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I Love Wine

My ex-coworker loves wine and loves himself

Hello, my name is Daniel and I love wine. If you do not believe me, just ask people who I serve wine to and they will tell you that I love it and know a lot about it.

I used to work with Dave at a restaurant that served wine. Wine involves smashing grapes and putting their juices in a bottle. There are many reasons that wine should replace other interesting things. You can talk about wine. You can smell wine. You can claim the wine is corked and dump it down the drain to show the manager that you are knowledgeable about wine and do not care about profits. You can come to my restaurant and I will use words like oaky, jammy and tannins and then you will think I'm smart and trust me to recommend a glass of wine for you that is way overpriced.

Here are some rules to follow about wine if you are not as great as me and don't know about wine:

1.  Ask to have the wine poured into a giant glass container that looks like a goldfish bowl so the wine can breathe, like a goldfish.

2.  Sniff the wine like you're a cocaine whore who is not only addicted to cocaine, but who also wants cocaine all the time.

3.  Throw out arbitrary fruits and spices that you think the wine smells like and I will do the same because there is no wrong answer. You might detect hints of blackberry, wood and leather. I might notice small traces of vomit, stool samples and unwashed feet. We are both right because we are not wrong.

4.  Swirl the wine around the glass and see if it makes the glass dirty. This is called the "legs" and it is called that because it is a sexy thing to do.

5. Taste the wine and make a disgusting gurgling sound through your teeth before swallowing it.

6.  Do some other stuff with wine that makes no sense.

If you don't like wine, it's ok.  Wine is for sophisticated people like me. And winos.  If you are not a wino or a sophisticator, you can still come to my restaurant and listen to me talk about wine and watch other people sniff and drink wine. Be sure to reserve a large window of time because it takes four hours to drink wine. Three of those hours involves swirling the wine and telling amazing wine stories about other times you tasted wine.

I do not like Dave very much because he makes fun of me for talking about wine.  Dave needs to be kinder to me if he wants to be invited to my bunco games where we drink wine and talk about wine and sometimes roll dice in which the winner wins a bottle of wine.

If anyone knows who invented wine, please give me their name and address so I can send a letter of appreciation and a request of a photo of him or her so that I can make it into a poster and pin it on my bedroom ceiling. My letter would look like this:

Dear Inventor of Wine:

Thank you for inventing wine. It tastes and smells like wine. Please send me a photo of you so I can make it into a poster and pin it on my bedroom ceiling.

Sincerely,

Daniel, Wine Demigod and Master of the Universe

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nick mastick April 28, 2013 at 09:34 pm
Of all the concerns in our society, I put this just about dead last.
Steven Murphy April 17, 2013 at 02:25 am
Hmm. So I think you're telling me I need to add the countdown timers to the long list of BerkeleyRead More idiosyncrasies I need to ignore? I guess can do that. Thanks. --Murph
Alexander Sinclair Merenkov April 15, 2013 at 04:34 pm
This is very interesting. I bicycle and walk a lot around Berkeley. I think i know exactly whatRead More signal is being referred to the walk sign across Bancroft at MLK specifically will reset itself. many of the walk signals rely on induction loops which are loops placed in the ground that can detect Bicycles and Cars when the Bicycles or cars pass over them disrupting the current. You can often see these loops as they look like hexagonal saw cuts in the ground. Anyways the intersection detects traffic with these devices & if it doesn't detect anything then it assumes nothing is there and gives right of way to the major throughway in this case being MLK. So the reason the counter to cross Bancroft resets itself is totally logical because the intersection suspects no one is there and since that side of Bancroft is more or less residential there would be no point in setting that intersection to a timer where it gives priority to one light then the other & switches based on that & not on wether it detects any bicycles or cars passing over the induction loops. Also this is Berkeley and we are rather quirky and always have been so nobody exactly fallows the rules or knows about them its funny how simple crossing the street really is but its anything but simple in reality. Many people choose to jay walk if its safe to do so, this is typical on Shattuck at alston especially and makes sense for efficiency but isn't very safe or lawful. If the hand is flashing/Counting down dont cross!
Janet Scrivener April 6, 2013 at 11:15 pm
Actually, I just saw and spoke to him about an hour ago - the wire sculpture man. He'd moved downRead More Solano a few blocks, opposite Safeway. I asked him if the police had moved him off Colusa. He said he didn't want to talk about it. He wasn't in a very good mood. I told him that people had asked about him on a web local news site. He said, "People want to know how I'm doing? I need a car. I need somewhere to put my stuff in. To get off the streets. I don't want to sit around starving in public." I thought to myself, "Who do I think I am? A Girl Scout leader? Pollyana?" I realized my upbeat, cheery tone was really not what was needed just then. I said I couldn't help him with a car. "People want to know how I'm doing?" he said again. "Tell them that." I said, "I will." I turned to walk away, knowing only too well that the real needs that exist, yes, right here in our lovely, excellent neighborhood, are great and once you start giving you'll find it's difficult to get out of. He did say, "Thank you," as I left. He doesn't look like he's starving. But he's right about being out in public more than he would like to be. As a reasonable human being, I have to ask myself, what sort of person finds himself in that position? Ex con? Mental illness? Mind-blown Vet? Drugs? Alcohol? Incapacitated by an accident? An unforgivable act? Some combination of the above? Jesus did say, "The poor you shall have always with you." What would you do?
P. Park April 4, 2013 at 03:29 am
I agree Shattuck, especially right in front of the fire station is the scariest street around.
Mary April 3, 2013 at 06:45 pm
I am not disabled, but I am terrified of crossing streets nowadays because there are too manyRead More careless and aggressive drivers who act is if red lights, speed limits, and crosswalks either don't exist or don't apply to them. Shattuck in particular has become a nightmare to cross. Sometimes I have counted over 30 cars going by before one stops for the crosswalk. What we need is far more law enforcement - the tickets written would more than pay for the cost of hiring extra officers.