{"id":1066,"date":"2006-08-06T17:50:55","date_gmt":"2006-08-06T22:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weekending-2\/"},"modified":"2006-08-06T18:11:02","modified_gmt":"2006-08-06T23:11:02","slug":"weekending-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weekending-2","title":{"rendered":"Now is the Time When the Matador Meets the Blind Shoemaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Amy &#038; I went out to see <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0415306\/\" target=\"_blank\">Talladega Nights<\/a> this afternoon. It was a hoot (but no <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0405422\/\" target=\"_blank\">40-Year-Old Virgin<\/a>, and it featured the tallest lead cast ever, with major screen time going to Will Ferrell (6&#8217;3&#8243;), John C. Reilly (6&#8217;1&#8243;), Michael Clarke Duncan (6&#8217;5&#8243;) and Sascha Baron Cohen (6&#8217;4&#8243;). We felt that they should have added either Tim Robbins or Tom Cruise.<\/p>\n<p>We bought the movies at a ticket kiosk outside the theater. A printed note was taped next to the screen on each kiosk, to let moviegoers know that the trailer for <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0469641\/\" target=\"_blank\">World Trade Center<\/a> would be shown before <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0458352\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Devil Wears Prada<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0463034\/\" target=\"_blank\">You, Me and Dupree<\/a>. If any of you readers from outside the NYC metro area went to the movies this weekend, did you see any similar notice, or is this something that they&#8217;re just particularly sensitive about in this region?<\/p>\n<p>I saw the commercial for World Trade Center a few weeks ago while I was donating at the blood center over in Linwood. I admit that I had a hard time figuring out if the clips it showed were effective movie-making or if I&#8217;m still too strongly affected by the imagery. I know it&#8217;s not exactly summertime fare, so it&#8217;s kinda odd that the studio chose to drop the film just now.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, Amy &#038; I were pretty happy to find out that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.idlewildmovie.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Idlewild<\/a> is coming out in a few weeks, because<\/p>\n<p>a) it means that there&#8217;s a new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B000BRLRUO\/voyantpublishing\" target=\"_blank\">OutKast album<\/a>, and <\/p>\n<p>b) it means that we can meet up with official VM buddy Mark F. and see the flick at his local theater: the Magic Johnson Theater up in Harlem!<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s also <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0449059\/\" target=\"_blank\">Little Miss Sunshine<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0443453\/\" target=\"_blank\">Borat<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0493430\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jackass 2<\/a> to see, so I might actually get out to the movies a few times before the end of the year! In the last few years, I&#8217;ve gone to fewer and fewer flicks, largely because I can&#8217;t be bothered. But Amy&#8217;s a good influence on me, getting me out to see important films with moments like <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/gallery\/ss\/0493430\/Ss\/0493430\/weemanh.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In other news, my brother, his wife and their two daughters are in town for a week. We&#8217;re all planning to go down to the shore for a day. This time, I&#8217;ll remember to bring my camera to the boardwalk (and I&#8217;ll buy some goofy T-shirts, Tina). We picnicked up in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.njbg.org\/skylands.html\" target=\"_blank\">botanical garden<\/a> on Saturday, and I got to tell the kids (6 and 3) outrageous lies about The Hunchback of Skylands Manor and The Slav in the Iron Mask. They love me.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m also battling a milder case of poison ivy than the one I got hit with around Memorial Day. I spent Friday afternoon with My Pal The Chainsaw, taking down some of the dead and decaying trees in the yard. While I did wear long sleeves and long pants, I managed to get a little of the evil stuff on my forearms, an inch or so above the wrists.<\/p>\n<p>This pisses me off greatly, since it now means I&#8217;m going to have to get a biohazard suit for the next time I go out to clear more of the yard. Or I can hire some landscapers, warn &#8217;em about the poison ivy, and let them take care of things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amy &#038; I went out to see Talladega Nights this afternoon. It was a hoot (but no 40-Year-Old Virgin, and it featured the tallest lead cast ever, with major screen time going to Will Ferrell (6&#8217;3&#8243;), John C. Reilly (6&#8217;1&#8243;), Michael Clarke Duncan (6&#8217;5&#8243;) and Sascha Baron Cohen (6&#8217;4&#8243;). We felt that they should have &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weekending-2\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Now is the Time When the Matador Meets the Blind Shoemaker&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-hc","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":99,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/co-kikin-it","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":0},"title":"Co&#8217; Kikin&#8217; It","author":"Gil","date":"December 25, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, just when I planned on kicking back on the official Virtual Memories fainting couch and reading some of Herodotus' Histories, I got a call from my buddy Adam, who was planning on going to some chanukkah parties in NYC.Before I left the house, I considered grabbing my digital\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/co-kikin-it#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1234,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/getting-better-all-the-time","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":1},"title":"Getting better all the time","author":"Gil","date":"December 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, my dad picked up a new iPod. He called me to ask what sort of video files it can play. I wasn't sure -- outside of the movies and videos you can buy at the iTune store -- because I haven't bought a new iPod since July 2004. It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2876,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cant-start-a-fire","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":2},"title":"Can&#8217;t start a fire","author":"Gil","date":"November 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I meandered around a Borders store for the second time in a week! This time, my wife was getting her hair cut on Saturday afternoon, and I figured I could spend a little time among the books to feel guiltier about not participating in National Novel-Writing Month. (I really meant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1385,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hot-gates-hot-box-office","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":3},"title":"Hot Gates, Hot Box Office?","author":"Gil","date":"March 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was going to mark-out for 300, and that Amy & I would likely go catch it this weekend at the local IMAX, so as to get the full theme-park experience of Thermopylae on a giant screen. This morning, I went online and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comic books &amp; strips&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comic books &amp; strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":372,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":4},"title":"ObservationsI've now spent a minimum\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"September 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"ObservationsI've now spent a minimum of several days in three European capitols in the past 5 weeks. Here are two things I've noticed:Europeans only have two kinds of Coca-Cola: Coke and Coke Light (Diet Coke). A couple of places had Vanilla Coke, but it was rare. This contrasts with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1400,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/will-i-never-learn","url_meta":{"origin":1066,"position":5},"title":"Will I never learn?","author":"Gil","date":"March 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, sure, I know you all think it's easy being me. I know how you envy the dashing, romantic, debonair life of a pharmaceutical trade magazine editor who lives in a quiet, no-restaurant town a little beyond the suburbs. But it's not all wine and roses, I tellya! Take today,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Business&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0226674339","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}