Dear Lesbians
Friday, May 16, 2008, 7:15 am
Thank you.

If it weren't for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, yesterday's Supreme Court decision might never have happened.

Thank you, and special thanks to the woofy Shannon Minter, legal director of the NCLR, who successfully argued the case before the Supreme Court.

You guys rock.

"It's a game-changer"
Thursday, May 15, 2008, 4:45 pm
San Diegans react to today's Supreme Court ruling here.

I'm on my way home now. Gotta stop by the wine shop to buy Champagne, though. :)

Marriage
Thursday, May 15, 2008, 10:15 am
Wedding plans TBA.

2004, The Year In Which Absolutely Nothing Happened at the Robert Mondavi Winery (Really, We Swear)
Saturday, May 10, 2008, 4:15 pm
I stopped by BevMo this afternoon on a whim - we were out of pink wine, so yeah, I'm sure you understand - and I thought that I really should be a better wino than I already am, so I decided to buy a bottle of Chardonnay, which is something I do about as often as intentionally watch anything featuring Ernest or the Olsen Twins. Anyhow, I wandered around for a while... do I want the 2005 Rosemount Hunter Valley? Nah, too cheap. OK, how about something Argentine? Nah, too unknown. Oh, wait, how about a Robert Mondavi wine?



For you non-Californians and/or non-winos out there, Robert Mondavi is the grande dame (you'll have to translate that for me into Italian, sorry) of California wines (in a sense). If anything, he was probably the biggest, most tireless promoter we had from the 1960s through the early 1990s; he started his own winery back in the '60s and worked incredibly hard to make the argument that California wines could actually be good, and that Americans could be convinced to drink them with dinner. [If you've ever heard of fumé blanc, you have Robert Mondavi to thank for that, for example.]

Of course, he eventually grew old, things spiraled out of control, and as is often the case with family businesses, the kids eventually took over parts of the business and then it really went to hell. One of the kids decided to make wines that no one liked (thanks, Tim), one of the other kids decided that it somehow made great business sense to partner with Disney (without writing a contract that would cover their ass in case middle America wasn't interested in drinking wine from plastic glasses in a fake vineyard at California Adventure... oops), and Robert himself gave away millions of dollars to charities (good idea, but not when you need the money to actually run the business).

Eventually, there was an IPO. Eventually, California Adventure failed. Eventually, consumers decided they didn't like that style of wine any more. Eventually, everything fell apart. Eventually, there was a hostile takeover and the family was kicked out of the winery.

Guess what year that happened?

That's right. Absolutely nothing happened at the Robert Mondavi Winery in 2004. See, their Web site says so.

OMG BOC
Friday, May 9, 2008, 4:00 pm
I finally succeeded in a buying a Bag of Crap at Woot today. Go me!

Political Post for Erica C. Barnett to Write (with apologies to Mike Watt)
Thursday, May 8, 2008, 5:00 pm
Over at the Slog, Erica C. Barnett has written the best post on Hillary Clinton that I've read this year so far. Even if you don't really care about the election, it's a compelling read. (Scroll down past the lengthy quote from Violet Socks to get to the meat of it all.)

For JP
Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 3:15 pm
Damn it, I forgot your birthday. I did, however, take this picture for you the day before yesterday!

A post for you curry lovers
Monday, May 5, 2008, 7:00 pm
I stopped by Marukai on my way home from work today. The rice cooker that e_ticket snagged for us eleven years ago is getting a bit long in the tooth; it's so technologically backwards that it only makes awesome white rice, which I simply cannot allow myself to endure any longer. Why? Well, repeated viewings of Showgirls have convinced me to eat more brown rice and vegetables, and the old one's microprocessor is inadequately equipped to deal with brown rice. (I've tried, and it fails.)

Anyhow, I'd scoped out rice cookers online and decided which model I wanted, figuring I could stop by one of the Japanese supermarkets near Convoy Street and pick one up, hopefully for about the same money it costs from shady eBay wholesalers in Manhattan. As luck would have it, Marukai have opened a new supermarket, Daiso, and homewares complex just up the street from Mitsuwa, and they're advertising 10% everything in the store if you sign up for a (free until the end of May 2008) membership. Yay, I thought, I'll probably get a good price on the rice cooker! I did, and to sweeten the deal, they threw in fifteen pounds of Japanese rice at no extra charge (the promotion runs through the end of the week or something).

It's a lovely supermarket, not particularly big, but keenly priced. Sadly, they ran out of toast bread and won't get any in until Wednesday, but that's fine, I'm happier with Grape-Nuts most days these days. Still, I've got my snazzy new rice cooker, frozen curry bowls, and enough rice to last me through the end of the year. Woohoo!

ATTENTION WINOS
Monday, May 5, 2008, 6:30 pm
http://wine.woot.com/ has the best deal I've ever seen on that site: a 4-pack of Penfolds Bin 28 shiraz for $65 including shipping and tax. And yes, Mark, they do deliver to Nebraska.

If you drink wine (especially if you like syrah), you MUST GO THERE RIGHT NOW AND BUY SOME.

[I would if I didn't already have too much wine on my hands.]

Over and out,

Sr. Wino

Go Bears!
Monday, May 5, 2008, 2:45 pm
Fun fact #1: my Dad was a Berkeley student as well, and he played sousaphone in the Cal Band. In 1957, the State Department floated the possibility of the Cal Band traveling to Brussels for the 1958 World Fair, which they did: it involved a lot of fundraising, a bus trip to New York City, and a turboprop flight via Newfoundland, all of which must have been a hell of a lot of fun.

Fun fact #2: I auditioned for the Cal Band in the summer of 1987 and made it in playing baritone sax. However, at the second day of band camp in Davis, CA, I was told that band regulations prevented any band member from wearing a beard, and that I either needed to shave immediately or leave the band. I opted to leave the band; I've worn a beard since, oh, 1986 or so and still haven't shaved it off. It still kind of pisses me off that the Cal Band was so finicky about its members' facial hair; the reason given was that everyone had to look the same. At Berkeley? Ridiculous.

Anyhow! Last weekend, Cal Band members met up in Brussels to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their trip to Brussels. They enjoyed dinner in the Atomium, probably drank too much, and presumably showed their wives lots of things they remembered from the World's Fair. [Me, I played Poéme electronique and lamented the fact that they tore down the Le Corbusier building built for the Fair.]

One of the high points of the weekend is shown here:



Here, you see the Manneken-Pis kitted out in a Cal Band uniform (from 1958!), flanked by the Cal flag and the World's Fair flag as well. I have a sneaking suspicion that my Dad might have something to with arranging all of this, but only because we Pratts are known to have a fondness for elaborate getups and borderline ridiculous proceedings, but only if we can pretend we had no idea it was going to happen...

In front are some of the Cal Band from 1958; my Dad is at the far left. :)

More info on the 1958 trip can be found here; I've met Larry before and he's, well, super awesome. Sounds like it was a blast!

[Thanks to Joe Dickinson BTW for the picture.]

Chris at the Getty
Sunday, May 4, 2008, 1:30 pm

Three cheers for the sublime
Saturday, May 3, 2008, 10:30 pm
Recipe for a perfect day:

1. Go hiking, preferably somewhere beautiful but damaged, and with lots of annoying, physically difficult terrain. In our case, Mount Palomar, which is not only nearly completely burned to a crisp, but filled with powdery, pillowy ash that makes uphill going difficult.

2. Make sure you go with an old friend who's better company than anyone could reasonably hope for. In my case, Dan, who's as much fun to spend time with now as when we first met fifteen years ago.

3. When you get home, enjoy some German leftovers (Zürcher Geschnetzeltes with potato dumplings) or some half-off Thai food courtesy of a UK supermarket chain (Thai red chicken curry).

4. Open a bottle of the 2006 JK Carriere 'Provocateur' Oregon pinot noir, preferably after chilling it down just a bit.

5. Watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly crashed out on the couch, wine in hand.

I haven't felt this good in months. Oh, for life's simple pleasures.

Dear Lost fans
Friday, May 2, 2008, 1:45 pm
I understand this may be interesting. I'm not gonna load that page at work, though.

On Netflix and credit verification methods
Friday, May 2, 2008, 8:30 am


DP: Nancy, a friendly Netflix agent. Me, a befuddled customer.

N: Thank you for calling Netflix, how may I help you?

C: My queue seems to be broken. On Monday, it said you expected to ship my next available movie on Tuesday. On Tuesday, it said Wednesday. On Wednesday, it said Thursday. Nothing shipped yesterday. What's going on?

N: Let me check... Oh. Well, there's a lawsuit, and credit verification, and we're trying, and I'm sure that department will credit your account fairly when this is over.

C: Huh?

N: *hand waving*

C: But I've paid. I mean, the charges have gone through, and I've been a customer for a year, and I've only ever used that credit card. I can has movies? Please?

N: *more hand waving*

C: I don't understand.

N: I'm really sorry, but there's nothing we can do and this may take a week or two to be investigated. I'm sure, though, that that other department will compensate you correctly for the stop in service.

C: Uh, OK. Thanks for clearing that up.

N: You're welcome! Bye!

On Atonement
Wednesday, April 30, 2008, 4:30 pm
Atonement is another wonderful movie almost completely ruined by a ridiculous, annoying score. [The only movie that's suffered more in this category is True Romance, the movie that will forever change the way you feel about Jamaican steel drum ensembles.]

Note to the composer: If you're going to slather your score in typewriter sounds, then at least have the good taste to use manual typewriters (no electric typewriters, thank you) and manual players (no sampling software, thank you).

Better yet: don't go there in the first place.

Thank you.

QotD - On perfumes
Wednesday, April 30, 2008, 1:15 pm
"Nothing is ever completely dictated or decided by culture and society. There's always boredom, technological change and weirdos."

- Luca Turin, at Now Smell This.

Some background info on Luca Turin: Several years ago, I wandered into the Redmond public library to pick up a few library books. While I was there, I noticed a plain paperback book on their "Staff Picks" shelf called The Emperor of Scent, by Chandler Burr. This book is one of a handful of books that changed my life. If I hadn't read it, I never would have been interested in perfumery - or even really thought much about scent, which is after all one of the reasons wine tastes at all good in the first place.

Several years later, Turin has published Perfumes: The Guide (along with his partner Tania Sanchez), and (unbelievably, at least to me) is now on a full-on press tour (hell, he was on Good Morning America this week, even). I think this is kinda cool.

For the record, these are the eight perfumes I usually wear:

1. Vettiveru, Comme des Garçons
2. Declaration, Cartier
3. Old Spice, Shulton (vintage from eBay because it's fun to be snobby)
4. Vetiver Extraordinaire, Frédéric Malle
5. 2 Man, Comme des Garçons
6. Dzing!, L'Artisan Parfumeur
7. Gucci pour Homme, Gucci
8. Tar, Comme des Garçons

Greetings from Garnet Peak!
Saturday, April 26, 2008, 1:27 pm

On inter rupt tions
Friday, April 18, 2008, 10:30 am
It's now 2008. Twenty years ago, I had just completed a course in Library Science at Cal. Why? Well, Berkeley is a huge public university with easily one of the best libraries in the country, all of which is off limits to undergrads. Sure, you could ask for a book to be delivered to the front desk for you, but ( Read more... ) grandson of one of the church's earlier pastors, but was equally taken with Dan would probably describe as "difficult listening music." When we were younger, we'd put on a Devo tape and race around the building long after services were over; it was a cool old church with lots of twisty hidden passages and Shrivel-Up or whatever sounded really, really good in there. Later on, after exposure to stuff like Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, and XTC, our tastes really started fanning out, largely due to the Tower Records next to Yen Ching in Stockton, which was accessible to me after family dinners; Jesse lived nearby so it wasn't too bad a bike ride. Both of us were lucky to have parents who gave us money on occasion to buy records (hell, I remember my Mom buying Abba: The Album for me at Gemco), and who were patient enough to wait while we studied what was available at Tower, and who were tolerant enough to allow us to use their Hi-Fi systems to play that stuff back. My poor Dad!

Thinking back, I'd posit that remixes were what really started to get us going in crazy directions... no, wait, side projects came earlier. I don't think I can thank Marc Almond enough, for example, for releasing records soon after Tainted Love that featured collaborations with the likes of Jim Thirlwell and Matt Johnson. Because their collaborations sounded so amazing, I found myself buying things like Soul Mining and Finely Honed Machine back in 10th grade or so. Things then fanned out from there; occasionally, we'd convince our parents to take us to Reckless Records in the Haight, or up to the( Read more... )with a copy of Three Mantras; I think it was the first time we'd heard music that relied heavily on tape loops and repetitive techniques. Before too much longer - I was DJing at the high school radio station - I had somehow found Severed Heads, and then their double LP Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In The Past not long after that.

To sum up: By 1985, both of us had discovered - and found beauty in - a particular type of music that is founded in cutting things up, looping them, and manipulating them. Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain is probably the best known example of this sort of thing, but hey, we were high school students in Stockton, California, so we didn't know about this. Any music education we received tended to revolve around things like The Liberty Bell March and China Grove, so we had no grounding in music theory, no knowledge of avant garde music, no nothing.

Skipping forward three years, I finally had complete and unfettered access to the UC Berkeley library. This was - for me, at least - an incredible gift. Even better: the University of California had just completed an online card catalog for the first time, which meant that I could search for pretty much anything I wanted information on, so of course( Read more... )

QotD
Thursday, April 17, 2008, 4:15 pm
"When one knows what to do, there is only little time one needs for doing it. It is only when one does not know what to do that it takes so much time. And to know what to do is the secret of it all."

- Louis I. Kahn, Complete Works 1935-74.

Hiles lineata
Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 10:46 am
Dan snapped this picture last weekend on the walk over to Dave's house. I thought it was a hummingbird... until I noticed the antennae. Really beautiful creature, and a damn good picture if I say so myself.