The Wine Commonsewer™

Viña Concha y Toro

Gentle Readers,

There is no question about it. Chilean and Spanish wines do the Wine Commonsewer in. There is something about the way the wine is made that ends up inducing coughing, choking, and sneezing about 13 hours after consumption. Plain old allergies is MY guess (but to what, exactly, eludes me).

The 2001 Marques Casa Concha is a delightful and relatively inexpensive (as are all Chilean wines) cabernet sauvignon  without the dreadful side effects (I simply cannot be the only wino on earth that has suffered thusly).

The wine comes from the factory with big black cherry fruit, hints of vanilla, oak, and coffee (that is pure wine snob talk, my friends). It is a rich shade of deep burgundy, quite well-balanced, and mellow to boot. In fact, the color is so perfect that it looks good just sitting in the glass.

Offhand, I can’t recall the price but it was definitely on the smiling side of twenty bucks (I’m thinking around 13.00 here in the great state of Californicate).

This is a perfect wine to impress your dinner guests without dropping the big bucks.

And in case you didn't click all the way through, here's a grilled steak suggestion that ought to compliment the wine nicely.

A Glass To Your Health.......Salud!

As Ever,

TWC

Stormy Sunset

The mid-week storm that blew through here leaving some wet earth in its wake also left us with another bonus. Two magnificent days of breezy blue skies filled with billowy clouds (that's a lamb, Daddy).

Click to enlarge this sunset photo taken from Casa de las Rocas Grande looking due west through Santa Ana Canyon (center) toward Yorba Linda (right side of the canyon end) and ultimately LAX at lands-end. Aircraft landing lights are fruequently visible from the LAX landing pattern some 90 miles away. Corona lies along the base of the Santa Ana Mountains to the left as they rise into Saddleback Peak which is just out of the picture on the left. Lake Mathews to the right.

UPDATE: We're Still Down

Like anything to do with any computer, the ISP upgrade made everything much worse than it was (if it has you-know-what, wheels, or memory chips it's going to give you trouble).

The system is more or less completely down and has been since yesterday. We're going to try and fire up the windmill-driven dial-up so we can send some email here in a minute.

That also means that you may experience busy signals when sending faxes.

We're Down

Our email and internet service will be down from noon until five PST while our ISP replaces equipment and upgrades a microwave transmitting tower in the hills behind Casa de las Rocas Grande, home of The Wine Commonsewer. This will not affect winecommonsewer.com.

Bird Proof Car

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

The local seagulls loved to dive bomb TWC's high school quad at lunch time. Somebody'd yell and we'd scatter for cover, spilling milk and scattering cold cheese sandwiches in the process. Worse, the student parking lots were in the path....and you get the picture.

Ford's modern technology promises a solution to that age old problem by making parking under trees and electric wires safe for even the finest, freshly detailed Mercedes.

As Ever,

TWC

tip of the glass to Hit Babe (and others)

1.07 mb DL

Dressing for Court

We Report, You Decipher.

As Ever,

TWC

Smoking Kills + 26 Reasons

Gentle Readers,

As always, TWC is on the cutting edge of socially responsible content and so we offer the following in the public interest. It's really for the children you know.

In so many unexpected ways............Smoking Kills (Gets ever-so-slightly graphic at the end).

26 reasons why 2 dogs is better than 2 wives.

As Ever,

TWC

tip of the glass to Jim in ABQ

'Smoking" = 980 kb DL  "26" = webpage link

Critical Morass

Interesting that after orbiting the email circuit for a number of years (and the rubber chicken circuit) the message seems undimmed by time......

click government graphic to enlarge

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical yet known to science.  This new element has been tentatively named "Governmentium".  Governmentium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert.  However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of four years; it does not decay but instead, it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.  In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration.  This hypocritical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass."  You will know it when you see it.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element which radiates just as much energy since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

As Ever,

TWC

tip of the glass to Husbone

Earth Day 2005

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

To celebrate Earth Day 2005 TWC fired up his politically incorrect 500 inch Chrysler Vee-Eight. The one with Two (count 'em) Holley dual-feed carbs glistening on top of that polished aluminum tunnel ram feeding 2 and 3/4 inch intake valves with a fat Clay Smith cam that makes the engine lope like a funny car. It sucks gas like a freight train pulling the Grapevine, too.

Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore did their part for the planet as well, jetting around the world to the backwoods where life expectancy approaches 45 years and people live in mud huts picking bugs outta their hair. Both these bubble heads then gushed to the MTV crowd about how less is more (well for the plebes anyway, but, HellOh! We NEED our limos and air con, ya know, 'cause we're stars, ya know). 

As Ever,

TWC

link courtesy of Ron Bailey

Tax Freedom Day

You would think I would have remembered to put this up on April 17th, which is Tax Freedom Day 2005.

According to the Tax Foundation, the single most expensive item in the average American's budget is TAXES. Surprised?

Americans will work 70 days to afford their federal taxes and 37 more days to afford state and local taxes. Other categories of spending measured in the report include housing and household operation (65 days), health and medical care (52 days), food (31 days), transportation (31 days), recreation (22 days), clothing and accessories (13 days), saving (2 days) and all other (44 days).

Worse, even in states we consider tax havens, no American will work less (on average) than 92 days this year to pay her taxes.

Think about that next time your betters ask you to dig a little deeper.

THE GOOD NEWS: Say what you want about GWB, but Tax Freedom Day came 16 days earlier than it did in 1999. In fact, the last three years have seen Tax Freedom Day come earlier than it has in two decades.

Short sighted? When it comes to choking off the money supply to the furnaces in DC there is no such animal. Better you should blow your tax savings on booze and smokes than to let those guys spend it for you. Infinitely better.

UPDATE: Tax Freedom Day came on January 20 in 1910.

Note: we had incorrectly stated in the original post that tax freedom day came 33 days later in 1999 than in 2005. Our policy is to always blame the computer for any mistatement, but you should know that it's always a problem when the butler proofreads. I love him dearly but Castillian Spanish is his first language, English is his fourth. You can see where that's going. 

As Ever,

TWC