Continuing on my need for "Best of" lists to end this year, here are my favorite movies of 2004. Again, just like in the songs post this is a list of my favorite movies not the best films of the year (except for Eternal Sunshine, which is the best film of the year). It's simply a list of the ones I really, really enjoyed. There sure were a lot of them. I don't think there has been a year when I loved so many movies. Yet most people say this was a very mediocre year.
This list is probably not complete because I'm positive I'm forgetting a couple of movies that I saw and I liked and I haven't seen many of the latest releases...
Tie #15 - Anchorman/ Dodgeball
#14 - The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
#13 - I Heart Huckabees
#12 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
#11 - Finding Neverland
#10 - Shrek 2
#9 - Saved!
#8 - Garden State
#7 - Shaun of the Dead
#6 - Kill Bill Volume 2
#5 - Spiderman 2
#4 - The Incredibles
#3 - Napoleon Dynamite
#2 - Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind
#1 - Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
So? Think Harold and Kumar was crap? Did the Passion get you all hot and bothered? Is there something I'm missing? Please let me know...
I feel compelled to do some "Best of 2004" lists. Of course I realize that a "Best of" list is completely subjective so I won't force my opinions down your throat. What follows is simply the songs that have become my favorite this year. I don't really think that they are the best songs of the year, just the ones that I would put on a mix tape if someone asked me to...
Bonus #16 - "99 Problems" - DJ Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
15. "Move On" - Mike Doughty - Future Soundtrack For America
14. " Some Postman" - Presidents of the USA - Love Everybody
13. "I'll Be Around" - Cee-Lo Green - The Soul Machine
12. "Hoist That Rag" - Tom Waits - Real Gone
11. "Doublewide" - Southern Culture on the Skids - Mojo Box
10. "Portland, Oregon" - Loretta Lynn and Jack White - Van Lear Rose
9. "Common People" - William Shatner - Has Been
8. "Blinded By the Light" - The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
7. "Me & Mia" - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets
6. "Sex, Love and Money" - Mos Def - New Danger
5. "I'm Tongue Tied" - Magnetic Fields - I
4. "Through the Wire" - Kanye West - College Dropout
3. "Way of the Light" - Gift of Gab - 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up
2. "Section 12 (Hold Me Now)" - Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy
1. "Float On" - Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Anything I might have missed? Have a song that really did something for you? Does my taste totally suck? Let me know...
The Down With Pants! crew took in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou at the Guild 45th in Seattle on Sunday night. While it probably is director Wes Anderson's worst movie it still is very good and I recommend it giving it Two Pants Down. It's funny, it's interesting, it's visually very well made, the music is great and it was a lot of fun.
That being said, I have no idea what the point of it was. It has so many themes and morals running around at once that as a whole it doesn't make much sense and continually contradicts itself. All of Anderson's films do this but they usually manage to clear it up nicer than this one does.
Bill Murray is incredible again but is upstaged by his co-stars especially Willem Dafoe who played the self conscious and hilarious Klaus. I'd love to see him get a nod for Best Supporting Actor but highly doubt that will happen. Even Owen Wilson manages for once to dial it down and gives a very restrained performance that fits his character nicely.
Overall, it's not great but it is very good. If you can enter the theater and not compare it to the other movies that Anderson has made I think you will enjoy yourself. But if you put it next to Rushmore and the Royal Tannenbaums it will not stand up. Not many movies could.
I have both good news and bad news. First the bad...Pho Shizzle isn't real. It's a photoshoped picture apparently originating from Fark. I kind of figured it was a joke especially since I couldn't find one in the yellow pages anywhere. "It isn't a real place, just cheap photoshoppery", says Dan Shahin of Wacky Hijinks, the site I originally got the picture from.
Now for the good news...Pho Shizzle isn't real! I can continue to use my stupid joke that if I opened up a Vietnamese Noodle shop I'd call it Pho Shizzle. Thank you to all the people on other blogs who have exposed this as a fake and thank you to Dan for commenting on my blog and letting me know. I appreciate it because I only have so many good jokes and need all the help I can get.
As I left the house this morning for work Death? yelled at me,"have a great day Fred Durst!". This is just about the last thing that I want to hear as I'm walking out the house because, as Michael Bolton said so eloquently in Office Space about Michael Bolton, he is a no talent ass-clown.
I was wearing my red Mexico City Diablos Rojos hat and a black hooded sweatshirt (shown above thanks to the magic of MS Paint). When I dress like this I suppose I do look a little bit like Fred Durst. Really anytime I wear a red hat and a black piece of clothing I resemble his dumb ass.
I noticed this resemblance years ago when Limp Bizkit was getting popular but I kept it to myself afraid that if anyone else knew they'd mock me mercilessly. Unfortunately Death? and I were walking around the NY State Fair in Syracuse when a hard rock radio station DJ broadcasting live stopped me as we were walking by and asked "hey Fred Durst, mind if we have an interview." I just snarled something nasty at him as I kept walking but the seed was planted in Death?'s mind and knowing my hatred of Limp Bizkit and Fred she has never let me live it down.
A big thanks to Daniel Sales for hooking me up with a GMail invite the other day. So now I finally have an email address that I don't feel weird about giving out to just anybody. Of course I should have done this a loooooong time ago, but I'm pretty lazy. So please, drop me an email sometime soon at downwithpants@gmail.com and let me know what's on your mind. Thanks!
Last night I attended the Washington Huskies 68-64 victory over the North Carolina Wolfpack. Both teams struggled and both stars, Nate Robinson for the Huskies and Julius Hodge for the Wolfpack, had off games. Brandon Roy surprised everybody by returning and scoring 10 points including a huge tip dunk late in the game that brought us to our feet and helped turn the tide for the Huskies. He also had the big defensive play that stopped the Wolfpack from tying the game with only a couple of seconds left.
It was an impressive win because the Huskies were totally taken out of their game offensively but were still able to overcome their struggles and make the big plays down the stretch against a really good team. After this win teams are going to take notice and know that the only way they can beat the Huskies is by playing their absolute best game of the season. It's going to be a great ride once the Pac-10 season starts.
Bitchiest thing overheard at the game: A little tiny waif of a girl sitting behind us talking about the cheersquad. "...and they are kind of fat, they are a little chunky. Look at that little chunk on the end closest to us. She's not the prettiest thing in the world." Personally Down With Pants! would take the "chunk" over that nasty rail any day.
In other sports news, my kind of alma mater (I never quite graduated, whoops!), Bowling Green State University has a football team playing on Wednesday in the GMAC Bowl, a basketball team that has started 5-1 on and a hockey team that has made vast improvements over the past few years standing at 8-6-2 on the season but suffered some tough news when they learned that their star goalie, Jordan Sigalet was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Good job Falcons, why couldn't you have done all of this great stuff when I was there?
I can't exactly say I'm a fan of John Mayer's music, but I just watched his show, John Mayer Has A TV Show, on VH1 and it was hilarious. Really one of the most entertaining TV shows I've seen in a long time. I highly recommend it. Of course it's on VH1 so it will definitely be repeated at some point, the question is when. They might squeeze it between an episode of the Fabulous Life of Some Skanky Bitch and I Love The Top 100 Most Awesomely Bad Polka Jams Strikes Back, so you'd better watch closely.
Blogging on a Friday night? Yeah, it's true. Tonight Death? is at a girls only slumber birthday party so I'm relaxing, watching the Supersonics game and surfing around.
That's right, the ladies have morphed into extremely busty comic book girls in sexy lingerie and are engaged in a serious pillow fight that will soon breakdown with sexy results.
Ok, I'm sure they are just sitting around in their PJ's, talking shit about men and having some wine and chocolates while watching some silly movie like The Princess Diaries 2. But a boy can dream can't he?
The mind starts racing with images when us guys think about a girls only slumber party. What do I think the girls are doing right now...
This week Death? (my fiance for everybody who is new. I'm Cake...our geocaching name is Team Cake or Death? in reference to the great Eddie Izzard) is interviewing for family practice residency programs here in Seattle. What this means for me is that I have been dragged to two dinners this week where applicants can meet the current residents in a more casual setting and pick their brains and see if they would like the program and be a good fit. Of course this means a lot of medical and hospital talk which isn't really my cup of tea.
If you've never been to a medical school party, then let me describe it to you this way. At another party I went to a few years ago a fellow non-medical student and former Microsoft employee said "med student parties are worse than Microsoft parties." Now I have never been to a Microsoft party but when I think of one pain shoots from the front of my brain, down my spinal cord, kicks me in the crotch and then makes my feet just give way and I fall down and ball myself into the fetal position and start crying.
Some parties have been pretty bad, it's true. When you put 50-100 med students into the same room and only sprinkle in a handful of non-med students chances are most of us non-med students will end up learning how to sleep with our eyes wide open. I'm starting to get pretty good at this, I've had lots of practice.
But please, worse than a Microsoft party? I have my doubts. At the very least, the med school parties are well catered. Tonight we had some outstanding Thai food, good beer and wine, some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever tasted and ice cream. What I think I would get at a Microsoft party is Cheetos, Mountain Dew and leftovers from the afternoon run to Chotchkie's.
Again we click on that magical button on the top of this website to see what mysterious and sometimes scary places Blogger will take us. Here is a little excerpt from the first five blogs that are thrown my way...
1. sToP By aT JaNNieViLLe - yOO..sUp..To aLL tHe viSiToRs To My bLoG!weLcoMe! hOPe u aiN'T To BoRed by iT~!HaViNg Lost My True LoVe! i CouLdn't pOssiBiLy ThiNk oF ANythiNg, buT i HaVe grEaT frens suPPortiNg aLL the wAy! Dis PoeM iS DeDiCaTeD To HiM WheReeVer u Are!
2. KC's Journal - i knew it was going to be messy when i told her, but i knew it be worse if she found out on the interim...and it probably still will be bad when i get the interim...but o well, fuck hell....teehee i rhyme when desensitized! parents are right though, i dont' get into yale with C's in drivers ed...
3. It's Over - my sis is begging me to let me share my blog with her...cause she's lazy to make one herself ( lazy pig..)...but obviously i'd sae no...ANYBODY HERE TT WOULD LIKE TO SHARE UR BLOG WITH MY SIS???hahah...it's like so late now ( or rather early in the morning)...ahha...i'm LAME!!!
4. CaRyN LoVeS eDwIn FoReVa!* - yo. changed mui songy to sylvester's its mui life ^^ gees. isit nyce? buden too bad he's not da sg idol. hahas. =]ps: feli dunch go krazee ova it wor =p if u wan ta webbie msg mui in msn when im online bahs! keke.
5. dial it down and listen up - kill me, kill mee nowww! exams are here and im not ready.
Five straight teeny bopper sites! (I'm only 27 and yet I really sound like an old fogey sometimes) Ok, I don't like to review people's sights because who am I to judge, you've seen my blog. But seriously now, what is the deal with the writing on these blogs? I think it is much harder to write like that than it is to write normally. Especially the ones that capitalize everything. Am I missing something? What gives? If anybody has any insight into this phenomenon, please let me know.
UPDATE!!! - Tonight (Wednesday) we have a dinner of Cous Cous (which I don't think I've ever had), tomato and mozzarella salad, roasted red pepper hummus and pita bread planned. Two new foods in one week, boy have I have come a long way since my days of eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (or as I like to call it, Kraft Cheese and Macaroni) for a week straight.
Somehow I have managed to live 27 years and never eaten hummus until today. In their never ending quest to fatten us up for the busy season my employers put out cookies, crackers, cheese and for the health conscious people pita bread, hummus and carrots. So in a feeble attempt to eat healthy I grabbed some bread and hummus. And damn, hummus is tasty! Where have you been all my life you yummy Greek goddess!
I just saw Modest Mouse perform on the Last Laugh '04 on Comedy Central tonight and they were predictably unpredictable. They truly are one of the most hit or miss live bands ever and tonight they were mostly miss. Isaac Brock had a massive shiner, a scratchy voice and barely hit any of the guitar notes that are the signature of their hit song "Float On". However the song is so good that even when they struggle to get it right it still manages to sound incredible. Modest Mouse is the happiest train wreck I have ever seen.
Also tonight I saw the new video "Me & Mia" by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on MTV2's Subterranean. It is such a great song and the video is so simple and cool. It makes me want to run out and buy the CD right now. But alas I did something stupid and put it on my Amazon wish list the other day meaning that it may have been purchased already and I'm just going to have to wait and see if I get it as a gift.
Forget Jason Giambi. Forget Barry Bonds. Would somebody please leak Carrot Top's grand jury testimony about BALCO. I'm pretty sure that he's been using the same "flaxseed oil" that Barry has been.
editor's note - I posted this a couple weeks ago and didn't have much of a response. But now that I have a ton of new readers I wanted to resurrect it. Please let me know how you write your number eight because I know of only two or three people who write it like I do and I want to find out if there are more or if we are the only ones who are right...
A couple of months ago I noticed that I write the number eight differently than most people. Instead of one single continuous line in a loop-de-loop, I write mine with two separate circles...
So I have been asking everybody I know how they write the number eight and so far I have yet to find anyone who draws their eights the same way I do. In fact, I have had to put up with a ton of ridicule from my co-workers, friends, family and even my fiance since confessing my difference. My education and upbringing have been questioned on numerous accounts. My self-esteem has been torn in shreds due to my newly acquired minority status.
But today I come out and announce to the world, "I draw the number eight with two circles, and I'm damn proud!" Screw all of you for making me feel bad about myself because I am different than you. I am proud of my difference and will continue to flaunt it. I plan on writing the number eight like I do for the rest of my life no matter what happens.
Besides, I am right. You may have learned some fucked up way from your awful elementary teachers long ago but when you type the number eight, what does it look like?
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
They look like two circles on top of each other to me. I suppose you are going to tell me that you continue to write in perfect cursive like you learned in elementary school. Has anybody ever written a "Z" like they were taught in cursive after the sixth grade? No, they haven't...and you shouldn't continue to write an eight in that ridiculous manner anymore either.
But whatever, you can't help it if you were brainwashed at an early age. Was I the only one smart enough to recognize it?
The Washington Husky basketball team is flying high after losing to Gonzaga last week by first knocking off Eastern Washington 89-56 on Sunday and then tonight dismantling San Diego State 98-69.
The Eastern game was a blowout but the Huskies didn't look that good. They made a lot of mistakes and missed a ton of free throws and again got into some serious foul trouble. It didn't hurt them though as Eastern was just outclassed in all aspects of the game. Tre Simmons and Nate Robinson both had 20 points
Tonight was different though. The Huskies looked incredible. They played great defense, shot the ball ridiculously well, rebounded - really just about everything went right. They did have 26 turnovers but most of those came when the game got out of hand and just became a playground run-and-shoot contest. Simmons was on fire in the first half scoring 19 points. He finished with 23 while Robinson led the team with 24.
The 6-1 Huskies travel to Los Angeles this weekend to take on Loyola Marymount on Sunday and then have a week off before facing Julius Hodge and the 10th ranked North Carolina State Wolfpack on December 19th at Hec Ed.
While surfing Blog Explosion yesterday I found a post on a blog about a line in a Tim McGraw song called "Back When" that mentions Peanuts in a Bottle. After some research this blogger (If you are reading this, I thought I saved your URL but lost it somehow and I can't find you again, please post it in the comments if you see this) discovered what he was talking about was drinking Dr. Pepper with peanuts in the bottom of the bottle, which apparently they did "Back When".
This peaked my interest so I decided to try it. I went to Oh No Mr. Bill's, our local neighborhood convenience store, and purchased one bottle of Dr. Pepper. I then put a handful of Planter's peanuts into the bottle, sealed it up, shook it and let it sit in the fridge for about fifteen or twenty minutes.
After watching a bit of the Monday Night Football game (nice work Seahawks, you suckers) I went and grabbed the bottle. About half of the peanuts soaked up the Dr. Pepper and sank to the bottom while the other half just floated on top. I took a big gulp of the soda and got a bunch of peanuts at the same time. Neither the soda or the peanuts really seemed to change flavor at all and it was a very weird feeling to get chunks while taking a drink. I really have no idea how anyone could possibly drink bubble tea now. The chunks made me want to blow my own chunks right back into it.
After forcing down the remaining peanuts that floated on top I proceeded to drink more of the Dr. Pepper without peanuts until I got to about a quarter left. That's when I started getting the soaked peanuts. These were actually very tasty but the soda still didn't taste any different and the chunk factor was still there.
I think that I would probably try this again and let the peanuts soak for much longer, strain them out and eat them individually. One of the main things I don't like about peanuts is how dry they are. I love peanut sauces and peanut butter but usually don't like plain peanuts out of a can. Soaking them in Dr. Pepper got rid of that dryness and they picked up the flavor magnificently and were very enjoyable.
Confirming I don't have an original bone in my body, today I found Thai One On, a fancy schmancy Thai restaurant in Whistler, BC. After Pho Shizzle, Thai One On was my second choice for favorite cheesy restaurant name that I would open if given the chance. Now I'm just completely lost (an illustration of this: It just took me six different tries to spell completely correctly).
Today Death? and I traveled to the beautiful Snoqualmie Valley to pick up our Christmas tree at the Carnation Tree Farm (our new favorite place to get a tree) and found two incredible roadside attractions.
1. Segis Pietertje Prospect, AKA Possum Sweetheart...
Fresh off of cutting down our tree, emboldened with a sense of adventure, we set out to find Possum Sweetheart. About five miles north of Carnation just off of Carnation Farms Road sits this heifer of a memorial. It honors Segis Pietertje Prospect, a Holstein who in 1920 set the world record for most milk produced in a year by churning out 37,361 pounds of milk. The plaque goes into great detail about Possum and the record and delivers this solidly true statement. Cows.."nobly deserve the title, 'Foster Mother of the Human Race." Learn more about Possum here. Picture stolen from here.
2. XXX Root Beer Drive-In...
Following our stop to see Possum Sweetheart and a quick cheese finding mission we then headed back to Seattle but got distracted in Issaquah by the XXX Root Bear Drive-In. Having eaten hours ago at the good but skimpy Longshoreman's Daughter in Fremont we were quite hungry and our stomachs overruled our minds. Good thing breakfast wasn't very big because the XXX doesn't skimp and the food is incredible.
First we ordered XXX Root Bear, Death? had the 24 ounce mug while I went with the 34 ouncer and it was just about the best root beer I've ever had. Then we ordered food and I had the Cameo 49, a footlong Philly cheesteak sandwich smothered in XXX sauce, XXX gravy, green peppers, grilled onions and mushrooms. Death? ordered one of the most modest sounding hamburgers on the menu and it was still freaking humongous.
One of the sandwiches on the menu consists of ham, a hamburger patty, bacon and a hot dog (I think there may have been even one more meat product as well) with cheese. Everything is huge and messy and they will not give you a fork or knife no matter what, so don't even bother asking. We didn't even eat dinner tonight since we have been completely full ever since and I may not eat breakfast in the morning. Learn more about the historic XXX here (it's also where I stole the picture).
I don't know who scares me more anymore. The person using the hands-free device on their cell phone or a completely delusional crazy fuckhead. It's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two. You see them come stumbling toward you totally oblivious to the world flapping their gums to what seems like no one in particular. One roams the malls and grocery stores of the suburbs, the other roams the streets and alleyways of Pioneer Square. But can you really tell the difference?
Who really knows if that grungy looking guy yelling at the top of his lungs in downtown is really fighting with his inner demons or just on a really bad connection. Who knows if the well dressed soccer mom is really talking with her husband about what to get for dinner or if she thinks she is making plans with Satan for the coming war between a group of super strong flying monkeys and an all-star army consisting of Ashton Kutcher, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
All I'm saying is, please be careful. When you see someone talking to themselves, give yourself enough space to get away quick. Because you never know when Kelly the soccer mom may use you as a human shield against an unholy Kutcher/Hilton/Lohan army.
Just a quick programming note for all a y'all. Tonight I got rid of the "Previous Posts" section on the sidebar and added a "My Favorite Posts" section instead. For those of you who are new to Down With Pants! (which most of you are) this is an excellent way of seeing what I'm all about. Please check it out....Thanks!
Ok, so I was sure I wasn't the first to have this idea and now it's been proven. However, it's been my joke for the last few years that if I ever opened up a Pho shop, I'd call it Pho Shizzle. Surprisingly people thought it was a pretty funny joke and actually a good idea. I would've been happy to give up my idea to someone if they wanted to open up Pho Shizzle in Seattle because I haven't the foggiest clue about running a Pho place.
This Pho Shizzle aparently is somewhere in either LA or the Bay Area, nothing I read says where it is located, but it isn't in Seattle. So if you are thinking of opening a Pho restaurant in Seattle, please call it Pho Shizzle because I would so eat at it. Now if only I could find a restaurant called Pho Sho. Feel free to steal that one too. Picture stolen from Wacky Hijinks.
The Huskies played an outstanding game but ran out of gas in the last five minutes and lost to Gonzaga 99-87 tonight. The game was pretty damn good until those last minutes or so when foul trouble really hurt the Huskies. Add that to 6,000 screaming Zag fans and a Gonzaga team that was on a mission to show they weren't as bad as their loss to Illinois on Saturday and it's no wonder they won.
It's disappointing to see the Huskies suffer a setback after such a positive beginning to the season but I don't think this loss is that big of a deal. It does show that they have some weaknesses without Brandon Roy in the lineup but these are the kind of losses, just like Gonzaga had to Illinois, that helps a team grow.
One major problem that the Huskies are going to have all season long is fouls. This is a team that fouls quite a bit. They even put Seattle Pacific in the bonus early in both halves of that blowout. Bobby Jones has already fouled out in two of the four games he has played in after fouling out 15 times last season. Tonight, Jones stayed out of foul trouble but just about everybody else was saddled with two or three by the end of the first half. Tre Simmons picked up his fourth early in the second half and had to sit for a long time taking a way the Huskies best three point shooter. The style that this team plays means they are going to foul a lot and with the depth that the Huskies have when Roy is healthy it won't be that big of a deal. Without him they are spread thin and their intense defense suffered tonight because guys had to back off so often. It also doesn't help that Gonzaga hit 27 of their 33 free throw attempts while the Huskies only hit 9 of 17.
The Bulldogs face UMass on Saturday here in Seattle at the Key Arena in the Battle of Seattle. UMass has been awful this season and Gonzaga should be able to pick up a second straight win. On Sunday the Huskies look to get right when they take on Eastern Washington at the sold-out Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
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