Graped In The Face

Q. What's the difference between pinot noir and merlot?
A. Nothing, suckers.

So yeah, you remember how that movie Sideways did so well? It was a fine film: Paul Giamatti drinks a whole lot of Californian wine, rants about how pinot noir is so great and merlot is so terrible.

Mmm. Grapes.

Most people who saw Sideways immediately decided that, yes, indeed:

1. pinot noir is brilliant

2. all other wines – especially merlot – are really just fermented hackjuice

There was thus an instant craze in the market for pinot wine, and a corresponding crash in demand for the less respectable grapes (like merlot and shiraz). So: a group of French wine merchants decided to scam the American market by repackaging 13.5 MILLION LITRES of their excess merlot and shiraz wine as pinot noir, instead.

A couple of years later, French auditors became suspicious of some unusually cheap "pinot" grape transactions; a few days ago, a French court unravelled the scam and found a cartel of Carcassonne wine merchants guilty of fraud.

Mugshot!

In the meantime, how many American wine drinkers had figured out that they weren't actually drinking pinot noir? Here is a picture of them all:

Aw, it was only 13.5 million litres . . .

Mondays Can Be Disturbing

Cheap of me to do two linkblogs in a row, rather than blogging something that I've actually created myself, but this tickled me too much to resist.

CONTEXT:

See, lately I've been looking for someone* to fill a vacant room in my house, and the process of interviewing prospective housemates has reminded me just how difficult it is to get to know people from only brief conversations. You can absorb a lot of intuitive impressions, but it seems impossible to really find out what they'll be like; I think people usually don't relax enough to show their "true" colours until you've been living with them for weeks, at least.

Thus, there's been a running joke between me & my other (non-new) housemate about the absolute best way to interview a stranger: the Voight-Kampff test.

The Voight-Kampff test is the interview from Blade Runner (via Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?) that's supposed to test your empathy – empathy, of course, being the unique quality that sets humans apart from "non-humans" (e.g. animals, psychopaths, killer robots). I've always thought it would be great fun to spring the Voight-Kampff interview questions on somebody when they're not expecting it, but I've never had the guts to do it "for real" . . .

. . . unlike the journalists at San Francisco's The Wave magazine, who decided to give the Voight-Kampff test to all the upcoming SF mayoral candidates. If you don't know Blade Runner, you probably won't get it, but I thought it was freaking hilarious.

As one would expect, at least half the mayoral candidates are definitely not human.

*Subsequently found: hello, Sarah D—! She's moving in tomorrow, good luck to all involved . . .

MICHAEL JACKSON IS UNDEAD

Out Of (The) Loop(s)

Hoo-hah.

It's been a while, huh? But here am I, finally back in and/or at my home. Detravelled and unenholidayed. Utterly prepared to type, once again. So what happened while I was gone? Apparently: economic disasters, sporting triumphs, weather, &c. There was some music, I think? I've been feeling kind of weird, all week.

And now it's October. The octopic month. This means that I have only a few months left of 2008 in which to finish writing that great epic novel of mine, find a real job, eat something really delicious for lunch...

Wait a minute, it's already half past two in the afternoon! Too late for lunch!

TOO LATE!

No worries. And speaking of where I am: I'm actually in two minds as to where to go with this blog from here. I certainly don't want to abandon it, but I'm not sure I can give it the attention it really needs while I'm still trying to finish my aforementioned book. ("Great epic novel" = possible misnomer). But if I don't use this blog to actually (and regularly) do something, then it will never be the kind of blog which people actually read. The lazy blogger's catch-22.

Solution: attempt to continue with both endeavours. Just as before. But prioritise the book, because it needs to be finished before 2010 in order to preserve my pride and sanity.

Interpretation: no actual or apparent change.

Hey, am I using this blog entry to talk myself through a personal life matter? That's not what blogs are for! Hecks. What do we say to that sort of malarkey, jungle lady?

Damn right.

--Thoapsl needs a better-sounding pseudonym

Friday Is Out Of Context

Brilliant. No further explanations are necessary.

(It's from here. As written by Jeff Parker, and published by Marvel Comics).

This Friday Is Out Of Context Thoapsl Says: A star is not a target.