detroit drinks

heed the wise words of my friend and mentor putnam to experience wine with a better perspective. visit his blog here.

look, it's al

i don't see him enough. watch him here. there's some good stuff on the fox 2 'vault', which i'm sure is not their fault.

two weeks...

...until my birthday. rather than keep everybody up on sunday night, we're going to the cadieux cafe on saturday the 27th instead. i checked their website to make sure the band that night wouldn't suck, and it turns out it's this local indie bluegrass group shotgun wedding playing. found some video of them (on fox 2 of all places) and they're quite good. i have a thing for female country singers these days, and find myself listening to neko case far more than i ever thought i could. everybody should come out to see me: i haven't had a birthday party in years and this might be my last year in detroit. the food is excellent, and goes well will the extensive belgian beer selection. word is that it's the last place in america to go feather bowling, which is a damn shame because it's quite fun.

breakfast

not pictured: french toast, home fries, friends

i'll be there, will you?

dieu du ciel rosée d'hibiscus

in short: om nom nom

longer: the label is captivating, i think because i'm torn between thinking the woman on it is cute, or that she looks like heath ledger's joker. the beer pours a unique, beige\salmon color and is quite cloudy. pours with a well-crafted head. floral aromas, slightly tangy. the flavor is interesting: it tastes like it could be wild, farmy or funky, but it's not. it's like the sophisticated city cousin to the rustic farmhouse ales that we all so enjoy. slightly acidic at first, the yeast dominates the end. the complexity is neatly constrained. this could easily become one of my favorite beers... i've had it twice in two days now, but both times it was served around 65 degrees; i'd like to taste it cold.

$4.99 for 12 ounces at western market. word is, less than 10 cases came to michigan. we'll be at the montreal brewpub next weekend. i'll take notes.

a bizzare imac issue

at some point, my hard drive became completely full. i thought it was too many podcasts filling the place up. i deleted them. nope. so i looked it up online. sounded like a virus or a "log file overrun". no viruses currently messing with mac osx. i assumed it was a log file overrun, where some file was just growing infinitely larger. i stopped using the imac, because aaron's was sitting right next to it, and i would take mine to the shop sooner or later. when i turned it back on today, it was all okay, nothing wrong. yet. we'll see how this pans out.

sorry i've been gone; hear's something horrible to look at.

i haven't said anything in a while. i promise i'll never abandon you again my (nonexistant) loyal readers.

this mini-doc has the raw deal. can obama fix things like this? i ask because this is a symptom of the root problems facing us as a nation. how can people be okay with this? industrial capitalism allows a breakdown of the ethical and moral standards that make us human. watch, and be disgusted with the lack of said humanity.

iphone, i hardly knew yee

well, it was going to happen sooner or later: my iphone is gone. it's been 36 hours now. i'm going to replace it with a 16 gig white, which i never even knew existed until today. look at it. it looks like the white eggplants going in the yard. how long until it gets scuffed up?

so losing my phone this time was different than before. i've lost my phone a few times, but people have always called me when they found it. this time, i knew somebody found it and had no intention of returning it because i called it every so often and it would be turned off for a bit. i doubt i'll get it back, which i'll attribute to it's being an iphone, and not just because it was lost in detroit rather than the suburbs where previous phones had been misplaced.

there is a major flaw in at&t's service, but they have no reason to fix it. when one loses their phone they are responsible for all calls and services used on it. this means it should be reported lost or stolen as soon as possible to avoid trouble. however, at&t seems to have forget that the phone has become a major part of modern life. when you call and report a phone lost, not only to they cut off service to it, but they close your voicemail box and give people that call your number a 'not in service' message. this is amazingly stupid. i'm still paying for my service, and receiving nothing. it would be very easy for them to make the voicemail box accessible over the web, and to allow the my voicemail greeting to be changed to explain why i'm not answering. one should be able to view there missed call log and text messages as well.

even better: my iphone, out in the wild, no longer has phone service, but is still quite usable for browsing over wifi, watching movies, or listening to music. it is really frustrating to know that apple or at&t could send it a signal to temporarily 'brick' the phone so that it won't unlock without a pass code that i would have to get from at&t after proving my identity as the phone's rightful owner. it could just display a message saying the phone is lost and can be turned into any at&t store for a reward, which i could set the amount of. it could also display what number is best to try and reach me at, so i could come and get it.

the best part: the iphone practically has lojack. it has gps. it can be turned on to record voices over the network. it could automatically take photos. being able to use these features to help customers would not lead to privacy violations, as the government or hackers could do it anyways, without my permission. we all know the phone companies let the government to what ever they want anyways. why not let me get my phone back?

UPDATE: while, i ended up doing exactly what they wanted me to and buying a new iphone, but this time in white! (still pissed)

i don't look forward to people arguing with this

the new york times highlights the differences in economic growth when when have a red or a blue in office.

i might even print this article and keep it in my pocket!

jozin z bazin

putnam shared this with me.

i want to share it with you.

les terrasses chinon

this is a rather tasty chinon.

it's made by béatrice and pascal lambert, and imported by frances rose. i bought it on my last trip to chicago, and unfortunately it's not available in michigan, as it has become one of my new favorites. it was purchased at the whole foods (lincoln park) for $13.99, but most any retail wine shop in chicago should be able to get in from candid wines. i plan on getting at least a case soon, hopefully more.

it tastes like real wine. it is a wine made for drinkability, not durability. there is no sweetness, and it is rather tart, but with finely textured tannins, and is refreshing on a summer evening. it's made of cabernet franc, organic and likely biodynamic. i enjoyed the first bottle in chicago, and the next with my friends christina, anne, and putnam, whose eloquent retelling of the evening can be found here.

first post

this is the first in what will hopefully be many. i've waffled too long trying to decide what to blog about; it was never a lack of things to say, but rather trying to narrow down my interests into a cohesive, structured voice that could find an audience. i've given up on that. my new plan is just to write about whatever i'm thinking about that day and hope that a natural rhythm will develop. i could never narrow down the variety of topics i like because i feel that they are all related and interconnected. i feel that anything i say will be better understood and appreciated in a larger context, since all i really have to offer is my views and the relationships i see between things. i'm not an expert on anything, and little of what i will say could be considered original, but i hope it gains a greater meaning to my readers as they piece together what i'm about and what i want to do.

i'm going to be filling in the profile area soon, and it will likely be updated regularly to reflect my interests. i'd suggest reading it to see my posts in context, as i'm unsure how much of it will make sense without knowing a little about me. potential topics for future posts: food, wine, beer, grassroots politics, literature, detroit, gardening, music, and i'm sure a whole host of other things when they come to mind. i also would rather post too frequently than too rarely, and i hope that having such a varied group of topics doesn't turn away readers. if i had a good amount of original things to say about one thing, like food or wine, than i would make a topical blog. alas, i do not, so i'll let it naturally drift onto whatever i'm thinking about while still making it engaging and enjoyable to read.

please comment liberally. if somebody is interested in becoming a contributor to this blog, please let me know.