Kenneth rambling about food, movies, wine, coffee, sports, travel or whatever else he thinks of

I saw this Vinography post called “Why Does American Rosé Suck?” and found it interesting. (Even if you don’t read that post, look at this excerpt- these two pics )

I had recently picked up some rosé but hadn’t had any yet because of the weather. I thought that if things turned around and it warmed up, I’d try some.

Well, the sun came out finally today. It’s been cold and foggy all week – but today’s been nice. So I took out a domestic and imported rosé to try.

I’ll come back and edit this post with some notes, but for now, here’s a quick pic of my own:

quick pic of an imported and domestic rosé

The domestic one is on the right, which is the “correct” color that Vinography prefers.

Notes soon.

Oh, btw, that Undone Pinot Noir on the right in my picture isn’t good. I only picked it up to try recently. I can’t recommend it at all.

In that post about instapaper, ebooks and kindles I mentioned Calibre. So here’s the follow-up.

In a nutshell I use Calibre to move ebooks, pdfs and newspapers to my Kindle. It’s like a non-fancy version of iTunes you tell it where your books are and you can sync your stuff with your e-reader.

So you may ask, why would you do that if the Kindle has built-in wireless and you can get your books by buying them online? Because I already had a bunch of ebooks. I didn’t have a ton of them, but enough to keep me reading for a while. So how does Calibre help me with this?

Here’s how I use the program:

[Read more →]

I got back from my work trip to SoCal last night and was feeling tired and lazy. I was only thinking of sleeping in and taking the bus to work. As I got off the plane and walked through the gate at Oakland airport I noticed this they had a bike display up:

and

The one under the blue bike was supposed to be ‘old’ and the one under the bike w/ wood (looking) rims was actually very old (and had a motor).

I like the flask on one of the bikes, but isn’t the whole point of having a hip flask to have the flask hidden in the hip pocket? Or is it a “hip” flask as in “I’m a hipster, look at me! I can’t afford my own fifth of bourbon?”

I’m slowly getting into a rhythm at work so I should be posting more regulary. Long boring story- I don’t blog from work, but I do update some draft notes occasionally and then review them from home and then publish a post. (It’s obvious I barely edit the drafts or correct them)

One of my older notes was to post about my Kindle. That post is long overdue but on it’s way.

But before I write about that I wanted to write about two applications I use in conjunction with the Kindle. One of them is Calibre (I’ll have a post about that later too) and the other is Instapaper.

You don’t actually need a Kindle to use Instapaper so keep reading because you may wind up using it.

Instapaper is basically a free website that will store webpages or articles for you and you can read them later.

In a nutshell you sign up for a free account and then drag a little bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar. So basically you’ll have a “Read Later” button in your browser.

So if I’m reading something on SFGate.com or Slate but I need to run off to a meeting, or if someone walks over and interrupts me, I can click “read later”.  And indeed later I can log in to instapaper.com and read the article or even better- use the iPhone app to read my articles on my bus ride home if I didn’t ride my bike. Instapaper also works with the iPad and obviously my Kindle (although with the Kindle or Sony Readers there’s a bit of tweaking or emailing you have to do).

So even if you don’t have an e-reader, definitely check out the site and the associated apps.

I got a new TV a while back (finally, most of you say) and I added a PS3 to the lineup too to have a blu ray player as well. I switched my Netflix queue over to blu ray and got some flix in.

One of the first ones I watched was It Might Get Loud, a documentary about three guitar players- Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.

Part of the movie made me mad that I don’t practice my guitar for three hours every day. Part of the movie made me wonder if this documentary came out of another project because parts of it seemed disjointed. When bits of Jimmy’s history and later The Edge’s, you really appreciate the times and adventures they went through. But for me, Jack White seemed out of place at times. Mostly because he’s so now (and I maybe unfairly discount growing up a poor white kid in Detroit post-White Flight  to the suburbs).

I’m not knocking the guy as a musician, but as a subject next to the other two he seemed out of place in the way that he hasn’t done as much as the other two. He does have the same love of music history and making music though. Maybe it’s because I can only think of about 10 songs he’s written where as the word “catalog” comes up when I think of The Edge and “encyclopedia” of what Page has played/written/been a part of.

I did see some interesting comments on line that differ from what I think- other people think The Edge is out of place in the three because he spends a lot of time in the movie talking about his effects set up. I get that, but think JW’s the one out of place. Maybe he comes off as too cocky and that’s what the turnoff is for me (I am after all a h8r as we’ve all decided). But I think it’s mostly cockiness and a lack of gravitas when he speaks.

Has anyone else seen this flick? What’d you think?

I do love the blu-ray though.

I’ve been busy with some life changes (I switched gigs – more on that later) so here is some miscellanea to tie you over until I have more time (and network access) to add some fuller posts.

-Yesterday I saw a Volvo station wagon and a Prius get in a fender bender. I was sad that I wasn’t in a good position to get a pic. For some reason, it really amused me.

-Today I was riding to work and, like in this last post, there was a shuttle bus blocking not only the bike lane, but the next lane too. A tough guy riding by smacked the shuttle bus with his hand and made a big noise. If he were a car bumper-sticker he’d be “No Fear“. Dork.

wow

-I noticed that some Spanish stations were added to the Comcast HD lineup.

I found a telenovela called Las Muñecas de la Mafia by chance one night. It could be the greatest show ever. Even if you don’t speak Spanish.

Check out this Wikipedia entry (before it gets changed).

Apparently it’s about a married drug dealer guy who goes out with younger women. It focuses on the younger women.

-In other news, last week I went to a restaurant that my parents have been too a number of times out here when they’ve visited. It’s called Brenda’s French Soul Food. And you know what? It’s damn good.

It’s tiny and there will be a wait, so get there early, put your name on the list and wait your turn — and then pig out on grits, biscuits and other stuff. It’s worth it.

-One of the other things I did last week was to stock up on Macarons at La Boulange on Pine (and Fillmore). Good lord those are good. Just a thought – Macarons vs Cupcakes- who wins?

-I was also reminded about how pleasant Trader Joe’s (and other stores) are during the working day when most people are at work. I also found that they have peonies the size of my head there.

-I also found out that peonies sounds a lot like panties when the cute cashier with a tongue piercing speaks to you.

-I’ve had a draft of a rant about The Tonga Room on my computer for a while but I haven’t had a chance to finish it. There’s been a lot of talk about “saving” (preserving) it if the hotel changes owners. I’m on the side of getting rid of it. In a nutshell, I think it’s run poorly by the hotel and the only way to save it is to let non-hotel workers run it.

-Oh, and a reminder: I’m a hater. I drink the haterade. (as if you didn’t know)

Dang- Mission Mission has a post up already about cars in the freshly-painted bike lanes on Market.

I was going to take a pic this morning of what they posted here (full post here).

They had already put up the posts that separate the lane, but a lot of people just take the full lane anyway.

Why would they do that there? Well in front of those two hotels on 8th & Market tour and shuttle buses park there in the mornings. The drivers can see those posts so they back up until they’re blocking the end of the lanes.

So the SFBC is proud of the fact that they have some new green lanes painted and they have been happy to post pics of the new green lanes. But I expect more pics like the ones MM posted:

pic on Mission Mission of car parked in bike lane

I saw Ebert tweet this link last night about how they filmed that sequence in the soccer stadium in El Secreto de sus Ojos. Pretty interesting. The link has the full scene- so technically I should say “spoiler alert” but I doubt a lot of you will be bothered by it.

CG Society – El Secreto de sus Ojos

image from cg society site

I went to see The Secret in their Eyes last week. I really enjoyed it and recommend it. Just a warning though- it’s in Spanish and it’s subtitled- I know a lot of you don’t like that ;)

It stars Ricardo Darin who you’ll recognized from El Aura and Nueve Reinas. It’s about a prosecutor who’s retiring and he’s trying to write a semi-autobiographical novel about a case he and his office didn’t close out well 25 years ago. The movie flips back and forth from the past to present and how that case affected the main characters lives back then and to the present day.

Go check it out if it’s in your city.

As an aside, it’s odd that the two last movies that I’ve seen involve rape, crime, and abuse themes and examinations of lives in the past. An odd trend.

Wait, I’m confused…. I just want to fit in and I thought I had the schedule memorized…

I thought FRIDAYS were “wear the helmet on the back of your head like a yarmulke” and MONDAYS were “take a helmet and just strap it to the bars”.

I’m doing it wrong….

*disclaimer, I’m just being a smart ass about helmets- if you don’t want to wear one don’t -that’s up to you- but if you take one out at least wear it correctly