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Gallo's Poll

Was buying some wine this past Saturday and I had a bottle of J's chardonnay on the counter. The guy who rang up my order told me that the J Winery was just bought by E&J Gallo (the "We will sell no wine before it's time" people). That seemed odd. What would a giant bottom-shelf wine maker want with a relatively small Sonoma winery? Then he said that Gallo is the largest wine maker in the US. Also surprising - I know they're in every supermarket, but so are a lot of brands. "They sell under a lot of brands." Ah.

How many brands?

60 or 70, at least. And all those brands grouped together is probably 1/3 of everything you'll find at a typical NC supermarket. So, yeah, I guess they are huge. And not just on the bottom shelf!

Fiesta

Monday AM, the house next to us was nothing but floor joists on a foundation. Tuesday AM, the first floor was framed. Wednesday AM, the second floor was mostly framed. Thursday it was 40° and raining all day. So when I got home Thursday PM, I didn't expect to see anyone working there. But the framers' trucks were all there and they were blaring that accordion-based Mexican music that they always listen to. But nobody was hammering anything or sawing anything or moving wood around. They were just hanging out. OK, I did plenty of that when I worked outdoors - though I probably would've driven home rather than stand around in a skeleton of a house on the last day of winter. But, no big deal.

About an hour later, I looked out my kitchen window and saw some bright blue and red lights flickering in the house's garage area. A TV? I looked some more and saw that the lights were being projected on the plywood wall, A projection TV? Why would anyone bring a projection TV to a construction site? Are they watching college basketball? I looked closer and figured out that it wasn't a TV at all. It was one of those multi-colored disco ball light things.

A crew of a half-dozen house-builders, all men, all Hispanic, brought a disco ball into a cold and wet shell of a house and had a little party until 7:00 - their normal quitting time. I hope they billed the builder for the hours!

Slice, slice, baby

At the risk of attracting the attention of the liberal lifestyle police, I must gush about a wondrous kitchen gadget.

This little ceramic knife is the sharpest knife I've ever used. Honestly, it's so sharp I'm a little afraid to use it because what would be just a nick on my finger with a standard steel knife would be a clean amputation with this fucker. It's almost magical - you just put it near the tomato and think "thin slice" and before you know it, you have a paper-thin slice of tomato. Anything else nearby is likely to be dissected, too. But that real sense of danger makes it even more fun to use. I keep finding myself trying to think of something else I can slice into thin strips just so I have an excuse to use it.

The only drawback is that it's ceramic: fragile and easily chipped. So it can't be used for prying or smashing or chopping anything hard (or frozen). It's purely for slicing delicious sliceable things in straight lines. Also, it was only $18!

Joker

You don’t diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran. Really. That wasn’t a joke.
-- Obama

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