Let's Pants!

What can I add to this? Except to say that it kind of sums up my experiences teaching English in Japan many years ago. Yes, it can be that surreal. Japan as a whole can be that surreal.

For instance, this photo (also from the same guy's blog) illustrates one of my fonder memories of life in Japan: the Japanese 7-Eleven convenience stores. If you look carefully, you can see the glass humbow steamer sitting on the counter by the cash register. Anytime I wanted a steamed bun, I could dart into a 7-Eleven and grab one for a few yen! This shot is really evocative for me: the tile-esque pavement of the sidewalk, the diamond-deck ramp over the rain gutter, the skinny girls in short skirts. At least they're not little boys in tiny shorts! This was probably shot late at night, not too long ago, and I can just feel the humidity and smell the sewage. Yes, you catch whiffs of sewage even in downtown Tokyo. Lots of different smells, but that one was always a reminder that Japan is basically the world's most overpopulated "village" in the world.

But anyway...

Pants!

Thank you. Won't you?

Lure Rifftrax to Seattle!

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Happy New Year!

Hope you're all having a nice, relaxing day today, and are not sickly and hung-over from over-indulgence last night. We had a relaxing celebration at home, with a little champagne and a lot of other stuff. The neighbors didn't go crazy with the fireworks, so the horses were delightfully non-agitated: yay!

To kick off 2008, I give you a summation of last year's trends and predictions of this year's, by one of my favorite writers, critics, and pundits, Kevin Murphy.

"I'm dying, you know!"

It's true. That's not just a quote from Pearl Forrester in a host segment from Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #703, "Deathstalker and the Warrior's From Hell", it's my life right now. Right on cue (a little theater pun, there), during the very last performance of "Bell, Book & Candle", last night, I could feel my throat swelling up and becoming painful, my sinuses swelling, and aches starting to climb from my feet through all my joints. As of now I am officially SICK thanks to some carrier of vile diseases whom I have encountered in the last week, thank you so much.

I have a tendency to hold myself together when life gets busy and stressful, then completely go to bits the minute it's over. Soooo, after months of ren faire and the aforementioned play...here we are: the infirmery.

To add insult to injury, I found several months ago that there are NO clips from the MST3k treatment of "Deathstalker" to be found anywhere on the internet, including the usually bountiful YouTube. I can only guess that the makers of this gem don't want their precious product being bandied about the web willy nilly with no fees changing hands. Did they systematically track down the nefarious "pirate" postings and demand their removal? If so, they just axed the only free marketing they'll ever get, because it's a BAD movie folks! The only watchable version IS the MST3k version, and I'd love to buy a nice commercial copy, but I'm guessing the rights expired and are not about to be renewed for the folks at Rhino home video. So I give you a lame screen cap of the bed-ridden Pearl, instead.

Do I feel better now. No! I feel like I've been waylaid in an alley by drunken press-gangers and beaten with a belaying pin over 90% of my body. To quote another fine screen villain, Dr. Smith, "The pain! The painnn!!!" Luckily, I have a big bottle of nighttime cold meds with my name on it, sweet oblivion, here I come...

PS For those who care, that's not all I'm doing. I'm also overdosing on Vit. C and zinc, so I expect improvement soon...I hope.