The Wire

For a few years now, I've listened to dozens of people tell me how great The Wire is and how I just had to watch it, it was the greatest show to ever be televised, etc. ad nauseum. Everyone from my leaders Bob and Dan to female friend that is a Harvard graduate (and has a spotty tv record, enjoying amongst other things that model show on Bravo), to people with whom I've never discussed television, and the critics always agree-supposedly this is one of the best television shows ever.

I was skeptical, I'm always skeptical but willing to try out new programs. And with the Tivo nearing empty and re-runs going full bore, I decided that I had the time to adopt a new show. The candidates were The Sopranos, The Shield, and The Wire-and after seeking the opinions of others, The Wire won out. The had been so much hype surrounding this show, that I completely and totally expected to be underwhelmed by it. I mean it could be great, but how could it ever live up to the hype? That said, last night I finished watching season one.

And it was awesome!

I don't know how else to describe it. What a fantastic television series-great acting, great drama, great characters, very gritty and edgy but still totally believable. I have to take my cue from those that got me to finally watch it and say that I cannot recommend The Wire enough. Go over to Amazon.com right now, pay the $134.49 for the entire series, and consider it one of the best investments in entertainment you've ever made. I have only seen one of the five seasons, and I cannot wait to watch the next four. I liked Oz, Oz was great, and this puts Oz to shame.

So consider this a public service announcement. If you haven't watched the Wire, go rent/borrow/buy/steal yourself the first season. You will thank me. And if you have, well then, feel free to rub my nose in the fact that I am quite late to the party.

The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

Pardon me, dear reader, for the prolonged and unannounced absence, its just that things get a wee bit hectic in the wine business for the last few weeks of December into the first week of the New Year. It's can be fun and it can be profitable, but also stressing and quite the timesink. Needless to say, 2008 has finally ended and 2009 is underway. So we've got that going for us.

However while I wasn't blogging for the past few weeks, I have been spending more time than usual reading, and not reading for fun (see: Ender's Game, Xenocide) but for fun and education, the most recent book being Paul Krugman's The Return of Depression Economics, an updated re-issue of his 1999 book by the same title written in light of the current economic crisis that has us all abuzz. So I thought I'd offer up a little bit of a review, knowing full well that rare is the person that would have any interest in reading a book on economics for fun, and that I am weird that way. I accept that.

While I am wired in that strange way that makes books on history, politics, economics and other social sciences strangely fascinating, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my knowledge of economics is extremely weak. In fact, a big portion of why I enjoyed this book is that in all my 27 years on this earth, this is the first time anyone has been able to adequately the difference between short-selling and long-selling in a manner that I can wrap my tiny brain around (and then, as with so many other economic concepts, wonder aloud how the fuck that's legal but I can't legally play poker or bet on football, but I digress). As I read through it I couldn't help but think to myself that in many ways, this book was like 'Economics For Dummies' as it explained concepts that even Mr. Holmes, a fine teacher in his own right, couldn't get me to understand during Economics classes in high school. Furthermore, upon explaining the concepts in a meaningful way it did a fantastic job of linking them all together.

Why did the Mexican economy crash in the '90s? Why did the Argentine peso collapse and how did they fix it? And then, after explaining them, Krugman would link the two events, link their causes and their solutions. Then he'd go into the oft-publicized Asian financial crisis of the '90s, explain it, and link it to the other two, and finally he stuck the landing and managed to offer a reasonable connection-atleast to my economics brain-between all three of those events and the ongoing worldwide economic crisis, and lend credence to the old adage that 'the past is prologue.'

He threw out just enough economic jargon to make it an economics book, but explained enough of it that I'd feel it to be pretty easy reading for anyone with just a basic understanding of the economy (ie, a high school diploma). And considering the hundreds of billions of dollars the American government is throwing at this economic mess, and the reality that this is having a profound impact on all of our lives and will for the foreseeable future, I find it have been a great read so that I'm atleast somewhat abreast of the economic events of the day. I'd strongly recommend it if you're into that sort of thing, and by that sort of thing I mean trying to keep yourself knowledgeable of current events and your [crooked] government.

We Emerge Victorious! RIAA Admits Defeat!

I remember it like it was yesterday, that magical Fall of '00 and the ensuing semester in Spring of '01. It was a glorious time to be a young music fan, especially one in college. You see, universities had yet to wise up to the perils of giving students an absurd amount of bandwidth with no checks, and the RIAA had yet to fully realize the impact a little program called Napster would have on how people would access their music in the 21st century. The not so shocking result was of course tens of thousands of students downloading thousands of songs (and thats just at UNT) bringing the university's servers to the slowest of all crawls as people downloaded everything they could think of. It also answers the question how the hell did Wesley Willis ever get famous?

I don't think I can overstate how many millions of .mp3s were being made and shared, and how hammered the servers were. A simple internet search during the middle of the day would take 15s just to load a webpage. Around that same time a simple and yet revolutionary game called Counter-strike was released (Winter of 2000) to make sure that several dozen students would never make it to class again, the problem is the lag was so bad internet play was impossible and we were relegated to playing on internal servers-something which turned out to be fun as you'd run into other players in the dorm cafeterias and shoot them the death stare for pwning you previously that day-it fostered this weird community on campus. But I digress, I'm burying the lead.

By the Fall of '01 most universities in America had either put bandwidth caps on students, or outright blocked Napster from their network to preserve their network integrity and because the RIAA had caught wind and was threatening to sue nearly every American university for allowing access to pirated music. This was the genesis of the music pirate vs. the RIAA feud that has been brewing ever since. Napster was eventually shut down (to later re-open as a pay site), but the damage had been done and Gnutella clients such as Limewire and Bearshare quickly filled the void. In fact, every time the RIAA would try to shut a service down the programmers would get smarter and figure out new ways to hide the IPs of the users or would base the servers out of strange 3rd world countries. To counter their efforts, the RIAA spent millions of dollars on fighting these programs and their users (instead of, you know, improving their music or reducing the price of the records people didn't want to buy), eventually settling on a way to track the IP address of users whom they would then sue.

And sue they did, estimates are that the RIAA has sued 35,000 people since 2003, settling for an absolutely batshit insane $3,500 per a song downloaded/shared. They've sued grandmothers, single moms, children, deceased people, and people who don't even own computers. You see, the way the RIAA tracked you wasn't an exact science, but more of a scattershot strategy-the result being thousands of innocent people being sued and forced to either pay the RIAA to go away (settle out of court) or pay even more money for attorneys to fight the RIAA (of which they would re-coup none of it). The RIAA had managed to find a way to use the American Justice System to strong-arm innocent people, all in a vain effort to stop something that was unstoppable and with the rational that they're losing millions of dollars (most of which they'd have never seen, college students weren't going to buy that Journey record or Wesley Willis record, we'd download it for free but we sure as shit weren't going to buy it instead of 4 beers and a shot at the bar.

So in the midst of these insane lawsuits, have sprung up new and more secure sharing programs. Hosted off-shore, these international sites were invite-only and acted as the largest free record store in the world. Oink was one of the best known until British officials finally shut it down last year (and that didn't stop anyone, we all just moved to new sites). The beauty of Oink was you had to share as much as you took, and if that ratio became too weighted (you were taking more than you were giving), then you'd be tossed from the site-and to get tossed from that site would be punishment, as it boasted literally just about every song off every record in the world (and if it wasnt there, you could request it and you'd get it) in variable qualities and available for free at the touch of a button. It was a music lover's paradise. If you're so inclined, you can read a fantastic essay about Oink and the music industry in general here. It's a great read.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that also having arrived (several year too late I might add, again because of the RIAA blocking them) were pay music sites such as iTunes-where you could plop down $0.99 for a song, and these sites have flourished. But battle lines had been drawn years before, and there were hundreds of thousands of us that thumbed our nose at the RIAA, vowing not to buy music again (unless it's local or independent) as a means to stop feeding the bear that was the RIAA music cartel. And last week, we scored our first victory.

Fri Dec 19, 2008, LOS ANGELES - The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers' access if they ignore repeated warnings.

The beauty of the internet, is that it bring the power back to the people, and the people have spoken. And we will continue to speak until the RIAA burns to the ground and is lying in the grave it dug for itself. So pat yourselves on the back music fans, we all deserve it. Now we just need to get these people off their iTunes crack......

Shiner Cheer

If you're a fan of good beer (and who isn't?), then Winter is the season for you. I mean sure there are some nice Spring and Fall seasonal brews, and even a few decent summer ones (St. Arnold's Lawnmower comes to mind), but Winter is when breweries usually pull all the stops and make some great dark beers that confuse the palate and stretch the lines of what beer can be.

With the Spoetzl Brewery being one of my favorites on account of their still-amazing Shiner Bock (and their new series of yearly brews, capping next year on their 100th anniversary with Shiner 100), I couldn't wait to get a chance to try their Winter seasonal, Shiner Cheer.

A bit of a disclaimer first though. I can't say I'm real high on fruit in beer. I mean I love Pyramid Apricot on a nice warm day, and I'll occasionally throw a lime in a Mexican beer or an Orange slive in a Hefeweizen, but as a general rule I'd like my beer to be beer and not a beer/fruit juice hybrid. So I was a little unsure going in when I learned that it was an Ale brewed with peaches and pecans (though those are Texas staples, so it's not terribly surprising). It's been strangely tough to come by for the past few weeks, but I finally got some.

It's got an unusual ruby/brown color to it, but it pours nicely. The head comes out like it should, and in the end it looks like a beer should. Upon tasting, the first thing you will taste is that classic Shiner bitterness (I recognized it immediately from the Bock) caused by burning the malt. It's not a bad thing, in fact it's what makes the Shiner Bock what it is, but it's definately noticeable here and it lingers. The pecans are very understated, but after a couple seconds the peaches become blatantly obvious. It's strange, it takes a few seconds before the flavor of peach kicks in, and even when it does it's fairly understated-theres just enough peach to let you know that it's there. In fact, the peaches were much more evident on the nose, which I found surprising.

In the end though, I'd rate it a good beer-but not a great one. It doesn't have that heaviness that is generally associated with a Winter beer (to warm you) and that you'd expect. The peach flavor is nice, but overall the beer is generally unremarkable. A little malt bitterness, a little peach, and that's it-its honestly just a little too simple for me. I'm not sure that there's enough peach to satisfy those who like a sweeter beer, and I don't think those that like a heavy beer will be terribly moved by the peaches. I'd suggest that it's a good beer to try, and I'm glad that I did, but I couldn't see myself having it more than a couple times before the end of winter.

Twitter

For atleast a year, probably longer, friend Adrienne has been trying to convince me that I needed to join Twitter, that somehow plugging myself into yet another on-line social network was going to improve my life. With Myspace and Facebook though, it seemed rather unnecessary and I resisted it. I would be lying if I didn't admit that the trendiness of it contributed as well (like with everything Apple), but primarily it just didn't seem like something I needed. I've got enough on-line timesinks as it is.

It's come up occasionally since then, and I've continued to resist, that was until it came up during a Google Groups conversation in which Adrienne wrote;

I find it bizarre that so many of you guys are obsessed with thelatest innovations in
hardware and software, video and computer games,and mp3 players/peripherals/whatever, but think that social networkingtools are worthless.

Luke, obviously you DO care about what Mac's doing, and vice versa, orelse you wouldn't be writing on 412 at all! Explain to me how,functionally, this group is any
different than Twitter or Facebook,despite it being closed to a small network
of people (which you can dowith Twitter, FB, and anything else, you know). You post links andvideos here, so does everyone on FB and Twitter. You have discussionshere, same there. You tell people what you're up to here, same there.You make plans with your friends here, same there.

The only thing I can think of is that you're turned off by the trendy-factor of these sites, or that they're too time-consuming. Yet forall that stuff I listed in the first sentence, you're all about thelatest trend. And think about how much time you
waste on the Internet anyway.

BTW, this isn't aimed at Luke, just a rant in general.

So I decided fine, I'll sign up for it and use it for one month, and at the end of said month ponder if it had in fact had any sort of positive effect on my life, or rather it just added to the internet clutter already sufficiently packed full of Message Boards, Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, News, Op-Eds, Warhammer, Team Fortress 2, and everything else I spend time on-line reading or playing.


So yesterday I signed up. Handle is superfuzzbigmuf, so if you "tweet" as they say, then add me. If you don't, well then I will tell you in a month if its anything more than another pointless internet timesink.

Balvenie Doublewood 12 Year

A month after trying the Macallan Fine Oak and loving what I tasted, I decided to give the Balvenie Doublewood a try. Unlike the Macallan which was aged 10 years, the Balvenie was aged 12 years however much like the Macallan it is aged in two different oak casks, in this case a traditional oak whisky cask and an oak sherry cask. It's 43% alcohol (86 proof) and runs approximately $42.

I got it home, poured it in a nice open whisky glass, poured a little chilled water on top of it, swirled it around and then took my first sniff and then sip. Not terribly impressed. So I gave myself a few minutes to let the palate cleanse and did it again, still not very impressed.

Before I delve into why, let me issue a disclaimer; I don't particularly care for Sherry. I've had "good" Sherries before, and to me there just isn't such a thing-the nose is the only thing worse than the taste, it's just not a flavor I care for. It is because of this, that I think I was unimpressed with the Balvenie Doublewood, because the taste of the Sherry casks definitely came through heavy on the whisky. It had a little honey and a tiny bit of vanilla, but to me the notes of sherry overpowered everything else. The body on it was good although it wasn't extremely silky, although to be fair the bite on it wasn't terrible.

It wasn't a bad whisky, I mean it certainly beats the stuff you'd find in a plastic jug at your local liquor store, but I didn't find myself enjoying it anymore than say a blended like Johnnie Walker black (which would be less expensive) nor did I find it to be any more complex. There are better single malts and even blended whiskies out there for this price.

Macallan Fine Oak (10 year)

So a couple months ago I decided to start a bit of a new tradition (yes, thats an oxymoron) for myself of buying something rather expensive but something I've never tried before on the mid-month payday. Sort of a gift to myself, and the first bottle I decided to roll with was the Macallan 10 which was on sale for $29.99. I was fairly familiar with the Macallen 12, but had never tried the 10 and wanted to see how they stacked up against each other.

I must say that I was extremely happy with my purchase. As the name suggests, this Scotch is aged 10 years in oak barrels, in thise case actually three different barrels-European Oak Sherry Cask, American Oak Sherry Cask, and an American Oak Bourbon Cask. The result is an extremely silky Scotch, with a texture bordering on pure bliss. Not surprisingly oak is a major player in both the nose and the bouquet of this Scotch, but what was fairly surprising was the notes of honey and vanilla on it. Between the honey on the palate entry with the silky texture it is an extremely pleassant drink. Furthermore, the aging in Sherry casks allows for a taste that lingers nicely and doesn't have any bite (from the alcohol) until towards the end. It's pale straw in color, which is to be expected for a 10 year Scotch.

I would strongly recommend Macallan 10 Fine Oak to anyone that's a fan of good Scotch Whisky.