{"id":1824,"date":"2007-12-21T06:09:07","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T11:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-21-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-12-21T06:09:07","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T11:09:07","slug":"unrequired-reading-dec-21-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-21-2007","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 21, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year-end 400+ page issue is finished at last! This one is dedicated to QuarkXpress<\/a>, the layout program that includes such features as “This file cannot be opened by this version of QuarkXpress” and “Why would we bother making our font-handling system compatible with Mac? It’s not like the Mac is a computer of choice in the publishing industry!”<\/p>\n

Time to embarrass myself and others at our office holiday party!<\/p>\n


\nI continue to refuse to believe that the CCTV building is going to stand up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Stephen Root has played an awful lot of good roles<\/a>. (I still love Mr. James best)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Slate’s “Explainer” columnists usually offer pretty good primers. Here’s a list of questions they chose not to tackle in 2007<\/a>. (I think it’d be great if those questions got resent here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

P.J. O’Rourke has a good review of a new business bio on Starbucks<\/a>. By “good,” I mean it’s entertaining; he dislikes the book and picks it to pieces. (He also supports my thesis that the terrible quality of Starbucks coffee is actually part of a strategy to get consumers to buy their more expensive confection-coffees.)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

End of the year? Time for Wired<\/em>‘s Vaporware Top 10 list<\/a>! (Way to call out Axl!)<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

There’s a new flickr pool up for the World’s Best Urban Spaces<\/a>! Here’s an intro by City of Sound<\/a>!<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

To all my Christian readers — as well as the otherwise unaffiliated one who find Christmas to be a great opportunity for chilling out and catching up with family & friends –: may you have a great holiday. The official VM wife has been posting a fantastic Advent Calendar<\/a> all month, so you oughtta spend some time checking that out.<\/p>\n

We’re off to Louisiana for the holidays. I’ll try to post some pix of New Orleans, but I can’t promise to be too diligent about general posts next week. Because I’m done with the year-end <\/em>400+-page<\/em> issue, son!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year-end 400+ page issue is finished at last! This one is dedicated to QuarkXpress, the layout program that includes such features as “This file cannot be opened by this version of QuarkXpress” and “Why would we bother making our font-handling system compatible with Mac? It’s not like the Mac is a computer of choice … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Dec. 21, 2007”<\/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":[25,22,27,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-art","category-big-business","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-tq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":805,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/glad-i-moved-to-mac","url_meta":{"origin":1824,"position":0},"title":"Glad I moved to Mac","author":"Gil","date":"January 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft: Not evil, just half-assed.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2228,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/good-night-sweet-mr-3000","url_meta":{"origin":1824,"position":1},"title":"Good Night, Sweet Mr. 3000","author":"Gil","date":"August 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Bernie Mac died last night at the age of 50. We'll probably watch Bad(der) Santa tonight in his memory. Longtime movie & TV producer Bernie Brillstein died Thursday. So Bernie Kopell better keep a low profile, is all I'm saying. . .","rel":"","context":"In \"bernie brillstein\"","block_context":{"text":"bernie brillstein","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/bernie-brillstein"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":802,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/whole-world-hands-etc","url_meta":{"origin":1824,"position":2},"title":"Whole world, hands, etc.","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a nice birthday present to find that Google Earth is now available for the Mac. It was pretty funny to zoom in on the ark-shaped house next door to mine.","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":690,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/safe-landing","url_meta":{"origin":1824,"position":3},"title":"Safe landing","author":"Gil","date":"October 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Got in safe and sound, but rush-hour traffic's a bear, so the official VM fiancee & I have hit a mall (with a Mac store) in NJ before we try to make it into NYC to drop her off.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":707,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rss-thang","url_meta":{"origin":1824,"position":4},"title":"RSS thang","author":"Gil","date":"October 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"If you're on a Mac and you're not happy with the RSS feed on Safari (or you haven't upgraded to Tiger), you oughtta give NetNewsWire from Ranchero a try. It's got a smooth interface and doesn't hog memory like Thunderbird. I can't figure out how to delete old items yet,\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":1824,"position":5},"title":"Can’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 "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824","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=1824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}