DOWN WITH PANTS!

Somehow or another, I volunteered to be a judge in the 2006 Sitcom Tournament run by a guy named Robert. I won't lie to you, I know absolutely nothing about this tournament other than I am judging, it is being held over what may be a massive email list, and to give it a home on the web, I volunteered Down With Pants! to be the official host blog of the tournament.

The tourney consists of 64 great sitcoms broken into four regions just like the NCAA tournament. However, the judges have no idea what each sitcom's seed is or what region they are in, guarding against us looking forward to matchups in later rounds. Each round will take a week or so to count all the votes.

The first round is a doozie. Some of these matchups are tough. There are 32 games (no play in game, maybe next year). Today I reveal the first 16 games, with my vote in green...

1. The Dick Van Dyke Show vs.The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - This has to be the premiere matchup of the opening round. The Dick Van Dyke Show broke new ground by being goofy and just plain fun whereas many sitcoms to that point were straightlaced and stuffy. The Fresh Prince was basically the same, fun and goofy but with an added poignancy dealing with issues of race and class. In the long run though, the Fresh Prince was a pretty basic sitcom that was propped up by the immense talent of Will Smith. The Dick Van Dyke Show was innovative and launched not one, not two, but three stars (Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore and Carl Reiner) into the upper echelon of fame in the 60's and beyond. My pick: The Dick Van Dyke Show

2. What's Happening vs. Frasier - What's Happening

3. Laverne & Shirley vs. Charles in Charge - Laverne & Shirley

4. All in the Family vs. Addams Family - Can you believe that the Addams Family was only on for two years? I know All In The Family was very important because of the issues that it tackled, but for a show to be on such a short time as the Addams Family and still be so well known and loved is quite the feat. My pick: Addams Family in what might be a huge upset.

5. Taxi vs. Good Times - Taxi

6. Facts of Life vs. Happy Days - Happy Days

7. Brady Bunch vs. Mama's Family - There is no way that I could ever pick the awful Mama's Family, but it might be possible that the Brady hatred runs strong in people, could this be an upset of Northwestern State proportions? My pick: Brady Bunch

8. The Honeymooners vs. Night Court - 39 episodes to 193. Which of these two shows would you believe lasted longer? If you picked Jackie Gleason and "to the moon!" then you would be wrong. Harry Anderson and Bull lasted for nine inexplicable seasons while The Honeymooners lasted two. My pick: The Honeymooners despite the domestic violence.

9. Welcome Back, Kotter vs. Everybody Loves Raymond - My pick: Everybody Loves Raymond. I am unapologetic for my love of this show.

10. Coach vs. The Andy Griffith Show - The Andy Griffith Show

11. Cheers vs. Ellen - This has to be the #1 seed vs. the #16 seed, but due to the groundbreaking nature of Ellen it could pull off the upset easily. It was very funny, but I think the juggernaut that is Cheers will rally and eventually bury Ellen. My vote: Cheers

12. Married, With Children vs. The Jeffersons - Wow, this is a really tough one. My vote: Married, With Children

13. The Cosby Show vs. Petticoat Junction - The Cosby Show

14. Barney Miller vs. Spin City - Barney Miller

15. Three's Company vs. Roseanne - As much as I want to pick Three's Company for kitsch value, it doesn't hold a candle to Roseanne in the long run. My vote: Roseanne

16. Sanford and Son vs. Full House - Sanford and Son

So what are your picks? Am I completely wrong about any of these? I'll admit that there are a couple of these shows that I have never watched (Barney Miller being one of them, but I never thought Spin City was any good). I won't submit my picks to the tournament director until Wednesday so I can be convinced to change my vote if a compelling argument is given.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we unveil the second half of the 2006 Sitcom Tournament.

I'm heartbroken. I have hit rock bottom. What an awful couple of days to be a college hoops fan from the State of Washington.

I hate to rip on one player, but how fitting is it that one of the biggest game changing plays was a foul by Mike Jensen. How many times in his career has he fouled someone like that in big moments. The peroxide has obviously soaked into his brain. He has to be the most frustrating player I have ever watched.

That was a goaltend by the way. The officials blew that call and many, many more. Seriously, how can a team foul so much more than the other? 33 Washington fouls to 20 for UConn? 47 free throw attempts by UConn? What a joke. It was a shameful night for the officials. Calhoun's bullying and bitching got to them.

In many ways I am so glad that the season is over because I can't take the drama anymore. Not after the last two nights. If you will please excuse me, I'm going to go cry myself to sleep now.

If you have a second go visit my new renter A Yoga Coffee Outlook. She seems very nice and has been calling me macho has been calling my ranting macho, so I like her already. I hope you think crying is macho, because that is what I am set to go do.

No other sport makes me happier than college basketball, and no other sport makes me more upset than college basketball.

Last week I was higher than a kite with both my Washington Huskies and the Gonzaga Bulldogs pulling off big wins on my birthday. Tonight, my bipolar relationship with college basketball swung the other way after watching the Zags blow it down the stretch.

The Huskies are still alive, so I could swing back the other way tomorrow night, but I'm not sure if I can take another close game like that. I'm not quite at rock bottom, but another heartbreaker could easily send me there.

By the way, the above picture is one of the saddest picture that I have seen in years. Nothing makes me more upset than seeing anyone from Los Angeles happy, especially at the expense of us Washingtonians. We Washingtonians are better than anybody from Los Angeles, even if our teams lose to them, and I still would rather go home to Spokanistan, Olympia or even Othello than have to live in the cesspool that is LA.

Fuck UCLA, fuck LA and fuck California. Yeah, I said it.

While we're at it, fuck Connecticut. Go Dawgs!

I am so glad that Volkswagen hired veteran character actor Peter Stormare to play VDub in their latest series of commercials. It is a genius job of casting, albeit an obvious job, to cast him as the German (representing Deutschland) to "unpimp" these automobiles.

Peter Stormare was born as Peter Storm in his home country of Sweden. He was forced to change his stage name early in his career, because there already was a Peter Storm in his acting academy, thus foiling what could have been a very successful career as an anchorman in Sioux Falls. As Stormare, Peter went on to star in a couple of Swedish films and television shows before making his first appearance as a neurochemist with Robin Williams in 1990's Scientology friendly flick, Awakenings.

Stormare has gone on to star in over fifty TV shows and films usually playing creeps, thugs or idiots of eastern European descent such as his roles as Dieter in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Lev Andropov in Armageddon, Serge Muscat in Chocolat, Alexei in Bad Boys II and Gaear Grimsrud in 1996's Fargo where he hooked up with the Coen brothers. In 1998, the Coen brothers cast Stormare in what would become a career defining performance...

Stormare will forever live on in cinematic history for his performance in The Big Lebowski as the nihilist Uli Kunkel, AKA Logjammin's Karl Hungus. Blessed with lines like "We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your johnson..." and "we don't care. we still want ze money, Lebowski, or we fuck you up", Stormare made the most of having to act with Flea and with apologies to the rug, really tied the room together whenever he was on screen.

In fact, he really ties the room together as Uli, VDub, Dieter or even Slippery Pete in a Seinfeld episode I saw the other day. I Heart Peter Stormare. He can fix my cable anytime.

(Sorry Cinerobot for stealing your "I Heart" somebody series.)

I've tried to write probably three different posts tonight and nothing has come of any of them. So I'm resigned to point you to a little slice of American consumerism that made me chuckle to myself for like, ten minutes. Glarkware's counter-hippie stop sign stickers...

I can't wait to get a "Collaborate And Listen" sticker on my neighborhood stop sign. I think that no matter how tired I am in the morning or how late I am running, if I see that while heading to work everyday I would feel a whole lot better.

Yeah, I said it...

Update: My evening was spent trying to figure out how to dump Haloscan off of my blogs. It wasn't nearly as easy as one would expect. It was embedded deep into my template fucking everything up.

So now I'm using Blogger comments so I have a few questions...

1. When using Blogger comments do you prefer a popup or going to the Blogger comment page in your current window?

2. Why does it hurt so much when I go like this?

3. Are you less likely to post a comment if you have to do the word verification thing?

4. If Kentwood is closer to Marshall than Bershire, and Marshall is closer to Kentwood than Bershire, then Bershire is closer to: a. Kentwood b. Marshall c. It is impossible to know

5. Are there any other, better options than Haloscan (I'm totally sick of them) or Blogger that won't cost me a dime?

I keep forgetting to do this, sorry Panthergirl. Please go visit this week's tenant, The Dog's Breakfast. Always a very good read if you have a moment.

GO ZAGS!!! GO HUSKIES!!!

In the above picture you see itty-bitty peeny man tailgating me. All three of the lanes are blocked so Mr. Impatient tries to send me a message by riding my ass.

So I speed up giving dude some hope that he will be able to make the pass and continue on his 90 MPH way.

But just before he is able to cut off the guy in the top lane, nearly taking him out because of his need for meathead speed, I back off the gas, slowly letting the brown car pull ahead of me.

Of course homeboy then changes lanes and starts tailgating the brown car. I continue to drift back a little bit until the asshole almost has a clear shot of cutting me off.

But as soon as it looks like he is ready to make his move, I speed up, block his way, pass the brown car up causing the Beemer to change lanes again and start tailgating me in the hopes that he can make his move. Thus, the whole process starts over again.

As long as the two cars in the the other lanes cooperate (and usually, if there isn't any other traffic, the other drivers catch on and help) I will keep this up for as long as I can. I know it's kind of an asshole thing to do in it's own right and can be extremely dangerous depending on how little the guys penis is, but I don't really give a damn. It's one of the few things I can do on the freeway to punish the assholes. It's time that somebody does some punishing. The California Highway Patrol sure as shit won't.

I live in constant fear. Everyday I come home and have to do a double check to make sure that the dream isn't over. Occasionally a van rolls by my apartment ominously or sits empty in our driveway, the driver gone, out somewhere doing the devil's work and my stomach starts to ache, my brow starts to sweat and my heart starts to race.

Today was one of those days. I arrived home at 5:30 only to find not one, but two vans sitting outside. One driver was missing while the other talked on a cell phone, which he quickly hung up upon seeing me step out of the car. I hustled ass upstairs, fumbled with my keys for what seemed like ages, scampered in the door and went into stealth mode crouching down below my window to get a glimpse of what these guys were up to.

The missing driver finally appeared in the doorway to the apartment complex across the driveway, jumped in his van and flew down the street with the second van close on his tail. Relieved to see them go, I sprinted over to the remote control and turned on the TV to confirm that no damage had been done. Thankfully, college basketball in all of it's play-in-game glory appeared on the screen.

I haven't paid for cable even once since moving in. It was just on when I curiously hooked it up one day nine months ago. Adelphia keeps sending out their goons to hook up other people's cable, but so far, they have let me be. But I get really nervous every time I see their van, especially today, what with March Madness only two days away. This is my Christmas people, how would you feel if you thought someone was going to steal your tree and all the presents underneath.

At the Big West Championship last night between Long Beach State and Pacific we witnessed one of the great fan dancers of all time. These teams were busy trying to get to the big dance, but this guy was already there. Notice the impeccable rhythm...

This was actually him at his weakest. I missed all of his really good moves trying to figure out how to work my camera's video feature. Oh well, at least I ran into him later and got a picture...

I figured dude would be a Long Beach State student, 18-22 years-old. Turns out he's at least as old as my ancient ass, if not much older. I guess he just loves to dance, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I missed almost the entire second half of the Oregon vs. California Pac-10 Tournament game tonight reading this incredible article about Scientology. I've always been creeped out by Scientologists ever since I saw those weird commercials for Dianetics on TV when I was really young. But I always thought they were just kind of goofy and harmless. Apparently, I was wrong. Thank you Mom and Dad for not raising me Scientologist. Thanks to XTine for the link.

Holy crap, I totally and completely forgot about the two year birthday/anniversary of Down With Pants! back on the 3rd. I was too excited about Lebowski Fest I guess. I had thought about doing something cool for the big day, but obviously, that didn't really pan out.

It has been a really fun two years of writing. You have to love a hobby that doesn't cost a dime. I have spent maybe $20 on this blog and it has given me hours upon hours of entertainment. Although I feel at times like I am in a rut or get a little down that I'm not doing a better job or have more readers, I still love doing it and can't imagine quitting anytime soon.

To celebrate I invite you to visit my new renter, Mystickal Incense. I don't really know what that has to do with DWP!'s birthday but whatever. I won't lie, I'm not sure what to make of her blog but she paid me a good amount of credits and my only other choice was a Republican blog, what choice did I have?

One of my favorite baseball players of all-time, Kirby Puckett, passed away today at the age of 45. It has been said many times today, but I have to say it again. Kirby Puckett was the man. That's all there is to it. If you wanted a storybook, heroic performance in the clutch, all you had to do was look at the Twins center fielder and chances were you wouldn't be disappointed.

It turns out that Kirby wasn't perfect, in fact, he was probably far from it and we will most likely learn all about his problems in the near future. But it doesn't really matter in the long run. Kirby will always be the man to me.

I'm not religious but I sincerely hope that there is a heaven solely so that Kirby can patrol center field once again. I'd be willing to bet that he quickly becomes the most popular player up there just like he did in Minnesota.

Despite the fact that DWP! Movie Week fizzled out, I was going to write a big long post about the Oscars tonight. Then Crash won for best picture and my enthusiasm for the event also fizzled out. What a joke. That movie blows.

We continued to prepare for Lebowski Fest West by watching the movie and trying to think of good costumes to wear on Saturday. I think I will probably just wear my Kaoru Betto t-shirt and call it good. Some of these people put a lot of work into their costumes. Click here to check it out.

Now, the picks...

Original Song
"In The Deep" - Bird York - Crash
"It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" - DJay (Terrance Howard) - Hustle and Flow
"Travelin' Thru" - Dolly Parton - Transamerica

My Pick: "Travelin Thru"
Their Pick: "In The Deep"

This is a very tough category to figure out simply because you don't know what the Academy is thinking. There are two ends of the spectrum (Dolly and DJay) and then one song smack dab in the middle (Bird York). I think they will go with the middle, and "In The Deep" probably deserves it, it's a very pretty song, but because I hate Crash so much there is no way I can pick it.

Visual Effects
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
King Kong
War Of The Worlds

My Pick: King Kong
Their Pick: King Kong

If they don't pick King Kong in this category I will definitely think that there is a conspiracy afoot against this film. Something would certainly be fishy. There has never been a movie that did what King Kong did visually. I still think it deserved a best picture nod solely because of where it has set the bar for visual effects.

Best Actress
Judi Dench - Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
Keira Knightley - Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron - North Country
Reese Witherspoon - Walk The Line

My Pick: Felicity Huffman
Their Pick: Reese Witherspoon

I liked Walk The Line and Reese Witherspoon, but Felicity Huffman was incredible in Transamerica as the lead character whereas Reese was the secondary character. But I still get the feeling, for no particular reason, that they will give the award to Reese.

This week is all about movies here at Down With Pants! All week long I will be picking the winners for the Oscars on Sunday, not that my opinion means much. Later in the week I will give you my report from the should-be-a-fucking-blast Lebowski Fest West. By the way, if anybody is attending Lebowski Fest please drop me a line and let me know. I'm going stag to Friday night's pre-party and wouldn't mind knowing at least one person there.

Anyway, onto my Oscar picks. I'm going to pick three categories each day and pick who I think should win and who I think will win. I haven't seen all of these films, so take it for what it's worth...

Documentary Feature:
Darwin's Nightmare
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
March Of The Penguins
Murderball
Street Fight

My pick: Murderball
Their pick: March Of The Boring Ass Penguins (cute birds, boring movie)

Costume Design:
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Pride & Prejudice
Walk The Line

My pick: Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Their pick: Memoirs Of A Geisha (the academy loves Asian costumes, what can I say)

Animated Feature:
Howl's Moving Castle
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit In The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit

My pick: Wallace & Gromit
Their pick: Corpse Bride (all three are highly deserving candidates, so I won't be too upset if Wallace & Gromit loses)