I Me Mine, I Me Mine, I Me Mine

"What's funnier: Shatner-dance or Shatner-cize?"

Heh. Via The Twitter Feed of Poppy Z. "Doc" Brite:

For Lent, I'm giving up feeling guilty about accidentally hurting people who live their lives looking for reasons to be hurt.

Here's what I did to have a big lunch yesterday:

- Got on a bus.
- Got on another bus.
- Rode to the north end of the #8, since it ends at Jubitz, a large and worthwhile truck stop in North Portland not too many blocks from the I-5 bridge to Vancouver, WA. And, as I occasionally do, I had truck stop food. I've said it before: truck stop food is a very special kind of comfort food. I learned that from the times I stopped at the (now torn down and replaced by a hotel) T & R in Albany, OR. That place had what's still my favorite clam chowder. It's also a place my folks stopped at a lot when they were college students in love (as opposed to the 60-somethings in love which they are now) back in the 1960s.

So I have a respect for truck stops.

And for truck stop food.

Not the best truck stop food I've ever had, unfortunately: I added a side of grits that was pretty bland, and the mashed potatoes had an aftertaste I didn't like, so I concentrated on my steak (WOO HOO STEAK) and the really good split pea soup I started with. And a Mello Yello. Plus it was a chance to ride the buses, then sit in the restaurant while my food was prepared, and read. (Robert A. Heinlein's 1954 book The Star Beast. A kid causes an interstellar incident because he has an alien for a pet. Fun book.)

Then here's what I did to work off that food:

- Walked sidewalks and paths up to Hayden Island so I could hang around Jantzen Beach Super Center.
- Walked around stores.
- Rode another bus (the #6 this time) back down to SE, getting off well north of my neighborhood, stopping at an ATM, getting more cash, and then walking all the way home. (I walked from near the Morrison Bridge to my place. This is a good distance, but Portland's well-navigable by foot.)

So I treated myself to food, then walked A LOT to use the calories. I feel accomplished. Wish it had been a better meal, but hey: my truck stop meals are still averaging out to good-and-comforting. Yes, they are.

P.S. My mental radio was alternating between John Denver's "Annie's Song" and The Smiths's "Hang the DJ." Not even I'm sure why.

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* Remember: ANYTHING can be a euphemism!

cleolinda expounds on Dracula with surprising (and at times hilarious) theories. Also invoked by her: cracked-out Sherlock Holmes explanations, and an unexpected LOLCat. A sample of what cleolinda wrote:

I would actually love to be the screenwriter on a hypothetical (umpteenth) remake, or a co-writer, or at least a creative consultant... [T]here's a lot of imagery that people just don't use, and I think it would be really interesting to bring back the sentimental elements of these men swearing to protect Mina to the death. I think you could actually bring in the Twilight crowd if you touch on the more emotional points, and believe me, there is a whole lot of weepin' and prayin', as my Sentimental Literature professor once put it, in the original book. You wouldn't want to use too much of it, not for a modern audience, but it's available there on your filmmaking palette. I submit that the same girls who love Edward Cullen would fall for Jonathan Harker if you emphasized his tortured love for his brave, suffering wife. And they're both young, in their mid or early twenties.

...And you can show a book-accurate Mina who isn't all anachronistic Girl Power, but is uncommonly intelligent and stalwart and resourceful in a period-appropriate way, which is a HELL of a lot better than Bella. (For one, Mina has CAREER GOALS. You just got pwned by a demure Victorian, Swan.) But it could touch the same emotional nerves, if you see what I'm saying. And yet, you have the wonderfully awful horror aspect as well, if you take Dracula back to his original, non-romantic villain personality--take it back to a character who is alluring because he is horrible and terrifying, and you find yourself drawn in spite of yourself; take it back to that perversity, because I think people are going to be ready to go back to that in the next few years.

Read the rest of it! That's only a small chunk! She also says stuff like "Everyone in this book is an idiot, and I have figured out why. (Well, not Mina, because Mina is awesome.)"

Need another summing-up of Lost Seasons 1 through 5? io9's Kiala Kazebee provides! Sample, y'all, from "Season One: I Hate Everyone On This Island Except Vincent":

So now we know about the smoke monster and we know about the Others but not what they are exactly. There are some polar bears (YES!) milling around, Walt can maybe make things happen with his mind, Michael is the Worst Father Ever, Locke thinks he's Survivor Man, Jack is so holier than thou I can't even look at him, Sawyer's hair is ridiculous, and Kate stares at the ocean a lot. We meet crazytown Danielle who needs some moisturizer something fierce because an old shoe for a face is not very French, now is it? She tortures Sayid a little which is okay because he's a torturer himself and there is a hatch which turns on its heartlight for Locke.

...yep, what I figured: "Shatner-cize" is funnier.

(The context that inspired that bit of Out-Of-Context Theater? Rick Emerson's weekly TV show Outlook Portland had a segment on Jazzercise, and Rick tried desperately and badly to do some routines, and for a moment he did a William Shatner-y thing with his hands.)