DISQUS

BBEdit? I'm sure you meant emacs.

STFU n00b ! LOL !!111!!!1111 SO I HERD U LIEK MUDKIPS ??!!!????

I want some of what John McCain and George Bush are smoking. It's obvious the Secret Service gets them some killer dope. There is not now, nor has there ever been a "victory" for America in Iraq. We lost this war before it was ever launched. The only way for us to "succeeed" is to kill every Muslim on the face of the planet. Short of that, there is little we can do to bring peace to the Islamic world. So, if we must "lose" let's choose a loss that will end American soldiers being killed on foreign soil. Let the neo-cons find some other matieral to fuel their masturbatory fantasies.

Just returned from a recent trip to Florida, where I spent several evenings dining out and making a dent in our generous host's ample wine cellar.

Some highly recommended pairings:

White:
2006 Gunderloch Kabinnett Riesling (Germany): Sweet hints of apricot and pineapple, nice clean, acidic finish. Went well with a shrimp entree. About $20 per bottle.

Red:

2004 Cosentino Zinfandel (Lodi, California): Big and bold enough to stand up to a hearty red meat dish, but subtle enough to not overpower fish or vegetables. Hints of blackberry drive this delicious vintage. $27.

2006 3 Rings Shiraz (Australia): A slightly floral nose, but mild tannins help to bring a pleasant, woody finish. Excellent with shellfish and salmon. $20 per.

2005 David Bruce Russian River Valley Pinot Noir (California): Notes of cherry, earth, spice and oak. Perfectly balanced and playful. Loved it with ahi tuna. Loved a second bottle even more all by itself the next day. $41.

"No purchaser in his right mind wouldn't demand that Zell lower his asking price if he auctions off the name."

Exactly. Why do you think Zell is trying so hard to sell the ballpark to the state? He knows they'll pay the inflated asking price, and either get him the extra cash on the sale up front and receive the naming rights payments themselves, or allow him to receive the annual naming rights payments. Either way, the new owner is stuck paying rent on the facility and doesn't see a dime of that money. It won't lower his purchase price of the team one iota.

And if you trust the state to put that naming rights cash back into the ballpark in full or an unnecessary rehab of the main grandstand (amenities at sporting events are for sucks -- you're there to watch a fucking ball game, not dine at a sushi bar or watch dot races on the Jumbotron), you've got a lot more faith than I do.

This guy basically got Tribune employees to take on the majority of the financial burden of *his* purchase of the company... you think he doesn't believe there's a way to keep the naming rights cash while getting the full value price for the franchise and ballpark?

But even granting your equation in your last line, I would say the assumption that any new owner would automatically put any cost difference in the sale right back into team payroll is a bit of a leap, no?

The new owner ain't seeing one red cent of the "naming rights" windfall... Zell's already got it earmarked to pay off his share of the Tribune Co. debt. This is a lousy deal that won't help the Cubs on the field or help make improvements to the park itself. Your zeal to paint anyone with a nostalgic bone in their body as some sort of dupe on this issue has caused you to miss the forest for the trees.

Give me a naming rights deal that actually HELPS the team win, and we can have a constructive argument about it on the merits. But this deal clearly will NOT help anyone but Zell's and TribCo's bottom line. Why the hell should any Cub fan support that? The "Buckingham Fountain being sold for $400M" analogy is flawed... the proper analogy is Buckingham Fountain being sold for $400M, but instead of that money going to the schools, it goes into the pocket of Daley or one of his cronies. (I won't even get into the issue of taking Wrigley off the property tax rolls, as any sale to the state would do, which would actually *screw* the schools instead of helping them).

For the record, I'm not one that believes it's an either-or proposition... charge market rates for the Cubs broadcast rights and discussion of naming rights is moot... The Red Sox play in a stadium older than Wrigley with 5,000 fewer seats and no naming rights -- and the owners have been unequivocal in using the word "never" to describe the concept in Boston -- and yet the team was won two championships in the past four years and has a payroll $50 million *higher* than the Cubs.

You know, you can care about the history and tradition of Wrigley as the landmark it is and still want to win a championship. It doesn't give itself to snark, but it's a legitimate position for a title-hungry Cub fan to take.

I remember #8, too. I'd never heard a bar full of people yell "you fuckin' asshole!" in unison before that game. (Not unrehearsed, anyways...)

No pen given, nor did I stand outside her house the next day holding a boom box over my head. It was a brief relationship and truth be told, I was losing interest in her as well. Still felt like a dork, though.

On to the thread topic for stay-at-home treats for V-Day... we've always enjoyed hitting the local gourmet grocer for some high-end cocoa to use in a pot of chocolate fondue...

Is this the "dude" ads, where the guy orders a white wine at a bar at the end and gets the stink-eye from uber-macho, piss-drinking buddy? Yeah, that one was major stupid.

Having a glass of even the dumbest chardonnay on the planet is a better option than drinking that mass-produced crap.

I love beer, but I like to actually *taste* my beer.

As a city-dweller, we learned the hard way very quickly that Valentine's Day is one to avoid at local restaurants. We usually go out a couple nights later now, as we're not sticklers for celebrating the holiday on the 14th.

No embarrassing Valentine's Day stories to share, other than getting dumped by my girlfriend during the last slow song at my high school's "Cupid's Arrow" dance when I was 17. (It wasn't a shock -- the relationship was waning -- but the timing sure sucked, and I felt like a real tool standing out there on the dance floor by myself after she walked away...)

Unfinished meaning stuff I opened but didn't like enough to make a priority out of drinking. Or that second or third bottle that got opened over a dinner with friends and ended up forgotten in a corner of the fridge after we cleared the table.

Those of us in cold-weather climes are also big on mulling leftover/not-that-great red wines in winter time, too. (I believe the term for this stuff is Glogg, with an umlaut over the "o"). Round mulling spice baskets are available at your local kitchen-supply store for $4 (the mesh is similar to a flour sifter). Load 'em up with a few broken-up cinnamon sticks, some whole cloves, orange zest and a couple small pieces of apple (optional) and simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the wine is piping hot and the flavors from the basket are imbued throughout. I like to add a couple teaspoons of sugar at the end, and if I'm feeling adventurous, a small pinch of curry powder.

I realize this is not really "cooking" with wine, per se, but it's a great way to finish an opened bottle of red that you weren't crazy about.

Kerm,

Salon's King Kaufman interviews Emo Leitch. Some hilarious stuff about Lassie Edmonds ripe for your treatment near the end...

http://www.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2008/01...

I find that viogniers are an extremely mixed bag, and as such, I find myself shying away from them. The good viogniers I've tasted were literally a transcendental experience. But they've been outnumbered three or four to one by viogniers that taste like an overwhelming floral perfume.

I'd drink them a lot more often if I felt like it was less of a roll of the dice to get a decent one.

A hearty amen to this. I've heard this tidbit yammered out of the mouths of Food Network creatures for years, and I've never bought into it.

Your sentiment also goes for unfinished bottles of wine that are getting long in the tooth (hey, it happens). If I have a third of a bottle of cabernet that I opened last week sitting in my fridge, you bet your ass I'm going to use it boost my marinara sauce or deglace a pan of sauteed veggies instead of throwing it away.

Now, you still want to pay attention to your flavor compatibilities when determining whether an old/flawed wine will go with your dish (i.e., don't dump a super sweet wine into a savory recipe unless you want the dish to have a hint of sweetness and likewise, don't pour a tannic red into a crock of chocolate fondue, etc.), but by and large, the subtleties (and flaws) burn off during cooking.

There's a reason why God made $4.79 bottles of Yellow Tail, plentiful at every supermarket in the U.S. Because it's absolutely ludicrous to pay more for a wine that's going to be cooked with.

J'aime bien la demoiselle à coté :-)

Zu Punkt 2, den Buttons unter den Beiträgen kann ich die die aktuelle Umfrage Social Bookmarking Optionen: Lust oder Frust? bei Manuela empfehlen. Global del.icio.us ja, individual nein :-).

HazteOir.org es la modernización de lo que se llamaba "franquismo sociológico" un lobby de presión al estilo americano para hacer presión incluso al pp, un acomodo para ultraderechistas que igual se abstenían en las europeas y no votaban al pp porque no se sentían cómodos del todo ni con aznar (y de esos hay muchos). Lo que antes les unía era únicamente ir a la contra, contra el soe, y ahora tienen algo que hacer en "positivo", movilizarse a favor de derechos negativos ("derecho" a prohibir a los homosexuales casarse, "derecho" a prohibir a las mujeres interrumpir el embarazo, etc)

Últimamente la extrema derecha se organiza muchísimo mejor que la izquierda light (soe e iu). Os sería relativamente sencillo montar un "HazPensar" y que pudiéramos fundir a correos los periódicos y los faxes de los ayuntamientos preconstitucionales.

Necesitamos nuestros lobbys además de nuestros lo ves?... así que adelante.

Un saludo.

Salud y tiempo.

Since blogging is not affecting what happens in the corridors of power, we need to ask ourselves, "does any of this matter".

This tedious point never fails to bug me. The New York Times endorsed Kerry for president and Kerry lost. Should we ask ourselves: "does the NYT matter"?

I won't. If only because I'm too busy with a similar problem: "Does it matter if I think too much about what matters?"