Wakefield Shiraz Clare Valley 2006
From the "Cork'd" wine review:This wine is characterised by ripe, not overripe, varietal shiraz with fruit aromas of rich spice, plum, cinnamon & liquorice. Oak derived nuances of toasted nuts, liquorice and cedar linger. Creamy nuances of vanilla oak, chocolate and coffee. A long, round and velvety full flavored wine. Strong persistent flavours of black cherries, liquorice and plum. The oak presence is strong and supportive but does not dominate. A delicious, generous wine that will develop considerable complexity as it ages. Try with rich dishes or game, maybe turkey or venison.
or, if you're me, try it with a subway veggie pattie that you bought 10 hours ago. Make sure to drink it from the bottle because you're: a. too lazy to go down and get a glass and 2. you don't have any wine glasses.
If i did have a glass i'd raise it and toast the Reid wedding rehearsal dinner party. I appreciate you buying a bottle of wine and leaving it just one glass shy of full.
I went to Pocahontas state park yesterday in an attempt to enjoy my one day off. I ended up getting lost and covered in ticks (again). i now know every single freckle on my body intimately as i have tried to remove a few. i hiked over seven miles to finally find my car, just as it got dangerously dark.
after my one day off i'm not too unhappy to be working a double today in my safe, tick free workplace.
I was bar backing last night and on both floors of the club is was almost all Michael songs all night long. That seems like an appropriate 'tribute' to someone who made some amazing albums. What is not appropriate is the instant sainthood he seems to have gained by his death. He molested children. If you believe he was not a pedophile, i'm sure you were conflicted during the OJ trial as well or have not seen the evidence. But online and the news this fact is never brought up because it's seen as disrespectful because a court of law did not convict him of this crime, just as they couldn't convict r. kelly of peeing on a minor, despite having a video of it happening.
All i'm saying is give credit where credit is due. He was amazing at his profession, but he was also just the rich man's Gary Glitter.
At my job there are 3 cooks: the executive chef, the sous chef, and the line cook. On payday friday, there were no paychecks. On friday night, with the reservations of a table of 10, a table of twelve, and a wedding rehearsal dinner of 50, the executive chef and sous chef walked out. The timing couldn't have been better, as the owner and general manager were away on vacation, but now i'm left serving subpar food and we got a really bad review online. That combined with the fact that the managers fired any servers they overheard talking about also walking out is causing me to look for another job. In the meantime there is one line cook and 3 servers to cover every single shift, in which we need at least 2 cooks and 2 servers.
On top of that my car was towed and it took 2 days and almost 200 dollars to get it back. Bummer city, population me.
On the bright side, its summer. Most days involve some amount or combination of bike rides, sunsets, reading book(s), and hanging out with friends. Everything else is just noise.
I never took any pictures from the 'punk rock prom', but someone sent me a couple today.
Since my birthday fell on a monday this year i decided to have my fun(s) over the weekend.
The ride started with going to The Wave. After a couple of 'cherry bombs' I remember waking up naked on drews futon. Dear Natalie, for that i am actually sorry.
Then I hung out with drew, johnny and lauren at some state park in Norge? It was a-mazing, but it started off terrible. When we got there drew, johnny and I hiked through some closed trail and ended up ankle deep in ticks. Hundreds of ticks lept up to our ankles, filled our shoes, and burrowed into our skin. It was terrible enough for us to run a quarter mile out of the woods instantly. We turned it around and ended up deep in nature, lying on a dock with our feet in the water and watching the sunset. Granted, we checked for ticks every 5 minutes and drew may have dug out a freckle, but it was great.
We then went to the nearest mexican restaurant, called Tequila Rose 2, and ate with the locals, including a guy with a tequila rose tattoo who may have worked there? Then we went back to the park entrance to get drews car, drew thought there was a bear and nearly peed his pants, and I hung around to listen to the frogs at night.
Yesterday was spent reading The Teachings of Don Juan on Fulton Hill by myself. At midnight I was on someones porch eating corn off the cob/grill and drinking sweet tea. Today has been spent running errands and reading bartending guides before work tonight.
I've had a lot of great birthdays, but this one was certainly in the top 5.
I recently found i video camera i've had for years, but unfortunately it didn't work. I tried different tapes, resetting it, cleaning it, etc. and nothing worked. On a whim, I decided to type in the error code into google and came across a forum discussing this issue. Apparently sony never gave a definition for this error code, but some of the users had come up with the solution: "whack it on the side pretty hard."
Apparently i needed the internet to tell me to assault my video camera to get it to work. When did that stop being my first response? I still can't believe that worked.
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Now playing: Magnolia Electric Co - Josephine
via FoxyTunes
I just found out that David Carradine hung himself in a Thai hotel. Crazy, huh?
I remember staying up late every wednesday night to watch Kunk Fu: The Legend Continues. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one, as the show was not very good, but the David Carradine was this peaceful shaolin monk/superhero and I loved it. When I found out that the entire concept for the original show was Bruce Lee's and the studio was too racist to have a 'chinaman' in a staring role, i could never really enjoy the show as much. Turns out David Carradine was just another (7/8ths) cracker co-opting asian culture for profit.
May my youthful, idealistic view of David Carradine rest in peace.
For some reason I feel like this is mostly for Wayne B.
That reason is probably the fact that he reminds me of one of the main guys in this clip.
I'm two minutes away from needing to be at work. I went to a 'punk rock prom' at the duckpin bowling alley (your character's 'scene points' increases by 12. advance to the next level.) That was followed by a late night tour of hollywood cemetery and sleep came at 5am.
Tomorrow I work from 5pm to 5am, as my first night of training to be a bartender begins when my serving shift ends. Unless I get a shift covered next week, I will be working from 10am(sat)-5am(sun). On my feet working, not sitting working.
I'm also going to the gym in between shifts now instead of taking a nap.
I am a machine. I run on pure awesome.
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com
texts to the wrong number, drunk texts, etc. I love it.
(212): i want you now
(916): you need to stop dating girls with the same name as your mother...or stop drinking so much...I don't want to see this
(913): I hope I'm pregnant just to spite you.
(202): I tried to gradually lead her into my room but she wouldn't stop crying and quoting memoirs of a geisha
(801): see... this is why i put birth control in all my friends drinks
(1-801): wait.... you do what?
you have to dig through a mountain of gross to get a few pieces of gold, but if you're bored go for it.
Last night I went to The Silent Music Revival at Gallery 5 in Richmond. It's an ongoing event where a band plays behind a screen showing an old silent film. The band last night was Autocue, which were better than expected and matched up really well with silent films about workers rights/child labor.
This morning I woke up early and started the day with a half hour meditation session, which is better than the half assed 10 minutes i've been putting in lately. I feel re energized and with a replaced focus on life. Today I'll ride my bike downtown to the gym, maybe stop by the coffee shop, and ride back home with enough time to shower before work.
I just watched a documentary called 'A life of my choice' about the travel writer Sir Wilfred Thesiger who traveled around north africa/the middle east. He passed away in 2003, but he lived one of the most romantic lives with a real sense of adventure. With the exception of his love of big game hunting and the quote "the worst thing to happen in human history was the invention of the combustible engine", i could really identify with everything he said.
Sometimes we pour our hearts into things that don't work out and I think it's easy to get jaded and cynical about life and human beings in general, but I realize that it's a life of my choice. If there's anything in life that I'm not satisfied with it's up to me to change it. I'm a bullet proof tiger with the mind of a champion and a back strong enough to build empires on.
My sister, a budding financial guru, sent me this:
This is that economic model I learned in school that proves what you were saying on your blog.
The Matt and Kim show during the upcoming Slaughterama weekend has been canceled due to injury. Fortunately, Slaughterama is still happening. So come and bring friends, drinks, bikes, and bail.
News coverage from last year
In the midst of Clinton heading to mexico to discuss drug policy, gun import/export, etc. I couldn't notice Obama's town hall comments about this. When the notion of legalization of drugs was mentioned, the entire place laughed and it was dismissed as 'this is who is on the internet.' The fact is that this entire 'drug war' is much more of a plague on society than the drugs themselves (much like the 'war on terror' vs. actually terrorist acts). We have more people in prison than any other country, including china, both in proportion and population. Many of these are for nonviolent, victimless crimes. Meanwhile, private prisons are one of the few sectors turning a profit, and prison labor is used for just about anything these days. Let me restate that: people are making a profit off of imprisoning human beings and using their labor with little to no compensation.
What do you think gives these 'drug cartels' so much power? Could it be that marijauna is one of the largest cash crops, providing them billions in untaxed revenue? Prohibition has never worked and it never will. Think about what motivates you. Do you not do something simply because it's illegal? Knowing the dangers and risks involved, would you really smoke crystal meth if it were legal? Does knowing something is illegal really deter you? I'm sure we've all had speeding tickets, rode bikes down one way streets, downloaded music, etc. You simply have to look to the netherlands to see that legalization of drugs does not increase use, its population smokes less marijuana than americans. We live in a society where it is easier for minors to procure illegal drugs than alcohol. Does a dealer care if you're 8 years old? No, but the ABC store clerk certainly does. The only thing that makes any drug a 'gateway' drug is that you have to go to a shady dealer to get it, and they will probably offer other drugs that they have. There's nothing inherent in any drug that makes it a 'gateway' drug, other than prohibition. We are putting money in the hands of drug dealers, putting children at risk, and spending billions that we obviously don't have, all to fight a war that can never be won.
thanks to eva who sent the below picture and spurred this rant.
I got my 3rd missed connection! I haven't replied to this one yet, but I'm certain it was me. The funny part is that i have no idea who could have sent this as i was not playing any game with anyone. well, maybe chris, but the game was 'how do i pass this shot off on someone else.' chris bought well over 20 shots that night, so while this girl thought i was 'shyly looking away', i was probably thinking 'gravity...is it always out to get me?' or 'meta pizza - pizza topped with pizza bagel bites.'
empire beard (one of many) - w4m - 25 (empire)
Reply to: pers-ffrb5-1096xxx669@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-03-28, 5:23PM EDT
you were at a tall table near the big buck hunter game. black hoodie and beard (like many others) but you had a kind face and really sweet eyes... i kept looking at you and smiling- and you shyly looked away. fun game! lets do it again sometime.
The late, great, Carl Sagan's Cosmos is now on Hulu.com
How neat is that?
Pretty neat.
My job is at a fancy restaurant in an old historic bank on main street in richmond. I've been working a lot of shifts at the new job, trying to get as much money as possible so i can get a motorcycle/pay rent. Last night we had a party of 90+ people at a banquet upstairs. The problem with setting these things up is that a lot of the materials are in the 'vault', so you have to go up two full flights of stairs, with table, chairs, etc. All night I'm up and down stairs with giant trays of fancy food or dirty plates. On top of that, I have to smile at a coked up Sir Ben Kingsley lookalike as he tells me that he has put 'bob marley's roots reggae song, exodus, remixed' on the sound system. awesome.
After almost 7 hours of this I did get a free meal (not the norm) and another waiter bought me a beer (blue moon). So all in all it was pretty good, but the last thing you want to do after all of that is ride your bike home in the cold night, up a giant hill. Working at the bottom of the hill makes for a nice ride to work, but a lousy ride home.
The giant upside is that I am very happy with how things are going. I work really hard and go home physically exhausted. My mind is actively engaged and the more stressful it gets, the faster time goes by. I ride my bike a few miles a day and I'm in great shape.
Slaughterama is fast approaching.
the river. hadads. bike rides. friends. front porch hangouts. outdoor movies. cook outs. . .
dear summer,
i'm ready.
I watched this today and laughed out loud. It's a group of old people reviewing Animal Collective's My Girls, one of my favorite tracks on the new album. They start by reviewing a Young Jeezy song, which has a hilarious/cracist ending. Well worth the watch.
I was reading this story today and I am sure that you are outraged at the obvious misquotations. To think that they would quote you as saying that 'condoms don't prevent AIDS, in fact they increase the problem', in Africa of all places. I am sorry that the press has made you out to sound like an ignorant asshole. We both know you couldn't have possibly said that.
On the off chance that you did, I hope that millions of AIDS sufferers are laid at your feet when you try to get into heaven.
Love,
jimi
