Category Archives: Culture

PSA: International No Pants Day this Friday, May 5!

Posted on by

Pants Free and Chil-ly! 

In the current Round 'em Up Hold the Kids Hostage & Deport the Greasy Foreign Bastards climate, it's natural to assume a somewhat reduced turnout for Cinco de Mayo throughout North America. So, what to do this Friday if you just gotta get your celebratin' and commemoratin' on?

International No Pants Day has the answer!

No Pants Day!

  • No Pants Day is this Friday, May the 5th
  • No Pants Day is a day where everyone, be they students, respectable businessmen, or cherished community leaders, leave their pants behind. Usually this means wearing thick, appropriately modest boxer shorts, but bloomers, slips, briefs, and boxer-briefs all work as well.
  • Shirts from SpreadShirt.com can be had here.
  • High quality flyers and raw images can be had here.
  • If you take pictures, upload them to Flickr with the tag 'nopantsday'. If you don't have a flickr account, send them to pics AT nopantsday.com
  • The celebration in Austin will be a part of the Austin Improv Collective's improv shows at the Hideout on Friday. The Hideout is located at 617 Congress Ave. Shows are at 8, 10, and 11:30pm.
  • The celebration in Atlanta, GA will be a pantsless pub meeting (possibly pub crawl?) starting at Trackside in Decatur, Ga, next to Agnes Scott College. Also, people sans pants on bikes will be given extra kudos and will make things easier going from pub to pub with many folks. Meet at Trackside around 9-ish pm
  • Anyone wanting more information should contact us at INFO AT NOPANTSDAY.COM.
  • Check out our myspace account for bulletins at http://myspace.com/nopantsday.
  • Pictures from last year's celebrations across the world can be temporarily seen here.

No Pants Day IconAnd here's our FAQ:

  1. What in the world is No Pants Day?
    No Pants Day is a day where everyone, be they students, respectable businessmen, or cherished community leaders, leave their pants behind. Usually this means wearing thick, appropriately modest boxer shorts, but bloomers, slips, briefs, and boxer-briefs all work as well.
  2. That's it?
    Yeah, that's it. But from the core idea comes so much more. When large groups of people parade around in public without their pants, amazing things are bound to happen. At the very least, you'll take your drab, wretched life a little less seriously, at least for one day.
  3. When is it?
    No Pants Day is always on the first Friday of May, which this year is May the 5th, 2006.
  4. So I can wear a skirt instead? or "Hey, no problem, I was gonna wear a dress anyways!"
    You're very clever, but you're missing the point. Articles of clothing like skirts, shorts, kilts, and dresses don't count, because people are encouraged to revel in the absence of pants, and not replace pants with other clothing. The point is to relax and enjoy the humor inherent in people not wearing pants. A good rule of thumb is to pretend like you were going to wear pants, and then just fail to put them on.
  5. I know of or am hosting a No Pants Day event. Can I get it listed here?
    YES. Please send an e-mail right away to info@nopantsday.com, and we'll post a news item detailing your event. The same is true for anyone hosting their own No Pants Day website.
  6. I want to record a No Pants Day song! Can I?
    Of course, and we'll be glad to host it here and give out all your relevent contact information. Also, we'll eventually be making a No Pants Day audio CD, so your work could be on that, too. Again, send e-mail to info@nopantsday.com
  7. How long has this been going on?
    No one knows for sure how long No Pants Day has been celebrated… some reports place it as early as '85/'86, but for all we know it started long before then. We've been actively promoting No Pants Day for 5 years now, ourselves. If anyone has any concrete evidence or tales of earlier celebrations, please let us know at info@nopantsday.com.
  8. Is this a joke?
    In the same way that all of life is a joke, yes. But no. We're not trying to scam anyone, or satirize anything. We're simply advocating a fun-filled holiday, and the more people who participate the more fun it is.
  9. Did you know that in Britain "pants" International No Pants Day Observationmeans underwear? Shouldn't it be No Trousers Day instead?
    Hmmm.. this holiday could be extremely interesting in Britain, then. But seriously, No Pants Day just sounds catchier, doesn't it? And besides, this gives British people something to mention when you bring up the holiday around them. They laugh and say, "In Britain, 'pants' means…." etc, etc, and they feel good for being the center of attention. So bully for them!

Simpsons In De No Pants Day

Linkie o’ the Day: Brazilians in, Pube-fro’s out, WHY?

Posted on by

Sim-ply PubicFrom Nerve. And I'm proud to say I was on Nerve back when the Internet was only a twinkle in some nerd's eyes. Of course, I'm lying, but I'm still proud to say it. I really should work in Hollywood, you know.

True, there's a lot to be said for depilation. Besides the controlling-BO argument and the no-picking-hairs-out-of-your-teeth argument, one could also argue that it's the ultimate in nudity: You're never more naked than when you're shorn of your natural covering. Finally, there's the market value: Sex has become more than a matter of desire — it's also a commodity and a signifier of sophistication. When we take our clothes off, we're performing — and we want to look good on stage. By manscaping the growth whose appearance first marked the change to adulthood, the body is civilized and controlled. Ironically, though, if "body Forestiera pubes. PUBES! PUBES! PUBES!hair" equates to "sex," the smoother we are, the less sexual we are, too. Behind the current fashion for smoothness is the fact that even at our most liberated, we remain fundamentally frightened of our animal natures.

Speak for yourself. Anyone who interviews Norman Mailer and doesn't punch that bitch out is obviously a born feeb.

Market Report: Vegans up, Texans and Albertans way, way down

Posted on by

NosferatuForget the market for virgins; the hottest new opportunity is the market for vegans! Because of breaking news in the Guardian that Mad Cow Disease has been transmitted through tainted human blood products, the body-juice of a vegan is now far more valuable than the potentially-deadly, germ-soupy gore of a carnivore. Per pint, vegans are now worth several times as much as meat-eaters on the open market, to say nothing of the back alleys of Whitechapel and the farther reaches of Transylvania.

Hmmm, some of my clean-living friends had better watch their backs. The next time someone squeezes you in a crowded bar, maybe he's just trying to see how juicy you are. Try not to squish, okay?

The government has been forced to warn 14 Jack the Medical Laboratory Techniciancountries that patients are in danger of developing the human form of mad cow disease as a result of contaminated British blood products sold abroad.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that patients in Brazil and Turkey are most at risk from the products, although it is too early to know how many, if any, foreign patients may develop the incurable variant CJD, as it takes many years to appear…

The contaminated blood products were exported in the 1990s…Health authorities then had to re-examine blood products sent abroad by the state-owned company Bio Products Laboratory (BPL)…

Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

Posted on by

Whodathunk a scholarly paper on Xena: Warrior Princess Xena is watching. And that bitch will cut you!existed? But, knowing that as you now do, is it any surprise it's written by a raving Xeniac?

Author's Note: Watching Xena religiously has helped to keep me relatively sane over the past four years while I have been working towards my Ph.D. in Religion and Personality at Vanderbilt. This paper started life as a term paper on the first season episode TIES THAT BIND (20/120) for a course on Freud and religion in 1996. It was radically condensed and reorganized last Fall (with the help of this fine, on-line publication) in order to be included in a panel on "Women and Religion in Popular Culture" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 21, 1998. Prof. Sheila Briggs did not present her paper on "Xena Crucified: Christology and Post-Colonial Theory" until two days later, so I had the unexpected pleasure of delivering the first Xena research paper at the A.A.R. Since I was writing for Xenite and non-Xenite members of the academy, please forgive those portions that seem to be preaching to the converted, or belaboring the obvious.

Okay, now, to a certain extent I understand the desire to, upon realizing just how many hours you've wasted watching cartoon T&A Sapphic dramady, get something out of it, if only a scholarly paper for Vanderbilt. When I had cancer I'd watch Hercules four times a day, but then the chemo I was on was so strong that, by the time the last episode came on I'd have forgotten I'd seen it at 10 that morning, and enjoyed it all over again in a happy, chemically-induced stupor.

But there's fans and then there's fans. Behold, the horror that is Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

Introduction (01-05)
A Trojan Horse Opera (06-13)
The Iliad and Theodicy (14-19)
Xena, the Bezerker (20-29)
If You Killed Your Friends and Family, Who Would Bring You Casseroles? (30-31)
Humanizing the Enemy (32-38)
Working Out Your Own Salvation (39-41)
Notes
Bibliography
Biography

Xena Sees You; Xena Sees All!

Hack Attack: Stephen Harper Eats Babies!

Posted on by

Well, no real surprise there. Except that it's the work of a hacker; somebody busted into the computers controlling the the largest transit system in North America and got a little…creative. At least, there's no objective proof he's telling the truth. Yet.

Stephen! Harper! Eats! Babies!