{"id":1231,"date":"2006-12-02T17:56:53","date_gmt":"2006-12-02T22:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-a-rap\/"},"modified":"2006-12-02T18:03:24","modified_gmt":"2006-12-02T23:03:24","slug":"its-a-rap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-a-rap","title":{"rendered":"It’s a Rap!"},"content":{"rendered":"

(You know you wanna check out the pix from my meanders in Toronto<\/a> on Friday)<\/em><\/p>\n

Home from Toronto a lot easier than my boss, whose flight home on Friday got cancelled due to “the airspace over Boston,” according to his pilot. He asked if this meant the bad weather & high winds we had all over the northeast, and was told that it did not. So, after 4 hours in an Embraer 145, he was allowed to leave and headed back to our hotel, where he sat in the bar and watched hockey.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, official VM buddy Sam and I went to see the Raptors play the Celtics in what Sam called “battle of the worst coaches in the NBA.” Since the Raptors have a game tonight against the Knicks, we figured maybe it’s a round-robin tournament.<\/p>\n

We had fun at the game, but it was despite the action on the court. Sam’s now been to two NBA games with me (we hit a Dallas game against Orlando in April 2005), and he’s convinced I have NBA-Tourette’s, in which a constant stream of analysis & invective pours forth from my mouth during professional basketball games. We joined up with my boss after the game for a drink or two. He seemed pretty exhausted by the hurry-up-and-wait. I admit: if I were stuck in an Embraer for 4 hours, I’d probably go bananas.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, after I visited Sam’s company in Oakville and toured the company’s produciton facilities (not as heavy-duty containment suiting as I wore on Thursday), I wandered around Toronto a little, while the weather was clear.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this wandering didn’t coincide exactly with the clear weather, and I was stuck in some darned cold rain for a while. Early in my meander, I stopped at the Roots store in the Eaton Centre<\/a> to get a hat and gloves. But then I decided that they were kinda pricey and, besides, the weather was okay now, so it would stay that way forever.<\/p>\n

From there, I exited onto Yonge Street, which I forgot was an interesting amalgam of high-end retail, good record stores, and low-rent strip clubs. I headed off from there to a used bookstore I remembered from a past trip, but didn’t find anything.<\/p>\n

I decided I’d walk through the University district and visit the famed comic store, The Beguiling<\/a>. I spent a while there, hoping the weather would clear again and trying to justify spending $240 (Canadian) for a limited print by Sammy Harkham of a golem walking in the forest. I held off (I’ll wait till the USD appreciates against Canada’s dollar, and I’d probably be fine with a panel from The Poor Sailor<\/a> anyway).<\/p>\n

One of the nice things about having started doing yoga is that rambling ambles like this one don’t seem to give me the slight mid-back pain I was getting the past few years. I’ve only been on it for a few weeks or so, so hey.<\/p>\n

During this walk, I came across two things I didn’t take pictures of: the Bata Shoe Museum<\/a> and the Robarts Library<\/a>. The former looks entertaining enough, and I bought a postcard from there for Amy, to give us yet another reason to take a long weekend here in the springtime.<\/p>\n

The Library, on the other hand, is one of the most overwhelmingly depressing buildings I’ve ever seen. It may’ve been worse because of the rain and gray skies, but I can’t imagine a scenario which the appearance of this building inspires anything but fear and dread. Don’t let 1970s architecture happen to you<\/em>!<\/p>\n

After I left The Beguiling emptyhanded, it was time for another overpriced cab ride back to the hotel. I was amazed by the cost of cab rides in this city, as well as the ones I had to take to the pharma companies, which were outside the city. The flat-rate limo-y cars were also awfully expensive, including $51 CAD for the 20-minute ride from downtown to the airport.<\/p>\n

In keeping with my recent post about accumulating all sorts of change and foreign currency, I returned home this morning with about $47 in Canadian bills and change. I feel like George Soros.<\/p>\n

Anyway, a really neat thing happened during the short (54-minute) flight today. We completed our initial descent through the cloud cover, and all I could see were brown-gray hills and a few houses and a winding road or two. I thought, “We’re only 15 minutes from landing, but I have NO idea where we are right now.” It looked like Pennsylvania farmland, or far western NJ.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed the Sheraton Crossroads to port, and it hit me: I was looking down at my morning commute! Sure enough, Rt. 17 threaded away from the Sheraton, southeast to Ramsey. Our plane followed Rt. 208 for a bit, as I picked out landmark after landmark (the Nabisco plant, the Ikea across from Garden State Plaza, even the Lukoil I stopped in last week). I’ve only had this perspective from a plane once before. Usually, I come home at night, or on different flight paths.<\/p>\n

It helps to see things from different angles. Except Raptors\/Celtics games.<\/p>\n

(check out a couple of pix from my Toronto walkabout<\/a>) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(You know you wanna check out the pix from my meanders in Toronto on Friday) Home from Toronto a lot easier than my boss, whose flight home on Friday got cancelled due to “the airspace over Boston,” according to his pilot. He asked if this meant the bad weather & high winds we had all … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “It’s a Rap!”<\/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":[25,2,26,12,3,30,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-basketball","category-comics","category-pharmaceuticals","category-suburbs","category-toronto","category-travel","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-jR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1227,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/containment-policy","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":0},"title":"Containment Policy","author":"Gil","date":"November 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent a chunk of the day wearing containment gear during a visit to a drug manufacturing facility near Toronto. Unfortunately, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement before the visit, so there was no way to take photos of myself in this amazing get-up. My guide for this tour\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":500,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/guest-column","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":1},"title":"Guest column","author":"Gil","date":"March 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"New VM reader Sam enjoys my basketball writing, so I offered him a chance to post here, following the latest Shaq-Kobe match. Because he's in Canada, this means I now have a foreign correspondent!A buddy invited me over to his place last night to jam a little and watch the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":680,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nba-preview-atlantic-division","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":2},"title":"NBA Preview: Atlantic Division","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Boston Celtics Last year, I said that Danny Ainge is an idiot, mainly because of his trade for Raef La Frentz. That's enough to retain idiot-status for several seasons. The Celtics traded to get Antoine Walker back midway through last season, helping them get on a \"run\" to win the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5337,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/weakly-may-7-blame-it-on-the-ame","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":3},"title":"Weakly – May 7: Blame It on the Ame","author":"Gil","date":"May 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"[This is the fifth in a series of long-ass rambling posts about my travels in Chicago and Toronto from May 3-9. Part 1 is over here and part 2 is over there. Now, where did I put part 3? Oh, it's right here! Part 4? I gotcha covered.] I could've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B001OD6HNG","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3926,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/oh-canada-you-scamp","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":4},"title":"Oh, Canada! You scamp!","author":"Gil","date":"May 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey! It's a little photoset from our Toronto trip last weekend! (Amy has a bunch more great pix, but hasn't processed & posted 'em yet.) Okay. I'm sorry that I picked that one instead of one of my awesome cityscapes, but\u00c2\u00a0 isn't that the best name for a store? Of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toronto"","block_context":{"text":"Toronto","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/toronto"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3612\/3527503803_e81a91f303.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":410,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm","url_meta":{"origin":1231,"position":5},"title":"NBA Preview: Atlantic Divisionby Gil\u2026","author":"Gil","date":"November 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"NBA Preview: Atlantic Divisionby Gil RothBoston CelticsDanny Ainge is a goddamn idiot. For years now, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks has played a high-stakes game with his players' contracts: he tends to overpay, but at least he keeps enough desirable assets on hand that teams would take\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","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=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}