Blog is an anagram of glob (but then again so is oblg)
Order any 2006 Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley area of Oregon.
Pinot Noir, 2006, Willamette.
Not kidding. It works. Especially if you’re willing to cough up an extra $20 – $30. This one from Ponzi Vineyards kicks serious butt, should you be so lucky as to find it.
(Why 2006? Has to do with the weather that year. Although some sites are claiming 2008 was/will be even better.)
Second question about France, after “eat any good food?”, is typically “drink any good wine?”
Yes. Every glass of it was from the local region, Domaine Ventoux, which I’m assured we won’t be able to find in the US. But it wasn’t anything crazy anyway. Just pleasant.
Now I did have a particularly agonizing wine experience. With two kids in the car, I set off for the Theatre Antique in Orange. (The theater is, oh, maybe 1,900 years old. Cool. See pic, taken on my iPhone. They still perform opera there, but mostly it’s a museum. – We have a corner cupboard in our house that’s called an ’antique’ because it’s 100 years old. Yeesh.)
Anyhoo, the drive from Sault to Orange was both amazing and harrowing. We drove along the back side of Mont Ventoux on twisty roads cut into the steep hillside, with little or no protective railing. Went through several picturesque villages. Then out of the mountains and down into what turned out to be the Rhone river valley. Vineyards on both sides, far as the eye could see.
I’m still largely an ignoramous about French wine, but I do recognize Cote du Rhone as a famous wine region. And now that I’m back and looking through a wine atlas, I see that Orange is maybe 15 minutes north of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, an area that gained international appeal due to the influence of Robert Parker. You can almost definitely find Chateauneuf-du-Pape in your local wine store (and probably pay a good bit for the privilege).
So there I was, driving past sign after sign for “Degustation” — free tastings at each local vineyard’s shop.
If ever I get back to the Cote du Rhone and Chateauneuf-du-Pape, there will be no children in the car!
Ted Danson. New series Bored to Death with Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) on HBO. Ted’s aging well. Striking looks work particularly well for this character, who’s dumb as a bag of hammers. Very funny.
Which brings to mind fond memories of…
Bill Pullman in Ruthless People. Mentally three or four scenes behind at all times. “This could very well be the dumbest person on the face of the Earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.”
George Clooney, O Brother.
Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading. It’s amazing what chewing gum does to your IQ.
What makes it fun is that the character has to think he’s pretty smart. It takes a genuinely smart actor to do it well.
7. The Hummer
6. Email. I get 300 messages per day – on a quiet day.
5. Thrash politics. IMHO we should just tune out anybody whose discussions focus on the other group (“the liberals”, “right-wing nutjobs” etc) rather than on issues and solutions.
4. The Exchange French
3. Usury. 40% interest cards – these guys must have the most powerful political lobbyists in the world.
2. Lady Gaga
1. tie: Infomercials / NASCAR
Not really endless. Last linking post:
“Mathematics has always been used for denotation. However, our interest is to use math as a language for connotation.” – Mathematical Poetry. The concept of poetry expressed in math form is interesting in and of itself; it gets even more weird when you start merging and/or solving the resulting equations.
My wife designs and builds websites (and marketing plans and…). Like one for those who need a charter flight, or another if you of more modest income and have to go by bike (of course biking in Provence is much nicer than biking in Framingham), or another if you aren’t traveling and want to make your home much nicer through remodeling. She’s extremely talented and smart.
If you want to compete with her level of genius and need inspiration, these guys at Tiny Gigantic always find fascinating creative ideas and projects.
Want more chess? Unless you’ve been under a rock you know about the pure thrills of the US Chess League. I kinda maintain its Wikipedia page and follow/support my local team. And here’s some love for Wang’s Chess House, and Smitty’s Chess Corner, and Strong Among the Weak….
If you’re a blogger, pass some links around to those you love.
Not to be too derivative but Wahrheit mentions several other chess blogs that deserve linkage: Dennis Monokroussos’ The Chess Mind (the author is, you know, actually *good* at chess); Michael Goeller’s The Kenilworthian; and Blue Devil Knight (who would himself probably admit to being not so good at chess, but whose blog is intelligent and entertaining; also don’t miss his more serious but equally interesting brainy Neurochannels blog);
I also feel I have been remiss in not pointing people to Tacticus Maximus, who created ChessFlash.
Liquid Egg Product needs no introduction to Reassembler readers, which is good because he/they/it is/are hard to properly introduce.
Down a different path, I have taken some of my notes on SEO and turned them into columns for emediavitals, a new site for publishing professionals. It’s all written aimed at editors like me, but if you’re interested in how search engines work and how people can listen to them and talk to them, you might like such stuff as Keyword research: Two critical strategies. (Can I link to my own stuff and call it love? The point is I’m linking to emediavitals, which seems determined to publish little or no whining about the death of journalism, which is why I like their site.)
I also want to give a shout-out to former colleague Con Von Hoffman (yes) whose Collateral Damage blog is snarky to the max, smart and funny commentary on culture, marketing, news, you name it.
More later (although I risk appearing to Google as a giant link farm).
I put up Link Love as a potential post in the Reassembler voting process.
It lost. Undeterred, Wahrheit took up the flag on his excellent chess (and other stuff) blog. He’s right – the river of interblog links seems to have dried to a trickle in recent months. I’m guilty as anyone.
For instance, I don’t think I’ve ever linked to Blunderprone’s in-depth chess history posts. Unlike 99.9999999999 percent of the world’s bloggers (*points at self*), George really puts some research into his posts.
The inimitable DK Transformation never fails to enlighten and entertain (unless he’s on hiatus :) both on his chess blog and on The System of the System.
My friend and former co-worker Michael Fitzgerald covers broad ground on Archimedes Hot Tub (get it?); eg On Feudal Capitalism – read the comments too. (Michael recently wrote an indepth series about the Mafia for csoonline.com.)
I thought this Abbie Lundberg interview was fascinating on the revolutionary nature of the iPhone - this is much more insightful than merely “oh look it’s so cool”. Gets to the nature of software systems in the business world.
There’s lots more to link but I’m pressed for time. More later.
In the words of some 70s band, let your love flow.
A small side note for those who love to give: It’s better to link words of substance (examples above) than to link the word “here” or “this post”. From a Google POV. Just sayin’.
A friend asked what we did in the evenings in France. My answer? We went to sleep. Usually by 9:30 pm or so.
Maybe that’s partly because of the time difference. France is 6 hours ahead. But we were there for about 10 days, which is a pretty good amount of time to adjust.
Rue Dauphine, foot of Pont Neuf bridge, Paris
I think we were exhausted because being in a foreign environment makes your brain work overtime, even to do mundane things that you take for granted in your usual habitat.
Simply going to the bakery or grocery store and buying a few items is a big deal if you speak only a few words of the language. Road signs are different. The car dashboard (in this case a rented Renault) is different. Waiters and shopkeepers may or may not make any allowance for the fact that you are obviously straining to follow their questions.
It keeps your mind working overtime, like running a mental marathon.
Not quite as extreme as this neurobic exercise, but still pretty darn good.
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