Mall of Me

Lincoln Street Wine Market

Lincoln Street Wine Market
111 S Lincoln St
Fredericksburg, TX 78624
www.lincolnst.com

Quickies: wine selection (4/5); cigar selection (2/5); cigar prices (3/5); setting (5/5); service (3/5); food (5/5); food prices (4/5).

Lincoln Street is THE place to get a cigar in Fredericksberg. There are other places to get wine, but the selection, prices and setting to enjoy it cannot beat this beautiful piece of luxury. The cheeses and other appetizers are incredible. We ordered the pesto and a cheese, costing three of us $4 a person. We felt we'd gotten a bargain.

There are imported (and domestic) beers for those who don't have a taste for wine. Their cigars were a bit lacking, but they had enough strong selections at an acceptable price. In other words, we didn't feel we'd been robbed at cork-point for the stogies we took out to the veranda with us.

Above all this, I need to say again that the setting is simply striking. The inside is luxurious and feels immediately inviting. The veranda is an even more beautiful setting, where vines climb up walls, across the hatched wood ceiling and down the fireplace. Anyone stopping into Fredericksberg for even only a few hours should be sure to check out Lincoln Street Wine Market.

...rate my review here on Yelp

Pearls Before Swine

Pearls Before Swine
by Stephan Pastis

URL: http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/

Pearls has a larger cast of characters than many comics, but each one is so well defined that it is easy to remember and recognize them. Pig and Rat are the main players, Pig being the optimist who loves everybody... but is a little dim... then Rat, who is the pessimist and wakes up every day to remind everyone that it's all about to end. Other than the two main players, the crowd favorites have actually turned out to be the crocodiles. No, seriously, check it:

...from "Da Crockydile Book o' Frendsheep"

In the end, Pearls is an off-and-on read. It is "on" twice as often as it's not. When it is "on", it has moments of painful laughter that are not easily topped in the modern world of comic strips.

Pearls Before Swine Books:
* Da Crockydile Book o' Frendsheep
* Macho Macho Animals
* Da Brudderhood of Zeeba Zeeba Eata
* The Ratvolution Will Not Be Televised
* Nighthogs (the original best seller!)
* This Little Piggy Stayed Home
* The Saturday Evening Pearls

YouTube FAIL, Google Next?

Today (on Thursday, December 18th of 2008), at 2pm PST, YouTube pulled the plug on their #1 Channel--FAIL Blog. FAIL Blog put out a call for assistance in the matter, which had not been communicated in full to them, and they were brought back online. The original story is here:

http://failblog.org/2008/12/18/youtube-fail/

What does this mean for the rest of us? I am far from alone in how often I use YouTube for posting media content and sharing video. If YouTube's #1 Channel can be brought down, and without warning or explanation for why it is being done, then this can happen to anyone and everyone. Also, for the majority of us who are not major channels, the likeliness that our account would be re-instated is not very probable.

Sadly, a trust has been broken. I'll still use YouTube, but always now with another eye on what other service may be a better option. Worse, this is one of many Google-owned companies. Blogger is another. This reflects on each of those in no good way. It is such a big "error"--if indeed it was--that I'm concerned that a policy change, a change towards "backing off from any risk at all", may be implemented. Most major companies do it. Google, up until now, has been an exception to this approach. I'm not even sure now what could change that trust.

I love Google. I hope this event was simple an Epic FAIL on the part of YouTube, and one that will never be repeated. I don't believe that... but I want to believe it. It is a sad day nonetheless. Yet, nonetheless, I think I'll post a YouTube video after this post to help remind myself how much I really like the service.

Piracy, 4 Fun 'n Profit

US Vice Admiral William Gortney, commander of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, said: "There is no reason not to be a pirate."

That's right. Now's the time to turn pirate! Seriously. Most targeted ships don't carry weapons. Also, even if caught, there is almost no way to bring a pirate to court due to international treatises. Corporations cannot even fire on a vessel or its people until the pirates have physically boarded their ship, or have connected the two ships in an attempt to board. If they do, they can be taken to court... and will lose. Ah, the lovely world of legalized (tamed) justice. That's right pirates.. . the law's on your side.

It's also fairly cheap, at least when compared to the investments it may take to get into other criminal careers. The ratio of potential gains to start-up costs is possibly the highest return-rate in all the black market. Don't forget the fact that you get to wear a sword. Gotta love international waters.

If you think I'm joking, think again. Here's a good place to start:
The business case for high-seas piracy

If you're thinking about turning pirate, here's where to find other like-minded parties:
Live Piracy Map

I'm free for some high-seas piracy in March of 2013. Anyone pirates who read this and have had any success, please contact me around that time. I have no morals and I'm a quick learner. I have many references, a few of which are still alive. Have your peeps write my peeps. Nos vemos.

Socrates

Socrates, quotes

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

Note: It is unknown whether Socrates was real, or simply an imaginary tool used in transmitting early philosophies. If real, then it is unknown just how real the image we have of Socrates is, or how far distorted from the source it has become. The image taken is from a bust of Socrates in the Louvre, edited by myself. The quotes are verified translations from surviving works attributed to the name Socrates.

Avarice

Title: Avarice
Artist: Peter Walkley
Museum: MONA (Museum of Nebraska Art)

In July of 2000, I found myself hitching thru Kearney, Nebraska. Most of the Midwest doesn't take too kindly to hikers. In Kearney, I found the opposite. I had a place to stay and a ride to the next town when I needed it. Despite the welcome, Kearney just didn't have much attraction to stay. They have an arch--that huge brown thing they've got drooped over I-80. Most truckers and travelers have driven under it and likely wondered what the heck it was. It's an arch. That's all it is. You can go inside it. Nice thing is, it's free... or was when I was there in 2k.

There's one other attraction--MONA. The Museum of Nebraska Art was free as well. They had me keep my backpack at the front, which was a relief and a fifty-pound weight off of my back. The collection of art was worth spending a lot of time taking in. My absolute favorite piece is shown above. The cat, perched on the very edge of the mantle piece, looks up at the bird cage that hangs from the ceiling... just out of reach. The angle helps accentuate the drop to the floor, which is what really stands in between the cat and the cage.

The painter, Peter Walkley, works for the Omaha World Herald in marketing. He inserts trace elements of surrealism into his paintings, adding a subtlety that particularly catches my own eye.

It is in thanks to Lexie, a photographer out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that I have access to this painting again. Her mad Google skills, along with my description, was enough for her to locate the painting online.

Commercials: High Fructose Corn Syrup

Commentary: If the industry has turned to advertising, that means they have felt some serious hits to their wallets. Multiple studies link HFCS to obesity, insulin resistance and, most recently, liver damage. An oft quoted source being the studies made by Sharon Elliott, Nancy Keim, Judith Stern, Karen Teff and Peter J Havel. The fact that they use a genetically modified enzyme during processing, let alone the amount of processing itself, removes the "no artificial ingredients" part of their claim.

The fact is that HFCS is cheap. It's Cheaper due to government subsidies for the corn industry, as well as economic tariffs on cane sugar. This has made the industry the booming mega-sector in the market that it is... hopefully, we'll see the day when they are a niche market.

The ads are reminiscent to the "Got Milk" campaign from the early '90s forward. These commercials lack the "stickiness" of that campaign, however. Also, they've launched the campaign too late, when Americans are already switching to organic markets. Americans are already too keen on the effects of HFCS. However, with milk, they launched the campaign before the information age could reach people. Most people remain unaware of the bone erosion and brittleness caused by the animal protein acids in milk, let alone the increased vulnerability to Parkinson's Disease and Prostate Cancer.

Cutting cheese out of my diet may never happen... but going back to high fructose corn syrup will never happen.