For your consideration:

1. Ulysses the Unicorn:  Legend has it that one moonless night many ages ago, the mighty black unicorn Ulysses, brave Equine Lord of the Magick Realm, did gallop through the tiny village at the foot of the Mystic Mountain , whinnying and neighing in dismay, for none of the shoppes were advertising blowout sales. So as Ulysses clippity-clopped down the cobblestone street, he did perforate all the shoppe signs with his deadly obsidian horn, slashing their posted prices as he went.

2. Olaf the Bear Slayer: Throughout December 1993, holiday shoppers in the Yukon Territory stayed indoors due to an explosion in the black bear population. Even trips to the outhouse and the smokehouse were postponed for fear of bear mauling. That is, until Olaf Pfinkle, legendary hockey enforcer from the Sookum Flyers, escaped from an insane asylum. He quickly took to the streets, slashing bears he mistook as hirsute defensemen from the Klondike Marmots. Suffice it to say, Mother Nature's ursine siege was lifted, and the territory's shopping-starved citizens soon swarmed its six or seven stores, consuming with a fury no less savage than Pfinkle himself.

Ever since, families celebrate Black Friday with a hearty meal of braised bear loin stuffed with bear cub, which is then stuffed with a harlequin duck -- a dish commonly known as Grrrr-ducken.

Every autumn, millions of American men tragically go pantless while their fellow citizens turn a blind eye.

This is the terrible affliction known as Pantlessteria -- more commonly referred to as Sansapant Syndrome, Trousernot, or Nay Slacks disease.

Fortunately, there is a cure -- and it's just clicks away at Cordarounds.com. That's where our scientists, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University, are working around the clock to develop Bike to Work pants, horizontal-corduroy trousers, and other solutions to this most pressing problem.

From hip to heel, Cordarounds has you covered. But don’t be fooled by home remedies for pantlessness or black market imitations (see below). You can only buy our pants online.

During Pants Awareness Month, Cordarounds needs your help. Please send us photos of yourself flashing the sign of trouser victory (on right), so that we can build a trillion-pixel pyramid of pant pride. Yes, email those images to chris AT cordarounds.com, and together we'll cure the world of pantlessness -- on the streets, at home, in bed, even in the shower.

Are you pantless and in need of immediate assistance? Call 1-800-694-9491 or visit our catalog.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 3 – In a landmark climate-change study conducted jointly by the National Weather Center and Cordarounds, makers of casual, horizontal seersucker pants (now on sale in our store), researchers have determined that increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will fuel scorching summer weather nationwide until at least mid-October. As a result, the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Fashion has taken the unprecedented step of calling for an immediate and indefinite suspension of the so-called "No White After Labor Day" law.

“In light of significant climatic change over the last century, amending this woefully outdated legislation could spell relief for millions of Americans,” said Dr. Reginald Kaplan, lead researcher in the groundbreaking study.  “This law was passed as a public safety measure in 1910, when September storms regularly assailed the Eastern Seaboard with gale-force winds and up to 10 feet of snow a day, making wearers of white summer garments shiver – and worse, invisible.”

Continued Kaplan: “However, global warming, and the corresponding rise in global crotch-heat indices, has made it a cruel September indeed for the citizenry and its countless pairs of federally mandated woolen trousers.  The time to get rid of this law – and introduce in its place a decidedly cool and casual pant – is now.”

Stated Cordarounds founder Chris Lindland: “We are proud to have funded this important study, if only to give our marketing efforts pseudo-scientific credence.  So when the fashion calendar says it’s time to put away the white pants, but the thermometer says otherwise, put on a pair of our Suckerlab Summerounds, which are only half-white anyway.”  The other half is blue. 

Lindland concluded by saying, tearfully: “Although I and the rest of the Cordarounds family remain steadfastly opposed to global warming, I am so very pleased to turn lemons into lemonade and state, unequivocally, that this is the year of ‘Endless Summerounds.’ In fact, from here on out, we shall call them exactly that.”

This week, the Newspaper of Record proclaimed that Cauliflower ears are in!  -- old news to Cordarounds readers who were tipped off on this fashion trend back in 2006. This proves, once again, that life imitates art and horizontal corduroy remains on the bleeding edge of style and suffering.  

FLASHBACK!

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21 — Say farewell to Metro. All hail the dawn of the Cromagnosexual. This fall, the most stylish men on the planet are wearing Cordarounds’ hearty horizontal-corduroy pants ...and "suffering" moderate to severe cases of cauliflower ear.

The medical community calls it "destruction of cartilage due to trauma that results in a thickened and deformed ear," but leading fashionistas from New York to Shanghai report that these funky lobes will be cruising the runways in ’06. Accompanied, of course, by pairs of Cordarounds, long recognized as the perfect pant for today's hottest rugby injuries.

Famed trend seer Coco Pitts explained the new Cromagno look thusly: "A pair of Cordarounds trousers not only looks scrum-ptious, the meshing, horizontal corduroy wales reduce crotch-heat friction, sending sperm counts skyrocketing to caveman levels. Combine that with cauliflower ear -- a trademark occupational hazard of the Neanderthal -- and you’ve got a hot look that says, 'I'm a hunter-gatherer who works hard – and plays violently! I'm Cromagno!"

Indeed, the formerly Metro are hurrying to join the maul in the hopes of getting that perfect, mangled ear to complement their new pair of Cordarounds. What’s more, plastic surgeons are reporting a sharp increase in the number of patients requesting cosmetic cauliflowerings. Says Cordarounds founder Chris Lindland: “Naturally, the rough and tumble will be drawn to our hearty trousers in 2006, creating a style combination that’s going to be hard to beat -- even with a caveman's club.”

Lindland then removed a pair of earmuffs to reveal his own swollen and malformed ear stubs. "Cromagno," he declared, briefly wincing at the pain.

*If you have a photo of yourself wearing Cordarounds and would like to complete the look with a rugger's cauliflower ear (but want to spare yourself the dangers of the scrum), write us and we'll send you a Cauliflower ear of your very own.

Cordarounds is in every sense a global enterprise -- well, excluding the World Music sense. So while we're a humble, two-man business making clothing in San Francisco, the fact that we only sell online means that you, dear customer, must compete for our latest styles with the likes of fashion-conscious Belarusian mobsters, Papuan New Guinea tribesman and members of the Easter Island Elks Lodge, to name just a few.

Today we're embracing our World Wide Web identity by renaming our company ÇØRDÅRØÜÑDS, a name that's appropriately international, but one that we have no idea how to pronounce.

To celebrate, we're selling these attractive t-shirts for men and for women. We've also produced this particularly unhelpful ÇØRDÅRØÜÑDS pronunciation video.

So if you're in search of a conversational summer shirt, proceed immediately to our store. And if you happen to be good with languages, please help us crack the linguistic code of our new name, as we sincerely look forward to saying it ourselves.

COUNTY KERRY, Ireland (Feb. 5, 2008) -- Angry, naked and cold, several hundred sheep gathered today in the Beaufort town square to protest the recent loss of their resplendent ebony wool, a situation organizers have called nothing less than a total fleecing of their basic ovine rights. Amid a chorus of bleating and chattering teeth, the so-called "Frozen Flock" claimed that overwhelming demand for Cordarounds authentic black sheep crewneck sweaters has robbed them of their fine black coats, leaving them, quite literally, out in the cold during the icy Irish winter.

"Bah! We thought these sweaters would finally give us the respect we deserved," said mighty Orion, King of all Black Sheep. "But Cordarounds keeps taking our wool, month after freezing month. Bah!"

Bah, indeed. Since Cordarounds released its black sheep sweaters last November, the San Francisco-based online clothier has experienced insatiable demand for the finely woven figures of speech, forcing the company to deprive Orion and the rest of his friends of their highly coveted coverings. And with the fourth production run of sweaters, there's sure to be more wool on the backs of Cordarounds customers than Kerry's entire population of black sheep, making for some very unhappy ungulates.

The White House today announced a partnership with the online clothier Cordarounds to develop updated guidelines for the Presidential Physical Fitness Award, a move administration officials say will mirror the military’s newly relaxed age and fitness requirements.

“Whether on the front lines of the War on Terror, or the front of the line at one of this country’s many fine all-you-can-eat buffets, Americans simply can no longer measure up to traditional standards of fitness,” an anonymous White House source said. “Therefore, we are encouraging all citizens to get active in this new, reduced capacity.”

According to administration officials, Cordarounds, the San Francisco pant manufacturer, was chosen as a strategic partner of the new fitness initiative based on its strategic 25-45 demographic and the aerodynamic features of its horizontal-corduroy trousers, skirts and jackets.

“It is our hope that Cordarounds will help Americans move faster than they could on their own,” the source said. “Even the illusion of improved physical fitness will be victory for freedom-loving people everywhere.”

In a recent speech to workers at the McLaughlin Wind Chime factory in Charleston, West Virginia, the President reiterated his desire for the revamped Presidential Physical Fitness Program to be another way for citizen-soldiers to “defend the homeland against those who would do us harm.” He went on to praise Cordarounds for their hip good looks and what the Commander-in-Chief referred to as “an overwhelming victory in the war against crotch-heat friction.”

Cordarounds founder Chris Lindland notes that the Presidential Physical Fitness Award program dates back to the Eisenhower administration, when it was conceived as an anti-Communist youth group known as “Ike’s Red-Alert Rangers.”

“We at Cordarounds are proud to take part in the rich tradition of the PPFA,” Lindland said. “And I hope that each and every one of our customers puts on their Cordarounds and accepts this fitness challenge as their patriotic duty.

“May our eagles soar to new heights of fashion and fitness!” Lindland concluded, before leaping aboard Cordarounds’ Stars-and-Stripes-bedecked Hummer and roaring off into the sunset.