DOWN WITH PANTS!

Quick question - If I did a show on Blog Talk Radio in the middle of the day during the week, would anybody listen?

I've been wanting to do a show but there is virtually no way it would happen at night or on the weekends. It would have to be while Addie is sleeping during the week. I'm thinking about 1:00 PM on Tuesdays. I might also just do an hour here or there when I feel like it.

Thoughts?

Every single year I post something about this and hope someone will play along with me and nobody ever does. Well I don't care. Why not try one more time.

The 2008 Bigger Dance is here! The Bigger Dance is a tournament run by Seattle sports radio station KJR to determine what pop-culture female is the "Queen of the Hardwood". I'm not proud to love this contest, but I do. It's one of my great meat head pleasures. But the main reason is because the final prize is so awesome - A free trip to ANY sporting event in the world. Airfare, hotel and tickets included. Oh, and the babes, too.

This year I've setup a DOWN WITH PANTS! Office Pool. So if you are interested in competing against my entry, just go to The Bigger Dance page, sign up for a Sports Club membership (Sorry! Hopefully that's not a deal breaker. I don't ever get any spam from them if it makes you feel better), and then enter...

Pool Name: DOWN WITH PANTS!
Password: downwithpants

I want to offer a prize to the winner of the pool, I just haven't figured out what it should be.

In case you're wondering, my Final Four consists of Stacey Keibler, Hayden Panettiere, Jessica Biel and Jessica Alba. Stacey Keibler and Jessica Alba face off in the final with Jessica Alba taking home her third straight Bigger Dance Championship.

Sadly, they missed the boat. No Kristen Bell. Have they seen the trailers for Forgetting Sarah Marshall yet?

While I am not against a free and independent Tibet and in no way do I condone the human rights atrocities China has committed there, wouldn't a free and independent Tibet be a religious state? How is that any different than a Christian state or a Muslim state or a Pastafarian state? It will be a Buddhist country run and ruled by the church. Sure, the Dalai Lama is a warm and fuzzy guy and the message that he conveys is beautiful, but he is still a religious leader. He is Buddhism's Pope.

So why do so many crunchy granola liberals get moist when it comes to the freedom of Tibet? I'm making a generalization here, but many of them are the same people that want the Church out of, well, everything, rail against the Christian Right, get upset about how women are treated in Muslim societies, etc. etc. And yet, they will go out and protest and try to extinguish the Olympic flame and then will line up thousands deep to see the Dalai Lama and the Dave Matthews Band. I just don't think that you can fight for one religious state because you perceive it to be s a nice, happy religion while protesting against another because you think it's yucky and Christ-y.

I'm a big time liberal myself but I hate how many liberals can't see the hypocrisy in their own philosophy. I know that in ways I'm hypocritical, none of us have our philosophies mapped out perfectly, but at least I can recognize the things that I can't reconcile and I'm not out protesting for or against them.

But perhaps I'm judging these people wrong. Maybe there isn't anything hypocritical about this. Or maybe I'm wrong about Tibet becoming a religious state. Somebody please explain to me why this so important for so many liberals. Am I missing the boat? Should I be out trying to extinguish the flame too? I'm trying to understand. I'm willing to listen.

With a doctor in the house, some of the mail that we receive is, well, informative and educational...


Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I've got a Type 3 coming on. When I'm done, I'll have to remember to...ummm...log it...


Oh you gotta love the shit we get in the mail sometimes.

Do you know what I hate? Idle threats.

Last night, our downstairs neighbors - Trixie and Billy - got into the loudest fight of their short marriage. Skank versus meathead. Let's get it on!

Yelling and screaming and banging shit and all of that good stuff. It was ridiculous. At one point early on, when it just seemed like a normal, idiotic but loud fight, I stomped on the floor. Then a demonic voice came up from the floor "I don't care if the neighbors hear us!" Damn! This is going to be good!

In fact, it got so good that we heard Trixie kick Billy's ass out. She told him to "get out and go back to mom's" and later we heard what was obviously her taking all of his stuff out of the closet and throwing it across the room.

At that point, nevermind the prospect of them waking up the baby, this was a good fight and the drama was totally awesome. I was stoked at the possibility of seeing her throw all his stuff out in the front driveway and then totally go into a psychotic rage like she used to do. That would've been the perfect and most satisfying way for it to end.

Fuck! Is that how it ended? No! Instead everything is totally kosher downstairs. Idle threats, Trixie. Fucking idle threats.

Not that I ever want anybody to breakup and lose their shit. But there are just some people that deserve all the drama that they bring on themselves. If it brings a little bit of entertainment into my life - and occasionally, their fights are better than anything on TV - I'm all for it. Fight on!

Just don't give me idle threats. Act on your crazy bullshit. Make it happen. Get it done.

I did laugh a little bit this morning when I could hear one of them fixing the closet doors. They must've knocked them off track. Ha ha! Those are a bitch to get back on.

It was 2001, I was the Director of Media Relations/Community Affairs for the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings baseball team in Harlingen, Texas. Rapidly approaching was Team Baseball Card Night on our promotional schedule and we didn't have any cards made yet or had take any pictures yet and the deadline to get the photos in to ensure delivery by game day, was only a day away.

We had no money to hire a professional and this was just before everybody and their mom had nice digital camera. So, since I had a camera that was a little bit more than a normal point-and-shoot - a beat up 35 mm Canon AE that was originally my parents when I was a kid that I had equipped with a nice zoom lens - I was enlisted to take the pictures.

Nevermind the fact that I had no experience and didn't really know how to use my camera that well. Until that point, I had just taken pictures for my amusement. I really didn't think that I'd do some work that would have to be published. But again, since the team had no money, it was up to me. I had one day to get it right.


I found the cards while I was home last week and all in all, given the circumstances, they aren't that bad. The color is horrible - I've always had trouble with the color on that camera for some reason. And some of the players I just couldn't get a good picture of - Willie Oropeza and Carlos Duncan in particular.

But some are really good. I love the picture of Joel Barreto because he was one of the only players that I took portraits of that smiled for me. No surprise there, he was always happy. Too bad you can't see his eyes. That's the problem with baseball caps.

And Joe Fretwell was such a good guy, one of the best dudes on our team. The card is a little weird because they cropped the picture so much, but the original photo is incredible and because of the beer ad over his shoulder, it fit him perfectly. Not that he was a drunk, it just worked with his personality in a weird way. It's one of my best pictures I've ever taken. I gave him the original when the season was over.


Clark Viegas was one of our coaches that we also signed to play for us late in the season when we were out of contention and didn't want to go through the hassle of finding a player to come down for only a week or two. This picture is great because it captures him looking like he's a coach showing you proper technique, but it also captures him as a player as well. Plus, he was a good guy too so I was happy to get a good picture of him.

Many of my best pictures were of the nicest guys on the team because they would help me out by posing or smiling or would let me keep taking pictures of them so I had a bunch to choose. The worst pictures are of guys that didn't care and didn't help or I didn't like enough to make sure they had a nice picture they would be happy with on their card.

And then there's the Jamie Clark card. Don't even ask me how I got him in this position, there's a point when you are throwing long that you hit and I somehow captured it. It was the only one that turned out of him, so I had to use it. Turns out it's one of my favorites and he was cut from the team before the cards were even finished, so I doubt he even saw it. I got future Major Leaguer Bobby Madritsch in a similar pose.

It still amazes me that I was asked to do these cards in the first place. It clearly illustrates just how shot the budget was for the WhiteWings that year. We didn't have a very good year on the field or in the stands and it hurt. It got so bad that there were times when payroll almost wasn't met. Occasionally our assistant general manager had to go out a few days before payroll and personally collect checks from people that owed us so that we would have enough money in the bank. Ah, the life of an independent baseball team.

What also amazes me is that this was only seven years ago - just yesterday in my book - and nobody associated with the team had a digital camera yet. That's crazy. The technology has advanced so quickly, has become so cheap and so readily available in such a short time period, it's absurd. Now anybody, and pretty much everybody, could take these pictures.

To see the whole set of professional baseball cards with amateur photography - these are crappy scans, by the way - click here.

Ginormous Boobs made the mistake of saying "can't wait to hear how this went" on yesterday's post. Ask and you shall receive...

3:45 AM - Day one gets off to a rip-roaring start when Addie wakes wide up well before she usually does and only a half hour after she last ate. Fussiness ensues. Addie and I head out to the couch to watch SportsCenter and let Mommy sleep.

5:00 AM - After more than an hour of SportsCenter and nonstop binky replacement, Death? wakes up to go to work. A quick feeding and Addie is back in my arms, pissed.

5:45 AM - Death? leaves for work. I'm now officially flying solo.

6:00 AM - After about 45 minutes of being pissed off and fussy, Addie finally falls asleep. Daddy also finally gets a little bit of sleep.

6:45 AM - Seriously? 45 minutes of sleep and that's it? You can't be serious! Wide awake Addie wakes me up and decides that sleep just isn't in her best interest. No crying, just little noises and wide eyes. It's back to the living room and eventually to the couch again for some more SportsCenter.

7:30 AM - Addie falls asleep in my arms. I fall asleep with her in my arms. This ain't so bad.

8:15 AM - Good god! That is some loud crying. Now it's definitely time for a feeding.

8:30 AM - After 15 minutes of her crying and me fumbling around trying to get a bottle ready, I commence feeding. She likes.

9:00 AM - Feeding over. Change diaper. Change clothes. Now it's play time.

10:00 AM - Play time ends with fussiness, it's back to the couch for some gentle rocking and again, a nap for both of us.

11:00 AM - Uh oh, she sounds like she's hungry again. Yet we have an hour comes home for the lunchtime feeding. A panic starts to set in.

11:10 AM - False alarm. She's back asleep.

11:30 AM - YO GABBA GABBA'S ON!!! YEA!!! Addie sleeps through it, I watch anyway. My name is Brandon. I like to dance!

12:00 PM - MOMMY'S HOME! SHOWER TIME FOR DADDY!!!

12:30 PM - Mommy's gone. Luckily Addie is happy with some play time on her mat.

12:50 PM - Addie tires of play time on her mat. I'm trying to make something quick for lunch so I put her in her swing. Something isn't quite right.

1:00 PM - Standing in the kitchen, putting a pita in the toaster, I hear one of the loudest poop sounds I have ever heard, then another. I rush over to Addie and lift her out of her swing, obviously she'll need a change. What I didn't expect to find was the biggest poop of her short life. It went halfway up her back and out each side of her diaper. She slimed the swing seat, her onsie, her pants, her socks and her changing table pad. There was poop everywhere.

1:05 PM - While changing her, she gives me some of the biggest, happiest smiles and giggles she has ever dealt out. Giant poop is forgiven.

1:30 PM to 4:00 PM - Everything goes pretty well after that. Some general fussiness, a nap or two, a bottle at 2:30.

4:00 PM - Mommy's home! Cranky baby goes to happy baby in mere minutes.

5:30 PM - Mommy and baby take a nap.

6:00 PM - Daddy sneaks out (just kidding, I had permission) and goes to Rookees Sports Bar to watch the NCAA basketball championship game, reflect on my first day as a house husband, and knock back a couple of well deserved beers.

11:20 PM - Daddy writes recap of days events with the hope that tomorrow will be much easier and with a lot of strengthened respect for Death? and all mommies that do this. This is way harder than any of my days at work.

When I wake up tomorrow morning, I will wake up to a whole new chapter in my life. Tomorrow morning, when Death? returns to work - a very demanding and time consuming job, I might add - I become a Mr. Mom, a house husband, the main caregiver to my little girl.

I'm not going to lie to you, despite my cool facade that I'm trying to put up at home, I am a little bit scared. I think I'm ready and I think it's going to be fine, but I really have no idea how Addie is going to react to not having mommy around all the time catering to her every hungry whim.

Since we got back from our trip home, she has been very fussy and very unpredictable and is totally off her old, easy routine. She's still a great baby and is probably better than most, but compared to before, it's been stressful trying to make her happy. I'm hoping that she won't continue this trend for my first day on my own. If she does continue this, I will be a big frazzled mess by the time Death? comes home. If not, I might turn into a killer housewife and a big blogging fool.

That being said, I'm also really excited. She has just started developing a personality and it's so cute. She learned how to smile the other day and now hands them out like candy. She's giggled a little bit and makes a bunch of happy noises and soon, very soon, she'll laugh. It's going to be a great laugh, I can tell, and I can't wait to hear it.

And she has started to take an interest in everything and seems to be learning at an amazing rate. In fact, I think that's why she's been so fussy. She is so fascinated by her surroundings that she's wearing herself out and then fighting going to sleep. She just can't stand being asleep right now.

It's going to be great to be home to see her develop over the next three months. Let's just hope she also gets on a routine and takes it a little bit easy on Daddy.

Now, it's off to bed. Death? has to be in to work by 6:00 AM. I don't anticipate getting a whole lot of sleep after she leaves.

Today in Great American Poetry is brought to you by the Dove Fairy Bunny that now resides happily in Brandon Tummyland and later will cheerily be sent to Porcelain Lake.