Live in Denver and like wine? - this is your place!

The International Wine Guild.  Colleen and I discovered this place about six months ago. On the Metro campus at Auraria, they have everything from single evening layperson courses on discovering wine 101, single week certification and home cellar master courses, to a full blown Sommelier program. We went to their into to wine class a while ago and really learned a lot. Only $50 and you get to tase a bunch of different wines from both the old and new world. (See - I can even use the vernacular)  - Very Cool. Here is the Syllabus.

If you are in town and are not doing anything on Friday night March 11th - come join us for Wine 102 - This class covers the other half, taste Sparkling (including Champagne), Fortified and Late Harvest Wines.

Countdown to Hawaii!

MySpace-Countdown-Clocks

OK - I'm addicted. Got $3 and a bunch of time to kill - you can be too!

Ever since I started playing games on the computer I seem to be attracted to the same two or three general genres of games. My favorite by far are adventure games. These are usually quests to get puzzles and riddles solved along a similar storyline. Myst was the first in this category to addict me (...ok, maybe Zork, but that doesn't really count as a modern day game as it was text based and from the 80's). Myst has a couple of sequels that were also pretty good, including Riven and finally Uru my favorite of the series.  Rich, deep and filled with incredible graphics - sometimes I had to force myself to get up to go pee.

The other category I seem to like are what I call mindless brain candy. These are the flashy, graphic puzzles, with cool sound effects. Games like Alchemy or Bejeweled. They only take 30 seconds to learn, and you can start and stop them anytime you have 5 minutes to kill. They do not require the kind of investment in intellectual capital as the first category. Just click away and get your daily dose of achievement.

The last category is relitively new to me. Oficially titled 'hidden object' games, they appear to be a throwback to that old Highlights magazine you used to love from your doctors office growing up. Esentially you are presented with a large graphically intense picture and have to find objects within it. Can you find the spyder, Coke bottle and gold fish in this photo? Sort of a take on where's Waldo. A good example is Letters from Nowhere.

So imagine my suprise when I found Phantasmat. It is sort of a hybrid of all three, mashed together. An adventure game about a poor sole that crashes their car into the woods and stumbles across a creepy old hotel to try and get help. You use a combination of puzzle solving, and inginuity to work through the mistery, which also has a good sprinkling of hidden object and brain candy games throughout.

Needless to say I'm seriously addicted. Available for both PC and Mac and the best (or possibly worst part) is that you get to play for free for the first hour - enough to hook you before they drag $3 out of you  

... Dont say I didn't warn you!

Why social games are so damn addictive (and why I'm not playing anymore!)

You have all seen them on Facebook and in your email. Invitations to join someone to beat down the thugs in Mafia Wars or to help then harvest their strawberries. I played Farmville for a short period and quickly realized that you can get your farm going faster if you enlist your friends to join. You fertilize my cotton, I'll feed your pigs.  Its the Huckleberry Finn approach to game playing.

The only problem is I began to feel guilty. One of my friends would fertilize my little patch of soil, and I would feel obligated to return the favor. If I didn't, I actually found myself thinking "oh my god, I forgot to log in and feed their chickens!" Its not like someone asked you to feed their dog when they were away and traveling. If you forget, there are real consequences there - but these damn games feed on those same guilts and feelings of social obligation.

Well, let it now be know. ....I will not harvest your grain, sprinkle manure on your pumpkins or feed your goats. (nor do I expect you to assist me in the same).  I will sleep better at night....

If you need me, I'll be over here playing Tetris.

Yes, I am a drink snob and like old people bars.

Colleen and I went out for happy hour last night and we were discussing where we should go. It was a Friday night, our daughter was working, so we had no obligations to make dinner or be anyplace in particular. The world was our oyster and we had our choice of many places around to go.

On our recent trip to Nashville, we went to several bars, and honky-tonks, listened to some great music and enjoyed a few adult beverages. Each of these establishments had one thing in common, however, beer in a plastic cup. When I went to order Colleen a martini, it came in various forms, neat glass, rocks glass, even a wine glass, but never a martini glass.

Last week we went to go see Cirque de soleil and stopped first at a little pizza joint on the block adjacent to the event center. It had a college town vibe to it and the food looked good on peoples tables when we walked in. We had a very good Cesar salad and white pizza, but the red wine was served in a rocks glass. Although the food was good and the service was good, the experience was somehow lessened by having to drink wine from a rocks glass.

Maybe its my restaurant upbringing, maybe it is the fact that I'm older. Do 20 somethings even care that their beer is in a plastic cup? Football games, ok - I get that. Did I care when I was 20 something?

We ended up at  great place near our house called the Perfect Landing. It is a little restaurant and bar at Centennial Airport overlooking the tarmac. Why, because they serve a great martini - in the correct stemware. The mean age of the clientele is probably in their 50's. There is not loud thumping music, but rather soft jazz and and active piano bar.

It's official. I have turned into my father.

The top ten worst boyfriends

I usually don't repost youtube video's but this one made me chuckle. It ranges from the pretty funny (baby powder) to the down right cruel (eyebrow).  Warning NSFW (Language).

Old Man Winter - you've worn out your welcome

I like to think of myself as a relatively hardy Colorado boy. I was born here, raised here and choose to continue to live here for a reason. I like having all four seasons.

The older I get, however, the more I feel that the snow that creates picturesque Colorado is really just a pain in the butt.  I don't ski anymore - my knees don't take it. The days of making snowmen, snow angels and getting into snowball fights are long gone. I actually used to like to go out and snow blow the driveway after a big storm. Today I would much rather be sipping a Corona on the beach. Maybe that's why all the snow birds go south to Florida.

Actually, its not the snow that is the big culprit - come to think of it, I really don't mind getting a few inches now and then. It's the cold I can definitely do without. My tolerance for being outside in zero degree weather is now non-existent. This last week has just proven that. 30 degrees - ok, 15 - I can deal with it but minus 7 for 3 days in a row?  If I wanted to live in Fargo, I'd be there.

Punxsutawney Phil and Life Savers

Another one of my fascinations is the origin of phrases - or things.  For example, do you know that life savers were originally a medicine produced to give to diabetics who were having a hypoglycemic event? The 'pill' was produced with a hole in the center so that if you accidentally aspirated it, you could maintain a patent airway... Being only sugar, it became popular and eventually was mass produced as a candy.

I'm not sure why that random fact from my past popped into my brain today.  Today is Groundhog day. This is another mystery to me. if he sees his shadow, we will have six more weeks of winter.  If he doesn't have see his shadow, spring will come in six weeks! - does this make sense? Seems like a literal incarnation of the idiom 'six on one, half dozen in the other" Did the Groundhog day tradition spawn this phrase?

I don't know why these things fascinate me or why my mind wonders to strange pieces of knowledge that have little to do with one another, but it does.  - That is all.