DOWN WITH PANTS!

See that little button on the top of the page that says "Next Blog", click it I dare you....It will lead you to some pretty scary places on the web. Not that DOWN WITH PANTS! is that great either, read long enough and I'm sure you can find a hundred or so posts that could make this list. Anyway, here are five snipets of the horror that you can find by hitting the "Next Blog" button...

1. Kelleigh's Life in a Page - "Sunday, after work, I went to lunch at Panda King. I missed church because of work, but all we needed was Pastor John and we could have broken out in another service during lunch."

2. Bangs and a Ponytail - "sadly enough, weezer makes me think of vance, who walked by on friday (oh friday - so hilarious). I didn't recognise him...they stopped and briefly chatted, i was bemused but cool. but f that, back to weezer..."

3. Om Improvement : Steady, Comfy, Happy, Yoga. - "Nothing prepared me for the adventure that was teaching yoga and making all of my life part of yoga. There are many things I have learnt since I started on this path. Not the least are the simplicity of yoga's message and the profundity of the consequences of choosing to live in this simple way."

4. My Life Is A Hollow Grave - "i usually play music. And so happened my Dad came in. I was listening to Simple Plan's new album : "Still Not Getting Any" ...Then he started to say that the lyrics were too negative and started "lecturing" me? Bleagh...Then he thinks i will follow the song..."

5. TastyFOOD - "only cool people can like taking back sunday and theres only a few people who are cool. everyone else is posing and needs to get a life and new band. k thx."

I am currently locked into a battle with my roommate. I'm sitting on one side of the wall listening to the Rushmore Soundtrack (Genius!) while she sits on the other side listening to Jack Johnson (is it on repeat or do all the songs sound exactly the same way.....booooorrrrring?). I guess it could be worse, Jack Johnson is so soft he is easily drowned out.

MONDAY UPDATE....First, the good news. The Huskies moved up to 14th in the AP poll and Nate Robinson was named the Pac-10 player of the week. The bad news is that Brandon Roy will miss four to six weeks with a tear in the meniscus of his right knee. He will have surgery on Tuesday.

The Washington Husky basketball team looked very impressive playing three straight games against quality opponents winning the Great Alaska Shootout on Saturday night. They beat Utah on Thursday night78-71, then took down Oklahoma 96-91 on Friday and closed out the tournament beating #19 Alabama 79-76 on Saturday night in the championship game.

Nate Robinson was incredible showing the athleticism and game changing abilities that make him so dangerous. He scored 29 points against Utah, 19 against Oklahoma and 16 against Alabama. His scoring was down a bit against Alabama but he stepped up when he needed to taking over the game in the final ten minutes. What was great to see was how the crowd in Anchorage warmed up to him throughout the tournament. In the championship game, even on TV, you could sense that everytime he touched the ball the crowd sat up and started buzzing. He has a star quality about him that trickles down throughout the entire team. Just his presence on the floor makes this team better even when he isn't playing his best.

The only bad news to come out of the tournament is that Brandon Roy suffered a hyper-extended knee in the Oklahoma game and will be further evaluated on Monday. The ESPN analysts made it sound like it could be pretty bad and that the Huskies were not optimistic. They speculated that he may miss as much as two months. I actually think that missing Roy for a month or so wouldn't hurt the Huskies too much. They have a ton of talent in the backcourt that can fill in for him. Robinson, Tre Simmons and Will Conroy will just have to step it up like they did against Alabama on Saturday. It will also give players like Joel Smith and Jamaal Williams the opportunity to play a little bit more in some big games and help them develop an even deeper bench for when Roy returns. Just as long as he's back for Pac-10 play, I think the Huskies will be fine.

The Huskies take on Gonzaga, who got murdered by Illinois today (the Zags didn't look terrible, Illinois just looked like the best team in the country), on Wednesday night in Spokane. The game will be televised on FSN. Their next home game is against Eastern Washington on Sunday. If anybody who reads this has an extra ticket please let me know. It is the only game I couldn't get tickets for that I wanted to go to. You'll probably see me outside of Hec Ed with a finger in the air asking everybody if they have one extra ticket.

Death? and I just got back from seeing the incomparable Taj Mahal play at Jazz Alley in Seattle. He put on an incredible show as always and it was a lot of fun even though we got stuck in the very back of the balcony and had to keep moving to see around this scruffy looking dude who was sitting on the railing in front of us. If you are going to Jazz Alley make sure you get there relatively early so you don't get stuck in the bankhead in the balcony.

Anyway, enough trashing on Jazz Alley (it is a great place to see a show as long as you are not up there). I actually am not a huge fan of the blues. Usually when you see blues shows you normally get those paint by numbers artists where every song seems to be the same thing, everything is played the same way with a couple of mixed up lyrics. It just always seems that for such a free-form and once dangerous genre it sure can be bland and repetitive lacking in any feeling. This amazes me when I hear it because the blues is supposed to be all about soul and feeling and yet, even when you hear some of the so-called greats (there sure are a ton of so-called greats in blues, ever been to a blues festival?) they seem to lack that feeling.

What I love about Taj is that he doesn't do anything by the book. Sure the backbeat and structure is the same but the way he solos is so different sounding than anyone else. If you broke him down technically you would cringe. He doesn't play the right notes, he is off rhythm a lot, he is all over the place. But he plays it with such soul and with such feeling that it absolutely works. It's what makes him unique among blues musicians and why I enjoy him where others bore me.

Today I made a quick jaunt (five hours) to Spokane for the night and after dining at the incredible Spokane institution, The Onion, I picked up Spokane's weekly entertainment magazine, The Pacific Northwest Inlander. In The Inlander there is one of the all time greatest music reviews for the Yanni show at the Spokane Arena which, sadly, we missed. The following is a quick snippet. Enjoy!

"...With grandiose, windswept arrangements and fabulous flowing locks to match, Grecian heartthrob Yanni reels off one swooshy album after another, vacillating between the romantic, the melodramatic and the heroic with the dexterity of Danielle Steele. His live performances are massive spectacles of light, sound, misty watercolor memories and fog. While the Spokane Arena might be a step or two down from the Taj Mahal....it certainly should be more than capable of containing - even elevating to dizzying new heights - the supernatural, otherworldly majesty that is Yanni..."

It wasn't pretty, but they got the job done. The Washington Huskies didn't look particularly good last night beating Seattle Pacific 89-71 but they were missing four of their top players and were forced to play their deep bench for quite a bit of the game. Brandon Roy scored 23 points and Nate Robinson added 22. Freshman Joel Smith had 15 points in his first collegiate game.

I was most impressed with Smith. In his first two games he has looked very impressive on both sides of the ball. Offensively he has a decent outside game and shoots very well from just inside the three point line and he is explosive around the basket. Early in the second half he received a pass just outside the key and drove and exploded into the air for a dunk that surprised everybody in the building. He didn't look like he was anywhere near being able to dunk the ball but all of a sudden, there he was.

I was also impressed with Seattle Pacific. Not only am I a big husky fan but I've always really enjoyed going to small college games. Growing up in Olympia we had some outstanding NAIA teams at Saint Martin's and it was there that I started to love college basketball. So around here we have the Huskies obviously and then the crosstown rivalry between Division II Seattle Pacific and Seattle University. Anyway, Seattle Pacific looked pretty good despite losing by 18 points. They have an incredible guard in Jordan Lee who scored 22 points including six three pointers and a solid big man in Jason Chivers who added 17 points. They look like they'll be pretty tough in GNWAC play this year.

Washington travels to Anchorage next week for the Great Alaska Shootout. They play Utah on Thanksgiving Night at 7:00 PM. The game may or may not be on ESPN2 as I cannot find confirmation that it will be. They then face either High Point or Oklahoma in the second round on Friday and the final round is on Saturday.

Today while looking at a chart of abbreviations of Canadian provinces I noticed a province I hadn't heard of before, Nunavut. Of course being American means you can be totally oblivious and ignorant of other countries so it's easy to understand why I missed this new province. Anyway, it peaked my interest and I feel like I should share what I learned.



Nunavut was formed in 1999 breaking away from the Northwest Territories as part of a settlement of Inuit land claims for this major Inuit homeland. The territory stretches from Manitoba to Greenland and the North Pole and is comprised mainly of islands in the Artic Ocean and the mouth of Hudson's Bay.

As of 2001 Nunavut's population stood at 29,000 in 26 communities (this is one of the most sparsely populated areas in the world). Nunavut's population is about 85% Inuit and according to the government's website, "...government, business and day-to-day life are shaped by Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, the traditional knowledge, values and wisdom of Nunavut's founding people." Signs are written in both English and the Inuit language, Inuktitut.


Nunavut flag and logo...

None of Nunavut's 26 communities are connected by road or rail and are only accessible by plane or boat making the territory very expensive to live or visit. The climate is very harsh with most of the country being as far north as Alaska and much of it above the arctic circle. There is an abundance of wildlife including caribou, whales and bears that makes Nunavut popular with hunters and fishermen and nature lovers in general. It's also becoming a popular tourist destination because of the native population's cultural activities.

For more information on Nunavut, visit their page on Yahoo Travel, Nunavut Tourism, and the Government of Nunavut website.

Please bear with me today as I am trying to implement a new template but I haven't ironed out all of the kinks yet so it may look pretty bad. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

This picture is priceless! What an evil looking man. Apparently the Shrub was pecked in the midsection two years ago by one of the turkeys he pardoned so this year he held them by the necks. Kind of a metaphor for his entire presidency don't you think? It was either revenge or a pre-emptive strike.

This is Biscuit the turkey, one of the two turkeys he pardoned this year. Last year his pardon was a kiss of death. Both turkeys died within three months of their pardons.

There are so many funny captions you could use for this picture. If you have one please leave it in the comments section. If I get enough entries the best one might get a great prize from me purchased at Archie McPhee although I can make no promises about that.

NPR's All Things Considered had a story Friday afternoon about the Conet Project and number stations that has creeped me out beyond belief. You can find a link to listen to the story by clicking here.

The Conet Project is a four CD recording of numbers stations, these mysterious shortwave radio stations that broadcast people reading random numbers. Many different theories exist about what these stations are, but most agree that they are for espionage purposes and are broadcasting code for spies in the field. The stations are completely anonymous with no identifiers and most disappear as randomly as they appeared.

The creepiness of these stations is incredible. Just thinking about them gives me the willies. Some broadcasts are read by men, some are read by women and some are read by children. Some have computer generated voices reading the numbers. Some have music playing at times including old music box jingles that are perfectly scary in their simplicity.

The tone of these stations, regardless of how happy the person reading is or how upbeat the music sounds, is ominous. Who are these people and who are they reading these messages for? Why do they continue to this day despite the cold war ending years ago? As Akin Fernandez, the guy behind the Conet Project, says in the story, "when you don't know what your government is doing then bad things happen." These are stations that are not meant for public consumption and it's exactly that secrecy and the tone that make them so scary.

You can find more about these stations on SpyNumbers.com and on Simon Mason's website. On SpyNumbers.com there is a link to a page about a parody station running on the East Coast occasionally broadcasting messages as the Rodent Revolution and Commander Bunny that is very interesting.

To hear a bunch of clips from the Conet Project go to it's page on Public Radio MusicSource. You can also put yourself on backorder for the CD's for the cheapest price I've seen so far. There are a number of other places to purchase the CD's such as Amazon but prices range from $65-$95 for this rare box set and a new copy may take forever to actually get. If anybody has a copy they would be willing to burn for me or know where I can get my hands on a used copy, please let me know because I am totally fascinated by these recordings.

Down With Pants! is looking for a few generous donors who would be willing to help me purchase this scoreboard and Jumbotron for Down With Pants! Stadium (my backyard). It will be used to broadcast messages to our pikey neighbors like "clean up your f--ing yard" and "move your damn caravan you dirty bastards" and to keep score and play cheers for their fights. Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

The Down With Pants! crew just got back from the Pacific Science Center where we saw The Polar Express in 3-D on the IMAX screen. I'm not really a big Christmas movie fan especially in the middle of November, however The Polar Express in 3-D is incredible and highly recommended if you are planning on seeing this movie.

I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much on a regular screen. The movie was animated using motion-capture technology like they use in video games and at times it did look like you were watching the bad slow-motion dunks on NBA Live. With the 3-D, however, everything came to life and was rich even when the animation looked awful.

The story wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. The movie is adapted from the book of the same name which, apparently, is beloved. Death? said that she had read it numerous times when she was young. I had never even heard of it since I did my best to avoid books at a young age. It's sentimental and happy without being sugary and sappy (sugary and sappy are what scare me away from most Christmas movies) and manages to be interesting and suspenseful.

It's also very action packed and those scenes looked amazing in 3-D. The action scenes and scenery shots are really what make this film beautiful. The facial features and body movements are a little tough to watch at times but they got all the wide angle scenery and high speed action shots right.

There are a couple of awful songs in the movie especially the gut-wrenching ballad during the end credits which may have been sung by Josh Groban. I do not know this Groban fellow but I have been assured that he is a talentless hack.

So if you plan on seeing this film, find yourself the IMAX 3-D version and prepared to be blown away. If you can't make it to the 3-D version, don't bother going without a couple of rugrats, it won't be worth it. But if you have some kids in tow and can only see it on a normal screen then don't be afraid. The kids will love it and you most likely will find it at least passable.

Down With Pants! give the regular movie a lukewarm Pants Down, but gives the 3-D version two big Pants Down! Now I just wish that I could get my eyes to focus right again and my head to stop hurting from wearing those huge 3-D glasses.

Ok, I finally got Haloscan commenting enabled on my blog. Many people have seen me monkeying around with it all day and now I finally have it ready to go. Not that anyone really comments very often but if they do, it will be much easier. I was really unhappy with Blogger's commenting since you have to click on one link, then click on another, then click on another and so on and so forth. It's really quite a pain and you can't get any information about people posting on your blog. Hopefully this will be better. And I beg you, please comment on my crap, any feedback is welcome. Thanks!

The Washington Huskies men's basketball team routed Westmont College 92-52 last night at Hec Ed. The game was an exhibition game before the Huskies tip off for real on November 19th against Seattle Pacific. The Huskies outscored the Warriors 49-23 in the second half after struggling in the first half. Brandon Roy scored 22 points to lead the way.

They didn't look very good all game long. Even when they came around in the second half they still weren't playing very well. They just wore down the NAIA kids who were outmanned in every way and got a ton of easy shots. They struggled in the first half to break the zone defense of the Warriors and looked lost offensively for much of the game despite scoring 92 points.

I was most disappointed with the play of Mike Jensen. He had a solid game offensively knocking down a few outside shots but it was his rebounding that made everybody in my section scratch their heads. He was crashing as hard as he could to the boards and taking out other players in better position. Him and Brandon Roy seemed to just be in each other's way the entire game and I was getting worried that Jensen was going to hurt somebody. I like aggressive play on the boards but come on Mike, get it together. Let the guy in the best position get the rebound.

I was really impressed with Freshan Joel Smith who scored 10 points and Jamaal Williams, despite not playing a whole bunch, looked like he will be solid. The bench looks like it's going to be strong with Tre Simmons and Hakim Rollins coming off early and Smith, Williams, Brandon Burmeister, Hans Gasser all being able to contribute when need be.

I'm sure that the Huskies looked bad only because they were trying some different things and treated the game as practice as opposed to a real game. I'm still geeked about this season. I'm going down to the Arena this afternoon to pick up a few more tickets. Most likely I will have tickets to every game except the Houston game on Christmas Eve Day which is my fiance's birthday so it's probably a game I will have to miss. For those of you not in the Seattle area you can catch the Huskies on ESPN2 against Utah on November 25th in the Great Alaska Shootout.

P.S.....I forgot to mention that the Huskies are going to be missing guard Will Conroy, Bobby Jones, Williams and Simmons for the opener against Seattle Pacific because they participated in an unsanctioned basketball competiton over the summer. This shouldn't have much of an impact considering SPU is a mediocre Division II team but you never know. Simmons will also miss the Utah game on the 25th because he played in two games while the others only played in one.

I have one more way of looking at the election that leads me to believe that things are actually going to be OK. Please pay no attention to how I flip-flop from pessimistic to optimistic from post-to-post...Thank You!

On September 11th we were attacked and suddenly our country, more or less rightfully so, became the most conservative it has been since World War II. Even the most liberal people, whether they said it or not, were angry and ready to do some very bad things. Most of us got our heads together (Me), some never have (Toby Keith and his fans) and some saw it as an opportunity (Dubya and Toby Keith).

Ever since, we have been inching back ever so slowly to where we once were, which was an increasingly progressive nation (Gore did win the popular vote last time and Dubya was being slammed on a daily basis before 9/11). To make it back from our most conservative point since Pearl Harbor to a "Liberal" Democrat garnering 48% of the popular vote in only three years is astonishing.

This election has set us back again but considering where we were on September 11th, 2001 and where we ended up on November 2nd, 2004, it seems entirely possible that four more years will be enough time to make up even more distance. 48% of the voters got their heads together and noticed how badly Dubya has been screwing up. We only need three or four more percent to notice in 2008. Given his record, I'm sure he will do something that will make them sit up and take notice.

Single liberals listen up. Here's your chance to jump off this sinking ship and get all the advantages of Canadian life. MarryAnAmerican.com hooks you up with single Canadians who are sympathetic to your plight. It's a little too late for those of us in relationships and have no special skills that would get us a work permit in Canada, but here's your chance. Grab yourself a hot little Canadian progressive and flee while you still can!

I keep forgetting to have my roommate email me the pictures of Death? and myself in the Halloween costumes that we wore to a great party on Saturday night. So instead, since a post about Halloween even a week later is a little to late, I went back to the power of MS Paint and did a little more art.

This piece is entitled "The Happy Couple". I went to the party as Mugatu from Zoolander. Once I got into costume it became crystal clear. I might be Mugatu's long lost fatter twin brother. I looked so similar it was scary! I kept yelling "I am a hot little potato right now" and after running into Hanz and Franz I started yelling "That Hanz, he's so hot right now!" Of course it is needless to say, I had a little bit to much to drink.

Death? went to the party as Miss Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. But not just the coked up Mia, no no no. She was the "I just snorted heroin and now I have a big fucking needle sticking out of my chest" Mia. It was an awesome costume complete with humongous syringe sticking straight out of her heart and vanilla milkshake puke around her mouth.

Thanks Arkansas! Thanks Georgia! Thanks Montana! Thanks Oklahoma! Thanks Ohio!

Because of you I have realized something important. I am incredibly immoral. I voted for John Kerry for president, a man who is so immoral that a record number of voters turned out to vote for George W. Bush despite everything that this president has done wrong.

If being for a woman's right to choose and against amending the constitution just because two dudes want to get married means that John Kerry, myself and 48% of the voters are immoral, than so be it. If being anti-choice and anti-equality is what morality is all about, than immorality it is for me. I'm immoral and proud damnit!

So who's with me? Show your immoral pride by wearing it across your chest. For just this occasion I have created a t-shirt emblazoned with the label that all of us Kerry supporters have been given by all those moral folks in the South and Midwest. "Immoral" is written straight across the chest in beautiful low-tech Pixeltees pixelated fashion (with a shameless little plug - ok let's not kid ourselves, it's pretty friggin huge - for Down With Pants! on the back).



So grab yourself a t-shirt and show the world that you are an equality loving, pro-choice, immoral liberal!

One of the huge positives to come out of last night was the election of Barack Obama to the Senate. He just plain whooped that nut job Alan Keyes thankfully. He gave an amazing speech afterwards and Daily Kos has some excerpts from it up now.

I think the Obama in '08 talk is a little bit premature but he is definitely someone who has captured the attention of Democrats and, using the same words as everybody else, a rising star for the party. Looking forward to 2008, there are some intriguing people who you would think would be interested in making a run at the presidency for the Democrats including Obama and Hillary Clinton giving me hope for that election.

For some reason, despite reading all of these prediction horror stories about what could be in store for America, I am much more optimistic about our future than I was last night. I personally think that the Republicans will mess this whole thing up for themselves and come 2008 the rest of the country will be ready for a change. Things undoubtedly will get worse for us liberals (and I am proud to call myself a liberal) but that's the price we will have to pay the next four years before we can start to make things better again.

(Olympia, WA) - In a surprising move Wednesday morning, Brandon DWP! has announced that he is conceding the race for Thurston County Public Utilities District Commissioner to Alan Corwin. Currently Corwin holds a 53% lead over incumbent Bud Kerr (47%) and DWP! (0%).

"We are extremely disappointed that we couldn't make it a closer race," said DWP! in a statement. "How do you lose to a retiree and a guy who is moving and would have to give up his post anyway? Maybe next time I'll try to actually get on the ballot."

DWP! wasn't on the ballot for the election but the polls showed that his write-in campaign was gaining momentum. Of likely voters surveyed, 100% said they were voting for Brandon.

"I guess that poll may have been a little bit biased," continued DWP! "We probably should have talked to more people than Death? and myself. Nonetheless we thought we had a good chance at winning this thing but the citizens of Thurston County have spoken. Enjoy your stinking water you bastards!"

I've been looking for the right words to describe how I feel about the election last night without being too reactionary. Of course I could bash the Christian Right, they usually deserve it. I could bash the Democrats, who probably deserve it more. I could bash pretty much everybody, we all deserve it. However I'm holding off and getting my thoughts together. There is just to much to think about and process.

In the meantime I give you a link to an excellent post on Boing Boing summarizing another blog's post of what this means for America. He's absolutely right and it's scary.

Well, I wish I had something to add to the discourse about today's election, however I'm just nervously sitting here at work watching other blogs (Boing Boing, kottke.org, Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo) most of whom are having massive trouble because everybody has been checking them out.

So far it sounds like things are going pretty smooth and Kerry is doing a little bit better than expected. Turnout is definitely up resulting in hours long lines in some places. Right now on Electoral-Vote.com (it is also awfully slow due to high volume) the race is neck and neck with Kerry ahead 262-261.

How did I vote? Well, I voted absentee late last week with relative ease. Thankfully we have a pretty self-explanatory system here in Washington for absentee voting. Unfortunately you never know exactly what will happen to your ballot once you place it in the mailbox. One other thing I hate about absentee voting....no "I Voted" stickers to wear all day.

Anyway, I voted almost completely Democrat including Kerry for President and Gregoire for Governor. However for the first time in my voting history I voted for a Republican choosing Sam Reed for Secretary of State. Everything I read about his term as SOS in the past few years sounded good (thankfully he is a moderate Republican) and the Democrat challenger didn't impress me in any way. I hated to do it because I don't think very highly of anybody who claims to be a Republican but he sounded like a better candidate and has done a great job so far.

Soon I'll be heading home and plopping my butt down in front of the TV to watch the results come in. I'm fully prepared to stay up all night long again watching the debacle unfold if necessary. Let's hope things unfold the way we want and we can get back on the right track. Kerry isn't a perfect candidate and change may not be sudden, but at least we will have a man making important decisions from a moderate to liberal perspective instead a G.I. Joe, conservative to pure evil perspective.

Today I've been playing around with the super sophisticated graphics design program that is installed on my work computer, MS Paint, and I thought I'd share my amazing artistic talents with everybody.

This piece I call "The Three Candidates". It features our great presidential candidates George W. Bush (BOOOOOO!!!!!), John Kerry (YEAAAAA!!!!!!) and Olympia Public Utilities District Comissioner candidate (I wrote myself in, come on, you know you want me as your PUD Commissioner!), your boy Brandon (WHOOPEE!!!!!!!!).

One of the most eye-catching headlines I've seen in a while...

Yahoo! News - 'Cornhole' Catching on Beyond Midwest

I sure love the Cornhole

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!! - They changed the name of the story to "Corn Toss" instead of "Cornhole". I knew it was too funny to last...