Another (not so brilliant) catchall post

Here are some odds and ends.  My late Friday night detritus, I guess.  I may indulge in some 4-letter expletives -- unusual for me, I know -- so it may be best if the tenderest of you left the virtual room.

Able Grape is now my sole wine search engine

You've done a heckuva job, Cookie.  (Doug Cook that is.)  The thing is a marvel of clever programming, and you can use it in English, French or Italian.  If you haven't tried it, you should.  In fact, if you don't use it we'll stigmatize you and accuse you of not loving wine.  Click here to gain access to Able Grape. 

(Unsolicited, unpaid announcement.)

Italian vacation schedule is pissing me off

Nothing, I mean nothing is getting done over there.  Example: the printers who print wine labels are all on vacation at the same time.  No work done before the 25th.  And, by the way, no one wants to answer their email.  (Hey, lady!  Don't you want to sell your wine in the US of A?  The dollar got stronger today!  People might actually afford to buy it!)  There has to be a happy medium between our way of life and theirs.  Please don't mention China, impressive and dazzling as the first 46 hours of the Olympics' opening ceremony were.

Technology that transforms your life

iPod.  BlackBerry.  Mac Air Book. Kindle.  God bless America.  And the thousands of underpaid Chinese factory girls who put these pieces of sublimated longing together for us.

If you sense a theme here, you're wrong.

Cuil is on the rise

Wow.  Three searches on Cuil led people here this week.  Wow.  That's three times the number of MS searches. Wow.

By the way, on the Cuil home page it boasts "Search 121,617,892,992 web pages".  By gum, I remember when there was on'y 4-5 million on the whole Information Highway, and that included GopherSpace!

I'm tired now.  Where are my slippers, Maw?

Brunellopoli and my profound disappointments

Not because I'm so fond of Brunello (I'm not) but because many people I know, in Italy and over here, cling to the belief that the scandal was simply a politically motivated, trumped up thing.  Yes, of course, it was politically motivated.  But the fundamental problems of fraud and the producers' outright contempt for both the critics (who deserved it in many cases) and the buying public (who didn't deserve it, mostly) aren't new and won't vanish as if by magic. 

I get the feeling that even smart, informed people who should and do know better just want the whole affair to go away.  Why?  Because they're afraid it will hurt Italy's overall competitiveness in world markets.  That it will hurt their particular wine region or property.  This is a very myopic way of looking at the situation.  Sweeping the dirt under the rug will do no good for either Brunello or, say, Valpolicella; there has to be a full and public accounting of what's gone on and what measures will be taken to stop the fraud and "adulteration."  Lack of transparency is precisely Italy's problem.

You'll forgive my metaphor-mixing (vision, sweeping) but it's Shabbat already!  I can't be caught working or I'll be smote. 

Sun will set before 8 pm in NYC on Monday, August 11

My family always laughed at me when I got elegiac and everything in the muggiest part of summer, but I always lamented the earlier setting of the sun and the ominous shortening of the days.  It suits my melancholy New England nature to worry about such things.  Don't you remember reading "Thanatopsis" in school?

When Andy Rooney dies...

Which should be any minute now, maybe they'll offer me the job.  I'm good at non-sequiturs!  I'm cranky and cutely curmudgeonly! I remember a lot of old shit that no one else does!

Finally, the really important question:

"What's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding?" 

I wish I knew, Declan baby, but it is.

Comments

[Marco]

sounds like the "Deacon/Declan Blues"

[Strappo]

well, declan macmanus aka elvis costello