DOWN WITH PANTS!

Happy Halloween from Napoleon, Dog and all of your friends at Down With Pants! Now give me some candy!

The Los Angeles Kings split a pair of games this weekend. On Friday night they were beaten by the San Jose Sharks 5-4. The Sharks scored the game winning goal with only four seconds left in the third period. What a bummer. So according to Inter-munuvian Hockey Whoopass Jamboree rules, I must put those stinky Sharks on my blog and provide a link to Rocket Jones. Sorry about the late credit Rocket.

On Saturday night I went to the Staples Center and saw the Kings beat Brian J. Noggle's St. Louis Blues in person. Thanks for picking a crummy team and thanks for the link Brian. Go Kings Go!

What's the problem? Was yesterday's post too narrow or do you all hate Greenlanders as much as I do? Oh well. But today's post is actually serious. No tongue in cheek whatsoever here. It probably shouldn't even be part of Let's See If I Can Piss Someone Off Week (although it will probably piss more people off than any other post), but what the hell, I have nothing else...

Today, Houston Comets forward Sheryl Swoopes came out of the closet and announced that she was gay. I think it is great for her that she has decided to not be worried about this any more and live her life like she wants, just like all of us heteros do everyday.

This announcement caused a little bit of talk on ESPN Radio today, most of which was the typical male response, "lesbians in the WNBA, what a big surprise, isn't the whole league lesbian?" Or the typical dismissing and marginalizing all women athletes in general.

But what really pissed me off, and the argument that pisses me off more than anything when people try to talk about homosexuality, is the whole "I don't want to hear about your sexuality. We don't flaunt our heterosexuality, why do gays come out and flaunt their homosexuality?" This is what ESPN's Colin Cowherd argued this morning about the announcement while still trying to remain un-homophobic.

That is the most retarded and ignorant argument ever argued about anything. Virtually every single moment of the day is taken up with the flaunting of heterosexuality. You can't go more than five feet without someone talking about their wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend, or the chick or dude that they think is so fucking hot, or seeing an ad obviously targeted at heterosexuals, or you see some intensely high levels of hetero PDA. But when one person comes out of the closet, it's "oh, they should just keep that to themselves."

Heterosexuality is shamelessly promoted at every single turn. Sometimes you hear homophobes say "if they can have a gay pride parade, why can't we have a straight pride parade?" You know why? Because every single day is a straight pride parade on every street corner, on every television station, in every office, at every shitty nightclub. How often do we really see gay culture face-to-face? Maybe once or twice a day at the most?

If you are going to make this argument, then the only way I can respect your opinion is if you practice what you preach. Try going through your life without ever being affectionate in public with your significant other or even mentioning them to anyone else. Try changing your mannerisms or dress to look less hetero than you currently do. Try not playing slowpitch softball because it is too "straight".

Just try to be an un-sexual being like you are asking gays to be, I would love to see how miserable you would be at it. If you can't, well then you have to stop using that argument because it is bullshit and makes you a homophobe even if you don't want to be. You are just going to have to get over it and enjoy your straight to gay ratio of 2880:1 or so.

Ok, yesterday didn't seem to piss anyone off. Probably because it was too true and very hard to argue with. That's ok, I can deal with it. But it won't happen again. So without further adieu, let's crank it up a bit...

I'm not a racist. I'm not a hate-monger. I'm not an ignorant bastard like a lot of people. But I do hate one group of people. A group of people so foul and so dastardly that I feel that they should be rounded up and sent to an ice covered island and forced to cower in fear on the only inhabitable areas on the entire godforsaken wasteland. Oh wait, they already are there. Ha ha ha, suckers!

That's right, I hate Greenlanders. Fuck those highly foreign aid receiving, coastal living, arctic circle hugging sons of bitches. All 56,000 of those fishy smelling, evangelical Lutheran church going, second largest ice cap having idiots can suck on a polar bear's big toe.

Just because you live on the world's largest island and you were granted full self-government in 1981 and then changed all the place names to native Inuit names in 1997 doesn't mean that you still aren't a bunch of Danish eating pastry monkeys.

So, Greenlanders, take your ice covered, parliamentary democracy within a constitutional monarchy centered in Nuuk governing, krone spending, one TV station watching "green" land, and shove it all the way up there where the sun doesn't shine. That's right, shove it in Savissivik, bitches!

P.S...If you want to do some incredible hate-mongering, I highly recommend the Oxford Atlas of the World. If you hate those fuckers from Kiribati, and I know you do (but I'm not sure why, they have a really pretty flag!), then you need to get this atlas. Really, what have you been waiting for?

It's Let's See If I Can Piss Someone Off Week here at Down With Pants! I think it is pretty self-explanatory so here we go...

I think women who don't have the majority of custody of their kids after a divorce are creepy and fucked up and not to be trusted. If you either don't want the responsibility of raising the children yourself or are so messed up that the man won custody, then you are a bad, bad mother and should not be trusted in the rest of your life.

The court system is set up to heavily favor the mother in any custody fight, which is probably the right way to go most of the time. Men are almost always looked upon as the responsible party for a divorce or are considered a much worse candidate to be a single parent than any woman. So for a woman to lose a custody case, she must be completely messed up. She must be an extremely selfish bitch, a raving lunatic, a nasty whore or all three like my downstairs neighbor, a single mother who only has her son one weekend a month.

She smokes like a chimney, she drinks like a fish, she curses like a sailor, she stays out at all hours, she brings home strange dudes, she screams at these strange dudes on the phone at any hour of the night in a demonic, possessed voice that has been haunting me since I first heard it. When she has her son around she doesn't seem to set any rules so he runs around with his buddies in the neighborhood all day and all night causing trouble. All of these things lead me to believe that she is an awful, horrible mother.

Of course, I could have told you that the day our landlord told us about her. As soon as I heard that she was a single mother who only has her son one weekend a month, I had a very bad feeling. Like I said, I don't trust any woman who doesn't have the majority of custody and that view has only been cemented by the bitchy, whorey, lunatic that lives downstairs.

We had quite a lot of fun on this wet and chilly Southern California weekend. This weather gives me the creeps. It feels like home, which is good, but I'm not in Cali for a homey feeling. If I wanted this we would move back to Seattle in a heartbeat. Where is the sun?

Anyway, the weekend started out without a single idea for what to do. But I happened to remember at the last minute that Weezer was playing the Santa Barbara Bowl on Friday night. We saw Weezer earlier in the year in Seattle and thought that they were good, but we didn't have to necessarily see them again. They played a good set that night but you might as well have just put one of their CD's in the player and hit random and close your eyes and imagined you were there. It would have been about the same.

So we put off buying tickets to see them in SB because of this and nearly forgot about it. Thankfully, we wised up about two hours before the show and rushed to the bowl, got great seats, and saw one of the best concerts either one of us have ever been to. Hot Hot Heat opened and was great, as one would expect. And Weezer turned it out rocking through all their hits mixing up the songs and doing some different things and just playing incredibly well. They really were on that night and I would go to see them again in a heartbeat.

On Saturday we went to the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The Getty is a beautiful campus of art galleries taking up an entire hill overlooking Brentwood and the 405 Freeway. You have to take a tram to get to the top and once you are up there it is like being somewhere totally away from the cares of the world down below you. It's a great setting for a museum and the art that accompanies it is impressive. There isn't a ton of widely known pieces in the Getty, but what they have is different and interesting. Our favorite section was devoted to the New York photojournalist Weegee.

We then headed down to Hollywood and had dinner at a great little Tunisian restaurant called Moun of Tunis. In the shadow of the massive Guitar Center next door, Moun of Tunis is hidden from the street so it is easily missed. But it shouldn't be missed if you are hungry for some awesome food including Blik (a poached egg and veggie turnover), a carrot and orange blossom salad that was one of the greatest tasting things I have ever eaten (Death? said it tasted the way some perfumes smell), B'Stilla (a chicken pie that consists of spiced ground chicken and some other good stuff wrapped in phyllo dough and served with powdered sugar) and lemon chicken. Belly dancers danced for us and the service was extremely helpful in explaining and helping us with our dinner. Moun of Tunis is probably the best restaurant we have eaten at since moving down here.

Today we got our Halloween act together. I now have my Dog the Bounty Hunter costume finished, thanks to the swarthy mullet wig that I found. Plus we carved a couple of pumpkins and decorated our porch expecting at least one person to come trick-or-treating next week. We then watched the West Wing (one of the saddest episodes ever!) and watched the L.A. Kings lose to the Calgary Flames in overtime. Good job Gir.

So it was a great weekend of unexpected pleasures. Here's to many more just like it!

The first ever Down With Pants! Radio podcast is online and ready to go. Episode one features about an hours worth of music ranging from Death Cab For Cutie to Throw Rag to Solomon Burke. The quality isn't great (especially when I am speaking, I don't really have a lisp, it just sounds like it on the podcast for some reason)because my equipment is garbage and I just wanted to get the first one done. Episode two should be much better because I have learned from my mistakes on this one.

To access my podcast just plug the following URL into iPodder or iTunes or whatever you use...

http://www.switchpod.com/users/downwithpants/feed.xml

I'm still working out some bugs with my hosting company and haven't figured out a way to get the podcast on as one whole file, so I had to break it into two sections so there should be two files when you download it.

If you download it and listen to it please drop me a comment so I can tell who is listening and most of all, enjoy! If you have any suggestions or tips or anything I also welcome the help.

I didn't listen.

Southern California softball players are big fucking babies.

This evening I was supposed to play for my men's slow-pitch softball team, but because it rained yesterday, our game tonight was rained out.

Nevermind the fact that it hasn't rained since yesterday afternoon, the field was in tip-top condition or that every single other group that uses the park (tennis lessons, soccer practice, dog obedience training, crazy weirdos who sit in their car and the bagpipe player) were doing their thing this evening.

If this were Seattle, we would have just toughed it out. Hell, we would be hustling out there to take advantage of a dry evening to play some softball. We wouldn't be sitting at home wimpering because it was a little bit wet yesterday. That's just part of playing any outdoor sport in the Pacific Northwest.

Seriously, we were out-toughed by the soccer players, tennis players and even the bagpipe guy. So let me say it one more time...

Southern California softball players are big fucking babies.

Over the summer Ensie and Frinklin flipped places with us, more or less. They moved from San Diego (I heard that means a whale's vagina in German) to Tacoma while we moved from Seattle to Ventura. Being a proud Washingtonian who loves good, cheap food, I feel that it is my duty to volunteer a little bit of my expertise on this issue. I unfortunately haven't spent a ton of time in Tacoma so my knowledge is a bit limited, but I can give you a few of my favorites...

The Swiss - A great little pub near the University of Washington Tacoma campus. Great food, great beer, a little Chihuly and typically good music with a very friendly clientele.

Harmon Pub and Brewery - An average microbrewery also near the UW campus. Usually solid but somewhat unspectacular food but very good beer.

Katie Downs - Pretty good pizza and excellent beer selection. Right on the waterfront on Ruston Way so it has beautiful views.

Antique Sandwich Company - A hippie-dippie sandwich shop near Point Defiance. Great sandwiches, good soup and the specials always sound really good. This is one of our favorite lunch stops whenever we are either driving through or hanging out in Tacoma. Great for vegetarians.

Southern Kitchen - Oh baby! Authentic southern cooking in Tacoma??? Well here it is. Fried everything (I love fried catfish), sweet potato pie, collard greens. It's all here. Kind of sketchy looking but it's worth it.

From the Bayou - Definitely our favorite Tacoma restaurant. Really, really good cajun food. Again, the catfish dishes are amazing as well as the gumbo and the jalapeno cornbread muffins. It is decorated in a very unique way and has a great atmosphere. A little too expensive and now with it's popularity you need to make a reservation almost every day but still worth it. It's actually in Parkland a block from Pacific Lutheran University and they just opened a new location in downtown Puyallup.

The Beach Tavern - Our Tacoma hangout when I was younger. Just a short stumble away from Titlow Beach, they have typical bar food but really good fish and chips, a great jukebox, a few pool tables and a great beer selection.

Farrelli's Pizza - Down south in Dupont and Olympia or east in Sumner this is one of our favorite pizza places in the area. Nice, crispy, thin crust pizza with excellent toppings, a great beer selection and a good upscale sports bar atmosphere.

Casa Mia - In Lakewood, Puyallup and Olympia. Pretty good Italian food, good calzones and innovative pizzas. I've personally never been a huge fan, but every single other person that I know loves Casa Mia. They catered our wedding and the food was incredible that night and we are good friends with the family that runs this small chain so I had to include it.

It's Greek To Me - I haven't eaten here in years but I remember it being pretty good. Plus you gotta love the drive through Greek place. Always makes me laugh.

Ezell's Famous Chicken - The Seattle versions of this uber-famous chicken chain (Oprah has it overnighted to her occasionally) are amazing. We just noticed that they have opened two stores in Tacoma just before we left. Incredibly tasty fried chicken.

Tacos Guaymas - A pretty good taco shop for us Pacific Northwest gringos. I love their carne asada taco salads. I'm not sure how it stands up to San Diego taco stands but I can tell you that I haven't had too many better Mexican meals since I've been down here.

So that's actually a pretty good list. There are a lot of other places that I have been recommended that we never got a chance to try. Hopefully this helps our new Tacoma residents out.

The first edition of Down With Pants! radio is ready to rock and roll, but the service that I signed up for to host my podcast is doing server maintenance tonight and I can't get onto it to test it or get the feed or anything like that. Hopefully they will get their servers switched over soon and I can get it up and running.

The first edition features new music from Death Cab For Cutie, Blackalicious and Kanye West as well as some older stuff by Throw Rag, Visqueen and much, much more. It's a very rough first edition because I haven't totally figured out how to use Audacity and I have an awful microphone, so it isn't quite up to my usual high standards, but I think I might start another one tonight and try to work out the kinks. I miss being a DJ even more than I realized.

Off the topic...Did anyone watch the Notre Dame - USC game today? If you didn't see it you missed out on one of the greatest college football games ever played. The ending was about as wild as I have ever seen. I hate to say it as someone who grew up hating all things Southern California (especially since I am a Husky fan) but the USC Trojans have won over at least one new fan today in your boy Down With Pants!

Editor's note: This was originally published as a guest post over at The Art of Getting By. But since I'm am lazy and don't want to write anything new tonight, I will reprint it here for those of you who don't follow any of my links...

I have watched the movie Office Space many, many times. Every time I watch it I wish that someday I could walk into my office in the middle of the day, grab a couple of important things, ignore a boss and just turn around and head out. So imagine my joy and giddiness when this same opportunity presented itself last week.

But first, a little background. I recently moved to California from Seattle with my wife, a new resident physician at the local county medical center. I worked on getting a job for about a month failing to secure even a modest position waiting tables or slinging drinks. So I caved in and went to the dark side...A temp agency. They found me a job as a disposable typing monkey with a humongous entertainment corporation. As soon as I realized just how stifling and depressing corporate life could be, I started searching yet again for something less wrist slit-able.

One afternoon, while skipping out on a lame attempt at a going away party for another temporary drone, I went to a job interview with a small toy company. I knew right then that I would get this job and I started planning my escape from corporate hell. I looked at the calendar and guessed that I would probably start on Monday, the 13th, the week after a quick vacation that I had planned back to Seattle in which I would miss Monday (Labor Day), Tuesday and Wednesday anyway.

Luckily, I got the job the day before Labor Day weekend and I informed my boss before I left for vacation. He asked if I could work that Thursday and Friday after my vacation and I foolishly agreed. I should have known right then that there was no way I would ever work another minute for that company, but being a sad, broke bastard got the best of me.

Thursday rolled in with one of the most gorgeous mornings we have had since moving to California. Having arrived from Seattle at nearly 3:00 AM didn't help things either, but I still thought I would make it into work. But when that first alarm went off, I hit the snooze bar once, then twice and then the next thing you know, six times. By this time I was already an hour late, the sun was beckoning me to the beach and the vision of Peter swept through my mind. So I threw on some shorts, a t-shirt, a ballcap and my flip-flops and headed to the office.

I rolled into my group with a mission: grab my desk toys (I couldn't just abandon a Blackbeard action figure, a set of Cubes and a miniature zen garden could I?) and get out. Nobody seemed to notice anything different about me when I arrived. A few jokes flew about me being an hour late, but other than that, nobody knew that anything was amiss. So I took out a box and quickly started packing up my stuff and I started to notice everybody turning to watch me, mouths widening, eyes bulging and sweat beading on their foreheads. I wrote down my email and phone number for the two people I actually liked working with and then turned, said goodbye and walked out, leaving everybody behind dazed and confused and in a state of shock. I had become exactly what I wanted in this moment: the main attraction. And it couldn't have felt any better.

Sure it was cowardly, sure it was irresponsible, sure it is a poor reflection of who I am and what I believe. But it was also a lot of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I spent the rest of the day body boarding and working on my tan at the beach with my wife. Was it the perfect day? Maybe. Maybe not. You really should try it some time and decide for yourself

Or Down With Pants! radio, whichever you prefer. Have you ever wanted to hear my sweet voice? Soon you will have the chance. I've been sitting here playing with Audacity and the crummy microphone that we bought a few years ago and discovered that I too could join the masses and put out a podcast. Right now it's just going to be myself and some music, but hopefully I can find a little better schtick and make it good. We'll see. Look for that sometime in the near future.

If anyone has any tips on podcasting, I could use them. I've done some reading about the subject but I really don't know what I'm doing other than just the recording. I'm sure I will figure it out though. I'm a semi-smart guy. If you have any music requests please leave them in the comments and I will make an attempt to play it for you, but no guarantees. One of the Seattle radio stations doesn't take requests anymore, they take suggestions. It's kind of like that.

P.S...I'm not sure what is worse, an Angels win or a controversial White Sox victory giving Angels fans something to complain about. I guess I'll have to avoid the sports talk stations again tomorrow.

Quite a few things are on my mind tonight...

1. The Yankees fucking suck! Alex Rodriguez can kiss my big white ass! I finally root for you suckers and you go and blow it to the damn Angels. Oh how I loathe the Angels. Today on the sports talk station the idiots were at Angels Stadium talking to fans waiting outside and they talked to a lady who brought a picture of her new dog. A Bichon Frise named Halo. Fuck Halo! Fuck purse dogs! And fuck the Angels! Go Sox!

2. Speaking of purse dogs, we went to the Santa Monica pier this weekend and rode the roller coaster and the ferris wheel and played skee ball and whatnot. We witnessed this awful Southern California/Euro-Trash couple (because that's what the style is right now, Euro-Trash, just look at all the men) smuggle their damn purse dog onto the ferris wheel by wrapping it into the guys $500, faux-thrift store jacket nearly smothering the dog to death. I hate these people. Fuck purse dogs! No, no, no...Fuck purse dog owning euro-trash sons-of-bitches.

3. I don't get too many emails, but when I do they typically are incoherent. Especially this one from this douchebag...

Allow me to retort...

Of course this pussy has not yet replied to tell me just what the hell he was talking about. (By the way, I am now sporting a full beard. Maybe I do need a lesson.)

4. While in Santa Monica we discovered the greatest food ever, Cheese on a Stick! Local mall court eatery Hot Dog On A Stick serves either American cheese or pepperjack battered and fried just like a corndog. It's incredible. We also discovered that there is one only a few blocks from our house in the mall. We wish we didn't know that.

5. Speaking of the mall. I hate going to the mall. You know why? Cell phone whores. You can't walk more than five feet without being accosted by these guys. I don't own a cell phone, I don't want one and I sure as hell ain't buying one from somebody whose opening pitch is "hey man, you taken care of?"

6. We saw two movies this weekend: Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Serenity. Wallace and Gromit was pure genius and tops my list for best animated feature this year. That category at the Oscars should actually be interesting for once. I liked Serenity but I can't say that I'm as gah-gah about it as everyone else.

7. Hooray for Halloween! I found Boo Berries, Count Chocula and Franken Berries at the store this weekend.

I guess that's it. There is something else that has been pissing me off but I can't seem to remember what it is right now. I'm sure I'll think of it soon and you will be the first to know.

Sitting at dinner at BJ's Brewhouse in Oxnard tonight, I couldn't believe what I was doing. With every television in the joint tuned to the Yankees/Angels playoff game I found myself, along with a handful of others, openly clapping when the Yankees scored their runs. Earlier in the day, I found myself rooting against the Red Sox. This is a complete 360 degree turn from every year previous to these playoffs. So what could possibly make me change direction so drastically?

First of all, I rooted against the Red Sox for this simple reason. I think their fans need to be humbled or else they will end up being no better than Yankee fans. In fact, their arrogance over the last year was reaching Yankee proportions. I am a Seattle Mariners fan first, then an Oakland A's fan and then a Red Sox fan and yet I had to root for them to lose just to get their hardcore fans to chill out a bit. Maybe their loss today will bring them back to earth and they will once again be lovable.

So why then would I root for the Yankees? Simply put...I hate the Anaheim Angels! I hate the Anaheim Angels so much that I have become a Yankee fan solely on this basis and just for this series. There is nothing about the Angels that I like, except for Vladimir Guerrero, that guy is a stud.

I attended an Angels game earlier in the season and was frustrated beyond belief with the idiocy of the fans throughout the stadium. It was a beautiful July 4th evening and the place was filled to the brim with the whitest, whitey-white group of people that I have ever seen. There were more minorities at a game at Fenway Park that I went to a few years ago than at Angels Stadium on this day. And this is greater Los Angeles, home to how many millions of Mexicans? Well, apparently, they were all stuck at home doing the gardening for these WASP-y sons-of-bitches.

Angel Stadium is like a big gigantic mall that happens to have a baseball diamond in the middle but with crappier, more expensive food. It is one of the least interesting, least genuine, least exciting ballpark that I have ever been in, and I grew up going to games at the Kingdome. It's a nice place watch a game once you get to your seats, but other than that there is nothing unique or interesting about the stadium at all.

When I got to my seats after finding myself a below average meal, I got the privilege of sitting behind this man...

I nearly pooped myself when I heard the anchorman on KTLA say "reporting live over the Calimesa fire, we now go to Johnny McCool"

I can only imagine how he got that name...

KTLA Program Manager: "No Jerry Dorsey just won't do, we need to change your name, How about Zinglebert Bambledack! Yingeebert Dangleban! Zanglebert Dingleback! Winglebert Humptiback! Slutbun Walla! Alright, Kringlebert Fishtibuns! Steveibuns Buttrentrunden...'

Jerry Dorsey: "No, Jerry Dorsey! I like..."

KTLA: "No we can't... Let's see, we have Zinglebert Bambledack, Dinglebert Wangledack, Slupbum Waller, Klingibum Fistlbars, Dinglebert Zambeldack, uh... Jerry Dorsey, Englerbert Humptiback, Zinglebert Bambledack, Englebert Humperdink, Johnny McCool, Dinglebert Wingledank..."

Jerry: "No, no, go back one."

I keep driving by this boat that is parked on the street on my way to work. It makes me laugh out loud every time I pass it. Sorry about the quality of the picture, I took it while sitting in my car this afternoon. I didn't know I needed to clean my windshield so bad.

Good god, I fucking hate ants! Yesterday we came home from some shopping and lunch and found a line of ants snaking from the outside the stairway outside, all the way up the side of the house, down the railing, around the flower pots, under the front door, around the dining room hugging the wall all the way, around the bar into the kitchen attacking the garbage can, continuing on farther into the kitchen to the pantry and finally all the way up the wall, over the door, into a cabinet where they found themselves our poor honey bear which was totally engulfed in ants. YUCK!

Immediately I set out for Lowe's to pick up some weapons of mass destruction while Death? eliminated what the ants wanted. Fifteen minutes later I returned armed with spray and outdoor traps. We started by carpet bombing the bastards with the spray, killing as many as we could quickly. Despite the massive loss of ant life they kept sending troops into the battlefield. So I set up the traps right in the middle of their track outside and laughed maniacally as they walked up the ramp and fell into the poison or confusedly turned around and went back. Of course, I didn't let them get very far because I came armed with spray and I let them have it at full nozzle sparing only a couple so that they could go back to their queen and inform her of the massacre that had taken place. We finished off the extermination by searching out the remaining insurgents taking no mercy on any of these stragglers.

I am happy to report that we are now 99.99% ant free. We have fortified our apartment against these fuckers by setting up the outside traps near both door as well as spraying every possible entry point into our apartment. I hate to kill anything, but I fucking hate ants, and they had to die. Now I can put this awful, psychotic killing spree behind me and get on with my life.

If only I could stop itching. It feels like I have ants all over me. Damn this post traumatic stress disorder! Good god, I fucking hate ants!