New blog name. Plus: Typepad Follies

"Crickets chirping."  That was my colleague Jeff's reaction to the suggested names you have sent in for the new Domenico Selections blog.  Translation: Boriiiiing.  For him that's really really polite.

Speaking for myself, there are a few that are promising.  I like a couple that Beth of the Filthadelphia Wine School proposed: Veni Vidi Bibi (very cute if you understand any Latin -- Beth, our American readers' lips move) and Bevo ("I drink").  Maybe we could extend the thought to Beviamo ("We drink," "Let's drink"). 

Tobias of Norway -- no relation to the infamous Tom of Norway, I hope -- came up with an interesting one: Eye on Wine.  I think it's a launching pad to a solution more than the solution itself.

Bella Figura came from one Fred. 

I'm leveraging Alex's idea and would suggest calling it Appunti ("Notes").

I have a couple of my own, which you may or may not find interesting/intriguing/compelling.  Muddy Boots, because that's what we have half the time as we tramp through the vineyards of Italy.  And In the Tank, which I sort of like for its multiple referents -- tasting tank and barrel samples, hence getting the scoop on how it's developing; conveying how crazy we are about our wines (like being "in the tank" for Obama); and describing the effects of too much joyous bibulosity.

Oh, and there's always the tried-and-true if not totally thrilling DS News.  (Eh.)

So, folks, I want to give you all until this coming Wednesday to dream up some new suggestions.  Then we'll have a vote on the final picks, which will be non-binding.  If you want your bottle of an exciting new Taurasi, you'd better be creative but focused.

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Typepad has struck again.  The blogging platform company has undergone vast new improvements in both system externals and internals.  Which means of course that there are bugs. 

Case in point, as Rod Serling used to say: whenever I click on mondosapore.com the newest post I get is dated October 22.  Same with the latest comments.  If I go to a specific page or to an archive, no problems.  A lot of regular visitors stop showing up when you've not posted for a couple of days.  Site traffic is down, and not just because I've been, honestly, too preoccupied to post a lot of substantial articles these days. 

A good antidote to this poison of inaccessibility is to use the URL http://tdh46.typepad.com/mondosapore/

This works fine. 

I must voice a complaint about Typepad's vaunted enhancements in its text editor.  It offers much more complete text formatting capabilities than before.  But it's kludgy -- reminds me of PC computing 15 years ago.  For example, you have to enter your text and then apply the desired formatting.  For example, their new default typeface is Arial.  I've always used Trebuchet and am not about to alter it.  And even bolding and underscoring must be done after you've written the piece, which to me is a tedious added step. Worse yet, you have to use two steps to 1) select another color and 2) bold the colored copy.  Before it was all doable in one.  Some enhancement.

Of course I'll bitch but I'm not going to convert to a new platform -- it's way too time-consuming and fraught with peril.  Especially when you've written over 1000 posts.  Still...shit!

Comments

[Jen]

From the Domain Mapping area of your TypePad account, you can set your domain to Active to resolve the problem with the latest posts not displaying at www.mondosapore.com. TypePad's support can also help you with any problems by clicking the Help link and opening a New Ticket.

[Strappo]

Thanks for the tip. I don't know why it was not set as active, but it wasn't.

It worked! Grazie mille!

[David McDuff]

"I'm leveraging Alex's idea and would suggest calling it Appunti ("Notes")."

Um, T, aren't you forgetting something?
http://www.mondosapore.com/mondosapore/2008/10/new-blog-name-i.html#comment-136199413

[Strappo]

McDuff, my profound apologies. I did in fact forget.

[flagellation in progress]

[Jeff]

I like MUDDY BOOTS and can relate.

[Strappo]

You can. And thank you, I like it too.

[alex]

Terry,
Muddy boots sounds fine also in Italian:
STIVALONI INFANGATI

Ciao
Alex