{"id":452,"date":"2005-01-17T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-17T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=452"},"modified":"2007-01-09T06:34:24","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T11:34:24","slug":"empty-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/empty-numbers","title":{"rendered":"Empty Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the record, note that I wrote the following about a year ago<\/a>: “Never bet against Bill Belichick.”<\/p>\n

Peyton Manning could throw 200 touchdowns next season, and his team will still be an afterthought in the playoffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Peyton was failing to throw even a single touchdown in yesterday’s playoff game against the Patriots, the official VM girlfriend and I flipped around the channels till we came across The Pride and the Passion<\/a>, a 1957 flick about a lost cannon that the English and the Spanish are trying to keep away from Napoleon.<\/p>\n

At first, we stuck with it to hear how bad Frank Sinatra’s “Spanish” accent would be, and to ogle Sophia Loren. Then I realized that, if I was going to watch programming about a useless cannon, I preferred Stanley Kramer’s to Peyton Manning’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the record, note that I wrote the following about a year ago: “Never bet against Bill Belichick.” Peyton Manning could throw 200 touchdowns next season, and his team will still be an afterthought in the playoffs. While Peyton was failing to throw even a single touchdown in yesterday’s playoff game against the Patriots, the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Empty Numbers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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":[33,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-7i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1034,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/see-the-sights","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":0},"title":"See the sights","author":"Gil","date":"July 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, devoted VM reader Elayne text-messaged me to let me know that she had just bumped into Gabriel Byrne. Today, my wife calls to let me know that she just bumped into Peyton Manning (the gravity field of his enormous noggin made this inevitable, I bet). Me? I work\u2026","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":4904,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-2810","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 2\/8\/10","author":"Gil","date":"February 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Alec: The Years Have Pants, and The Catcher in the Rye and THE SAINTS WON THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm listening to: Silence, by Deborah Anderson and THE SAINTS WON THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm watching: THE SAINTS WINNING THE MOTHERFUCKING SUPERBOWL! What I'm drinking: Rogue Spirits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1603090479","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4710,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/passing-for-preterition","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":2},"title":"Passing for Preterition","author":"Gil","date":"December 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Several years ago, I had a Continental flight from O'Hare to Newark after\u00c2\u00a0 the annual BIO conference, an event once described to me as \"a singles bar for governors and venture capitalists.\" It's very finance-heavy, and a lot of the exhibit hall space is bought by regional economic development groups\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1308,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2006-2007-nfl-playoff-challenge-round-3-the-post-mortem","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":3},"title":"2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 3: the post-mortem","author":"Gil","date":"January 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Funnily enough, when I was posting that Montaigne quote earlier, I didn't even think about how it relates to my near-complete inability to get anything right with football picks. But 0-for-2 I went, dear readers! And now I've dragged Thane Rosenbaum into my web of crappy picks! It's tough when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1302,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2006-2007-nfl-playoff-challenge-round-3","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":4},"title":"2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 3","author":"Gil","date":"January 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I had bigger balls in the first half of this decade. Back then, I found it easy to call literary people with no entree beyond, \"I'm a small press publisher and I'd like to talk to you about a project I'm working on.\" That opening got me into phone conversations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0674535812","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1289,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/2006-2007-nfl-playoff-challenge-round-2","url_meta":{"origin":452,"position":5},"title":"2006-2007 NFL Playoff Challenge, round 2","author":"Gil","date":"January 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's do-or-die time, dear readers! I went 1-3 vs. the spread last week, while rival Ron Rosenbaum went 2-2. There's no denying it: Ron reached mediocrity before I did! I need to catch up in a hurry, since there are only 3 more games after this weekend, so this week's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Football"","block_context":{"text":"Football","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/football"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1573225142","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}