Underwear

Some of us fear year 2000 will bring computer chaos, alien invasions, maybe Armageddon. But what about flying houses or snacks made from underwear?"Uncle John's Indispensable Guide to the Year 2000" (Bathroom Reader's Press) says these and other inventions should be here by then -- at least if experts from decades past are right.For instance, in 1967, Science Digest predicted that by 2000, "discarded rayon underwear will be bought by chemical factories and converted into candy."Other forecasts:In 1966, Arthur C. Clarke wrote in Vogue magazine that houses in 2001 would be able to fly, thanks to building materials made stronger than steel but lighter than aluminum.

All about weddingsInvitations, gifts, flowers, food, drinks, toasts and dresses make a wedding. The many choices can be overwhelming. This month, future brides, grooms and guests can find help from teams of local experts.NightGoods, the gift store in the Gallery at Harborplace and in the Village of Cross Keys, has scheduled wedding- and shower-planning workshops May 16-17 at both locations. The programs (noon to 3 p.m.) are free and require no advance registration. Bridal consultants, floral designers and other experts will be on hand to offer advice on wedding etiquette, flowers, music, menus and gift selection.

This topic was suggested by a letter from John Cog of Norfolk, Va. Here's the entire text:"How come when I'm standing in front of a full-length mirror with nothing on but socks, white socks look OK, but dark-colored socks make me look cheap and sleazy?"This letter was passed along to me by my Research Department, Judi Smith, who attached a yellow stick-on note that says: "This is true." Judi did not say how she happens to know it's true; apparently -- and I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation -- she has seen John Cog of Norfolk, Va., wearing nothing but socks.

EAGLE PASS, Texas -- When U.S. Customs Service agents searched a pickup truck at the port of entry here, they found six live snakes in a tool compartment.When they searched the two men in the truck, they found eight more live snakes, each wrapped in socks and pantyhose and hidden in the men's underwear -- four to a man."In the past, we have found marijuana cigarettes and other drugs . . . but never snakes in jockey shorts," officer Humberto Rodriguez said after the incident Tuesday night.

Ding dong, the winter's dead, the wicked winter's dead.Positively, unequivocally, quite sincerely dead.So what if it snowed a bit as recently as Friday -- or that snow buried the state on the Palm Sunday of March 29, 1942; played a 9-inch joke on Baltimore for April Fool's Day in 1924; or delayed an Oriole opening day by a few minutes on April 8, 1985.Time to pack away the snow shovel and boots, clean out the swimming pool, tune up the air conditioner and think about the greenhouse effect: Temperatures hit a summerlike 87 in Baltimore yesterday, shattering a nearly century-old record.

Today I am announcing the first-ever Amateur Tax Tips Contest, featuring an exciting prize as well as an opportunity for some lucky winners to serve lengthy terms in federal prison.The purpose of the Amateur Tax Tips Contest is to provide normal people with practical, real-life answers to their tax questions, as opposed to the complex and vague "advice" we so often see in columns written by the kind of goody-two-shoes money geeks who actually save their receipts and record their mileage and file their tax returns on Jan. 2. I'll give you an example of what I mean.

Designers at the New York spring collections are showing visible panty lines. It's all part of fashion's backward movement of the moment. Last year it was thongs and G-strings, but having exposed supermodel backsides to the glare of paparazzi flash, the fashion-jaded are looking elsewhere for excitement.It's to the '50s and your mother's underwear, when respectable girls had never even heard of bikinis and their bottoms were all covered up by drawers with cute lolly and spanky names.That's the new contour, the new hot pants are rounded to cut in at the thigh.

An Anne Arundel Circuit Court jury deliberated two hours yesterday before acquitting a 27-year-old former wrestling coach of child abuse.Sean Mark Castorina pounded the table in front of him, jumped out of his chair and shouted "Yes!" when the verdict was announced after the weeklong trial."I thank God, my wife, my family and my lawyer, and I'm just glad it's over," Mr. Castorina, a former wrestling coach and development director at the Riverdale Baptist School in Upper Marlboro, said as he left the courthouse surrounded by supporters.

B. J. the deejay says he has not decided what he will do if the National Football League owners choose next week not to give Baltimore an expansion team franchise.That's B. J. Murphy, of WXYV-FM (102.7), who today entered the 22nd day of his "Give Baltimore the Ball" marathon broadcasting stunt.He vowed on Oct. 1 to stay on the air until the NFL granted Baltimore a franchise, and he has been eating and sleeping in the station's studios ever since."We're very excited about Tuesday, hoping the NFL owners see the light," he said yesterday, noting plans are in the works for him to travel to Chicago and broadcast live from the team owners' meetings.

Positively perplexing. How is it that perfectly functional, simply sensational garments mutate -- sometimes with a mere washing or wearing -- into baggy, saggy, rumpled bits of ill-fitting apparel? Maybe wearing clothing is more brutal and destructive than we once thought.Or maybe they just don't make 'em like they used to.Whatever the case, it's time someone asked why things go wrong with the clothes we buy.Unnatural underwearJudging by the panty line showing through your clingy knit dress, those sure are high-cut undies you've got there.

If Grant Goldbeck ever stands on the podium and hoists the Bassmaster Classic trophy overhead, he'll have sexy underwear to thank. Contrary to what lots of folks think, cruising the country to fish competitively against other like-minded and like-skilled anglers is an expensive proposition. Unless you consistently finish on the podium at the elite level, prize money won't get you and your bass boat from Alabama to Texas. That's something guys like Goldbeck know only too well. The Maryland native will begin his third season this week fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series, an eight-event competition that every year provides a pipeline to the Classic.

The ladies who lunch at Petit Louis in Roland Park know enough to keep their undies to themselves. Same goes for the Harbor East crowd forking over hundreds for dinner at Charleston and the oenophiles tasting wines at nearby Cinghiale. Patrons of Pazo, however, need to be told. Cindy Wolf and Tony Foreman have lots of restaurants in Baltimore, but only one with a dress code. It's just been posted inside the doorway at Pazo in Fells Point. It lists run-of-the-mill no-nos: No ball caps, athletic shoes, flip-flops.

The American electorate has matured in the years since Bill Clinton got that boxers-or-briefs query. These days voters only want to know if Mitt Romney wears Mormon underwear. Romney has declined to answer questions about it, and his big speech on Mormonism steered clear of holy skivvies. Anybody out there who thinks presidential unmentionables should remain unmentioned, read no more. Because I know somebody who has seen Romney's underwear. One pair of it, anyway. On the eve of the 2002 Olympics, The Sun's Candus Thomson was one of a handful of reporters invited to dinner at Mitt and Ann Romney's Park City, Utah, home, a $5 million "cabin" on Rising Star Lane.

Public hoopla over some young folks' baggy, saggy pants came to a quiet close yesterday - at least in Baltimore's City Hall. No legislation was passed. In fact, none was ever intended, says City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton, who in September introduced a resolution to implore the city's youths to pull up their trousers. The issue might have gone out with a whimper, but it came in with a bang. Holton's proposal was a hot topic on talk shows and on the Internet. It also thrust Baltimore into a national story involving several places that have sought to ban youth fashion that some consider indecent.

Add this to the list of dangers facing Baltimore, a city councilwoman says: baggy, saggy pants. Councilwoman Helen L. Holton has introduced a resolution to implore the city's youths to pull up their trousers, becoming the most recent in a string of lawmakers around the country who want to teach the next generation how to dress. Their efforts underscore the discomfort many adults feel about exposed underwear, although opponents think attempts to legislate fashion are a waste of time. Several towns in Louisiana have passed ordinances that carry fines for people exposing their underwear in public.

As head of a Park Heights children's mentoring program, David Edmondson, 30, is constantly telling his young charges to keep a neat haircut, tuck their clothes in, and most important, "Pull up your pants!" But that doesn't mean he's in total agreement with an Atlanta city councilman who has caused quite a buzz recently by proposing a ban in his city on visible bra straps and thongs and low-slung pants that expose underwear. "If I see my son [showing his underwear], I'm going to smack him straight in his head," says Edmondson, executive director of Children All Around Mentoring Program and a proponent of the neat-and-clean look.

Today's column is about an important subject that is not really on everyone's mind: the never-ending choices in women's underwear. There was a time when, if I needed underwear, I only needed about 30 seconds to shop for it. It was hanging in a plastic three-pack on a rack in the back of the women's department. My choice was limited to: size. That's because "color" was the ever-unflattering brilliant white. This type of underwear had an elastic waistband that, as its name indicates, came up to the waist, and two similarly, boringly appointed leg holes.

A Columbia man was arrested Tuesday after a panty raid at a lingerie store in an Annapolis mall, Anne Arundel County police said. Police said two Victoria's Secret employees at Westfield Shoppingtown Annapolis saw a man grabbing handfuls of underwear from the store's display tables about 5 p.m., stuffing 145 panties into an oversized shopping bag. The two security guards confronted the man, who struggled with them outside the storefront. County police were called and arrested the man, who was also carrying a hypodermic syringe and a plastic bottle cap with an unidentified substance in it, said police spokesman Lt. Joseph E. Jordan.

A Columbia man was arrested Tuesday after a panty raid at a lingerie store in an Annapolis mall, Anne Arundel County police said. Police said two Victoria's Secret employees at Westfield Shoppingtown Annapolis saw a man grabbing handfuls of underwear from the store's display tables about 5 p.m., stuffing 145 panties into an oversized shopping bag. The two workers confronted the man, who struggled with them outside the storefront. County police were called and arrested Ricardo Langford III, who was also carrying a hypodermic syringe and a plastic bottle cap with an unidentified substance in it, said police spokesman Lt. Joseph E. Jordan.

FAIRFAX, Va. - Speaking in a low voice, convicted Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad complained yesterday to the judge who will preside over his next trial that his Northern Virginia jailers give him inadequate access to his voluminous legal files and are not letting him wear underwear to court. "How does it make this courtroom safe with me coming into this courtroom with no T-shirt, no underwear and no socks?" asked Muhammad, who attended a July court hearing barefoot. He implored the judge, "Can you please find out about my underwear?"