Less than a week after Pants on the Ground made its debut on national television on the January 13 episode of American Idol, the song has exploded.

That same night, USA Today revealed that Larry Platt was a long time civil rights advocate. The following day, Jimmy Fallon performed the song in the style of Neil Young and Pants on the Ground remixes began popping up on YouTube. That Sunday, Brett Favre started chanting the song in the locker room. You can even get Pants on the Ground t-shirts.

I'm not sure how long this fad will last, but let's hope that Larry Platt can get some good coverage out of the deal. And I'm sure we'll see Larry back again in one of the last episodes of the season.

Oscar

For more details, hints, and tips on Oscars prediction contests, read the Academy Awards Prediction Contests page. For the most recent Oscars posts, be sure to check out the Oscars/Academy Awards category page. There, you should find contests, predictions, and results.

Make sure you know who's in the running for each category! Print the official Oscars printable ballot.

81st Academy Awards Prediction Contests:

• Oscars.com
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• eFilmCritic — Unique method of entry for this one, as you can vote for multiple films in each category
  Prize: 50 DVDs, Robert Osborne's 80 Years of Oscar book, 2 passes to your local IMAX theatre (Est. $1,315 ARV)
• DE Concierge
  Prize: a $100 gift certificate to Burke Williams Day Spa in CA, a $100 gift certificate, and a $100 gift certificate to the Arclight Cinema in LA ($300 ARV)
• The Golden Schmoes
  Prize: iPod Video ($250 ARV)
• the-numbers.com
  Prize: All five Best Picture Nominees on DVD. (Est. $100 ARV)
• web-goddess
  Prize: One pair of Batman and Joker sock monkeys (Est. $60 ARV)
• Scuba.com
  Prize: $50 scuba.com gift certificate ($50 ARV)
• Fort Worth Public Library
  Prize: No Country for Old Men DVD, Two AMC movie passes, 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola Classic, and a box of Orville Redenbacher's Microwave Gourmet Popping Corn (Est. $35 ARV)
• York Daily Record
  Prize: $25 gift certificate to Regal Cinemas ($25 ARV)
• The Augusta Chronicle
  Prize: An entertainment prize package ($? ARV)
• Practicalmadness
  Prize: Store credit or gift certificate ($? ARV)
• PredictTheOscars.com
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• The Daily Camera and The Video Station
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• The News Tribune
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Box Office Mojo
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Variety
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Awards Daily
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)
• Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin
  Prize: Unknown ($? ARV)

Good luck to you, and have fun! (And if you win a prize, please feel free to share it with me!)

The High-Five Guys hit Hollywood and published a video featuring Robert Downey Jr., Tim Meadows, Mary Steenburgen, Ryan Seacrest, Milo Ventimiglia, Will Ferrell, and others.

Great job, guys. You really deserve a . . . pat on the back, or some other form of congratulations.

How can you possibly pass up Cold Stone Creamery's World's Largest Ice Cream Social?

On September 25, 2008 from 5pm until 8pm, Cold Stone Creamery is giving away free 3 oz. "Make-a-Wish"-sized creations. This free portion is about 60% the size of Cold Stone's "Like It" (small) size, which is approximately 5 oz. The stipulations are that your sample will be Emily or Jack's Creation:

• Jack's Creation — Marshmallow ice cream with OREO® Cookies, Chocolate Chips and Fudge
• Emily's Creation — Nutter Butter® ice cream with White Chocolate Chips, Kit Kat® and Yellow Cake

These are two new flavors created by two Make-a-Wish children named — you guessed it — Jack and Emily, who are 9 and 10 years old, respectively.

Why free ice cream? Cold Stone is doing this for a good cause: About 85% of all donations given during that time will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Visit these official sites for the full "scoop":

• Cold Stone Creamery's Promotions page
• Make-A-Wish Foundation's page for The World's Largest Ice Cream Social

Kahala Brands owns Cold Stone Creamery, and some of their other stores are also having giveaways during the last week of the month. If you live near Blimpie, The Great Steak & Potato Co., Samurai Sam’s Teriyaki Grill, or TacoTime you can grab some free stuff from those locations, too! Of course, don't forget to donate to a great charity while you're there!

On May 17, 1972, Don Gorske ate a Big Mac.

"No big deal," you might say, but Gorske never stopped. In that first month in 1972, he ate 265 Big Macs.

Due to his obsessive-compulsive disorder, Gorske continued eating Big Macs every day. In fact, Gorske has had less than 10 Big Mac-less days in those 36+ years since. According to the AP, Gorske recently hit the 23,000 Big Mac milestone. Currently, he generally eats two Big Macs a day.

What, you don't believe Gorske? Lucky for you, he has also saved all of his Big Mac receipts for all those Big Macs!

Gorske wrote a book about his experiences titled 22,477 Big Macs

Watch this video to get an idea of what the man is like . . . and no, he's not obese!

Here's to you, Mr. Obsessive Compulsive Big Mac Eater.

Thanks to the success of MXC and then Wipeout, we're seeing a rash of Japanese game imports coming to the U.S.

I'm not sure about the rules exactly, but it really does seem straightfoward. The contestant stands at the end of a runway in front of a pit of water. A large wall with a certain shape comes toward them, and the contestant has to contort their body into the shape of the hole so they remain in the playing area instead of being swept into the water. Some holes/shapes require laying down, jumping, and teamwork.

Fox's casting call earlier this summer requested same-sex teams of three players, which seems to have been the format for the original show as well.

Of course, reading about the show tends to be fairly boring, while watching these people play the game is much more enjoyable:

Now go ahead . . . start filling out that application. You know you want to try it yourself!

Billy Reid of Very Tasteful puts out consistently catchy songs on his website. One of his latest tracks, and True Story is no exception.

The video for this song is one of those "photograph" videos. It's missing the "photograph-turned-to-video" element, but still worth watching.

He also released a video of Swim Now, a song based on the Christopher Guest's SNL sketch "Men's Synchronized Swimmers" featuring Martin Short and Harry Shearer.