American Madness

Up front I’ll admit my bias. I am a big fan of the wines of Bordeaux. This year I traveled with Mrs. Wines of FreshDirect to the region, spending a week sampling all manner of vintages. This wine will surpise you given half a chance.

Vineyard: Chateau Le Peuy Saincrit
Grape: Bordeaux blend (merlot, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc)
Country: France
Year: 2005

Source: FreshDirect.com
Price: $11

Color: Dark red, magenta & ruby

Nose: First notes are smoke, which give way to leather and then plum and cherry. Later, one notes the presence of yeast.

Taste: I tasted this wine twice—the first time was right as it was opened, the second was approximately 45 minutes later. First, the taste after 45 mintues: (more…)

Where I am and for most people, the office dies down a bit around the holidays. Things get a little slow. This year in particular you are even hearing about a slump in shopping. You would expect that on December 25th, Christmas Day things would be really quiet…

Well, apparently the holidays are when a lot of people decide it is a good time to check up on blog posts they have missed. On Christmas Day we had almost 700 visitors while on Christmas Eve and the Da after Christmas we didn’t even break 300. I guess people were just curious what we ahd to say on Christmas (and for Josh, that was quite a bit).

If I survive another 1303 days, I’ll outlive John Belushi, according to deadoraliveinfo.com.

I suppose I could take some perverse pleasure in how I’ve outlived these folks, but I think the saner response to to feel really really pathetic about what I’ve accomplished in 29 years on this earth.

Or, as Tom Lehrer famously quipped: “It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.”

If you really want to feel like a failure, check out the museum of conceptual art where you can input your age and see what some of history’s greatest people had accomplished while you’ve been dicking around in your cubicle:
http://www.museumofconceptualart.com/accomplished/

Famous folks I’ve outlived or almost outlived:

Age at Death

        Days Alive

                Days (difference)

40	14670	3879	John Lennon

39	14523	3732	Malcolm X

39	14361	3570	Che Guevara

39	14324	3533	Martin Luther King, Jr.

36	13243	2452	Bob Marley

36	13214	2423	Marilyn Monroe

36	13210	2419	Princess Diana

33	12093	1302	John Belushi

                   0    You are here

27	10157	-634	Jimi Hendrix

22	8184	-2607	Buddy Holly

There are no woods. I see no snow.
And though it’s ten degrees below,
There’s precious little white romance
To counteract this dark and woe.

My little horse is in a trance.
He hasn’t room enough to prance
Within my small apartment home,
Which hasn’t really much expanse.

He laughs as I compose this poem,
And says he’s sure it’s quite the tome,
But he remains a metaphor
Extant in my cerebral dome.

The snowless winter I abhor,
But poetry does much restore
A season I do oft adore,
A season I do oft adore.

Song: “Human Nature”
Album: Thriller (1982)
Artist: Michael Jackson

3rd Verse:

Reaching out
To touch a stranger
Electric eyes are everywhere
See that girl
She knows I’m watching
She likes the way I stare

No, Michael. No she doesn’t.

Let’s just hope that crime isn’t cyclical, because tonight I saw a definite “market top” for low crime in New York.

At 12:20am today, a man on the N/R/Q platform at the Herald Square station was actually counting his money on the platform. Let me add: he was not an intimidating character.

Apparently, we’ve made the subways so completely safe that this idiot is not afraid of being mugged. And maybe they are that safe, but sheesh.

When I was a kid and came into the city with my friends, I kept my wallet in my front pocket and sometimes I had some train fare stashed in my sock. You know, just in case.

	Judah Ben Hur always hit the rowing machine on Jan 1, but never made it last.

I expect that my gym will be absolutely packed starting in January. For three weeks it will be impossible to get a machine. I’ll probably be one of those jerks, too, and who knows how long I’ll be able to keep it going. I signed up back in April and went like a champ for a month, but a big project at work threw me off my stride and I stopped going entirely. A shame.

I’m not much of a believer in instantaneous radical change. I’m pretty conservative: I wait for opportunities that offer great risk/reward ratios and jump on them. Maybe that’s a learned skill or maybe it’s innate.

So the idea of deliberately changing habitual behavior around an arbitrary signpost, such as New Year’s, strikes me as failure-ready. Real change happens when it becomes too painful not to change.

But for people who want to change and are stuck in the land of woulda shoulda, here are some suggestions for striking out with a real determination.

(more…)

Okay, that was a bad pun, especially for a post about ties. Let’s pretend that didn’t happen and move right along…

This past weekend, Josh and I had a chance to sit down with Nick Newbold and chat with him about his line of Prep & Pauper ties over a few Guinness (Guinesses? What exactly would the plural be?). Josh and I each took some notes which now look like a jumble of nonsense to me. (Josh is the legit reporter, not me. I am not used to having to keep track of things that I have written.) But I think I’ll be able to wing it.

After looking at what Nick hath wrought — by checking out the Prep & Pauper website and the tie designs — Nick turned out to be both exactly what you’d expect and totally not what you’d expect.

Though once voted best dressed at school, Nick does not consider himself part of the fashion elite. However, he does pay attention to what he wears and has an affinity for Hermes and Brooks Brother ties. He says he’s found a great source for them on the internet (which I won’t give away).

Nick’s lived in Philly, D.C. and New York, and it might catch you a little off guard to hear Nick referencing hardcore music one minute (Bad Brains and Cro-Mags…shows where he says he stood out just a little as he was the only guy wearing a pink shirt), and the next minute he’s discussing the minutiae of having his pattern printed on different gauges of silk and how he had to hunt for a tie-smith to print patterns.

(more…)

Today’s Wall Street Journal “Tastings” column provides bargain wines for 2007.  This week, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher lay out nine good finds for under $10.99. Their premise is a simple one. You do not have to spend a fortune to have a good bottle of wine. I agree and have long advocated that a good bottle of wine is whatever you happen to enjoy.

The column can be found here. (Note, if you don’t pay Wall Street Journal $99/year, then this link will be unavailable to you. But you can pay Hudson News a $1 today and get a copy in print).  Fearing that the Murdoch controlled Dow Jones empire might come after me for copyright infringement if I copy and paste the text of the column, I provide everyone with a list of the wines they suggest.   (more…)

Another bottle that comes packaged in the FreshDirect holiday wine pack. This wine is simply not very good.

Winery: Silver Ridge
Grape: Pinot Noir
Region: California
Year: 2006

Source: FreshDirect.com

Price: $13

Color:Light red with pinkish hues

Nose: Plum and raspberry with a hint of butter.

Taste: The wine has a smooth entry and moves through the mouth quite easily. During the tasting, I noted sweet fruit flavors, reminiscent of apple and pear with a hint of black pepper. Unfortunately, the medium-light bodied wine had a very weak finish with no residual flavors. (more…)