{"id":1821,"date":"2007-12-16T11:23:04","date_gmt":"2007-12-16T16:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday-3\/"},"modified":"2007-12-16T11:53:41","modified_gmt":"2007-12-16T16:53:41","slug":"happy-birthday-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday-3","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Official VM bestest pal Tom Spurgeon<\/a> turns 39 today! Go celebrate by reading his great interview with Joe Sacco<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Now that he’s opened his birthday package that I sent last week, I can finally reveal the single greatest gag gift I have ever stumbled across. Before you flip out over this, please note that<\/p>\n

a) I found it on the used DVD shelf at GameStop, and<\/p>\n

b) it cost $1.99<\/p>\n

\"Ghetto<\/a><\/p>\n

(Click on the pic for a larger version<\/a> of the image)<\/p>\n

I can’t tell you how difficult it was to keep a straight face when I brought the case up to the stereotypically pimply-faced cashier.<\/p>\n

This present doesn’t come anywhere close to the magic of the one that Tom sent me for Hanukkah earlier this month: The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen<\/a>, a collection of comics from the 1950 & ’60s. Amy wrote about it<\/a> (along with her gift from Tom), and offered up a “self-portrait”.<\/p>\n

Here’s an incredibly out-of-context panel:<\/p>\n

\"Jimmy<\/p>\n

Thanks for being a great friend, Tom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Official VM bestest pal Tom Spurgeon turns 39 today! Go celebrate by reading his great interview with Joe Sacco! Now that he’s opened his birthday package that I sent last week, I can finally reveal the single greatest gag gift I have ever stumbled across. Before you flip out over this, please note that a) … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Happy Birthday!”<\/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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-tn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":511,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday-2","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":0},"title":"Happy Birthday","author":"Gil","date":"March 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Official VM Mom turns [fill in number here] today!","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1639,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday-deb","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":1},"title":"Happy Birthday, Deb!","author":"Gil","date":"August 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"(I know: It's a much more conventional pic than the ones Paul (right) posted today. . .)","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday-deb#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1843,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-a-celebration","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":2},"title":"It’s a celebration!","author":"Gil","date":"January 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy 8th birthday to Liat, my co-favorite niece! (Note: yes, the candles show that this picture is from her 7th birthday. I'm a total heel for being unable to attend her birthday party this year, but I promise to make it up to her this summer when she comes out\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-a-celebration#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/images\/liatbday07.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":679,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-birthday","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":3},"title":"Happy Birthday!","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the wall calendar in my office, Monday was \"UN Day\"! So, to honor that occasion, here's a link to the Word document of the Mehlis report about the Hariri assassination in Lebanon.(This would be the file that includes the \"Track Changes\" fixes by the UN Secretariat's office, in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/toodle-oo","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":4},"title":"Toodle-Oo","author":"Gil","date":"January 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been too busy\/preoccupied to write about last weekend's trip to St. Louis for my niece's birthday, but here are two sets of pix from there: the Bataan Death March at Creve Coeur Lake Park, and Liat's birthday get-together.","rel":"","context":"In "travel"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12719,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tom-spurgeon-birthday-memorial-episode","url_meta":{"origin":1821,"position":5},"title":"Tom Spurgeon Birthday Memorial Episode","author":"Gil","date":"December 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show: Tom Spurgeon Birthday Memorial Episode \"The thing about Tom was, he wasn\u2019t necessarily interested in everything you were interested in, but he was interested in learning about WHY you were interested in it. That sort of curiosity is rare, and it\u2019s part of what made him a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1684.jpg?fit=1200%2C626&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1684.jpg?fit=1200%2C626&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1684.jpg?fit=1200%2C626&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1684.jpg?fit=1200%2C626&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1684.jpg?fit=1200%2C626&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821","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=1821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}