new levels of greatness? One can only wonder.

In the post about the Hitchhiker's Guide Movie a couple of days ago I linked to a website thinking that it would be about the book the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Instead I linked to a website that really is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy called h2g2. It was really late and I was tired and didn't really do my research.

Anyway, the h2g2 website is amazing. It's inspiration comes from The Hitchhiker's Guide book and is basically a guide to everything written by people all over the world. The website says that "the result is a living, breathing guide that's constantly being updated and revised, driven forward by the very people who use it."

On the site you can find everything from a review of Lynnwood, WA to a biography of Æthelred II the Unready. There is just a ton of information and the great thing is that you can add your own reviews with ease. I'm planning on adding some reviews of my own. I was surprised to see that the travel sections are actually pretty bare especially when it comes to travel reviews of the United States. Most likely I will add some reviews of Washington State starting with Olympia and maybe moving on to Mukilteo and then maybe some reviews of some hidden gem restaurants in Seattle that most tourists wouldn't usually hear about.

So please visit my space on h2g2. I'll probably let all of my faithful four or five readers know when I have written something so you can check it out. If you register for the website please leave your username in the comments section so I can check out your space. Thanks!

There are three things I would quickly like to say before I leave work today (I most likely won't be able to get to them in greater detail, but I wanted to say something)...

1. There is a new feature at Down With Pants! It's a list of the music I currently am listening to in my car while I'm driving around. I have a six CD changer that I keep well stocked and you can basically consider this a recommended listening list. You can find the list on the left hand side in the menu.

2. Sunday night the Down With Pants! crew took in Team America - World Police. It was extremely stupid but really, really funny. I give it Two Pants Down!

3. I have been wanting to purchase William Shatner's new Album Has Been but I have been hesitant. Today I found the website for the album and listened to a bunch of the clips and it's really good. Hopefully I can pick it up soon. Check it out, Shatner is such a goofball.

I was just reading the two posts that I wrote last night and noticed a few grammatical errors. I wrote both posts very late (2:00 AM) so maybe I have a bit of an excuse. Usually when I notice errors I just go back and correct them but I really don't feel like it tonight so I think I'll just keep them and use them as examples to myself about the poor grammar I tend to use when I write quickly.

My blogs have been a work in progress. My grammar has always been poor mainly because I write like I speak and I never paid attention in English class. But reading over my first few posts and comparing them to some of my recent posts, the change has been pretty dramatic. Believe it or not I actually made my living writing press releases and stories for a couple baseball teams. I slowly got out of the habit of writing and it's been very tough to get back into the swing of things. I know my grammar is pretty bad at times so just bare with me, most likely I'll notice the mistakes and make changes. And thank you to the four or five of you for reading my silly blogs bad grammar and all!

I just learned something both exciting and disturbing while reading a review of Mos Def's new album. Mos has been cast and has just finished filming the movie version of one of my favorite books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mos Def plays Ford Prefect in the film.

Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay years ago before his death in 2001 (which I just learned about) so hopefully it won't be bastardized to much. Martin Freeman is going to play Arthur Dent. I don't know to much about him but the message boards I saw seemed to be ok with him. Sam Rockwell from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is playing Zaphod Beeblebrox and John Malkovich will make an appearance as a character that doesn't appear in the book.

I just hope they get this right. It sounds like it has been kicking around for years and was nearly thrown away after Adams passed away. I like the cast so far and but I'm concerned about the director Garth Jennings. This is his first feature film after doing mainly music videos and ads. He could make this a disaster or totally blow us away with something new. The movie is slated for release in June of 2005

My new neighbors!

We have gypsies living next door. It started this summer with the arrival of two large vans with piles of junk billowing out the windows and strapped to the top at our neighbors. Everyday I would come home and see the contents of the van strewn about the front yard, side yard, back yard and every other way possible. By the end of the night most everything was packed up, the vans would disappear and we thought maybe they were gone. But as sure as the sun came up, there they were again, getting ready for another day of unpacking and repacking their vans.

About a month and a half or two months ago the vans disappeared for good. Some other cleaner people started showing up but instead of making a mess, they cleaned one up. Tons of yard work, housework and general good was done. The house was looking pretty good or at least better than it has since we moved in. Things were very quiet and seemingly back to normal.

Until last week when the vans reappeared and started their routine again. Unpack during the day, repack and disappear in the night only to return the next morning. Actually, the situation got worse because they weren't even leaving at night anymore. Instead it seemed like a 24 hour unpacking and rummaging event.

Two days ago I looked out the back window and to my shock saw a caravan parked in the back alleyway. Not only was it parked there, but they had set up camp, complete with tarp coverings, a camp area, bicycles everywhere and of course, the unpacked junk spread out all over their back yard. I finally realized what has been going on. Our neighbor's children are gypsies and they occasionally decide to make her house their camp.

So In honor of my gypsy neighbors, tonight I watched one of my favorite movies, Snatch. I couldn't believe the similarities. Anyway, I'm on the verge of complaining to somebody. It's getting ridiculous having all of these gypsies squatting in our neighborhood. I just hope one of them isn't a gypsy bare knuckle boxing champion, which makes him harder than a coffin nail.

A couple moments from the debate really stood out for me excluding Bush's HUGE gaffe about Osama. The first two saw Bush get really upset and go off on major tangents. The third is just an illustration of how out of touch he really is.

The first one was when Schieffer asked "The gap between rich and poor is growing wider. More people are dropping into poverty. Yet the minimum wage has been stuck at, what, $5. 15 an hour now for about seven years. Is it time to raise it?"

Kerry gave a good enough answer to a decent question. But all Bush said about the question was "Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum-wage plan that I supported that would have increased the minimum wage," and then went into a minute and a half lecture about education that was so off question it was incredible. He looked rabid during it. This is also when he said that "reading is the new civil right." What does that even mean?

He also said this tasty nugget in that same tangent - "Many inner-city kids just move through. We've stopped that practice now by measuring early. And when we find a problem, we spend extra money to correct it." This was one of the most ignorant statements I have heard in years and years. Because there are no suburban (white) schools that don't just move kids through. Really the problem is those damn inner-city (minority) schools! Ask any inner-city teacher or principal if they recognized a problem and actually had money thrown at them to fix it and I'd be willing to bet they would say absolutely not.

Following that question came this very interesting exchange where Bush seemed to absolutely lose his cool and showed how disciplined John Kerry is during a debate (this is taken straight from the debate transcript):

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, I want to go back to something Senator Kerry said earlier tonight and ask a follow-up of my own. He said -- and this will be a new question to you -- he said that you had never said whether you would like to overturn Roe v. Wade. So I'd ask you directly, would you like to? (Editor's note - Bush cut Schieffer off. He finished the question but Bush was already well into his rant)

BUSH: What he's asking me is, will I have a litmus test for my judges? And the answer is, no, I will not have a litmus test. I will pick judges who will interpret the Constitution, but I'll have no litmus test.

SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry, you'd like to respond?

KERRY: Is that a new question or a 30-second question?

SCHIEFFER: That's a new question for Senator -- for President Bush.

KERRY: Which time limit. . .

SCHIEFFER: You have 90 seconds.

KERRY: Thank you very much.

Well, again, the president didn't answer the question.

I'll answer it straight to America. I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today -- under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right.

Kerry comes out and answers the question perfectly and then uses all of his allotted time while Bush used maybe 10 to 15 seconds of his and left both Bob Schieffer and John Kerry completely confused. It was like Bush said "How Dare You" to Schieffer and refused to say anything else.

Bush's ignorance of middle and lower class America was amazing to me. He just doesn't fully understand what's really going on. He looks at all of these statistics and stays in his little bubble and never really gets the full story. This was illustrated by the comment about inner city schools from earlier but was really evident when he was asked "...what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?

Bush gave a long winded answer about education (I guess it must be there one and only true success so they keep harping on it. To me it was still a failure) which included "I'd say, Bob, I've got policies to continue to grow our economy and create the jobs of the 21st century. And here's some help for you to go get an education. Here's some help for you to go to a community college. We've expanded trade adjustment assistance. We want to help pay for you to gain the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century."

Bush truly doesn't understand that the jobs that are being sent overseas in many cases were filled by qualified college graduates that have high educations. The jobs being shipped overseas are jobs of the 21st century. Computer jobs for example. So when you say "go to community college" to an Ivy League grad who has lost his job what are they going to say? The point is that going to community college is most likely a downgrade to these people who have lost jobs. The jobs you can get trained for at a community college are jobs for the 20th century and even most of those have been outsourced.

This is not necessarily a slam on community colleges, they do alot of good for alot of people. I am a community college and Bowling Green State University dropout and even having gone for a few years was incredibly beneficial and helpful. However if you go to a CC expecting to find a great job right away you will be sadly mistaken especially with all of these incredibly talented unemployed workers looking for the same jobs. This is the fault of Bush's economic policies and not the American workers or community college students.

I don't have a college degree but I have a great (yet low paying) job. I consider myself extremely fortunate and lucky to always land on my feet despite myself. It helps to have a great support system of family and friends who are basically like unemployment benefits in a way. Some people are not so fortunate.

Anyway, I'm sick of politics and I can't wait for this to get over. I'm a fun loving person and this has not been that much fun. Please god, let John Kerry win and I can go back to a the blissful ignorant haze I used to live in.

I guess I realized something about presidential debates and politics last night during the third debate. When John Kerry lobbed a big fat softall of a quote asking Bush why he "was not concerned" with Osama Bin Laden it came to me. As soon as he said it I knew that the Democrats must have tape of him saying he wasn't concerned with Bin Laden. So with great anticipation and excitement I waited for Bush's response. Sure enough he took the bait and tried to make a snarky comeback saying “Gosh, I don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama Bin Laden. That’s kinda one of those exaggerations."

And, as I expected, after the debates ended the media was quick to start playing the tape of him from a White House press briefing saying exactly what he denied. It was incredible that he didn't see it coming and couldn't stop himself from making a collosal mistake. The Republicans have tried to spin it saying it was taken out of context but the tape doesn't lie. Check out exactly what he said in his press conference and a little audio montage contrasting what he said on Kermit The Blog.

Back to what I realized during the debate. I guess I knew this already and most people have known all along but it never really clicked in until last night. Both sides prepare certain phrases or charges designed to trap the other into contradicting themselves or saying something completely misleading or false knowing that if they should take the bait they have evidence they can release immediately to make their point. Usually the candidates can avoid these traps or tricks and are prepared for them.

Bush obviously was not prepared for what Kerry said and it took him by surprise. The Democrats had to be elated and started releasing the video immediately contradicting the president. The Republicans had to be shocked and knew that they were going to have to answer for what he said so they started working on any defense and came up with a rather weak "it was taken out of context" response.

Anyway, it was a masterful stroke by John Kerry. Bush looked foolish as soon as the networks started playing both the debate tape and the press conference tape. Sure Bush trapped Kerry a couple of times and Kerry had some factual mistakes that he will have to answer for, but most of those were on numbers and figures. Nothing quite as grand or as important as Bush saying he wasn't concerned about Bin Laden.

Cockeyed.com is about as funny and creative as it gets on the internet without being disgusting or weird and it's only been there for 5+ years without me noticing it. At least I've finally found it...

Down With Pants! is pleased to congratulate the 2004 WNBA Champion Seattle Storm!!! More on this to follow soon!

I just finished taking a couple of quizzes on SelectSmart.com. The first quiz I took was on who I should vote for in the 2004 presidential election. According to SelectSmart and the answers that I provided (I did go kind of quick and didn't take it to seriously) my #1 candidate was a tie at 92% (100% would be your ideal candidate) between the Green Party's David Cobb and independent Ralph Nader. At 74% my commie socialist tendencies are confirmed by the selection of the Socialists Party's Walt Brown. The man I'm voting for, John Kerry, comes in fourth at 71%. George W. Bush comes in a distant last with only a 1% score.

The second quiz I took was on religion. I am not a religious man and I'm not really looking for or too interested in spirituality (as Death? knows). But it does look like there are a couple of groups that can help me out if I'm ever in a time of need. Coming in at 100% was Unitarian Universalism and coming in second at 90% was Secular Humanism and Liberal Quaker. Surprisingly to me, Non-Theist, which is what I would consider myself, comes in at 57%.

Down With Pants! got it's first mention on a major website recently for my review of John Water's A Dirty Shame. I was quite surprised and excited to see a blurb of our review on this unofficial/official website for the movie. Check out my review and then head on over to Defamer's A Dirty Shame site to read more opinions on the movie, an interview with John Waters, more about the fetishes and tons more information on this genius (if my theory is true) movie.

An artist is charging a library in Livermore, California $6,000 plus expenses to fix a mural that she created that contains 11 spelling mistakes. Names like Van Gogh (Van Gough), Shakespeare (Shakespere) and Einstein (Eistein) were brutally misspelled but the artist will not suck it up and admit her mistakes. Instead she is pulling a typical artist response by saying "The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words. In their mind the words register correctly."

What a load of crap. If you make a mistake, even if it's art, you should correct it and not pull "I'm an artist, you wouldn't understand" defense. She made a spelling mistake, plain and simple and should correct it free of charge. There is some blame to be placed on the library and the city council for not checking the work before paying the final amount owed and for agreeing to pay her to fix it. But what kind of artist is happy with a work that full of mistakes? She should fix it on her own accord purely because it reflects so poorly on her.

The following is an email I wrote to the artist Maria Alquilar. I'm not one to write emails to people or to editors, but this really got under my skin for some reason and I felt I had to say something directly to this artist. If you would like to do the same, her email is alquilar@hotmail.com

Hi Maria,

I just read the article on Yahoo news about your piece for the Livermore library and I was appalled. I'm sorry, but you should not charge them to fix your mistakes. If they gave you the wrong spellings then I can understand you wanting to charge them. However if you just misspelled these words on your own it is your responsibility to fix them.

What kind of artist is happy with a work that is as flawed as this one sounds to be. And don't give me that "if an artist saw it he wouldn't even notice the words". That's garbage. You produced a mural (I'm sure it's great otherwise) that has massive spelling mistakes in it at a library! You have to be embarrassed that one of your works is so amazingly flawed. If you never fixed the item can you understand how people like myself would look at the mural, appreciate the work and artistry and then notice the spelling mistakes and absolutely dismiss this piece as a joke or a fraud? Can you understand how embarrassing this is for the library, an institute of learning, to have spelling mistakes on the art out front?

If this was your fault, I truly think you should just swallow your pride and donate your time to correct this awful mistake. It's a public library for god's sake! It's not like they are rich. You should be ashamed for the shoddy work that you did and the fleecing you are doing.

Sincerely,
Brandon Sparks

This was a really interesting survey/quiz. I got 15 out of 20 questions right. See if you can spot the fake smiles....

Every election year a ton of groups step forward to try to get people to vote. One of the most creative groups to come forward in this election year is the folks at Votergasm.org. On this website there are some informative pictorials about political action like how to vote absentee or contact your elected official. You can also register to vote on the site and you can also take a pledge to have a "Votergasm" on election night. I took the American Hero pledge. I pledged "to have sex with a voter on election night and withhold sex from non-voters for the next four years." Of course I'm getting married so the second part of the pledge shouldn't be very hard unless something goes wrong and she doesn't vote in which case I'll be screwed (or not screwed as the case may be. sorry, I'm full of puns today). So far they say that over 15,000 people have signed a pledge on the site which means you'd better vote. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Ok, first of all, sorry about the pun. Now listen up. The Seattle Storm beat the Sacramento Monarchs last night 82-62 to capture the Western Conference championship in the WNBA. The Monarchs cut the Storm lead to only one point early in the second half but the Storm then went on a 20-0 run to ice the game. Lauren Jackson scored 27 points and Sue Bird, playing with a mask a day after having surgery on her broken nose, set a WNBA playoff record with 14 assists. They move on to play the Connecticut Sun in the WNBA Finals starting Friday night. Game two is here in Seattle on Sunday.

If you are in Seattle and you are not there, shame on you! There really is no excuse to not make it out to the Key on Sunday. This team is exciting, the crowds are great, the ticket price is inexpensive and by the way, when was the last time we had a professional team win a championship? Oh yeah, 25 years ago when the Sonics did it. With a win on Friday in Connecticut, game two here could be the night another one is brought home.

I just found this disturbing news story on Seattle Insider. Anheuser-Busch is producing a new caffeinated beer called "B-to-the-E". The article says the beer "will be targeted to consumers ages 21 to 27, ostensibly those looking for something zippy in their highly-social, fast-paced lifestyles." So, if you're a hardcore alcoholic but you have a busy day ahead of you, grab yourself a B-to-the-E, the beer that keeps you going! Classes taking their toll on your social life? Well, go ahead, grab a six pack of B-to-the-E, go out have a good time and when you get home, do your school work. The extra something in B-to-the-E will keep you going!

Holy crap! After a couple of weeks of earthquakes and speculation, it's finally happened. Mt. St. Helens is erupting again. It appears to only be a steam eruption right now which is a positive. Unfortunately the Mountain cam is currently down. Probably to many people trying to get on it at once. We also don't have a television here at work and I haven't been able to see any video of it yet. We'll see how serious it gets. Go to Komotv.com or Kirotv.com to check out a couple of pictures.