My Praving has Reached Fatherly Levels

I haven't talked about the praving because there really hasn't been any of note lately. I didn't encounter anything terribly interesting so I it has kinda stayed put. But then the issue of Spanish mops came in to the picture.

You see, Spanish mops are a good deal better at mopping than your standard American mop, especially the sponge mop, which is derided and ridiculed to no end by Spaniards touting the Iberian Mop Agenda. The only issue is that while it's easy to toss a mop head or two in the suitcase when returning from a Spanish trip, it isn't so easy to get them mounted on a stick in the US for use and sticks are too big to bring back from Spain. The threads are all out of whack because of this thing we keep refusing to use called the Metric System. So, giving up rather easy, the mops sat, sad and unused for endless months.

On the most recent Spanish trip for the holidays, I learned that the threads on the mop heads were somewhat ignored when it came to getting a particular head on a particular stick. Naturally, folks turned to the almighty prav, or as it is known in Spain, the chapuza. In this case, my mother in law showed me that it's just a matter of keeping the hard plastic in a pot of boiling water long enough to get the plastic pliable and then force it on the stick.

This seemed simple enough and was one of the more elegant pravs I've seen, but in getting back home, I quickly found that it didn't work. The stick was really too big to fit the head no matter how much time the head spent in a pot of boiling water. This required more desperate measures.

Digging deep in to the praving that courses through my veins and summoning up all pravosity, I came up with the idea that the plastic just needed to stretch more, which meant fire. Seeing as how I had recycled the stick from the previous sponge mop, I took advantage of the fact it was made out of metal and decided to heat it up in the flame from the gas burners on the stove. This only met with mild success as the mop head didn't melt fast enough to allow the stick to attach before cooling to the point where it wouldn't melt anymore. To get around this issue, I tool the bread knife and sliced down the horizontal axis of the plastic on the mop head. Then I heated up the stick again and shoved it in. It stuck. All was well, the prav seemed to work.

And work it did for about two minutes until the plastic that had melted cracked around the stick. I was back to square one until I decided that heavier artillery was needed and I got out my drill and a wood chisel. I took the chisel and fully split the shaft on the mop head. Then I took the drill and made a hole through the mop head that matched up with holes on the metal stick. When I put it together, it all lined up and I tried to use the pin that was left over from my sponge mop salvage. That worked for a minute, but the pin kept falling out. In typical praving fashion, I would have turned to bailing wire at this point, but I didn't have any around. I used the second best thing in this case, which was to cut up an old clothes hanger, thread it through the hole on the stick and then give it a good twist to secure it. Did it work? Oh yeah, you betcha!

From this, I have learned two things. One is that the leaps and bounds in to which I'm becoming my father are terrifying. Secondly, I think I should probably start giving my "emergency contacts" a head's up anytime I work on new pravs.

30 01 2009      2 comments

Tags: praving, spain

Whoops Goes the Social Media Expert

The "Social Media Expert" is a term that I've gotten to hate. It appears it rubbed Scoble's belly the wrong way as well. Whatever the case, these people are around and they advise groups to do things like start a Facebook account, when they don't really get that they should be starting a Facebook page.

Such was the case with Kiva who actually started up an account instead of using one of their personal (or company) accounts to start a page for people to be fans of. The result is that Kiva has finally become "single". This viewable status change (you can make these types of changes without anyone seeing it if you know how) was not lost on the folks who saw it, which I've included below.

27 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: hubris, internet, marketing

Sad Goodbyes, Polk-A-Dot. Good Riddance Circuit City.

I'm a big fan of local businesses. Sure, they may cost more than the big, national ones, but the service is usually always better, the profits stay local, and there is accountability in ownership. For this reason, I was sad to see that Polk-A-Dot (on Polk Street of course) closed. Also, for this reason, I was happy to see Circuit City completely close.

In regards to Circuit City, it was as joyous a moment as seeing Bush leave office, to see this horrid store shut down. Their customer service was always horrible. The "salespeople" were only friendly and helpful insofar as it drove their commissions. They were always harassing in their approach and unapologetic in their lack of knowledge about everything in the store. Above and beyond this, Circuit City had pretty bad prices. Sure, there were the loss leaders, but then there was everything else. I always rued the day that I had forgotten to order printer ink, needed to print something really bad, and had to go and buy from them, since printer ink had not commission. Overall, they're bad, which is the reason that they closed. Sure, they can try and blame the economy, but in reality, they were a poorly run operation that deserved to close; much like the American automakers, who were unfortunately bailed out again.

The glee of CC closing is short lived though as the economic factors that contributed to its demise are the same ones that are rending apart the neighborhoods in San Francisco. Honestly, it's quite scary to see space upon space go empty. Naturally, in the next six months a good number of these will fill in, but at the same time, this money shift is tearing things apart. Polk-A-Dot is one such victim. While it was more #1 Fan who bought the occasional thing there than me, I appreciate the shop. They carried unique items that weren't mass produced in China. They sold the work of local artists and most importantly, the shop was owned by folks who lived here and cared about the neighborhood they were in and what they did.

We'll have to just wait and see how all of this plays out. San Francisco in the coming years is going to be faced with tough challenges to stay unique. Large conglomerates are constantly wanting to come in and set up shop in the town. Thankfully this has been resisted to a large degree as I don't really give as damn about being able to shop at the same exact stores in whatever world city I'm in. But, a new generation is rising that doesn't care about such things as much. I watched Chico, CA go the way of the chain store. I only hope that I don't see the same thing happen with San Francisco.

Well, they're all cleared out and gone now with a sign that says, "Don't blame it on the economy, blame it on ourselves." which is a welcome thing to say as I'm getting really sick of everyone using these "tough times" as an excuse for everything from why there are no jobs to why it's a pain to wash the laundry.

24 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: better buying, economy, san francisco

Pepsi Knows no Shame

So picture a high-powered, super-coked up group of marketing wonks sitting around their incredibly huge conference table. Let's close in tight for a listen:

"Russ, we have got the ultimate in ultimate marketing paradigms. I mean, Sha. Bam!"

"Sheila, I like where this is going, tell me more!"

"Okay, picture this!"

"Uh huh!"

"Obama logos!"

"Love where this is going!"

"With Pepsi logos!"

"My god!"

"We know!"

"Brilliance!"

"You betcha!"

And so you end up with the corporate vomit that Bart has so kindly hung up all over their stations. I've never enjoyed drinking tea more.

23 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: greed, marketing

Freakin' Rosé

For a good long time, I looked and Rosé and thought, "What the hell is that?" Is it a white wine that's sexually confused or a weak red wine? Obviously, I knew what it was, but I just never really knew what the purpose of its slightly sweet, slightly clueless flavors were. It was to me what Merlot was to Miles. Then, while researching Vinologue a year and a half ago, I was kindly educated to the practical purposes of the wine.

As I quickly found, a meeting with Alen Bibich is not without a lot of food and wine. I tasted everything he had at a time when the legal drinking limit in Croatia was 0.00% (I heard it's recently been reformed to lovely 0.50%, but only for drivers over 24 as they can obviously still find their keys at a 0.50 much better than an 18 year old). Alen could see I had had a bit of it and so, for a final glass of wine he poured up a Rosé, which I was ready to promptly turn down, but he "coaxed" me to drink it by saying it was for "refreshment". Naturally, being a consummate winemaker, he was right, it was refreshing and as weird as it sounds, it gave me the boost I needed to get home.

Since then, I've been less afraid of Rosé. There is no way in hell I'd ever buy it though. I can appreciate subtleties in the very expensive variations on the type and that's where a good many people go wrong with it. They buy the cheap Rosé which is always invariably crap as the wine has far too much sugar because the grapes were forced to over-ripen just for the sake of picking and not for the sake of taste. This is wine that will kill you and not be the refreshing blast that I appreciate now.

If asked for my ideal wine lineup for an extensive evening dinner, I would have to say that it would depend a great deal on the foods served, but an overall plan would be:

- Bubbly: French ideally, Catalan Cava if not, and Californian lastly, otherwise skip it

- White: A minor glass of something to go along with the appetizers. Perhaps a White Garnatxa or a Verdejo.

- Red: Gimme the most of this. Serve me something deep with body. If it overshadows the food, that's not the end of the world as I'm probably starting to get drunk somewhere around here and only can taste the wine, so bring it on. Cab, Pinot, Garnatxa/Carignan.

- Rosé: Here it comes. Gotta have that pinky stuff to wash out everything else. You can see that by placing it here, I'm not appreciating the texture of the wine, but rather using it solely as a functionary wine. A grape mouthwash if you will.

- Sweet: Moscatell if at all possible. Garnatxa otherwise.

- Sherry: If still conscious a slightly dry fino to polish up the end of the meal.

- Bed: I'm not probably coherent at this point, or I'm trying to hit on a really sexy potted plant. Just roll me in to bed and make my excuses for me.

Anyways, that's my plan and how Rosé fits in. I'm still at a loss as to why they produce so much of it. Every wine shop always has endless dusty bottles of the pink that never seem to sell. Hell, when going to Auchan this last time, half of one wine aisle was just Rosé. Why? I mean, most of us aren't having six course meals that often, so it seems as if we're producing a wee bit much of it.

19 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: croatia, wine

We Want for Proper Washers

Remember back when Clinton outlawed top loading washing machines? Yeah, me too. I thought that was pretty cool. He got a lot of flack for it because at the time, front loaders were about $800, while you could pick up a top loader for $200. Of course, we all knew that the cost would come down once it was the case that we all bought top loading machines. The benefits were endless in that: the clean better, use less water, use less power, are smaller, and require fewer cleaning chemicals.

Whatever happened to this? Top loaders are still available and far outnumber the front loaders in appliance showrooms. Front loaders are still incredibly expensive and those that there are, are gigantic hunks of crap that take up as much space as a fridge. My apartment building replaced the old top loader machines in the middle of last year with brand spankin' new... top loader machines that clean just about as badly as the previous ones, except now with a digital display telling you the scant number of minutes until your clothes will finish being dampened, yet not fully cleaned. Woo. Hoo.

This has been a sore spot for me as I am only human in that I like my clothes to be clean when I wash them, but a 42 minute cycle in a top loader does nothing to wash the clothes. Admittedly, when you use your own machine (not the communal apartment one) and set it to an hour+ for the cycle, things get a bit better. But in reality, whatever clothes I want cleaned thoroughly, I take to Spain with me. After one or two washes, everything the US washing machines couldn't get out is gone. It's not like I sweat out pork fat or anything, well, actually, I might while in Spain, which again goes to show how much better the machines are in Europe.

Oh yeah, they're actually less than US machines. You can pick up a front loader for as little as €100. While that's going to be a brand like, 'Kumchushitshu', even the most expensive machines are only about €400. They do have top loaders as well, but they're just to save space and they're this genius system, where they still have the washing drum sideways, but with a hatch in the top where you toss everything in. I'm assuming that they do just as good a job as their larger counterparts, albeit with a smaller load.

I keep looking at these top loader versions and wonder if somehow I can take one on a future flight back to the US. Everyone in Spain has a washing machine in their apartment and I feel like I'm missing out because of this. Sure, the hookups would be a pain, seeing as how there are none in my place, but I'm still wondering if somehow I can take one of these back and enjoy the freshness of a properly washed shirt at home. Now that I think about it, I'm sure you can find some guy on the East Coast importing these directly from Europe. But why do I have to go through all that? Why, for being such a behemoth in the world economy do we not have such simple machines for us to use. Let me raise my fists to the sky and give another good, Why?!!!!!!!!

16 01 2009      3 comments

Tags: clothing, the europe, us america

A Cold, Wintry Revisit to La Vinyeta

It was just a bit over a year and a half ago that I first visited the new (at the time) winery of La Vinyeta. What a difference 20 months makes. For starters, they now have their website fully up and running which does a great job of showing the design aesthetic that goes in to the look of all things Vinyeta, which are created by the winemaker's brother. It was a bit hard to convey that in 2007 as the winery wasn't finished and they only had a couple of releases. The winery is indeed done now and open for visits most of the week, although they generally follow the sun, meaning that winter hours are shorter and summer hours, longer. Visiting in the winter probably isn't allowing this region of Catalonia to be all that it can be. Upon getting out of the car, it was like getting clocked by a sack of ice cubes as the Tramuntana wind ripped through every layer I had on, freezing me to the core until I got inside the winery.

But beyond all these superficial changes, there is the fact that the wines have matured and not just in aging; they're massively more complex and I would say demanding a great deal of respect now. While winemaker Josep Serra Pla is youngish at 31 and it would seem that he is steadying his hand with his craft, it's actually the material available that has changed the wines more than anything else. In my prior visit, he still wasn't harvesting from Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot vineyards. This means that the Heus Negre was good in 2007, but not outstanding. This has solidly changed. The addition of blending the grapes from his new vineyards has made this wine delectable. With a blending of 27% Syrah, 26% Merlot, 25% Samsó, and 22% Garnatxa, the Garnatxa is not as pronounced now and it's creating a more round wine with chocolate touches to it, as well as bold, unwavering depth to the body. The best part is that it's still high enough in tannins to be great with food and only 6€. If I ever live in the region, I think I know what my daily drinker is going to be.

But there are more wines to his lineup now and what's great is that they just build upon each other. The Llavors (pron. Lya-bors) takes off from the Heus and presents an even stronger wine, albeit still smooth. Comprised of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Samsó and 12% Merlot and 8% Garnatxa, it spends five months in an oak regimen of French, Hungarian, and Romanian barrels. It is firm in the mouth with touches of boysenberry and strawberry, yet it pulls back enough to still be had with foods.

The Puntiapart, with it's very clever boxes you can see here, is the boldest of all the reds that Josep is making. This blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Samsó, 23% Merlot makes for a strong wine, yet oddly enough, it's the smoothest of the lot. It goes through a grueling, slaving, absolutely treacherous 13 months of lying in the oak to reach the point where you get what you taste from the bottle; a delicately balanced wine with a great deal of substance to the body. It is at once both mineraly and tannic, but not harshly so. While I feel it would be best enjoyed on its own, it would pare with with a nice grilled lamb or pretty much any grilled meat with a lot of character that would pick up the notes of the wine. Chicken need not apply, although the Heus could get cozy with the bird.

Lastly of course, there is a sweet Garnatxa, because in Catalonia, you're just not officially a winery until you're producing a sweet wine, or so I think. The Sols is an equal blend of red and white Garnatxa from the 75 year old vines that Josep has. And while I'm usually always a Moscatell man when it comes to Catalan sweets, if you put up a bottle of Moscatell and a bottle of this Sols and made me choose just one, I would be very, very unhappy. It's a mighty fine sweet. It's aromatically nutty in the glass and has a pleasant, lingering sweetness, that sticks in the mouth after the swallow and slowly slips away as the perfect close to a meal.

Ah, let's not also forget that La Vinyeta is also putting out an olive oil, which is just as natural a progression for a winery as producing a sweet. It's all from locally grown olives in the Empordà area. Yes, it's aromatically fantastic and of course it tastes great. Toss in a little jamón with some pa amb tomàquet and you've really got yourself the quintessentially perfect Catalan meal.

15 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: catalonia, wine, wine reviews

Damn it's Cold up in this here Europe

As I'm making my way back via Paris today, I gotta say that this has been one of the coldest trips to Europe I've had. Obviously this is a no brainer given that it's the middle of winter. It just happens that this is one of the coldest winters here in a long time. Forget about the damned rain in the plain of Spain. Let's talk about snow. In all of Spain. And a lot of it. It's completely screwed the incredibly screwable Barajas Airport in Madrid. Basically, when a pigeon takes a poo on the auxiliary runway, they shut down to one runway there, so you can only imagine what it was like with snow. Bad news. It made the opening disaster of Heathrow's T5 last year look pleasant. Of course, I don't know how bad it really is as the Spanish media blows things a little out of proportion.

But then there was the fact that it snowed in Barcelona. This is the first time that's happened in 12 years. That makes it not quite the sunny holiday retreat so many people know it as. Of course, despite this, there were still scores of tourists as there always are in Barcelona. Still a great city despite that, although anywhere in snow can be tough to deal with. Note to self: Look in to sitting out the winters in Cape Town next time.

Probably the worst though was an abortive trip to Auchan in which the snow was dumping too much over the pass (all of a meager 200 meters) the we had to turn back. Still though, the overall trip hasn't been a waste. I experienced a Christmas and New Year's outside the US and we made a great many other smaller trips around the area when the weather permitted. Sure, it could have been better and the 20C+ in San Francisco would have been nice for my and #1 Fan's birthdays, but still, an enjoyable outing to the Europe. Naturally, I wrote this before catching my flight, so talk to me once I'm back to see how the worst customs setup in the world at Charles de Gaulle went as well as the 12 hour leg from Paris to SF went.

15 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: airports, the europe, weather

A Touch of the Spanish Health Care

Being that this latest trip has been in the middle of winter, there have been the normal, seasonal illnesses, which suck, but are expected. Just to make parental units happy, that meant going to Spanish doctors. Well, not me, but my proxy with the exact same symptoms as me. I just sat in the waiting room, observing Spanish health care at work.

Probably one of the biggest differences between the care in Spain and the care in the US is that you can actually get care in Spain as a foreigner and not the horrors that some idiots report, but good care. Visiting a relative in the bottom of the barrel, most basic, Social Security type hospital for those with no money showed a hospital that was vastly more modern than most I've seen in the US. It's quite amazing what happens when you nationalize health care. Suddenly it becomes something for the public and officials are held to task if the hospitals are no good, since everyone needs them. As opposed to the US, where everything is concerned with the bottom line and so upgraded equipment is a rather low priority as it isn't always profitable; not that the health of a nation should ever, ever be a lucrative venture as it for HMO's and Big Pharma.

But, sitting in a smaller doctor's office, the immediate thing I noticed was the atmosphere. Yes, everyone shouldn't have been there, since they just had colds and were all coughing and wheezing, but despite this, the mood of the office was rather light-hearted. People actually felt good about being there. For starters, they knew that there was no way this was going to put them in to debt for the rest of their lives. In fact, if they have supplemental insurance, it costs them absolutely nothing for a visit. Compare that to any doctor's office you've ever been in the US. Everything always runs late, even if you're the first patient. People hate being there. People are cranky. People are complaining about how much the visit will cost. And lastly, people are only there because they really aren't getting better. They held off going for as long as they could because they didn't want to spend the money, they hate the arrogant doctors, and they hate how much any drugs will cost. In other words, that rather elusive term of "preventative care" actually exists in Spain. Oh yeah, the drugs are dirt cheap compared to the US and again, if you have supplemental insurance, somethings are mere pennies.

Sure, there are some bad sides as well. Stuff doesn't really run on time, but I would say that they're no worse at timeliness than the US. Another bad thing is that in the hospital, the cable tv is only if you pay, as you can see below. So, you see a lot of folks reading a great deal in the hospitals, which doesn't bother me at all.

But, balancing out these small pains are the fact that after sitting in the office, the doctor prescribed my proxy who had the same symptoms as me with a double dose of the cold meds since it was obvious we both had the same thing and it was common sense. I mean, holy hell, common sense in a doctor, who would have thought?

14 01 2009      0 comments

Tags: health, spain, us america

Barcelona: Spelling not Perfectness

I have bad news for all of you trying to learn a new language to broaden yourself beyond hanging out with Australians at Irish Pubs around the world: languages other than English aren't cool. Well, at least in the case of places like Spain English is 'tan cool'. The 'hip' thing to do in titles and other promotions is to toss in an English word or two, just to sound cool. You know how we like to say 'savoir faire' instead of 'know how' (among other fancy Frenchery)? Well, you can see such lovely things around a place like Barcelona. For instance, there is a chain restaurant called, 'Pans and Company'. There is also the airline, Vueling can't sleep unless at least one of their ads says something like, 'Las Rebajas Llegan Flying!'

In another instance, there is this new ad campaign that the city of Barcelona has decided to run to promote their fashion side. While there are a number of good designers in Barcelona, I think that they're still under the delusion that they're some sort of Milan after America's Next Top Model was based there for a season.

Something else they're under the delusion of is the fact that they can write proper English. Spread far and wide around the city are all these signs that were created in a Communist propaganda style which read, "I'm Citizen of Barcelona Nation - The Nation of Fashion". No, that's not a typo on my part. They happened to leave out the 'a' between 'I'm' and 'Citizen'. An honest mistake as in Spanish this reads, 'Soy ciudadano de Barcelona' or in Catalan, 'Sóc ciutadà de Barcelona'. I know I'm prone to the typo from time to time that #1 Fan dutifully catches, but you would think that given the stoned, dreadlocked slurry of expats living in Barcelona that someone might have thought to run this phrase by a native English speaker before pasting it around the city for said expats to stare at and wonder if they're "Really that stoned..." which of course they are, but that's a different issue. I'm sure if pressed for an answer, the Ministry of Defense & Super Cool Language Spellings would state that this was done on purpose, although the translation hiccup proves otherwise so, neener neener neener Barcelona. (My thumb was on my nose while I was doing that by the way...)

13 01 2009      2 comments

Tags: barcelona, language