{"id":426,"date":"2007-04-15T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-15T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/?p=426"},"modified":"2007-04-15T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-15T19:30:00","slug":"0012-matinee-soup-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/0012-matinee-soup-grand-prix\/","title":{"rendered":"0012 Matinee Soup &#8216;Grand Prix&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\">\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royblumenthal\/460295594\/\" title=\"photo sharing\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/236\/460295594_56b3d22c15.jpg?w=605\" class=\"flickr-photo\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\t<span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royblumenthal\/460295594\/\">0012 Matinee Soup &#8216;Grand Prix&#8217;<\/a>, originally uploaded by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/people\/royblumenthal\/\">royblumenthal<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\">\tI had a long, frenzied time being taken care of in five-star hotels across Southern Africa over the past while. This is thanks to the fact that I was directing a set of television inserts for Sun International.<\/p>\n<p>Which means that I got to feed elephants. I also got to float in a hot air balloon 10-metres above two lionesses tearing chunks of flesh out of a dead zebra, followed by the male dragging the carcass into a clump of bushes. (That&#8217;s at the Palace of the Lost City in Rustenburg.)<\/p>\n<p>I got to fly over the Victoria Falls in Zambia (without our chopper being shot down by the Zimbabwean Air Force for intruding into their airspace). I got to test out the theory that a waterproof poncho isn&#8217;t waterproof. It&#8217;s not. When you walk across that little bridge into the spray, NOTHING is waterproof. Don&#8217;t waste your money renting a poncho. Don&#8217;t say I didn&#8217;t tell you so. And if you can afford the US$800 per night to stay at the Royal Livingstone Hotel, do it. If I had that kinda money to blow, I&#8217;d be there all the time. It&#8217;s awesome.<\/p>\n<p>The Table Bay Hotel on the Waterfront in Cape Town was pretty damn impressive. I opened my window, and there was a ship filling the left hand side of my view. Wild.<\/p>\n<p>The Zimbali Lodge in Kwazulu Natal was the most opulent of them all. But I kinda got the sense that the local economy was in a bad state.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m telling you all this for a reason. Well&#8230; other than trying to make you jealous, that is. I&#8217;m TRYING to make you see that I was SO busy that it was just impossible for me to snatch the three or so hours it takes to do <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/royblumenthal\/sets\/72157594432870140\/\">MATINEE SOUP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But now I&#8217;ve done it. So hopefully I&#8217;ll stay on schedule for next time.<\/p>\n<p>No barking at parked cars now, please.<\/p>\n<p><i>This pic was made in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ambientdesign.com\/artrage.html\">ArtRage 2.2<\/a> on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, in the Mugg &amp; Bean at Cresta. Neil, the owner of that branch, has invented a cake that I&#8217;ll kill people for. It&#8217;s the Chocolate Meringue. What an astounding piece of cake! Most of the branches have it. Shot, Neil! You rock and roll, bebbe!<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">Roy Blumenthal is a writer, director, artist, and <a href=\"http:\/\/snipurl.com\/visualfacilitator\">visual facilitator<\/a>. Hire him to make pictures of your meetings or workshops.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0012 Matinee Soup &#8216;Grand Prix&#8217;, originally uploaded by royblumenthal. I had a long, frenzied time being taken care of in five-star hotels across Southern Africa over the past while. This is thanks to the fact that I was directing a &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/0012-matinee-soup-grand-prix\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">0012 Matinee Soup &#8216;Grand Prix&#8217;<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"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-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p521FP-6S","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royblumenthal.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}