6/29/2007

Brandon Simpson

Posted by Brandon |


Thanks to Dave and Kevin and Hilly and some other people for the link! You can create you own Simpson character here.

6/28/2007

Where There's Smoke

Posted by Brandon |

Fuck! I'm sick of this shit. To all the smokers in the house...fuck you! I'm serious. All of you have to share in the blame.

It's hot as balls in our apartment tonight. It's not that particularly hot outside, but for some reason our place won't cool off. So I've got the back door and all the windows wide open to try to get a cool ocean breeze to blow through here.

The only breeze that I'm getting, though, is filled with cigarette fucking smoke. I live in the middle of a goddamn smoker's sandwich and I'm getting it from both directions tonight.

It sucks so much that opening my windows and doors doesn't result in fresh air. When these stupid neighbors are gone and the wind is blowing in, our apartment is great. That cool, wet ocean breeze that we get is so crisp and refreshing. But nooooooo. Inconsiderate smokers fuck it all up.

Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do. They aren't allowed to smoke inside but there are no rules set by our landlords that says they can't smoke outside their doors. Sadly smoking is still a "right", people are free to do it if they want. And these are inconsiderate people in just about every aspect of their life so asking them to not smoke and expecting them not to is a joke. It's not going to happen.

Until smoke-free city legislation passes (where do I sign?), I'll just have to continue my passive-aggressive slamming the windows shut when it gets really bad.

God, I can't wait to move out of overpriced Ventucky, where we have to live in an apartment along with the trash, back to the Pacific Northwest where we won't have to sell our souls to the highest bidder just to live in a house and away from this bullshit.

6/26/2007

Break That DWP! Comment Record

Posted by Brandon |

I'm addicted to hearing that like "ding-ding-ding" that my cell phone makes when it receives a text message. It's not because I have friends who text me - I don't. No, it's because I get a text message every time someone leaves me a comment. I instantly connect to the interweb and check out what someone has to say about my crap.

I don't get a ton of comments though, so I don't get to hear that sound that often. I'm curious as to what getting a ton of comments would sound like, but I'm not going to just ask you to comment for the sake of commenting - that would be a cheap ploy that I am so (not) above.

Instead, I want to know what kind of pizza you like. Personally, I'm a thin crust, pepperoni, sausage and pineapple kind of guy.

So if you visit Down With Pants! today, please leave me your favorite kind of pizza in the comments. I'm hoping to break the all-time DWP! commenting record, so get your butts to commenting.

6/25/2007

The Sporting Life

Posted by Brandon |

Tonight I went for a drive around Ventura to look for a pickup game of basketball. It was a beautiful afternoon and I couldn't stay inside, I was bored because Death? is on call tonight and I badly needed some exercise now that my Wednesday night game has been on the fritz.

I checked out five or six empty schools and parks before turning into the new Ventura Community Park, a massive piece of land that features a pool and water park, tons of soccer fields and a ton of space to build new softball fields (what it really needs is a minor league ballpark, but that's a different story). I was disappointed to find that it doesn't have any basketball courts, but as I was heading toward the exit I drove by a bunch of guys throwing around a rugby ball. My curiosity peeked, I decided to stop and check it out. The next thing I know, I'm playing touch rugby with a handful of adults and a bunch of high school kids. They are trying to form a high school team and in the future they may form a men's side but for the time being they just need players every Monday and Thursday so that the kids can learn how to play. That's cool, I'm game.

Despite the fact that I'm not that athletic or very good, I will play any sport. So far this year I have competed in...

  • Softball (I've played either softball or baseball nearly all my life)
  • Basketball (nearly all my life)
  • Soccer (never played until last year)
  • Dodgeball (played in only a handful of games)
  • Rugby (played for half a season in college)
  • Lazertag (never played until this year, it's harder than you would think)
  • Flag Football (haven't played since 7th grade until this year)
  • Tennis (Death? and I play for fun, so I don't know if you call that "competing")
And if I could find a local group that plays these games and I could fit it into my schedule, I would so play...

  • Golf (I played once when I was like 10)
  • Cricket (I have no idea how to play, but would love to learn)
  • Lawn Bowling (Oxnard has a club that offers lessons)
  • Australian Rules Football
  • Racquetball (I just found out about a league at my gym!)
  • Disc Golf
  • Ultimate Frisbee
  • Beach Volleyball (I'm getting this organized as we speak)
  • Lacrosse
  • Kickball (North Hollywood has a league that plays on Monday, but now I'm playing rugby on Mondays. Decisions, decisions.)
  • Curling
  • Wiffleball
And I would play just about any other team sport, if given the opportunity. The only sports that I wouldn't play are Ice Hockey (I'll never be able to skate) and Water Polo (I don't swim very well).

Maybe this should be what I do. Maybe I've heard my calling. I should start searching out people who play weird sports and spend some time with them practicing and playing and then write about my experiences, maybe even film it. It could be kind of like a Dirty Jobs kind of thing. Actually, it would probably end up being more of a Huell Howser thing with me asking all sorts of silly questions.

Either way, I hope ESPN "The Ocho" is listening.

6/21/2007

Evolve Already

Posted by Brandon |

Two posts in a night? I know, it's crazy, but I was just reading about this Trojan condom commercial that has caused such an uproar and I have to weigh in. If you haven't seen it, watch it below...



It's an entertaining and effective commercial. As a guy, I have no problem with it. Apparently though, I'm one of the few. Fox and CBS have refused to air it because of some terrible reasons and most of the talk and debate has focused around these reasons. But dig a little deeper and you will find that there are guys coming out of the woodwork calling this ad offensive to men. Just read the comments on the YouTube video and you can see for yourself.

While the network's reasons are ridiculous and totally hypocritical, these gorillas who are calling it offensive to men are the biggest idiots of them all. Suck it up bitches. The current television and advertising culture is offensive to women 75% of the time (or is it 90%, ladies?), we can't take one minute of punishment without crying like a baby? Does the ad hit too close to home for you oinkers?

It just proves how big a pigs we are. Until guys man up, take responsibility and quit being assholes about things like wearing condoms (wear one! It will make you last longer two-second Charlie) and blaming women for all of our short comings, we deserve to be put in our place like these ads do.

Maybe you should listen closer knuckledraggers...Evolve already and shut your big fat mouths. You're ruining it all for the rest of us.

6/21/2007

The Police

Posted by Brandon |

It only took us three hours to get to downtown Los Angeles last night but it was worth it, The Police were awesome, even from all the way across the arena (actually, we could see everything very clearly especially with our binoculars). They did all the hits, Sting looked hot, Andy Summers is itty-bitty and Stuart Copeland is a big, talented nerd. What else can I say?

I will say this, if The Police were young artists today and were releasing the same exact songs that they released 25 years ago, I think they could still turn out to be massive hits. Their songs are so unique and so timeless, it's amazing. If you were a youngin' and had never heard them, you would have no idea what decade they were from.

You can't say that about too many old bands, even the greats. Led Zeppelin? No way. The Beatles? probably not. Vanilla Ice? Well...maybe.

By the way, it took us 55 minutes to get from our seats, to the car, on the freeway and back to Ventura. I found the secret, park as close to the exit and on-ramp as possible. I'd be willing to bet that there were people still stuck in the garage at the same time we climbed into bed.

UPDATE - LAist has both a review of the show and a video of Roxanne. Guess what color lights they used for that?

6/20/2007

Time

Posted by Brandon |

It's already 1:00 AM? Man, what did I do with the last two hours? I fully intended on writing a post about the movies that I saw over the weekend, but now Steve Carrell's on Conan and I'm getting sleepy (not because of Steve though).

Tomorrow night (well, today) is The Police at Staples. I can't wait. I got my ticket this afternoon from RazorGator.com. I was surprised when I got the tickets because it looks like I paid less than face value for them including all of the Ticketmaster fees. But I'm a little weirded out because they are TicketFast tickets meaning that the dude that sold them to RazorGator could have easily printed out more copies. RazorGator seems like a respectable company so I'm sure they have some way of making sure that a fraud like that doesn't happen. I guess we'll see.

I'm excited about the show, for sure, but don't you think it's crazy that I'm thinking about leaving for a 7:30 concert sixty miles away at 3:30? I do. But it seriously could take two and a half hours to get there, maybe even three. It probably won't take more than two, but it's so hard to say that the risk is too great. If we get there early - bonus! We'll be able to find something decent for dinner.

6/18/2007

Check, Check, Check, Check, a-Check It Out

Posted by Brandon |

I had a great weekend for oh so many reasons despite the fact that it took me two hours and forty five minutes to go from Ventura to Long Beach - 85 whole miles - for a baseball game on Saturday. For those of you who live somewhere sane and have never experienced heavier traffic on a weekend than during weekday rush hour, you really should get your butt to Los Angeles, fly into LAX, rent a car and try to take the 405 anywhere. It's an experience that you won't soon forget.

Enough complaining. This weekend was all about music and movies here in the Down With Pants! household. Tonight I'll deal with the music, tomorrow the movies...

This weekend I bought tickets to two of the most highly anticipated concerts of the summer: The Police on Wednesday night at the Staples Center and the Beastie Boys in late August. I haven't been to a concert since seeing Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl last summer so I'm pumped to go to couple shows this summer.

We both felt that The Police was a show that we had to see even though neither of us are gigantic fans. We both like them quite a bit, but not enough to pay top dollar like I expected tickets to cost. Luckily the resale sites have plenty of relatively cheap tickets available, demand must be lighter than I expected and it helps that there are three LA area shows. They aren't great seats, but I didn't need to be close. Just as long as we can hear Sting and Stuart Copeland seething at each other, it should be good.

The Police are great and all, but I'm really looking forward to the Beastie Boys at the Santa Barbara Bowl. I've seen them once before, but it was a bad, bad night. Back in '98 or '99 they came to Seattle with A Tribe Called Quest and we camped out for tickets at the old Lacey Payless months in advance. We were geeked all summer long in anticipation of seeing them; I don't think there has ever been a show that I was more excited for.

Unfortunately, we started drinking early in the day. My buddy and I started out innocent enough with a couple pitchers at a local bar, but then my other friends showed up and we ended up taking way too many shots of 99 Bananas and Rumpleminze out in the parking lot. By the time the show rolled around, I was tanked like I've never been tanked before. I don't remember much about the show, the only clear memories I have are of all the embarrassing shit that I did like losing my lunch in a garbage can on the main concourse, falling down in the pit and not being able to get up, gawking loudly about some dumb girl's tattoo and, well, that's just about all I remember.

It was the most humiliating night of my life, I became everything that I hated and still hate today: a big, dumb, drunk meathead. Although I've had a handful of really drunk nights since then, I did go to college in Bowling Green, Ohio after all, I have always made sure that I don't go that far and that I can control myself enough to not have a repeat of that ill-fated Beastie Boys concert.

So like a high school floozy who found God, I've reclaimed my Beastie Boys virginity and I'll be pretending like I've never seen them before. But like that holy town bicycle, I'll always have those bad memories with me making losing my virginity a second time all the more sweet.

Kind of related topic: My new favorite Spanish phrase is "ella es la bicicleta de la pueblo."

6/14/2007

An Ocean's Twelve Mystery

Posted by Brandon |

I was thinking about going to see Ocean's Thirteen last week because I'm a sucker for summer blockbusters but I never saw Ocean's Twelve and I was afraid that I would get lost without the knowledge of what happens in the second chapter - A fear that in retrospect was probably unfounded. Rocket science these films are not.

Anyway, I added it to the Netflix queue the other day and this evening we sat down to watch Danny and Rusty and the two whole scenes that Eddie Izzard are in but within fifteen minutes both the wife and I started to have some serious deja vu. It all looked way too familiar and the next thing we know, we were both rattling off "plot" points that come an hour later. No, we didn't just guess what happens like most everybody did within the first fifteen minutes, we realized that we had actually seen the whole thing before.

The problem is that neither of us can recall when, where or why we saw Ocean's Twelve. I have no clue at all. I should remember. I remember just about every movie that I have ever seen but I've been under the impression for however many years that I never saw it. I've been thinking about renting it or adding it to Netflix for quite some time. I'm almost 100% sure we didn't see it in the theater, I would've remembered paying nine bucks on something that bad, and I'm almost positive that we never rented it.

My only theories are that I watched it on an airplane or late night on TBS or while I was wasted off my ass. Since I barely ever fly and when I do they rarely have movies on the plane. I also don't drink much so unless I watched it on Halloween a couple years ago or after my bachelor party I wouldn't have seen it while blacked out drunk. I do stay up late but I almost always watch Letterman and Conan and I can't remember the last time I watched a movie on TBS.

So why do I know everything that happens and why does Death? know it all too? Was it really that predictable of a movie or did we in fact see it but watching it was so traumatic that we blocked the entire day out of our minds? Why couldn't Ocean's Eleven stuck more to the original Martin and Sinatra script so we wouldn't have to put up with these sequels?

All good questions, I guess. But the real question is why did I continue watching once I figured out that I had already seen it? I doubt we will ever be able to answer that or get those two hours of my life back.

6/13/2007

Will I GET To Go Insane?

Posted by Brandon |

Have you ever read or heard something that, on the surface seems innocuous, but you find so absurd that it rattles around in your head and you can't stop thinking about it until either you get an explanation or you pound your head on your desk until you blackout?

Well, I read something over at Blogography that has been driving me crazy since I read it and now I need to call Avitable out to explain. In one of Dave's posts about Seattle, crappy tourists and Starbucks, Avitable left a comment that included the line:

"My wife gets to go to Hoquiam for the third time in a year shortly for business."

Now, there are two things wrong about this statement. But before I go into them, I will assume that most of you have no idea where or what Hoquiam is. I grew up about 45 minutes from Hoquiam and spent a summer working there so I know a little bit out the town, so let me explain.

Hoquiam is a small town (9,000 residents) located on beautiful Grays Harbor near the Washington coast. It once was a booming logging town along with its neighbor Aberdeen but as the logging died off, so did Hoquiam. Now it shares the problems that go along with having virtually no economic base and being the neighbor to one of the most crime-ridden and meth ravaged cities in Washington. Hoquiam also suffers from being shrouded in almost constant cloud cover giving it a very depressed aura. There basically are four things to do in town: talk about Hoquiam High School football, attend the annual Logger's Playday, visit Kurt Cobain's hangouts in Aberdeen (he grew up there), and finally, get the hell out of Hoquiam.

With that in mind, my first problem with Avitable's statement is that unless you are a masochist, one doesn't "get" to go to Hoquiam, they "have" to go to Hoquiam. Most would consider going to Hoquiam, at best, an inconvenience if not a punishment, especially if there are numerous trips involved.

The second thing that really has left me scratching my head is that I can't conceive of any situation in which a company in Florida is doing business with a company in Hoquiam. There aren't that many companies in Hoquiam and most of them are of the Mom & Pop variety or are daily yard sales. I suppose there are a lot of people selling their possessions to Floridians on eBay, but other than that, I can't figure it out.

So I hope that Avitable is either able to give me an explanation of the situation (one that I'm sure will make sense) or will let me know that he was trying to type sarcasm. If not, this might be my last post ever because I will end up in the hospital in a persistent vegetative state after my mind turns to mush pondering this trivial statement.

6/12/2007

Fred Wray: The Original Mack Daddy

Posted by Brandon |

I know you all love it when I post about sports, but I just thought I would share one item out of my truly strange sports memorabilia collection. This is arguably my favorite piece of memorabilia that I own, just don't ask me how I got it (wink, wink)...


Seriously, we found this while cleaning up the stadium while I was working for the Richmond Roosters in 2002. If you have ever spent any time around a minor league baseball club, you know that this isn't really that out of the ordinary. I'm surprised that there aren't more balls like this floating around somewhere.

I'm assuming that since I now possess this ball, poor Fred Wray didn't get any that night.

6/11/2007

My Saturday Morning TV is Skankier Than Yours

Posted by Brandon |

I'm not usually one to post pictures of semi-nude women on Down With Pants! As Death? described it to some people at the LA Blogger Party, my blog is not porn. However, I have lived in Southern California for almost two years now and I am still amazed at the sheer amount of nearly naked women on the Spanish language stations. If you think American TV is getting skanky, you obviously don't have fifteen of these stations to watch.


The craziest of all of the Spanish language programming (maybe even crazier than Machete) might be the half hour infomercial that airs every weekend for Downey Buick/Pontiac/GMC. At least I think that's what it's for. All that's really being sold here is titties titties titties, ass ass ass, titties titties titties, ass ass ass - to steal a Lewis Black line.


I don't want to watch it, I feel like a pervert every time I do, but between the language that I barely speak and the sheer amount of gyrating silicone, it becomes dangerously hypnotic. I try to change the channel quickly, try to forget what station it's on and hope that there is a Best Week Ever repeat on VH1 to take my mind off of this g-string filled madness.


But my fascination with it isn't because it turns me on. In fact, it doesn't, it's just too ridiculous and too skanky to do anything for me. No, to me it's more comedic than anything. I always get the feeling that somewhere there is somebody laughing their asses off because in reality it's a spoof in the same way as my theory that Maxim Magazine was conceived and is written by gay guys to secretly make fun of and capitalize on the idiocy of hetero males.

Even if it isn't a spoof, the absurdity still draws me to it. I grew up in the Seattle area where our foreign station was the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. Kenny vs. Spenny was about as risque as it got, so it still kills me that girls in string bikinis soaping themselves up is a perfectly OK thing to show during the cartoon hours. Sure we have infomercials like Girls Gone Wild that are equally as naked, but those are only shown late at night, not at the same time as Kim Possible.


What I love - and to illustrate just how much I end up hypnotized by this ad - is that until recently, the host was a short, squat, greasy sales guy who did turns and spins, felt up the models and yelled "llame ya" over and over again. But they must have felt that the T&A ratio was too low - six boobs is better than five - so they replaced him with the woman in the white top who does turns and spins, lets the models feel her up and yells "llame ya" over and over again. Their research must have shown that prospective SUV purchasers prefer fake lipstick lesbians.

What I've been wondering about is what the scene is like at the dealership when they film it. I envision that there are ton of gross guys hanging out pretending to be interested in cars and others showing up at all hours all week long hoping that the chicas will be there to sell them a car. And I'd be willing to bet that it's a somewhat uncomfortable place for their female employees to work. That 1-800 number must get a lot of prank calls.

So the next time you start to complain about Charm School or the Search for the Next Pussycat Slut on American TV, either flip over to your Spanish language channels or, if you don't get them, remember this post and remind yourself that it could be a lot worse.

By the way, if you think these two models look familiar it's because they have been on quite a few national shows. A quick Google search revealed them to be Tabitha Taylor (somewhat NSFW), a veteran of Dude, Where's My Car? and Beauty and the Geek as well as the Lingerie Bowl and Stripper Academy, and Mary Castro (also kinda NSFW) of Reno 911: Miami and a ton of TV shows as either stripper, hottie or model, sometimes even busty model.
Wow, Hollywood really is the place where dreams come true. Isn't it?

I hate Paris Hilton even more today than I ever have before. Why? Because for just a minute, after reading about her going back to jail and seeing the pictures of her weeping, I actually felt bad for her. It only lasted a minute and then I came to my senses but I felt unclean the rest of the day. There is no reason to feel bad for her. She did this to herself.

Death? said that she exhibits all the characteristics of someone who is going through alcohol withdrawal. That makes perfect sense and can, legitimately, be serious. But it's nothing that jails don't handle every single day.

Combine the effects of the withdrawal with the chance that this is probably the first time in many, many years she isn't drunk or doped to the gills, maybe she has a clear head and has found that there isn't anything there to occupy the time. Fill an newly sober, empty head with the stimuli of what is going on around her and it's not that hard to understand why she is having a breakdown. Realizing that you are brainless and soulless can be rough on a robot.

I also want to take a second and ask everybody to leave Princess Di out of all of this. They called Anna Nicole America's Princess Di after she died and today I read a couple quotes proclaiming Paris as American's Di. Say what you want about Diana and the monarchy, I'm not a big fan of the royals either, but don't even dare put these two skanks up on her level. At her worst, Di would still be a thousand times better than either of them.

If either of these two are our Princess Di, what does that say about the rest of us?

6/06/2007

The Science of FUCK! THIS MOVIE SUCKS!

Posted by Brandon |

I was seduced by Death Cab for Cutie.

That's my only explanation for what I expected out of Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. The trailer for this film, complete with Death Cab, suggested whimsy and an endearing romance similar in tone to Gondry's previous film, one of my favorites, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Instead I wasted two hours watching an arty farty piece of shit film made for the sake of arty farty piece of shit film.

I don't even want to get into explaining the plot or trying to analyze this film, I just want to exclaim loudly how much I hate it. Maybe even more than Punch Drunk Love, my least favorite film of all time, because The Science of Sleep starts out with potential. It sets up an interesting idea for a film in the first 30 minutes enough so that you continue watching hoping that interesting film eventually breaks through the crap. At least Punch Drunk Love was so bad that I was able to give up and cut my losses after half an hour.

Gael Garcia Bernal is hot. I'll admit it. But his character is so maddening that despite how good he looks you can't help but find him completely ugly. I didn't think it would be possible, but Gondry figured out how to do it.

And don't even get me started on Charlotte Gainsbourg. All I could think of when looking at her was the lady in the Daily Show sketch, Civil Lights. Ewww.

I guess what I'm trying to say is The Science of Sleep blows. If I could stop even one person from renting this movie, all of the work I've poured into this blog will be worth it.

6/05/2007

No Charley, Thank You

Posted by Brandon |

If you haven't seen the tirade that Mississippi Braves manager Phillip Wellman went on over the weekend, do yourself a favor and check it out (click here). I don't care if you hate sports or not, this is a great piece of theater and possibly one of the greatest tantrums of our time.

It got me thinking about my own short time in baseball and of former Houston Astros pitcher Charley Kerfeld.

In 1997 I was interning in Hoquiam, Washington for the Grays Harbor Gulls, an independent team in the Western Baseball League. Charley was the manager that season and you would be hard pressed to find a bigger character. Literally. He was around 6'7" and weighed close to 400 lbs and a lot of that was muscle. He had to cut the sleeves of his jerseys open to get his arms through the holes. Charley was a great guy who loved to have fun and always had a smile on his face and made coming to work everyday an adventure. He also had a fiery temper when the right situation arose.

One night in the middle of the season the umpires were busy blowing a lot of calls. The ump out on the bases, in particular, was struggling hard and missed a couple of easy plays. You could see Charley's temperature going through the roof with every blown call and you knew something had to give.

In the fifth inning our center fielder Al Mealing attempted a stolen base and somehow the base ump got himself out of position and didn't have a good view of the play. He called Mealing out when it was obvious to every single other person in the ballpark that the shortstop didn't come anywhere close to applying the tag. Charley had had enough and came storming out of the dugout toward second base. You have never seen a man that large run that fast, he was out there in less time than it took Mealing to get from first to second on the stolen base attempt.

And he let that ump have it. Charley was a fan of colorful language but was also a polite Texas gentleman so he wanted us to crank the music up as loud as we could whenever he came out to argue so that the kids and their parents wouldn't be offended. The guy that ran the click effects had "God Bless Texas" pumping through Olympic Stadium as soon as the umpire called Mealing out and yet we could still hear Charley as loud as if he was standing next to us in the press box.

After a long argument the umpire finally gave Charley the heave ho, so he slowly started making his way down the first base line to the cheers of the crowd. Everybody thought the whole thing was over and he was finished with his tantrum but something didn't seem right to me. The Gulls locker room was behind the third base dugout so unless he was planning on walking through the stadium back to the locker room or to the office, Charley was going the wrong way.

Suddenly, just before he got to first base he turned and bolted for second. He was a 400 pound freight train rumbling down the base path. Just before the base he dropped down into a perfect feet first hook slide, popped up with the agility of a cat and wildly called himself safe right in the umpire's face. The entire stadium erupted in the loudest applause and laughter of the entire season.

To top it off he pulled the base up out of the dirt and chucked it into center field. He then stormed off the way that he came, showered and changed, grabbed a beer and watched the rest of the game from the grandstand; a hero's reward for a job well done.

The next morning I came into the office and Charley's truck was already in the parking lot. I knew something was up because he rarely made it to the ballpark that early. When I got in I could hear him giving instructions to the clubhouse attendant and shortly the clubby came out of Charley's office carrying a base. It turns out that he ruined the base when he pulled it out of the ground and he found it bent and broken in the groundskeeper’s storage. He brought it back into the office, cleaned it up a little bit and promptly signed it...

Dear Jim,

Thanks for the memories.

Love,
Charley Kerfeld

...and had the clubby place it in the umpire's locker.

Well played Mr. Kerfeld, well played indeed.

Coach Wellman: Are you taking notes for next time?

6/04/2007

Arclight Cinemas = Lifesaver

Posted by Brandon |

I found yet another reason to recommend Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood...the restrooms.

After a yummy dinner at Bossa Nova we made our normal whenever-we-happen-to-be-in-LA pilgrimage to Amoeba Music to purchase a whole mess of used CD's. Predictably, the sausage sandwich that I had stirred up a little bit of trouble and I found myself in need of a restroom quickly.

Amoeba, unfortunately but understandably, doesn't have a public restroom so I decided to hightail it over to Arclight to use their facilities. I was unsure whether or not the restrooms were before or after the ticket takers so I went with a little bit of trepidation. Miraculously there is a restroom right off of the lobby and not even up that ridiculously long elevator or steep stair climb.

As a person who doesn't usually enjoy using public restrooms , let me tell you how much of a dream Arclight's are. Basically, you get a whole room to yourself. Each stall is separated by a big, full sized wall and comes complete with a chunky, near full length door and an actual lock.

After having to endure airport restrooms and their barely there stall doors and locks the last couple weeks, I can't explain just how happy I was to have that massive door and, for god's sake, an actual locking lock.

And if that isn't enough to get things going, the music that they pump into the restrooms is of the triumphant movie score variety. Maybe it's just me, but I think that big orchestra pieces by John Williams are the perfect accompaniment for doing your business. You really feel like you have accomplished something, maybe even changed the world when you are finished.

Not to mention that they do a great job of keeping it nice and clean and they keep your butt happy by stocking it with high quality, quilted toilet paper.

So If you are in the area and really need to use the restroom, I can't recommend Arclight any more highly. And maybe, while you are there, you could see a movie or something. I hear they do a pretty good job with those as well.

6/03/2007

LA Blogger Party Postmortem

Posted by Brandon |

Last night the Down With Pants! crew went to our very first blogger party and we had a blast. Held high up in the Hollywood hills in an incredible home owned by a big time screenwriter , the LA Blogger Party was a nice mix of bloggers and non-bloggers from all walks of life. There were a fair amount of mommy bloggers, daddy bloggers, naked bloggers, comic strip bloggers, famous bloggers and much, much more. A big thanks goes out to LA Daddy for making it happen.

Here is a somewhat complete list of the bloggers that I mingled with last night (sorry if I missed you, I know I'm forgetting somebody)....

Sink to the Pacific
Frowning of a Lifetime
When Tara Met Blog
Honea Express
Sweatpants Mom
Write,Write Baby
By Jane
House of Prince
Childs Play x2
Red Stapler

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera so I don't have any fun pictures to post and I have yet to see any pictures with me in them despite the fact that I posed for at least a few. I also didn't get around to producing any cards or anything with my blog addresses on them so I missed a good opportunity to promote.

Also, no Hilly from Snackie's World. She invited me to the party and yet missed it herself. I'm sure she has a good reason but she definitely missed out on a good time. Maybe next time.

Oh well, we met some great people, got jealous over the incredible house and had a ball overall. I'm definitely in for the next one or any other opportunity to meet some cool bloggers.

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