DOWN WITH PANTS!

Something happened today at work that freaked me out and, unsurprisingly, it had everything to do with Oprah.

A couple of months ago I wrote about The Conet Project, a series of CD's that have recordings of "numbers stations" from around the world. These "numbers stations" appear out of nowhere and broadcast nothing but people reading random numbers. Nobody really knows what they are but most people think that the numbers are code being sent to spies out in the field. No matter what they are, they are still really, really creepy and too weird for words.

This morning when I got to work I turned on the radio. Currently it's set on 87.9 FM so that I can listen to my IPod. I have one of those FM transmitter so I can listen to it in the car or at work or wherever I might not be able to hook it up. Usually the station is totally blank, there is absolutely nothing on it. But today I was shocked to hear Oprah spewing out the speakers. For some reason her show was being broadcast on 87.9 FM, and I sure as hell didn't like it.

I've always had a feeling there was something sinister about Oprah and today my suspicions were validated. She's really a secret operative running an unholy army of housewives and today 87.9 FM in the Seattle market was their "numbers station". You may not be able to pick up her code when you watch her show on TV, but over the radio it takes on a totally different form.

Someday she's going to give Order 66 over 87.9 FM, then we're all in trouble. Watch your back my friends. Oprah and her army might turn on you at any time.

With all the speculation about what the hell is going on with Dave Chappelle and the third season of Chappelle's show, I've been in a reflective mood when watching the reruns on Comedy Central.

Sure, the black white supremacist was hilarious. Sure, the black Real World was crazy. Sure, cracked out Tyrone Biggums kills me. Sure, Tiger Woods saying "Fo Shizzle" at the racial draft was ridiculous. Sure, Dave's Lil Jon impression is so right on. And sure, Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories with Rick James was perhaps the funniest thing I've ever seen. I was physically rolling on the ground laughing, unable to breathe when I first saw it and even now I lose it when I watch that episode.

But for my money, the funniest, most ridiculous, completely surprising and utterly tasteless moment on Chappelle's Show and maybe in all of my years of watching TV was the line "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?" I think I blew soda half way across the room out my nose the first time I heard that.

Get well soon Dave. I look forward to nearly pissing myself again during season three.

I finally have had enough time to digest the Revenge of the Sith and formulate an opinion on the final installment of one of my favorite series of movies. So today I feel like stealing someone else's artwork to illustrate just how I felt about it (thanks and sorry Dave2)...

this scale was totally stolen from Blogography and changed for my needs

Yes, you are reading that correctly. I do think that it ranks between truly great and good on the Blogography scale. It isn't nearly as good as Empire or New Hope, but what is? It's a little bit better than Jedi only because it's so much darker and much more interesting from a philosophical standpoint (there are definite similarities between what happens to the Republic and current events).

It does have extreme acting, dialogue and continuity problems and is extremely awkward at moments, but what do you expect? All the Star Wars movies have had these same problems. If you didn't realize it from the first moment Luke Skywalker opened his mouth then you weren't listening. Seriously, you didn't scratch your head in amazement at how easy the Death Star was to destroy? George Lucas is not a good human director and every single one of the films suffers from his shortcomings, Empire included. He also has a very heavy hand when it comes to laying on the cheese.

These are things I've been saying for years and usually people eventually agree with me. Then another new episode is released and their expectations are so high that they forget the problems that existed from day one. As we all got older we started to analyze these films much more carefully (starting for some with Jedi but for most of my age group with Menace) and look at the older films through rose colored glasses thus making it impossible for the new films to stand up against them.

All I'm saying is that I really enjoyed Sith despite it's problems because I went in realizing that it was going to have problems. I also really enjoyed Attack of the Clones because of this same approach, and Jedi and New Hope and Empire.

But let's be honest, Phantom sucked donkey balls. There are some moments that bring it out of the absolute toilet for me (like the pod racing scene, that was pretty incredible), but Jar Jar Binks is enough to get it into the utter crap category for me.

I was thinking about it earlier today, and one of the things about moving to California that I'm looking forward to the most is voting in the next governors election. I'm planning on doing anything that I can to get the "People's Governor" Arnold Swartzenegger voted out of office. I don't even care who will be running against him. It could be Warren Beatty, maybe Rob Reiner or most likely Democratic state controller Steve Westly. I don't really give a shit just as long as they beat the Governator soundly. Every time I see that corporate puppet on TV spewing his idiocy all over the airwaves it makes me want to wretch.

I don't yet live in California so I'm not totally privy to everything that's happening down there. But from what I can tell, Arnold has launched an offensive aimed squarely at workers by cutting pensions, weakening labor unions and giving a ton more rights to corporations. He has also proposed completely closing the Mexican border, a massive redistricting along political lines and he has made 35 trips spending 113 days out of state in his first 18 months. His approval rating has slipped dramatically in the last few months and his star power seems to be fading or even starting to work against him.

Which is awesome! I cannot wait for the day when I can head to the polls and cast my vote against this joke of a governor. And I cannot wait to wake up the next morning, grab a newspaper and see in humongous bold letters above the fold "HASTA LA VISTA BABY!" I promise that the Down With Pants! crew will do everything in their power to make this happen even if I have to doctor a newspaper so it reads HASTA LA VISTA BABY!

Notice anything different about Down With Pants! today? Well it might be because I just launched a new feature, DWP!'s New Music. From now on, whenever I run out and grab myself a new CD I'll pop up a quick little review of it in that section complete with my new pants rating system. One pair of pants equals "fucking blows" while five equals "The Love Below".

The new music section replaces the "current driving music" section that turned out to be a total bitch to update - or it could just be that I'm ridiculously lazy. Either way it had not been updated since Christmas so I felt it was high time to do something. I'm hoping to do some more revamping to the sidebar sometime soon including a profile of myself for all of you that actually care.

One of my new favorite blogs, Assistant Atlas, is currently running the "Poop on Ryan Seacrest's Star" contest. You heard right, Ryan Seacrest has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and sooner or later someone will defecate all over it. Cheers to Assistant Atlas for spearheading this noble cause.

However, we must not focus too much on that no talent assclown Ryan Seacrest and remember that there are plenty of other douchebag celebrities wasting good sidewalk space in Hollywood. And that is why today I announce the first annual DWP! "Fake Poop on E. Powers Biggs' Star" contest.

That's right, you too could become uber famous by fake pooping right on top of E. Powers Biggs' star. The first person to email me a picture of themselves pretending to poop on his star and then leaving some fake doo (or whatever you want to do, I just don't want any pictures of people really taking a poo on his star) will receive something from my vast collection of fun Archie McPhee goodies.

I mean seriously, this guy has been hogging the sidewalk too long. Just because he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, taught at the Longy School and the Peabody Conservatory, became the most noted classical organist of the 20th century and was influential in bringing the pipe organ back to prominence in the '40's and '50's doesn't mean that he should have a star while people like Star Jones or Rob and Amber have to go without.

So getyour ass down to 6522 Hollywood Boulevard today and fake defecate away. Send your pictures to downwithpants@gmail.com and get ready to become ridiculously super duper famous because you won the first annual DWP! "Fake Poop on E. Powers Biggs' Star" contest.

I wonder if this will get me on Celebrity Justice too!

I can't believe what I have just done. On my other tab in Firefox right now is the message board at GilmoreGirls.org. I have been reading all the reactions to last night's season finale where Rory left Yale (oh how I loathe that Logan!) and Lorelai proposed to Luke (what a shocker!). Have I really sunk this low? Has married life already taken a toll on my manhood?

Seriously though, Gilmore Girls is awesome! I have totally been sucked in to it's vacuum. I looked forward to this episode all day long and planned my evening around it. I can't really remember a TV show that I've ever done that with. Maybe the Simpsons, especially when I was in college. We had two straight hours of the Simpsons every day when I lived in Bowling Green, Ohio. First it came on the Canadian channel, then it was on for an hour on the Toledo station and then it was on for another half hour on a Cleveland station. It was heaven. I skipped classes sometimes just to veg out and watch those two hours.

But I digress. Gilmore Girls is just so smart and funny and dramatic that I can't stop watching no matter how emasculated I start to feel (drinking Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper during the show doesn't help). So here we go...let's start geeking!

Can you believe Rory!!! I sure can't! I mean seriously, she's just totally wrapped around this spoiled brat Logan's little finger. It's driving me crazy! I hate that guy. I hate all of her boyfriends. Dean, Jess, Logan...they're all fuckwads and they are all played by terrible, terrible actors. But Lorelai is pissing me off too with the thinking about selling the inn and being so stupid about Rory and Luke. The only thing she's done right lately is ask Luke to marry her and even that may turn out to be wrong. Ugh. The only ones I'm happy with as this season ended were Lane and her band (which includes Sebastian Bach) and even that may end tragically.

Anyway, sorry for the Gilmore Girls geeking. It was such a good and interesting episode that I had to get it off my chest. Maybe I'll just start posting on the message boards instead of subjecting my loyal readers to such drivel. My screen name will be bIGpuSSdWP1.

Freshly married and wickedly sunburned (I'm peeling something fierce right now), I'm finally back to blogging after a week and a half layoff. Big thanks go out to Dave2 and Ted for keeping the dream alive while I was basking in the hot Maui sun. The posts were excellent, maybe a little too excellent. Will anybody be glad I'm back?

Anyway, enough of my self confidence issues. The wedding was absolutely incredible. I blubbered like a little girl a couple of times. At least Death? did too or else I would have felt a little weird. She looked gorgeous (as always) in her wedding gown and it was difficult not to get emotional just looking at her. We danced a ton and partied into the night. It was everything that I ever wanted in a wedding.

And I have to highly recommend Maui. It is even more beautiful than I had expected. The food is incredible, the weather awesome and there is just a ton to do even if you don't want to do anything. So go there. It is awesome!

More on the wedding and Maui very soon...

We here at Down With Pants! have just learned of our brand new favorite holiday...

HAPPY NO PANTS DAY EVERYBODY!!!

Christmas is a joke. Valentine's day stinks. Easter be damned. Arbor Day is for the birds (sorry). But No Pants Day rules! How come I didn't think of it first? I'm just glad my wedding is the day after No Pants Day. That could have been pretty ugly.

Ok, so this is a little experiment. Honestly, I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut writing so I think I'm going to try something new tonight. I'm going to ask Death? to give me a subject and then I will rant away for a paragraph or so typing whatever comes to mind. Please join me in this great experiment, won't you! Updates to follow!

9:56 PM - Death?: "I'm not going to tell you what to write about!" - Well this experiment is off to a grand start. Death? is busy packing and getting ready for a wedding and I'm only interested in giving people something to read while I'm away. Soooooooo Sorry! I promise I'll get more out of her in a little bit.

10:04 PM - Death? "You know what, maybe you should go down and get yourself a light bulb and fix the light yourself" - Ridiculous! I'm supposed to be writing notes to my mom and grandma and her mom and yet I have to get a light bulb for the desk light? Seriously, does that make any sense? Well, here I go, all the way downstairs...(we aren't really fighting by the way, it just kind of sounds that way. Just playful banter).

10:11 PM - Death? "Why don't you care that the Sonics are in the playoffs?" - Finally, a real question. I don't really know why I don't care about the Seattle Supersonics but I don't. I worked for them for two years, they are playing really well, they were always my favorite team when I was younger but now I could care less how they do. Actually, I'm starting to enjoy my local sports teams doing bad. It can be more entertaining. I listen to a lot of sports radio and all the complaining is kind of fun. Of course that doesn't mean I won't hop on the bandwagon if they make the finals!

11:11 PM - I have just realized that there is a word that will be used in our wedding ceremony that I have never heard before. The word is promulgation. Death? says that it means increasing and continuing basically. I have my doubts. I don't think it's a word at all. Just random letters put together to throw me for a loop and make me look dumb on my wedding day.

11:35 - Death? "I'm not sleeping, I'm just laying here" - She tells me this after I told her to change into sleep clothes since she is just laying on the bed with her eyes shut. She will be asleep soon enough but in full dress. She swears she's not going to sleep but I've heard that line before in cars, in airplanes, on the couch, at the supermarket, in surgery, while walking...

Morning Update - Anyway, that didn't work out as well as I had hoped it would. Too many other things to do last night plus an uncooperative Death? didn't help. It's understandable though, I was shirking my responsibilities to do some blogging so you can understand her uncooperativeness (is that a word?). Anyway, I think it's an interesting idea and I'm going to do it again some time when Death? can feed me rantable subjects and not get mad at me for being a slacker.

On Thursday I'm playing tour guide! On Friday I'm cooking and rehearsing and all of that good stuff! On Saturday I'm getting married! On Sunday I head to Maui for the honeymoon! I won't be back until the 14th!

What do all of those exclamation points mean for you? Well, it means that despite my fears of being upstaged and outwritten on my own blog I have decided to solicit some of my good blogging friends help. If you are interested in writing a couple of items for Down With Pants! starting Thursday then drop me an email at downwithpants@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with all of the juicy info.

P.S....Paris Hilton Crotch Shot (I just wanted to add that to a post. WULAD just wrapped up a Paris Hilton crotch shot pledge drive where people pledged money based on how many times he got a hit from someone searching for Paris Hilton crotch shots. So now I'm curious how many hits I might get by adding that phrase to DWP! I wish I would have seen the pledge drive earlier, I so would have pledged.)