DOWN WITH PANTS!

On a few blogs that I visit I regularly hear about how their DSL is down and how upset about it they are. I've never had this problem because until last week I was still stuck with AOL dialup. To everybody who has ever had this problem and written a post about it or even mentioned it, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for quietly scoffing at you or calling you a crybaby to myself. I knew nothing about it until now and I was out of line.

This evening our DSL went down for absolutely no reason. Being a first time DSL user I mistakenly contacted tech support. Of course they couldn't figure out what was wrong. According to their tests everything was hunky-dory until they reached my modem, which must have been messed up by me. Thankfully, a few minutes ago it started working again. What happened to it to make it work beats the heck out of me. But I do know that there is a technician on his way between 8 AM and noon on Friday who might not find anybody home waiting for him.

Now, onto why I must apologize. I didn't realize just how addictive using DSL would be. Switching back to dialup was awful. I mean, what a joke. It was so amazingly depressing that now I can understand why all of you get so moody when it happens. I did too. Instead I had to flip channels between Superman and the Breakfast Club. Not a terrible fate but I have more important job hunting to do. I can't get a job flipping channels despite the fact that I dream about it on a nightly basis. So thank you DSL god for bringing back my fast internet connection.

To the folks at the PYC if you are reading this. I really didn't mean to add my signature with this link to the email I sent you today, that was a bad mistake and I'm sorry if you are offended by anything on here. It's just a hobby that I have that is totally harmless.

I promise that I rarely write about work. The only times I have written about work are when I simply try to tell a funny, positive story or, just recently, describing the tension that I was happy to be away from when I left my job to move to Ventura. Other than that I have totally steered away from work related posts. It's kind of a policy of mine because I respect and enjoy my employers enough that I would never want to smear their good names.

Despite all my cursing and whatnot on this blog I really am a great guy who would love a job with the PYC. I know I would do a great job for you and I sincerely hope that this blog won't hurt my chances of working with you. Thanks in advance for your understanding!

And seriously, Oprah is a crybaby about that boutique thing. You've got to give me that!

I hate to bury my last post so quickly, but I have to share this article found this morning on Yahoo...

Oprah Winfrey 'humiliated' by Paris boutique snub

Boo fucking hoo Oprah, boo fucking hoo!

I was just going through the pictures on my digital camera and I came across this one and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was and why I took a picture of it. Can you guess what it is?

Well, I finally figured it out. It's a picture of the engine of the airplane that I took from Los Angeles to Seattle about a month ago from my seat. I just happened to wake up for a minute, look outside and have something catch my attention...

In my sleepy stupor and with my stomach rumbling from those nasty peanuts they fed us I deliriously started panicking. What does that symbol mean? Is this a rebellious airplane? Has it developed a mind of it's own? Is it going to go down in a suicidal blaze of glory starting a Terminator style war against mankind? Have I unwittingly discovered the truth behind 9/11?

So with all of these questions running through my head I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped this picture in hopes that one day it would be found in the charred remains of our plane and be the clue to what really is going on in this world thus stopping the destruction of mankind by the Boing 737. Or at the very least be something to blog about.

Or course it just means don't stand here or else you will be sucked into this engine and chopped up into itty bitty teensy weensy bits. Maybe. All I'm saying is remember this post when the airplanes start taking over the world. You have been warned.

The wife and I took our first trip to Hollywood on Sunday afternoon for dinner and to see the Broadway musical Wicked. I foolishly thought that dinner and a musical would really be all we would see. Instead we were blown away by everything saw.

We decided to eat at Koji's Shabu Shabu (highly recommended) located in the Hollywood and Highland center. I didn't realize that the Hollywood and Highland center was actually the home of the Kodak Theater (where they hold the Oscars), Grauman's Chinese Theater, KROQ and apparently Ryan Seacrest's awful show. Anyway dinner was great and our server was an authentic struggling actor or rocker just like we always wanted.

The H&H center is also across the street from the El Capitan Theater where it just so happened that they were having the world premiere of Herbie: Fully Loaded starring Lindsay Lohan. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Lindsay and her newly anorexic self, but hey, it's our first day in Hollywood, I'll settle for seeing Herbie the Love Bug and that awful group they had singing down the street.

We also both forgot about the Hollywood Walk of Fame but it's hard to miss it once you get out onto Hollywood Boulevard. We saw all sorts of stars including Dean Martin (we think he has two stars), Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (Deano has two stars and yet they only get one, oh sweet justice), Ryan Seacrest (my bowels did move a bit) and of course, the greatest of all, Kermit the Frog...

We also answered a burning question. What the hell ever happened to this guy...

Actually David Garrison (seen here as Steve Rhoades on Married With Children) is an accomplished Broadway actor and is appearing in Wicked as the Wizard. He was really damn good as was everybody else. Even the understudies that played both lead roles Glinda and Elphaba were damn good. Overall I highly recommend Wicked if you have an opportunity to see it when it comes to your town.

So overall, our first trip to Hollywood was a wild success. We had heard and read so many horror stories about how nasty Hollywood is now that we were expecting the worst. We even walked the six blocks from the H&H center to the Pantages and despite a few goofballs, it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be. The creepiest thing we saw the entire day was all of the Scientology centers. Maybe they're what everybody was warning us about. They are almost enough to make you never want to return to Hollywood.

Last night we went and saw Batman Begins (the best movie I've seen this year so far but more about that later this week, hopefully) and while we were walking to the show we heard the high school girl in front of us say to her friends (imagine valley girl voice and mannerisms)...

"When I was a freshman the senior guys would call me up and say, 'girl, I wanna ride you like a black Mercedes.' At least they said a Mercedes. If they would have said a BMW I would of been upset. Or a Toyota. Because a Mercedes is up here (motions with her hand above her head) and a Toyota is down here (motions below her waist)."

Jatser over at Prognosis Negative mentioned in a previous post the Lewis Black line "If it wasn't for that horse, I never would have spent that year in college". It really was kind of like that. It rattled around my brain for sometime and threatened to devour me from the inside. Luckily Death? was there to hear it so we were both able to discuss the statement and the pressure on both of our brains subsided and I have survived to tell the story. But seriously, don't think about it too much or you might go crazy.

On a related note, does anyone else think that R. Kelly's song "You Remind Me" is one of the most romantic songs ever. Come on, the line "you remind me of my Jeep...I wanna ride it" doesn't do it for you? Well I know one lady who would swoon to it. Although a Jeep might be way down here (motions below my knees). I mean, for sure!

I leave you this evening with the world's greatest haiku as heard after Spongebob Squarepants this morning...

Sorry about the extended break. We are now in Ventura still trying to get unpacked and settled in. It's been much more time consuming than we ever expected. We spent nearly five hours on the road just taking Death?'s mom to LAX yesterday and nearly six hours shopping at IKEA today. Unfortunately my blogs have suffered because of it.

But fear not because in a couple of days Down With Pants! will be back at full strength. I'm unemployed, I have a wife who will be working 12 hour shifts, we are getting DSL next week and I'm living in California with a crazy bitch of a neighbor below us. The blogging possibilities boggle the mind.

So please, my loyal five readers, bear with DWP! right now while I get settled in this foreign land and I promise great things to come. Thanks!

Today I wake up a free man. Yesterday was my last day of work and I am now totally and completely unemployed. It's such a weird feeling. Last year at this time I was working two jobs and was just about ready to start a third for the summer. Now I have none. Darn!

I left my job because of our impending move to Ventura, California. It comes at a very good time because the atmosphere in my department had turned from frigid indifference to downright poisonous. Everybody was out to get each other and stab them in the back. It really had turned into a chore to stay above it all and I failed in some instances, but I feel like I did my best to keep from going crazy like everyone else has.

But it was kind of fun to watch the drama everyday. You never knew who was going to fly off the handle or what lie might be said about you from day to day. It was entertaining to see what new tactics my coworker would come up with to work even slower than the day before. Yes, that daily soap opera is probably what I'll miss the most about the job, that and the half-price toys. Oh yeah, and the steady income.

So now I'm starting the Ventura job hunt in earnest. I've got a couple of irons in the fire down there already and if worse comes to worse I can always temp or start my baseball umpiring career. My hope is to establish residency right away and next year go back to college and finally finish my degree in something or other.

But until I have steady employment my plan is to just sit on the beach, hang out and be cool. Sounds like heaven to me.

I don't fly a whole lot so I can't exactly call myself an expert, but in my humble opinion, Spirit Magazine, the in-flight magazine for Southwest Airlines, has to be the top in-flight magazine that there is. It's really interesting, well written, hip and entertaining and it makes flying Southwest at least somewhat palatable.

Hell, the issue that I took from the airplane I would consider one of the best magazines that I have ever read. I've almost read it from cover to cover now and there isn't a stinker article in the bunch. I originally took it just so I could have their list of Top 50 soundtracks of all time (Oh Brother, Where Art Thou comes in first, followed by the American Beauty score, The Fog of War, Pulp Fiction and Rushmore). But there is also a great article about Chicago and all of it's vintage places to visit that I wish I would have had when I went there earlier this year (including Southport Lanes which features pins that have to be reset by hand, one of only 10 in the country), a quick but interesting history of Las Vegas and a fascinating interview with GoDaddy.com's Bob Parsons.

It really is a quality magazine if you can look beyond all of the advertisements for Barry Manilow and Celine Dion. I wish there was a magazine like it on the market right now. Most of the magazines like it somehow manage to insult your intelligence or make it impossible for a married man to read (Maxim, FHM, Playboy, etc...). Anyway, make sure you pick it up if you fly Southwest because it is, sadly enough, the highlight of any Southwest Airlines flight.

P.S...I personally think that Maxim magazine is a joke by gay men making fun of just how stupid and meatheaded straight men are. But that's just my opinion.

Well, if it isn't my arch-nemesis Down With Pants! and
his new wife Death? to whom I'm fairly indifferent...

Holy Crap! I was just looking at our marriage license and noticed something very peculiar. The signature on the line for the Snohomish County Auditor is that of Bob Terwilliger, AKA Sideshow Bob. How cool is that? That Bob sure is prolific. He has tried to kill Selma, framed Krusty, been elected mayor of Springfield, tried to kill Bart numerous times and has landed on his feet once again as the Snohomish County Auditor. Good for you Bob and thank you for making our marriage official! Now about all of those new Bart killing policies...

Man, sometimes I amaze myself at how competitive I can get about things that don't matter at all. I've been like that almost all my life. When I was in little league (not even little league, just some city rec league) I used to get really worked up before games and then really upset when we inevitably lost (I'm very competitive, but not very talented). YMCA and Mormon basketball, HORSE with my little brother, church softball, beach volleyball, badminton, horseshoes, pinball, etc. You name it, I probably played it and got myself into a competitive frenzy over it.

As an adult I've mellowed out quite a bit. I usually can play a game and have fun but from time to time my competitive juices bubble over and I can feel myself starting to have the same freakouts like I used to have. I was bowling in a social league over the past year and when I was really struggling I would start to beat myself up mentally and get all grumpy and probably kind of unbearable to my teammates. This was a social league for god's sake. The whole point was to go and drink some beers, meet new people and goof off. Nobody has good scores and nobody cares.

Today I find myself getting competitive again with something that doesn't matter one bit. I've been doing this new Battle of the Blogs thing on Blog Explosion and I am starting to get really pissed. I just got hammered 7-2 or 8-1 or some crap score that should have gone the other way. The Down With Pants! record now stands at an embarrassing 4-3. I'm going to continue to do these battles because they are pretty interesting and fun but if I don't start winning more often I might really blow a gasket. Mormon basketball tantrum, here I come!

Good morning everybody! It's 12:30 AM and I just got back from finding a place to live in Ventura, California. Thankfully it was a successful trip and we will have an apartment when we move later this month. It's a nice place only a mile from the hospital Death? will be working at, two blocks from the mall (it doesn't have air conditioning so if it gets to hot I can just wander to the mall and cool off) and only three or so miles to the beach. This was my first trip to Ventura and I love it. It's going to be a great place to live for at least the next three years.

But the real reason I'm posting so late is to report a celebrity sighting. This is kind of a quasi-celebrity for most of you, but for me it's a humongous deal. Standing directly behind me in line waiting to check in at LAX was none other than the Seattle Seahawks biggest first round bust (or maybe that was Rick Mirer or Dan McGwire or...) and Bo Jackson's personal tackling dummy. The star of big Hollywood blockbusters like Stone Cold and One Tough Bastard. None other than #55 himself, The Boz, Brian Bosworth!

How exciting! One day in LA and I'm already rubbing shoulders with the elite. He was having a very heated discussion with somebody on his cell phone that seemed to be about a botched real estate deal. He kept saying something about a 2 bedroom house that was worth $9.25 million. That must be some damn fine property! Anyway, he sounded very pissed off and I wasn't one hundred percent sure it was him so I pussed out and didn't get a picture or an autograph or anything. Oh well.