DOWN WITH PANTS!

What an inspiring evening we had last night at the 3rd Annual Benefit Auction for Mama Maria Kenya! I can't thank them enough for putting on such a great event and for all the work that Peter Kithene and the Mama Maria crew are doing bringing essential medical care to the the people of rural Kenya.

Peter was named a CNN Global Hero Medical Marvel award winner earlier this year. Please watch this video to learn more about this amazing man and Mama Maria Kenya...


And thank you to Yelp for getting involved with and promoting such a great charity. Without Yelp, who gave us free tickets to the event, we may have never heard about Mama Maria Kenya. But after last night, my wife - who is in medicine herself and knows lots and lots of people with interests in international medicine, including herself - and I will more than likely continue to be involved in one way or another and we hope to be able to attend the event again next year.

We won one of the items that we bid on in the silent auction, we also purchased a soccer ball to go to the children in Muhuru Bay and a couple of pieces of clothing and we won a gift basket as a consolation prize for the 50/50 drawing that we entered. We wished we could've bid on a couple of the items in the live auction - especially the two week trip to Kenya to see the Mama Maria Kenya clinic and go on safari for a few days that, I think, ended up going for $2,500 - a steal if you ask me. But we couldn't quite swing it this year, maybe sometime in the future.

The dinner portion of the evening was delicious and might've been worth the price alone ($80 per plate). Maya Soleil played some Afro-World music after the live auction and led us all in some African aerobics out on the dance floor. You should've seen your boy Brandon breaking it down! I can really dance when all I have to do is mimic the person on stage.

It really was inspiring to hear about the selfless work that Peter and Mama Maria Kenya are doing, and encouraging to see so many people so passionate and so willing to open up their pocketbooks to support their work.

This sounds really stupid, but earlier in the day, after a trip to Alderwood Mall, I was bemoaning the state of the American people. I had been so optimistic about America the last few weeks until my trip to the mall made me question that optimism. The worst of the worst of American values are on display at a mall in the suburbs on a Saturday. But then I went to this benefit and my optimism returned. These people didn't have to give money to a clinic in rural Africa, they wanted to and for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.

So thanks again to Peter, his wife Katrina and Mama Maria, thanks to Yelp for getting involved, and thanks to all of the donors who made the night successful.

My actual real life friend, John, wants to join the blogosphere and start a sports blog with me. We talked about it a little bit tonight and decided we're going to do it, so now we need a name. In a flash of memory and brilliance, I know exactly where we need to go with this.

It was anywhere from 1998-2001, not sure exactly when, we were at the Tacoma Dome for a Tacoma Sabercats hockey game. There was a fight, there were some penalties, there was some other ugliness and all that other good stuff that goes along with hockey and it all had to do with one player. So being the fine upstanding young men that we were, and probably fueled by a little bit of alcohol, we decided to head down to where the players from the opposing team came out of their locker room and do a little spirited heckling of the offending player.

So as he came back to the ice, we gave him the business as any good hockey fan should. As he came closer and closer, he locked eyes with us, listening to every word we said. As he passed us, he came up with this very clever and witty retort said in an unmistakable Russian accent:

"Shut up Fatty and four eyes"

It definitely shut us up...until we starting laughing our asses off. Fatty and four eyes? Oh, it was too perfect. He couldn't have described us better. Zing!

So there you go. Our blog has to incorporate the infamous Fatty and Four Eyes slam into the title. It's a sign from Don Cherry himself.

What I still don't understand is this...his name was something really Canadian like Matthew Campbell. Fucker was definitely not Russian. Son of a bitch wasn't even French Canadian let alone Russian. Where did that accent come from anyway?

On another note: I miss the Tacoma Sabercats. I think I'll wear my badass 'Cats jersey tomorrow.

UPDATE 11/21 - Shut Up Fatty and Four Eyes is a go!

Thanks to Dan, Susannah, Grant and Matthew for answering my 007 questions this week.

What about you...

Feel free to leave your answers in the comments.

And if you are interested in taking part in Blog Culture Box Wednesday, leave me a comment and let me know.

If I do all this blogging and writing for just one thing, I'd have to say it's for the recognition. Not for the friends that I've made or the cheap, super fun hobby it has provided me over the years or just having somewhere to vent and let myself go. Nope, I like awards.

So imagine how happy this made me this morning....


Yep, your boy Brandon is Seattle Yelp's Review Of The Day! How you like me now? Here's my winning review of Paseo...


I really didn't think that Paseo would live up the lofty hype that it has garnered or the expectations that I have put on a sandwich that many claim is the best in the entire country. I really didn't. I've even kind of written off the Fremont location because I didn't want to stand in line for a very long time with the possibility of great disappointment.

But when I heard about the Paseo opening in Ballard, I decided that the time was finally right to give it a go. Opening day would be an event, the lines probably wouldn't be longer than a few minutes, and if I was disappointed, my investment wouldn't be that great.

Now, after my first Paseo experience, my mind is racing trying to find excuses to drive from Edmonds into Fremont or Ballard just to pick me up some delicious pork-y goodness...

"Hey, that's my old dentist. I should go back to him."
"The baby loves the ducks at Golden Gardens."
"79 cent avocados at Top Banana!"
"Gas at Safeway is $3.96"
"Perhaps Centerfolds needs a bear."

So, as you can tell, I loved my pork sandwich. So incredibly tasty. And I have waged a lifetime war against the evils of the onion. I frigging hate onions! But the caramelized sweet onions they use had me gobbling up the ones that fell off my sandwich and onto the paper. That is so against my beliefs and character, I don't totally feel like myself today.

But I do agree with Bella S., the scallops are delicious on their own, but their flavor gets lost amidst all the other good stuff on the sandwich. I'll stick with the basics next time.

Perhaps my excuse to get back down into Ballard should just simply be "ME NEED PORK...ME NEED PORK" Yeah, that sounds good.


To celebrate, I think I might have lunch there today. Anybody in Seattle want to join me?

Almost every single Monday night, on my way to soccer, I drive by the corner of 212th and Highway 99. On that corner sits Urban Blend Espresso, a drive up espresso stand that proudly features girls in bikinis - just one of the many sexpresso stands in town - it's all the rage here in the suburbs of Seattle.

And every single Monday night I have noticed that whichever bikini clad babe that closes up the place always leaves the "Open" sign on. It hasn't been off on a Monday night for eight or nine weeks now.

Perhaps I'm expecting a little too much out of a barista in a swimsuit?

Or maybe I have been missing out on "Urban Blends Espresso: After Hours" this whole time? It is on Aurora after all.

My whole weekend, basically, was spent Ikea-ing.

On Saturday, we left for Ikea at 10 AM and didn't get back to our house until around 3 PM. That's actually not that bad for a trip to Ikea for us. When we first moved to California, we easily spent five hours in the Burkbank Ikea trying to figure out what to do with our apartment. But we had a plan this time and got it done in decent time.

Too bad we couldn't get everything we wanted in the car. After dropping mommy, Addie and all the crap off at home - 26 miles from the closest Ikea - I had to go back. I left at 4:00 and got home at around 7:30. We then built all the stuff we bought until after 1 AM. Oh yeah, we know how to party.

But it was all worth it because the Down With Pants! worldwide headquarters got a major upgrade...


The old computer room/office/junk room/secret lair is now starting to look like just a computer room/office/secret lair. It's not all put together or organized and the rest of the room is still messy, but it's starting to come along, finally, just four months after we moved in.

So here's to blogging in style and comfort! Cheers! Now I'm sure this blog will take off across the internets. Yeah, the old crappy desk must've been the problem.


BLOG CULTURE BOXERS NEEDED - I need two more people for this week's Blog Culture Box. If you are interested in participating this week or any future weeks, please leave me a comment. Thanks!

WARNING! INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL SPOILER ALERT!


The Crystal Skull ends with a damn wedding? Indiana Jones gets married?! Fuck you George Lucas. Fuck. You.

The plan tonight was to go to a college basketball game at the University of Washington between the Huskies and Western Washington. Game started at 7:00, Death? got home at a little after 6:00 so we hightailed it out of the house very hopeful and confident that we'd make it there on time. But rain and traffic and traffic caused by rain meant that we pulled into the parking lot five minutes after tip off and we were both already a little pissed off and a little bit stressed out. Still, after some debate, we decided to go to the game anyway, so we parked, got Addie bundled up and set off on the long, rainy walk between the parking lot and Hec Edmundson Pavilion still confident that we'd get to see most of the game.

Once we got to the arena and turned the corner to where the ticket booths are, it was already 7:15, and much to our surprise, there was a line that stretched all the way across the plaza just to purchase tickets. Ugh. But we were there already, we might as well stay the course and go along with the plan. Another ten minutes passed and we barely moved - thanks UW for opening all of two ticket windows tonight! We didn't expect to get into the game by halftime at the rate it was going, so wet, cold, stressed out, pissed off and pretty much done with the whole thing, we decided to bail out and head back to the car. Things had not worked out and the evening had come to a screeching, disappointing halt. We both were in foul moods and the night threatened to careen into some very bad places.

Addie was hungry and needed to nurse, so once we got back to the car, she sat up front with us and did her thing. Throughout the whole evening to that point, she was a trooper - she loved the rain and the crowds and the whole ordeal. But in the car, she absolutely lit up, sitting in the front seat watching the rain fall on the car, wiping her hand on the fogged up windows, playing with the steering wheel and virtually every other button on the dashboard. She had a blast just sitting in the front seat of our car in a parking lot at the University of Washington on a nasty, rainy, windy night. And all of the frustration, stress, and moodiness that had consumed us minutes before, washed away. We too were having a blast right along with her in that parking lot.

When we finally decided it was time to go, we put her in her car seat and within minutes, she was out, sound asleep and perfectly peaceful. We hightailed it up to Dick's, enjoyed a Dick's Deluxe, fries and a chocolate shake in the comfort of our front seat while we listened to a fascinating author talk about his book about politics and sports on KUOW (A People's History of Sports in the United States by Dave Zirin) and after getting an extra Dick's Special to top it all off and still with a conked out little girl in the backseat, we finally headed for home.

A few minutes into our drive, I looked over at Death? and said exactly what we both had been thinking despite still being a little bit wet, a little bit cold, having our plan go haywire and having seen no basketball, "that turned out to be a really fun evening, anyway."

Thanks to Avitable, luna_x, The Fella and Kim for their wonderful answers.

What about you? Feel free to answer these questions in the comments...

If McCain wins I'm....
If Obama wins I'm....
Sarah Palin makes me...
Give me one bold election day prediction.

Please, for the love of God, get out and vote tomorrow.

I want you to vote for Obama, I want you to vote for Chris Gregoire for Washington governor and I want you to vote No on California Prop 8, but who am I to tell you what to do. If you still need convincing on Obama, please watch Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama...


It doesn't get much more convincing than that. Listen to Colin Powell, please vote Obama tomorrow.