DOWN WITH PANTS!

Yes, it really is only about an hour until New Year's and yes, I am blogging. That's because the wife had to work tonight, she is on night ER duty this month, 10PM-7AM, so we celebrated the East Coast New Year's before she left. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so here I am.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights from the last year of Down With Pants! I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have...

January
I discovered that E.T. and Keira Knightley were separated at birth and I got in some trouble for writing about my top five favorite actresses after you all discovered that I have a "type".

February
I finally admitted that I have really ugly thumbs, saw one of the worst movies that I have ever seen (that subsequently won Best Picture) and had my retinas burned by the Olympic speed skaters.

March
I explained one of my favorite things to do to douchebag California drivers and had my heart broken, twice.

April
Ty Cobb did some guest posting for me including this gem while we mourned the passing of one of the DWP! entourage's most influential members, Larry The White Guy.

May
I stopped wearing undershirts, saw the deplorable DaVinci Code and revealed yet another one of my many man crushes.

June
I randomly ran into some old friends, lamented the sheer amount of smoking bike riders in Ventura and fell in love with Veronica Mars.

July
I was the best man in my best friend's wedding and gave a kick ass toast, got smacked by IT2M and I wrote yet another letter to my skanky neighbor.

August
My car broke down, so I bought a new car and then it broke down. At least I also saw my favorite movie of the year.

September
This was a particularly productive month, what happened? I finally got my hatred of Yahoo's ads off of my chest, remembered September 11th, proclaimed Gheorghe Muresan God, got pissed at Californication and then apologized profusely.

October
I diagnosed Project Runway's Vincent, started a list of celebrities that I have seen and got discouraged by the lack of trick-or-treaters we had this year.

November
I went to the worst dentist ever, wrapped up my soccer career and enjoyed some stimulating Thanksgiving conversation.

December
I discovered some funny Ojai residents, grew a beard and stayed at home on New Year's Eve and blogged.

Congratulations go out to Culture Kills Lions for winning the first annual Down With Pants! Fantasy Football League Championship. The Lions capped off a one loss regular season by demolishing CineRobots 86-39 in the Super Bowl. Shaun Alexander led the way with 19 points and six of his nine starters scored double digits points. CineRobots studs choked in the clutch. Ladainian Tomlinson failed to score any touchdowns and finished with just six points while Michael Vick cost the CineRobots a point after his miserable performance.

Here are the Championship Week scores. Playoff seed is in the brackets and, as always, leading scorers follow...

Thank you to all who played, I know that it was put together at the last minute and kind of a mess because of the auto-draft. I hope we can do this again next year but with a live draft and some better rules and whatnot. Now that everybody has a year of experience under their belts, season two should be even better.

Besides the obvious reasons that the song "Fergielicious" makes me sick to my stomach (T to the A to the S-T-E-Y, I used to like the Black Eyed Peas, I don't like cake that much), I have a personal relationship to that song that makes me both laugh and want to smash my radio or TV whenever it comes on.

In college I worked at the illustrious Pizza Place in Lacey, Washington. We had the best pizza in the world and I have never found a pizza pie that compares, but that's neither here nor there. One of the servers that worked for us was this orca fat girl who thought that she was the big time shit, Prudence, or Prudie for short. Never have I met a more objectionable person who was more in love with themselves anywhere. She was a bona fide piece of work. Fired from her job at McDonald's for being incompetent, how she ever ended up at the Pizza Place is still a mystery.

One night, watching her prance around the restaurant like she was queen bee and getting completely grossed out, my coworker Jeff gave her the nickname Prudielicious and it fit her like a glove. Ever since then, we have used Prudielicious as one of the worst adjectives you could possibly use when describing a girl. Never, ever in your life would you want to be called Prudielicious by one of us. It is, in our mind, the worst thing you could say about anyone, anywhere.

So every time I hear that song Fergielicous, it kills me. It reminds me of Prudielicious, someone I have tried to forget. It also makes me laugh my ass off because of everything that Prudielicious stands for and that it fits Fergie to a tee as well. She is so not Fergielicious. She is, in every since of the word, extremely Prudielicious.

UPDATE: Death? just told me that this post is really mean. I know it's really mean and I kind of feel bad, but then she added that she has met Prudie, and I shouldn't feel bad about it being so mean.

Sad news out of Turkmenistan today. Saparmurat Niyazov, better known as Turkmenbashi, Father of All Turkmen, passed away from apparent heart failure. He was 66.

Turkmenbashi was one of the world's most fascinating and nutty authoritarian leaders. He created a cult of personality around himself that is unrivaled today. He named virtually everything after himself or his mother, including a meteorite, a month and the word for bread. He built statues and shrines to himself throughout the country like the one pictured above and the gold statue that sits atop the Neutrality Arch that turns 360 degrees to face the sun throughout the day.

During his time as President-For-Life, he made numerous decrees including...

I seriously considered using a picture of Turkmenbashi with the caption "Turkmenbashi says 'DOWN WITH PANTS!'" for my header when I switched templates but never found a good enough picture to use. Although I hate his oppressive regime and the freedoms that he has stripped from the already oppressed Turkmenistan citizenry, I also hate to see someone so interesting drop dead before he could really show off his crazy.

I'm running the risk of alienating my wife and all of the women in the crowd, but tonight I bring to you Paulina Rubio's video "Ni Una Sola Palabra". I keep seeing this video on the Spanish channel stations and, with my apologies, it's hard not to notice the hardcore cameltoe that Paulina is sporting. I'm not sure how I feel about it, it shocked me the first time I saw it but now it's kind of hypnotic. Either way, it ends up being one of the most graphic videos that I have ever see on primetime television. Warning: possibly not safe for work. No nudity, just massive cameltoe throughout.

As Donovan McNabb went, so did the Down With Pants! fantasy football team. 11-0 with McNabb healthy, 1-3 without him. Without McNabb the DWP! team floundered in the first round of the playoffs losing 75-45 to the LaDainian Tomlinson led CineRobots. CineRobots moves on to the Super Bowl while I will play for third place. Ouch.

The other championship bracket game nearly witnessed a big upset. Witty Team Name led the Culture Kills Lions 58-46 going into the Monday night game. But his quarterback, Carson Palmer, laid a big egg and the Lions got a monster performance from Marvin Harrison and rallied to pick up a 70-59 victory to move on to play CineRobots in the Super Bowl.

In the NIT bracket, 2much411foozball stomped all over Cuckoo For Kapgar and will play TheDutchFiles for fifth place after their 47-42 defeat of johnnyhongkong.

Here are the playoff week one scores. The team's playoff seed is in the brackets...

I am a token participant in the Brothers of the Brush competition that CineRobot is holding at Circle Cinema in Tulsa. Unfortunately, I live no where near Tulsa or else I think I would've had a good chance at winning this thing. Of course, I started a few weeks earlier than the rest of the competitors so I had a nice jump start. But I did give it a pretty hefty trim last week when I thought that I needed to make a good impression at my annual review to make sure I got my promotion. Turns out we did it over the phone rather than having my very pregnant boss drive 60 miles by herself and I still got the promotion, so the trim went for naught other than evening up the playing field with the rest of the participants.

The best thing about this competition so far has been the total cessation of shaving. I hate shaving with almost every part of my being, it's arguably my least favorite thing to do in the world. It's a necessary evil in many ways for a fox like myself, but this has been a good excuse to keep that damn razor away from my face. The only time I've picked up a razor in the past month and a half has been to keep my neck hair and my beard from joining forces. As much as I dislike shaving, I'm not quite ready to go the Chewbacca route.

By the way, notice the stylish hoodie that I am wearing in my own home tonight. Now I don't get cold easily and I prefer short sleeves pretty much the entire time, but ever since I bragged about how nice the weather is down here to all of my suffering, wind swept Washingtonian friends, the weather has turned bitterly cold at night, almost the coldest it has been since I moved down here. That will teach me to open my big mouth.

Finally, check out this mistake that I somehow managed to make on Photoshop tonight. I was just going to try to fix the color on my massive forehead but I didn't realize it was on impressionist brush when I started clicking. Before realizing what I was doing, I messed up my whole face except for my creepy, creepy eye...

I was finally informed on Thursday that I did, in fact, get the promotion that I have been hoping for for the past four months. I've only been doing the job of three people during that time and I led my department through one of it's most massive changes and it's biggest Holiday season ever. A 30% raise makes up for a lot of the crap I've been dealing with.

Of course as soon as I get the promotion I made a mistake on a huge order that will cost us a solid chunk of change. I wouldn't have cared that much before, but now it's my ass on the line and I am pissed at myself. Some manager I am. Oh well, I got to raise my voice to an unreasonable customer this week and it was totally justified, so that makes me feel much better.

One other thing that makes me feel good, it's was high 60's and sunny this afternoon here. Just felt like I needed to rub it in the face of all my Washington family and friends. If only they had power to read this. Neener, neener, neener!

I'm probably not the first person to say this but what strikes me the most about Nicole Ritchie's arrest isn't the fact that she was driving the wrong way on the freeway or that she was high on Vicodin and pot or that she has blamed her Vicodin use on her womanhood. What strikes me the most is that her mugshot is the best picture taken of her in years. Congratulations Nicole! Looking like a Hot Topic cashier is definitely a step in the right direction.

And the same can be said for Rip Torn. Now that is one sexy beast!

First of all, sorry for missing a week of recaps, I simply didn't get a chance to do it.

I wish I didn't have a chance to do this recap either since I am sad to say that my Down With Pants! squad choked in the last game of the regular season. Needing a win to clinch the number one seed in the playoffs and facing the red-hot Culture Kills Lions, we laid an egg losing by 22 to give up first place for the first time all season. The Lions have now won 11 straight games earning him the regular season title.

The third and fourth seed teams in the playoffs both ended their regular seasons with losses. CineRobots continued to score high points but was nudged by the navelgazing ramblers 81-80. On the other hand, Witty Team Name struggled mightily scoring only 39 points in a 28 point loss to TheDutchFiles.

Here are the week 14 scores including some great battles to qualify for the consolation tournament...

I am happy to announce that ETA VTA launched today and I'm really excited to start blogging about my adopted hometown this week. One of the goals of ETA VTA is to be a hub for Ventura County bloggers, so while developing the site, I started surfing around trying to find other VC blogs.

Tonight I stumbled on a site very similar to ETA VTA that focuses on Ojai, the little, rich, hippie/yuppie, community just to the north of us. The Ojai Post is written by a large group of Ojai locals who, to say the least, are, ummm...interesting. The following are actual excerpts from their bios that illustrate what kind of community Ojai is...

These are the community leaders of Ojai for better or for worse. I have no problem with them, I'm a very liberal person myself, I just don't take myself seriously enough to ever write anything like that. I'm not sure that any of them have a sense of humor because if they did, their bios wouldn't be so damn funny.

It's been kind of a rough week for my family and the emergency room.

On Monday my grandpa was rushed to the ER after acting all loopy for a couple days and taking a spill. Turns out he had a whole host of problems including pneumonia and a weak ticker and things didn't look to good for him early on this week. But being the tough old pain in the ass that he is, he managed to pull through and got out of the hospital this afternoon and is raising 87 year-old hell at home now. He's on oxygen and is pretty weak but if I know my grandpa, he isn't going to go down easy. They sure as hell don't make them as tough as that anymore.

I also found out that my grandma on the other side of the family has some kind of infection in her foot that doesn't seem to be getting better with antibiotics and she may have to have it removed. At this point it sounds like only a Christmas miracle would be able to save it.

To go along with my family's problems, one of my temps at work's father passed away on Thursday after about a week in the hospital following a massive heart attack. She took it very hard as did her mother and unfortunately, she had to quit her position with us to watch her kids (who were usually babysat by her mom) and to take care of the arrangements.

And then tonight, I was minding my own business watching The Simpsons when I heard Death? yell from the office "OW! Oh shit, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow...." and go running into the bathroom bleeding like crazy from her leg. Turns out she was wrapping presents when she rolled over to get some tape and stuck herself right in the thigh with a pair of scissors that she had left open. The big, dull, dirty blade plunged sideways into her and managed to take a huge chunk out of her leg. So we rushed her over to the ER where she got it cleaned up nice and good and got herself a couple of stitches.

It wasn't a serious injury or anything and it pales in comparison to my grandpa nearly dying, my grandma losing her foot or my employee's father passing away. But with so many health worries tugging at my heart and brain over the last week, you can imagine the split second of fear and sadness that struck me when I found her crying and bleeding in the bathroom. It was over like that, but it was still very, very scary and powerful.

I don't know what makes me think that I can maintain yet another blog, but tonight I started work on a new Down With Pants! media creation, ETA VTA. Ventura, California is a surprising wasteland of blogging. There are a handful of good blogs, but nobody deals with Ventura entertainment, sports, local goings on and whatnot. The VC Reporter recently launched a bunch of blogs that I thought would have more of a Ventura slant but only one, Popscura, is updated regularly and it's about pop culture in general and doesn't focus on Ventura like I hoped it would.

So a void exists and I feel like filling it. I don't know if I'm qualified to write about Ventura in depth having only lived here for a year and half and being kind of a hermit at times, but I've been thinking about everything that goes on here and in the county and I'm sure that I could find enough to post about every single day, which is more than I can say about DWP! and The Sports Logo Pundit.

Anyway, tonight I worked on the basic framework. Since I've been so happy with how my other two blogs look since I redesigned them, it looks very similar. I wanted to use a picture that I took myself for the header but none of them that I have taken turned out to be worth a damn. The one that I used was the best that I could find. Sometime soon I'll go out and take some better pictures to give it a little less of a travel brochure feel. And I don't know about the green background. At times I like it, at others I hate it, but I can't seem to find a better looking color so for now, that's what it's going to be.

If you have a second, please head on over and check out the little that I have done and give me a some feedback. I would really appreciate it.

Sadly, neither of my blogs got a finalist nod from the 2006 Weblog Awards. It appears that if I bored everybody to tears with conservative bullshit, I would have been golden. Seven of the ten finalists in the same category as DWP! are conservative political blogs, two are normal blogs that seem conservative and the other is an architecture blog (which is cool and has my vote). Obviously whoever chose these loves political blogs (I hate political blogs, conservative or liberal) so Jess and I never had a chance in hell.

I was feeling a little down and blogging didn't sound very good the past couple days, but then Death? said something tonight that snapped me out of my funk: "I heard on the radio that the Edward Scissorhands musical is coming to Thousand Oaks."

Whoa...Let me type that one more time, perhaps you read it too quickly and it didn't quite set in...

"I heard on the radio that the EDWARD SCISSORHANDS MUSICAL is coming to Thousand Oaks."

What the fuck. An Edward Scissorhands musical? How fucking awful is that? There is just about nothing in this world that could make me more pissed off than one of my favorite movies being bastardized into a Broadway sing fest. Only one of my favorite movies selling cell phones to kids could make me feel worse. But hold on....somehow it does get worse. Watch a little bit of this...

It isn't even a musical! It's a goddamn modern dance "stage adaptation"!

It's official: there is no God.

I hate to admit this, but I am anxiously awaiting tomorrow's announcement of the 2006 Weblog Awards finalists. I nominated Down With Pants! in the TTLB Ecosystem Based Best of the Top 6751 - 8750 category and The Sports Logo Pundit in the Best Of The Rest category and after surfing through some of the nominees, I really think that both have a good chance at being named finalists. I might even be a little bit disappointed if they aren't picked.

It would be a huge deal to me because of how down I have been about blogging over the past few weeks. I still love doing it, but I have seen a significant drop in comments, visits and blogger friends lately and whenever I hit one of these valleys, it makes me a little bit depressed. I openly admit that I'm not the best blogger in the world based both on the content of my sites as well as my lack of commenting on other people's blogs (the number one way to build readership), so it shouldn't surprise me that nobody is hanging on my every last word. But when there are, it motivates me to do better. I shouldn't need that motivation, I should put the same quality into every post, but when people are paying attention, it's a lot easier.

So here I sit, not reminiscing about a fun and interesting weekend or thinking about how my dream job is currently hiring or writing a letter to the new sports team in town offering my services or buying Christmas presents. Instead I am sadly sitting here, antsy in anticipation for tomorrow's announcements, writing a whiney, whoa is me, post. Has Down With Pants! officially hit rock bottom?

MC over at Culture Kills... wants to know what albums in your collection you're embarrassed to own. I quickly flipped through my collection and realized that there isn't anything too disgusting. The bad albums that I own aren't embarrassing, they just suck and the albums that are embarrassing typically have something going for them that make me own them. But I did find a few albums that just don't seem to fit in. They aren't necessarily bad, they just seem really strange in my collection.

1. Ludacris - Word of Mouf: Thankfully, I didn't buy this album. When I worked in baseball one of the ballplayers gave it to me to record their at-bat intro music and for whatever reason I never gave it back to him. The only reason I keep this CD around is because of the comedic quality of "Area Codes" and "Saturday". Other than that, it's beyond awful and perhaps the worst album to ever have to record for baseball intro music. It took me quite some time and some creative editing, but, unfortunately, I did finally find a clean 30 seconds to record.

2. Tom Lehrer - Songs & More Songs and That Was the Year That Was: I love both of these albums. They are very funny, well-written and enjoyable. But they are perhaps the most different and and non-conforming albums in my collection. 50's era political satire by a Harvard graduate and his piano? A little weird considering the share a page in my book with Talib Kweli.

3. Black Eyed Peas - Behind the Front and Bridging the Gap: Again, both albums are killer. There are some incredible songs on both of these albums including "Falling Up", "Joints and Jams" and "Weekends". But they are now almost unlistenable because of what has become of Black Eyed Peas and it's embarrassing to me to have ever been a fan. Anybody that helped launch "Fergielicious" is just plain wrong even if she wasn't with the group at the time.

4. Hootie and the Blowfish - Fairweather Johnson: I rescued this CD from destruction when it came into the offices of my college radio station KGRG. The punks got it, threw it on the ground and were ready to stomp it to little bits had I not stepped in. I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the first Hootie album and I was willing to give it a chance. But Hootie mumbled even more than before and this album turned out to be a major stinker. I only recently found it amongst a bunch of old jewel cases after nearly ten years in the closet.

5. Jamiroquai - Traveling Without Moving: Another really good album featuring "Virtual Insanity" and "Cosmic Girl". The reason that I am embarrassed about this album is because when it came out I boldly predicted to anybody who would listen that Jamiroquai would end up being massive stars. They have since released two more albums but neither caught anyone's attention.

We watched the Duggar Family on TLC tonight and I was surprised to find out that I didn't hate them. Probably because there was no mention of religion or morals or whatnot, they just built a house and showed their millions of children acting like great kids. After watching a family on Nanny 911 not be able to take care of their six bitch ass children, it was kind of refreshing.

That being said, I was thrilled to see that the Duggar Family special was sponsored by NuvaRing, the new once-a-month birth control ring thingy. It wasn't just a commercial in the middle of a bunch of other commercials during the show either. It was an explicit "this show is sponsored by NuvaRing" outro followed by the commercial. If there has ever been a more perfect and inspired "sponsored by" advertisement ever, then I have yet to see it.

When you're married to a doctor and all of your peers are doctors, you can expect to have some pretty interesting, mostly disgusting conversations. Usually the really gross stuff goes over the heads of us non-doctors. Too many technical terms and big words complicate our conversations with the medical community. But occasionally a nasty subject comes up that everybody understands. Such was the case last night after Thanksgiving dinner.

Believe it or not, there are guys who really enjoy putting foreign objects up their butt. Every hospital in the country has at least one guy who comes in quite often needing to have something either forcibly or surgically removed from their ass. Every ER doc has at least one rectal removal story and the x-rays become hospital folklore.

It got me thinking about just how different these guy's outlook on life must be from mine. I see something and I see how it's used for everyday use. These guys must see things a little bit differently. For example (and these are real examples of things that the docs have seen guys come in with), when I see maracas...

...I envision myself playing salsa music. They remind me of elementary school music class when we got to play with the "ethnic" instruments like maracas and the fish. If I think of anything remotely sexual, I think of Charo shaking her "maracas".

And this bowling trophy...

...It reminds me of the bowling league that I was in back in Seattle and how we always came in second place, it reminds me of The Big Lebowski or it reminds me of garage sales where most everybody gets their bowling trophies.

I love avocados, but when I see and avocado I think of...

...guacamole! Mmmmm...guacamole. I could substitute avocados for the meat in my diet and I think I would be perfectly fine with that. That's what an avocado is good for. Perhaps they are thinking about guacamole too, but we have very different recipes.

It has to be a totally different world to these guys. Just thinking about them thinking about putting stuff up their butt has blown my mind. Throughout the day, I realized that if you don't mind really embarrassing, painful surgery every couple of months, the possibilities are endless.

Looking around the room right now I see a power strip. I found it in the closet this evening and I realized that I needed it to plug in a bunch of stuff in the living room. It didn't even cross my mind that I could use it to plug myself in the living room..

And yet, as we speak, somewhere in America there is a pervert having a powerstrip removed from his anus and another post-thanksgiving gross out story is being born.

I'm a little late getting to it this week. I spaced on that fact that there were Thursday games this week because of Thanksgiving. Luckily, my lineup was set so I'm good to go.

But back to Week 11. It was a dark day in the history of the Down With Pants! fantasy football team. Not only did Witty Team Name kick my ass up and down the field to give me my first loss of the season, but I also lost the man that single-handedly won most of my games this season, Donovan McNabb. I still have Larry Johnson to run over folks, but my team is now mortal and in danger going into the playoffs.

Culture Kills Lions continued his outstanding season knocking off 2much411foozball 60-42. The win was his eighth straight and clinched him a spot in the playoffs coming up in three weeks.

Nine teams still have a shot to make the final two playoff spots. CineRobots beat up on Cuckoo For Kapgar 85-46 in a battle for third place. Witty Team Name and Cuckoo For Kapgar are tied for the final playoff spot with 2much411foozball, johnnyhongkong and TheDutchFiles only one game back. The Red Zins are two games back but will need a lot of help and the Blogography Hellmonkeys and The OC Snackiepoos will need to win out to have a shot, but even then they will need a ton of help to make the playoffs.

There were some great games in week eleven to make this league so close. Here are the results, leading scorers follow...

The Down With Pants! squad will turn to Charlie Frye and Larry Johnson to lead them to get them back on track against the hated Hellmonkeys. The best game of the week features two teams on the outside looking in. Both johnnyhongkong and 2much411foozball hope to make a late season run to the playoffs and this game could make or break their seasons.

Greg over at What Greg Likes reviewed contemporary Christian artist Rebecca St. James' new album today and it got me to thinking about my favorite contemporary Christian artist, Carman. If you've never heard or seen Carman, then you are in for a treat. He sings white gospel, he raps diggity dope, he beats the shit out of the devil on a daily basis. There is nothing that this guy cannot do.

For example, take his video "Slam!" Watch this guy dance!

Brilliant! But that's just one devil. Watch him take on another Satan in his mind blowing, action packed jam "Satan, Bite The Dust!"

What a way with words this man has! 2Pac and Biggie have nothing on him. And when did they ever produce an epic video like "Mission 3:16-Legendary Mission" in which Carman truly becomes a hero of legendary status?

Carman killed a guy. Carman, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You should find yourself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because you're probably wanted for murder. But hot damn, you are one good Christian. Acapella for everybody!

Seriously though, he has to be a joke...Right? These videos are satire...aren't they?

I look forward to Veronica Mars all week long. It's the only thing worth watching on a Tuesday night now that the Gilmore Girls has become a bore fest and it's the only show all week that I plan my night around. I love Earl and The Office, but I still would miss an episode without a problem if something else were to come up.

So imagine my fury tonight when I turned on KTLA and discovered the goddamn Lakers - Clippers game preempting my favorite show. Stupid NBA basketball. If Lebron ain't playing or Nate Rob isn't blocking Yao, then I don't care, especially about anything Los Angeles related. If we have to have basketball on during VM, show Wallace shooting the rock.

I had a frustrating day of work and I had just got back from shopping for Thanksgiving so I was cranky as shit. All I wanted to do was watch some Veronica Mars and relax the rest of the night. But no, instead I found my two least favorite NBA teams interrupting my favorite show and it pissed me off even more. Sweaty men in shorts just don't do it for me.

My fury only grew as I flipped the channels toward the ESPNs to watch the final minutes of the UCLA - Kentucky game and the Duke - Marquette game and found the Laker - Clippers game also playing on Fox Sports. What the hell? Do people really make a decision about which channel to watch based on the fact that the KTLA version is the Clipper's play-by-play team while the FSN version is the Laker's broadcasters? Why do we need two broadcasts of this game? Maybe the sports should stay on the motherfucking sports stations!

So fuck Kobe, fuck Chris Kaman and fuck KTLA. I want my Veronica Mars, dammit!

Now that the Christmas season is upon us, you know, in November (actually, it started around the Fourth of fucking July this year) I felt it was time for me to decorate this little blog of mine for the holidays. I've never done a special template so I decided to go massively tacky, that's just my way. I'm a little bummed that I couldn't find icicle lights for the White House.

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas, as most everybody does. When you work in retail (or a mail order department) it's hard to get too excited about the holidays. I'll be busting my ass at work for the next month because of Christmas, please excuse me if I get a little bah humbuggy.

And it doesn't help that some of my favorite things about Christmas are being ruined. I love the 24 hours of A Christmas Story. I could watch that movie on Christmas Eve and Christmas all 24 hours. It kills me every time. "Not a finger" is one of my all-time favorite movie quotes and hearing it 15 times really ties the holiday together for me.

But some frigging cell phone company has taken that movie and bastardized it to sell phones to kids. "You'll shoot your eye out" has been changed to "You'll run the bill up" and every time I hear it, my soul hurts. If I ever meet that asshole at Cingular that came up with that idea, I'll beat him like he was Scut Farkus. Thanks for cheapening one of my favorite parts of Christmas.

But I do love Christmas despite all of the crap that goes along with it. I have a very fun and generous family and Christmas Eve has always been a massive event. My grandpa grew up very poor and never got jack squat, so when he could afford it he went all out for his kids on Christmas and the tradition has continued to this day. Christmas means a lot for our family not because we are religious. In fact, we aren't religious at all, far from it. But it means a lot because of how much we value each other as family and it's nice to get together and celebrate at least once year.

So there is my motivation to get through this otherwise stressful and frustrating period. The payoff of Christmas is all worth the hassle. Plus, my holiday template is really cheesy and cool and will cheer me up no matter how many customers piss me off at work.

I finally figured out who my downstairs neighbor, Trixie, reminds me of after watching Casino last night. Sharon Stone's character, Ginger Rothstein. But not the strong Ginger from the beginning of the movie, but the nasty, drunk and stoned Ginger from the second act.

She doesn't have to tie up her kid to get out of the house because she doesn't have custody and he's only here once a month, but I know if it came down to it, she would tie his ass up in a second. And there are a couple different dudes hanging around that bear a striking resemblance to Lester Diamond.

It's uncanny how similar these two women are. I doubt Trixie has a million dollars in jewelry stashed away anywhere, but other than that, they could be twins. We nicknamed her Trixie after we first moved in and found out that she was a raging bitch, but I think I'm going to call her Ginger from now on. It's just too perfect.

If you haven't watched Casino in a long time, get it from Netflix and enjoy the cold hearted, merciless nature that is Joe Pesci's character Nicky Santoro. He is absolutely incredible in this movie and breathes life into every scene he's in. Casino, overall, is great for about 2/3 of the movie. If it were edited tighter, it would be one of my all time favorites.

Pissed off employees
suffering for the dollar
Thanksgiving sucks now

The excitement running through the Down With Pants! Fantasy Football League since Sunday night has been palpable. The Red Zins, appeared to have handed my DWP! squad it's first defeat of the season, 50-49. However, after further review, my undefeated season continues thanks to an official NFL scoring change...

"Les Bowen, of the Philadelphia Daily news, reports the NFL has changed Philadelphia Eagles WR Reggie Brown's catch and fumble that resulted in a fumble recovery and touchdown for RB Correll Buckhalter has been changed. The NFL ruled Brown did not have possession before Buckhalter caught his deflection, giving Buckhalter a 55-yard touchdown reception instead of a fumble recovery. WR Reggie Brown now has one catch for 18 yards during the Week 10 game. QB Donovan McNabb now has 257 yards passing in addition to the 55-yard touchdown pass."

Sorry Red Zins, but the NFL has spoken and handed me a 56-50 victory and a guaranteed spot in the playoffs.

Culture Kills Lions briefly held the league's longest winning streak and was tied for first place after knocking off TheDutchFiles 60-41. But he still holds a comfortable margin for second and looks like a lock to make the playoffs now.

The rest of the playoff picture is more clouded. Eight teams still have a legitimate shot at making the final four with Cuckoo For Kapgar and CineRobots currently occupying the final two spots and 2much411foozball, Witty Team Name and TheDutchFiles nipping at their heels.

There were some good games in week ten. Here are the results, leading scorers follow...

Witty Team Name and his Barber led squad bring their three game winning streak into DWP! stadium to see if they can do what the Red Zins nearly did. But the best matchup pits Cuckoo For Kapgar against CineRobots in a battle to stay solidly in the playoffs while 2much411foozball and TheDutchFiles both need wins to tie the loser of the Cuckoo For Kapgar - CineRobots game for the final spot in the final four.

This is a very important week for everybody involved. Like I said, eight teams still have a chance at the playoffs so please set your lineups and make this thing interesting.

One of the best things at Disneyland is the big box of Mr. Potato Head that you can buy over at Disney's California Adventure. You get a box, you throw a potato in there and then add as many accessories as you can. Unfortunately, it can be used for evil, and Death? proved that with this drugged up son-of-a-bitch who has been scaring our fish for the past week.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but trust me, he's really, really creepy.

My soccer career may have come to an end tonight with a 3-2 playoff loss to a team that we should have beat. Unfortunately, I made a mistake playing defense and gave a guy an easy opportunity at a goal that tied the game which then led to the winning goal minutes later.

I suck at soccer. Here are my career numbers:

We are taking the winter season off since most of us who play in every game are getting tired of the constant struggle to field a team and then the subsequent spankings that we take. Losing takes it's toll even if the game is only supposed to be for fun.

I'm really hard on myself so it's hard for me to have a lot of fun when I suck hard. On the other hand, I look forward to soccer all week long and I love to compete so I guess I'll have to find another sport to blow goats at to fill that need.

Some of you may remember me complaining about the bitch downstairs and how she was obsessed with Kelly Clarkson and her song "Because of You". There were times in the past year when she would put that song on repeat and rock out to it four, five, sometimes even six times in a row with the volume up to eleven. Thankfully, the madness stopped a few months ago and instead has been replaced by the occasional sing along to whatever song comes on the local Top 40 station.

But her old, smoke ravaged ass regressed to teenage self pity again tonight listening to the entire album twice and that song at least three times. It's the fucking bitch's anthem and it's one more reason for me to hate American Idol.

A glimmer of hope ran through the Down With Pants! Fantasy Football league this past weekend. CineRobots had a 15 point lead going into Monday night with one player remaining. However, the Down With Pants! squad had three players left including the Seahawks defense who were facing off against the pitiful Raiders offense. One shutout later and the DWP! squad continued it's unbeaten season to remain atop the standings.

It's a good thing too, despite the run, DWP! hasn't been able to put any distance between first and second. Culture Kills Lions won it's sixth straight game to stay only one game behind. And this run has been without two of their key players, Shaun Alexander and Matt Hasselbeck. Seneca Wallace has filled in admirably and helped the Lions to the league's top score in an 88-20 drubbing of The OC Snackiepoos.

Plenty of other great games in week nine. Here are the results, leading scorers follow...

Culture Kills Lions (8-1) - 88 - Marvin Harrison - 19 points
The OC Snackiepoos (2-7) - 20 - Shayne Graham - 10 points

johnnyhongkong (3-6) - 51 - Roy Williams - 12 points
navelgazing ramblers (2-7) - 49 - Drew Brees - 24 points

Witty Team Name (4-5) - 51 - Tony Gonzalez - 15 points
Red Zins (3-6) - 49 - Marques Colston - 12 points

2much411foozball (4-5) - 67 - Javon Walker - 27 points
Blogography Hellmonkeys (3-6) - 60 - Devery Henderson - 17 points

TheDutchFiles (5-4) - 47 - Marc Bulger - 11 points
Cuckoo For Kapgar (6-3) - 42 - Clinton Portis - 10 points

Down With Pants! (9-0) - 66 - Seahawks Defense - 19 points
CineRobots - (5-4) - 62 - LaDanian Tomlinson - 27 points

Who's next? Can the Red Zins be the first team to knock off the mighty DWP!? A solid and surprising starting lineup could easily post some big numbers. It's hard to believe his team is only 3-6. Culture Kills Lions takes on TheDutchFiles who need a win to stay in the playoff hunt along with CineRobots who take on the Blogography Hellmonkeys.

2much411foozball vs. Cuckoo For Kapgar
CineRobots vs. Blogography Hellmonkeys
Down With Pants! vs. Red Zins
navelgazing ramblers vs. Witty Team Name
TheDutchFiles vs. Culture Kills Lions
johnnyhongkong vs. The OC Snackiepoos

The bye weeks are over which is good news for the slackers. Everybody is at full strength. No more free games for anybody.

I took the last few hours off of work today so that I could go see the dentist. You would think that my teeth are nice and white and clean as I write this, right? Wrong. Instead we ended up at a sales pitch for expensive, not covered by insurance, bullshit procedures that didn't result in us getting our teeth cleaned this afternoon.

The visit started out like any trip to the dentist's office. Some quick paperwork and a few x-rays later and we seemed to be on our way. But then the "hygenist" (I didn't see her clean shit) told me that the doctor would be in to see me in about ten minutes. I knew something wasn't right when she said that.

You would expect that they would start the cleaning like they do at every other dentist I have ever been. Somewhere along the line the dentist would pop in and do a quick look around and joke with you about not flossing. Instead, after ten minutes of me Sports Illustrated, the dentist came in, poked around my mouth, found a couple possibly bogus cavities, tried to sell me on teeth whitening and then disappeared. So I sat and read some more until the office/sales urchin came in and started reviewing pricing with me. This is where it got really weird.

Neither Death? or I have gone to the dentist since moving to California which has been about a year and a half now. So the sales lady told us that we would have to have our teeth cleaned by some special apparatus and it was the only way for them to remove the years of buildup. Of course our insurance covered the running of the machine, but it didn't cover the prescription mix of mouthwash and solution that makes the machine go. It would cost me $80 to have one half of my mouth done on one day, not including the extra $250 for the fancy fillings, and another $80 for the other half on another day (plus even more expensive fillings). It also wasn't possible to have the work done today, we would have to come back later.

Having gone to great dentists all of my life, this was a rude and shocking awakening into the sleeze that is the dentistry profession and neither one of us appreciated it one bit. What should have been a free exam and cleaning turned into two more visits to this douchebag and $160-$500 worth of work that supposedly needs to be done. So we left in a pissed off huff, still with dirty teeth, feeling all slimey like you do when you talk to a used car salesman, with a grudge against Jack I Lee, DDS of Ventura, California.

1. As happy as I am that the Democrats are doing well tonight, I am troubled by just how many of them are socially conservative. Heath Shuler, Bob Casey Jr. (knocked off Santorum), and Brad Ellsworth are all endorsed by Democrats For Life and numerous others are against gay marriage. I'm super-liberal when it comes to social issues and these democrats look more like Republicans to me.

2. What happened to Ned Lamont? What a worthless douchebag he turned out to be. How do you beat Joe Lieberman's ass in the primary and then not stomp him into the ground and runaway with the election? Another Republican in Democrat's clothing gets a seat, or in this case retains one.

3. I so wanted there to be a new $2.68 tax on a pack of cigarettes here in California but it looks like the measure is going to be defeated. Come on people, you know if big tobacco spends record amounts of money against a measure, there must be something good about it. How could anybody possibly trust them anymore?

4. Santorum did lose and that's good, even if it was to a faux-Democrat. However, a Santorum without a job might be more dangerous than a Santorum with one. Now the psycho has more free time to concentrate on a serious presidential run in 2008. I bet we end up seeing more of him than we ever did when he was in office.

5. At least seven states voted to amend their constitution and ban same-sex marriage. This on the same day that Brittany Spears filed for divorce from Kevin Federline. And gay-marriage is what's ruining the sanctity of marriage? I don't think so. The "heterosexuals" have done a pretty good job of messing that up themselves. There is no sanctity left. Just ask Ted Haggard's family.

1. Borat is the funniest movie I have seen this year, maybe ever. It's everything that you expected. It's rude, it's crude, it's offensive and it's ridiculous. But, surprisingly, it is also very well written, it has a great little plot with twists and turns along the way and one of the best endings ever. Borat for Best Picture!

2. I won my second poker tournament on Friday night, but it was the first tournament that I ever won while I was wasted off my ass. Don't ever let anybody tell you that doctors can't party like rock stars. I still am a little hungover, but at least I'm $25 richer.

3. Studio 60 blows. I'll continue watching only because John Goodman is currently making a guest appearance, but if it doesn't get better by the time he is off, I'm done.

4. This big, fat white boy is talking about his "ghetto card" and making jokes about black people on Comedy Central right now. It's not funny in the least bit. You have no "ghetto card" and you don't really want one.

5. I was supposed to interview a guy whose name sounded black the other day. Unfortunately, he didn't show up, he was sick, but I didn't get the message until much later. When I said that whatever his name was didn't show and our temp realized that it was a black name, she couldn't stop going on and on about how "the brothers" are never on time and never show up to appointments. On the surface, it sounded really, really racist. But she is a Mexican girl who is married to a black guy, so I guess she must have a "ghetto card", although I just think she's racist. Either way.

6. Now the big, fat white boy is talking about midgets. That's ground breaking comedy! UPDATE: Now he's talking about retards! Woo hoo!

7. Weekend Santa Ynez winery recommendation: Rancho Sisquoc - Foxen Canyon Road north of Los Olivos - most serene picnic spot of any winery I've ever been to and very good wine to boot.

8. My soccer team has lost the last three games by a combined score of 25-0. In three seasons we are 0-15-2. I'm mainly out there to run around and get some exercise, but when the other team pulls their goalie and starts shoving it in your face, it stops being very much fun. If I want to be embarrassed, I'll do it to myself, thank you very much.

9. I think I may have made a lady cry today in the Subway parking lot at lunch. I don't care, she deserved it. She was backing out of a parking space, I turned the corner and saw her backing out so I stopped to wait for her to go by. All she had to do was back straight out, turn toward me and go around. Instead she didn't back up far enough so when she turned toward me she was coming straight at me. She wanted me to go around her on the other side but I wouldn't do it. So I sat there and made her correct the way that she pulled out. But she couldn't do it, she tried once and had plenty of room to go around, but then she screwed it up and ended in the same place. Defeated by simple, everyday driving, she just sat there and looked lost. I finally gave up and went around her the wrong way, but not before giving her the business with my wild and flailing sign language. Where is the mandatory drivers re-test proposition when you need it?

10. Speaking of voting, get out and vote tomorrow, unless you are Republican, in which case you should go see Borat and see for yourself just how dumb your fellow party members sound and look and leave the running of the country to the educated. That's right, I said it.

Today at work I hit my head and nearly knocked myself out on, get this....the first aid kit. Son of a bitch!

I cannot be stopped. Another week, another win. McNabb stunk it up but Larry Johnson made up for it with 32 points en route to a 75-63 victory over 2much411foozball. Bow down.

For the second straight week there was a scoring change on a tie and Culture Kills Lions picked up a half game in the standings in addition to his 57-43 victory over the navelgazing ramblers He is now alone in second place and only a game back of first.

The playoff hunt got a little clearer this week with the top four teams distancing themselves from the pack. DWP! leads the way while Culture Kills Lions sits in second at 7-1. Cuckoo For Kapgar is in third at 6-2 after a 48-35 win against The OC Snackiepoos and CineRobots is in fourth at 5-3 after posting the leagues top score in his 80-72 defeat of the hard luck Red Zins. TheDutchFiles is all by herself in fifth at 4-4 while four teams sit at 3-5 and three teams are in the cellar at 2-6.

Here are the week eight results. Leading scorers follow...

Culture Kills Lions (7-1) - 57 - Ravens Defense - 28 points
navelgazing ramblers (2-6) - 43 - Ahman Green - 18 points

Witty Team Name (3-5) - 62 - Carson Palmer - 15 points
johnnyhongkong (2-6) - 59 - Rex Grossman - 23 points

CineRobots - (5-3) - 80 - LaDanian Tomlinson - 29 points
Red Zins (3-5) - 72 - Marques Colston - 20 points

Cuckoo For Kapgar (6-2) - 48 - Bears Defense - 16 points
The OC Snackiepoos (2-6) - 35 - Owen Daniels - 16 points

Blogography Hellmonkeys (3-5) - 50 - Peyton Manning - 26 points
TheDutchFiles (4-4) - 30 - Steelers Defense - 12 points

Down With Pants! (8-0) - 75 - Larry Johnson - 32 points
2much411foozball (3-5) - 63 - Willie Parker - 11 points

CineRobots is confident that he will be the first person to knock off the mighty DWP! McNabb is off this week as is Brian Westbrook, but I think Bruce Gradkowski will have something to say about that in the end. It's a big, humongous week for the bottom half of the league. In a weird scheduling coincidence, all of the 3-5 teams play each other. Two of those teams will put themselves in great playoff shape, while the others will fall drastically behind.

2much411foozball vs. Blogography Hellmonkeys
Down With Pants! vs. CineRobots
Red Zins vs. Witty Team Name
TheDutchFiles vs. Cuckoo For Kapgar
The OC Snackiepoos vs. Culture Kills Lions
johnnyhongkong vs. navelgazing ramblers

Bye week teams: New York Jets, Philadelphia, Arizona and Carolina. SET YOUR LINEUPS!!!!!!!

Tonight I was listening to Rage Against The Machine, a band that I haven't listened to in a long time, and I got a little bummed out about the fact that they aren't making music anymore. If there was ever a time for Rage Against The Machine, it's now.

They hit their zenith in the middle of the peaceful Clinton years and their politics barely ruffled a feather. Now, they could actually make an impact. They could have made an impact after 9/11, during the 2004 elections and throughout the Iraq war. They peaked 10 years too soon robbing us of great non-emo/hippie protest music for our current predicament.

Audioslave sucks, Tom. And Zack, it doesn't sound like you are doing anything. Come on guys. Please suck it up, put your differences behind you and get back to making political music and start pissing people off. We need you now more than the frat boys ever did back in the day.

I got kicked off of The Peevery today. I failed to do the mandatory Peevery Halloween Challenge, I just never got around to doing it this weekend, so I promptly lost my peeving privileges. Oh well, I haven't wrote anything in weeks over there and I've been thinking that it's high time I start bringing my peeves straight to my fine readers. So without further ado, here is the first of my non-Peevery, Down With Pants! peeves...

I have lost all faith in the intelligence of the youth of America. While shopping for cereal last week, I overheard a mom and a daughter trying to decide on their own box of cereal. Mom wanted Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch. But the daughter insisted on Reese's Puffs because "it's the real one". What?! Reese's Puffs are not the real one you whipper-snapper. Peanut Butter Crunch is the original. Reese's Puffs, while tasty and less mouth roof destroying, is a rip-off of the Cap'n. Learn the fact before you open your mouth you little brat.

Nonetheless, I bought Reese's Puffs and discovered that the cereal industry is getting into the meme business. 18 Things To Do Before You're 18 is one of the strangest memes I have ever seen. It's ambitious (Play a part in your favorite tv show) but also sets it's sights very low (Meet someone with your own name) for those of us who wasted our teenage years. Anyway, I took the quiz and I failed miserably so I have changed it to 18 Things To Do Before You're 30. Unfortunately, I only have a couple months left to Conquer my biggest fear and to Pass my driving test the first time.

See? six out of 18 and I'm 29? I can't believe I didn't Invent a word that makes it into the dictionary by the time I was 18, and still haven't. What a crock. What have I been doing with all of these years?

If you would like to take the meme, the unchecked version is available by clicking here. But I warn you, it will make you feel bad about your childhood.

I just called 911 on my downstairs neighbors who were screaming at each other and banging shit around. I don't know if it was doors or each other or what it was, but it was loud. However, it's been 15-20 minutes, the cops aren't here, they have calmed the fuck down, and I think I gave the wrong address. Brilliant. We'll see where this goes.

UPDATE: Well, I think the cops came and talked to them, made sure nothing was wrong. It didn't seem like much happened, just a friendly stop to tell them to pipe down. I hope this gave them a good scare so that they get the point that this screaming at all hours has to stop.

I finally decided to call the cops tonight because I heard a lot of banging and I heard her yell "you're the one who just got out of prison after two years for doing heroin." Fucking great. Time to start locking up a little better. I am so ready to move.

Can the juggernaut that is the Down With Pants! fantasy football team be stopped? So far, the answer is no. Seven straight wins to start the season and now a game and a half lead over second place. This week's victim, TheDutchFiles, put up a decent fight but in the end came up short as so many before them have.

The big winner this week was CineRobots, who not only knocked off Witty Team Name 69-62, but a Yahoo scoring change broke the 90-90 tie they had with 2much411foozball last week to give him another win moving him into a tie for fourth place and a possible playoff spot.

The surprise high scorer for the week was the Blogography Hellmonkeys who beat up on The OC Snackiepoos 91-42. Not bad for the lowest scoring team coming into the week.

Here are the week seven results. Leading scorers follow...

Tonight, Veronica Mars confirmed something about me that I've wondered about. I'm hip! Yep, I'm a big, fat, flaming hipster.

First of all, I watch Veronica Mars, so that's a start. Plus, Veronica continues to quote my favorite movie, The Big Lebowski. Tonight she yelled "Careful, Man there's a beverage here" at Logan while walking across campus. That's the Lebowski quote that graces my VW (which is one hip car)...

I thought I was just nerdy, especially after giving the thumbs up to some guy who was sporting the same bumper sticker this afternoon. But now that the words came out of Kristen Bell's mouth, I feel uber-hip.

Then, at the end of the episode, Logan makes a call to his half-brother...on his HELIO! Hey! That's my phone! I wonder if he has trouble accessing Gmail too. I knew that I liked Logan for a reason other than his brooding.

By the way, how confusing was it to have Logan from Gilmore Girls on with the Veronica Mars Logan tonight? I hate Gilmore Girls Logan, so I couldn't be happier to see VM Logan punch his lights out.

Shit, nevermind. I just talked about the Gilmore Girls. I am no longer a flaming hipster, I'm just plain flaming, which in itself is pretty hip, just not enough to overcome the Gilmore Girls talk.