In Vinum Est Veritas

My brother Ardo invited me to attend a Wine Dinner on Friday night at the Faculty Club where he works. It was to be accompanied by a talk from Rex Pickett, the guy who wrote 'Sideways'. Did you see the movie 'Sideways'? The evening was billed as "Merlot Fights Back!" because in the movie Merlot is seriously trashed. This led us all to believe that perhaps Mr. Pickett was going to speak on the virtues of Merlot and since each course was to be accompanied by a different Merlot we thought that he'd describe each Merlot served as we ate. Boy were we wrong!

I went to this event with my lovely sister-in-law, Kay Marie. The food was really great and by the time dessert was served everyone was quite happy, including our speaker, who by the way did not speak to us during the dinner.

The mistress of ceremonies stood to introduce him and started her introduction by saying "Our guest speaker has asked if we could get this over with..." not a statement that portends an excellent speech.

Then Mr. Pickett stood to speak, a relatively good looking man probably in his mid 50's. His first statement was that he had awakened at 3 a.m. having a panic attack and had decided at that point that he was not going to attend the dinner.

That was enough to make the rest of us wish we hadn't. The rest of the speech can only be described as a total and complete train wreck. The man was drunk and unprepared, he rambled and swore and most of his comments centered around 'getting laid'. It was sad and I'd like to think that if the man saw himself on tape later he'd be embarrassed, but I think somehow that he's way beyond that.

Senior faculty members began to leave discreetly at first and then later, in not so discreet groups.We began plotting our own escape. It seemed that every once in a while he'd say something semi lucid and people would clap, these would seem to have been good opportunities for him to sit down and stop talking, but he didn't, he just rambled on. Finally, after our escape through the kitchen had been planned out, he stopped talking and sat down, there were applause at this though I'm not sure if they were in gratitude that he finally shut up or if there were those out there who truly enjoyed the 'speech'.

Thank goodness the food was great and the company even better.

P.S. to earlier post OR 'Oh and by the way...'

From the inside back cover photo of the Joe Hill book, let me say that that boy inherited the best features from his parents, because where he definitely resembles his father, he is far far better looking. So judging a book by its cover (literally) this one's a winner!

Reading List?

So, Stephen King's sons are writing books. Or is it Stephen King's son? There's a book out "We're All In This Together" (in 2005) by Owen King, some short stories, and on February 13th, 2006, a brand new book out by Joe Hill. Is 'Joe Hill' Owen's pen name or another of Mr. King's boys? Does anyone know? Has anyone read the short stories of Owen King?

I'm going to get 'The Heart Shaped Box' by Joe Hill and see if writing talent is in the genes.

Let me know what you know of these boys and I'll let you know about the book.

That is all.

Starving

"Hmmm, peas, corn, beans, water,....where are the Cheerios? I know I've seen her put them in here somewhere."

What's in a name?

Well, as you can see there's a new look to the old Blog. Blogger changed some formatting stuff and it was giving me a hell of a time with some of my add-ins. Soo... a new look, not exactly what I would have wanted, but the blogger pool of templates is shallow indeed. So, if I use one of their templates, it makes life easier if not prettier.

Anyway, obviously the name of the blog should change, but I don't know what to change it to. Any ideas?

A couple of birthday photos for you. Aidy discovered that he liked birthday cake. Not having had that much sugar before in his life, it made quite an impact. So as mom stood by with wet wipes at the ready, Aidy enjoyed his cake. If you know me at all you know that watching this was just killing me.





The mess got worse...





Clean up was really fun, and yes I did manage to get the red frosting out of his shirt and out of his nose.

Ta for now.

That's a first!

Aidric received his first haircut the day before his first birthday. It was time, he was getting a bit shaggy, but when it was all over it was like he was a new boy. He wasn't a baby anymore; he was a boy. Take a look.

Monosyllabic

There's something to be said for the monosyllabic answer......

Oh, not by me, I was just trying to use the word 'monosyllabic' in a sentence and marvel that it takes a five syllable word to describe a one syllable word....

That is all....