Rant #1,719: The Wine Country

Last Friday, when I was not writing this Rant, I also took the day off from work.

Usually, when I take a day off from work, it has to do with some medical situation that I have to satisfy, such as a major eye examination.

Well, this was the first day off that I have had in some time that had to do with pleasure.

My wife had been off all week, my son was off for a few days, so it was now my turn to step up to the plate, and take a well-deserved day off from the constant drudgery of work.

I told my wife that I would only take the day off if we were going to do something that was relatively "vacationy," and that is exactly what we did.

We did something that I don't think we had done in years, and I do mean quite a long time.

We went to the wine country of Long Island.

If you have never done this, you have to go way out on the Island, and you see just how very long it is.

One way to do this is to take the Long Island Expressway to the very end, and then get off the roadway and just basically go straight.

You go through towns like Riverhead, Cutchogue and Laurel, and then you see all the wineries that pop up on this trail

It doesn't even look like Long Island there, it looks more like a somewhat modern day Mayberry than it does being part of Suffolk County.

Yes, as people have moved there they have built up there--there are more shopping centers than I can ever remember, and there are the requisite 7-Elevens and Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's too--but up through Greenport, you really wonder whether you are in Suffolk County anymore, or if you have tripped back in time to the 1950s.

Anyway, we stopped at three wineries--one was Pindar, one was a new one called Coffee Pot Wineries, and other one was Raphael--and they had wine tastings at each one. For a nominal fee, the taster could get four or five glasses of wine, from which, presumably, the taster would buy at least one bottle to take home.

I am not a wine drinker--or an alcohol drinker, for that matter--but my wife is, so at each stop, she tasted a bouquet of wines, and yes, we bought one bottle of what she liked at each winery.

Even though I didn't drink a drop, I had a good time, and my son and I kept each other company while my wife tasted her wines.

Three stops were the limit for us, because after those stops and all that wine--mixed in with near 100 degree heat--my wife got a little tipsy, or on the edge of being so.

We ate some lunch, and she felt much better.

We didn't stay in wine country for that long, but there are literally dozens of wineries to visit on both the North and South Fork, and you can spend an entire day going from one winery to another. Some have tours, where you can learn about how the wine is processed, from grape to bottle.

And you can also walk around, and take in the sights.

In other words, if you want a relaxing day, a day to forget about work and the usual stuff you worry about during the week, Long Island's wine country--among the best known in the world--is a good place to visit.

We had other things to do during the day, so after a few hours, we left, but the three of us had a fine time, even though only one of us drank a drop of wine.

And that, to me, is the secret of the place.

Even though it is wine country, you don't have to drink a drop to enjoy yourself.

Rant #1,718: The Amazing Shrinking Screen

No, today I am not going to talk about food.

It made me too hungry the past two days, so today I will skip the food, at least here, and talk about a problem I have ...

My incredibly shrinking computer screen.

As I type this, it is about 4:51 a.m. in the morning. I overslept a bit today, because the past few days, I was done with my Rant by this time.

But I have typed out all of these Rants on an iMac that is ready for the dumpster, but I can still use.

A few months ago, my cherished PC died. I really enjoyed that Hewlett Packard PC, had it for years, and fixed it several times.

After fixing it about two years ago, I vowed I would not do this again, and when it broke down once again, I kept to my word.

A few years back, my place of work offered all of us out own iMacs when we went through a computer upgrade. I took my iMac, paid $100 for it, and I had it as a backup.

It was the iMac that has the fabled "lines on the screen" problem, which has been traced to various sources, including a loose cable in the front photo area, you know, the one where you can take a photo of yourself doing what you are doing at the computer, for whatever reason you would want to do that.

Apple initially offered a free fix for that problem, but that offer is long gone.

So what I was left with was an iMac with a screen filled with lines, probably about 20 or 30 of them at least, going up and down my screen. (Yes, that is a scan of my screen up above, but don't go by it--it is a sham. The scan looks good, but it doesn't show the lines and other things on the screen I will soon talk about.)

So when my PC died its death, I didn't have the money for a new PC, so I simply decided to use this iMac backup as my main computer.

Heck, I typed on this at work, I can do it at home too.

It has served me well the past few months that I have used it full time, even though I noticed that the lines were progressing.

I adapted the computer to my needs--not an easy task--and I continued to use the computer.

About a week ago, a strange black bar surfaced on the right side of the computer, about an inch thick, and I had to hastily move everything to the left side of the screen, where I could do this.

Some of the things I moved I did pretty easily, others are stuck in the black territory, and I cannot get them out, so I had to create new folders to hold the files that I could access.

I can access the programs that are on the right side that had icons simply by going to the recent items area, including Google Chrome.

My trash folder is a little bit of a problem, because it is part of the dock at the bottom of the screen. Since that inch of screen is obliterated, the trash is part of that area, so what I have to do is that I need to move the dock to the left side of my screen when I want to access the trash or empty the trash, and I can do it then, and then move the dock back to the bottom.

Going onto the Internet has never been a problem for this computer, and it still isn't, although I have to move the screen a little bit to access certain things at the top of the screen. That really is the least of my problems associated with this.

With the coming of the black bar on the right side of the screen, I am almost expecting a similar black bar to emerge on the left side, further squeezing me. Remember how in the movies and TV shows our heroes would somehow get in between two walls that were moving a little each second, eventually leading to crushing them if they didn't escape? This is what I am electronically going through now on my iMac screen.

So here I am, typing on a very sick iMac, but like the Eveready Bunny, this thing refuses to stop working, knock wood.

I think I will use it until if fully dies, and then, I will be forced to get another computer.

Since I have changed everything over to an iMac, I will probably go for another Apple computer, maybe even a used or refurbished one, as I don't have $1,000 to spend on a new one.

So when you read my Rants each day, just think of the effort I put into not only creating these things, but also, typing on a computer that is equal to a 100-year-old man--my computer may have its faculties, but it is in its last stages of action.

Anyway, I have to take the day off from work for some personal business tomorrow, so I will speak to you again on Monday.

Have a good weekend.

Classic Rant #363 (October 28, 2010): Baseball Card Helps Nuns Fortify Their Habit

It's World Series time. Last night, the Giants trounced the Rangers, and Game 2 goes on as scheduled tonight, unless the weather screws things up.

But today's baseball story is a little bit different. It involves the good fortune of the Baltimore, Md.-based School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Evidently, a nun who passed away in 1999 had a brother who died earlier this year. He left all his possessions to the order, and left a safe deposit box for the nuns to open. When they opened the box, they found a rare T206 Honus Wagner card, one of the rarest baseball cards in existence. Only several are known to exists, and a card in good condition is worth several million dollars.

Although the cards the nuns had is not in as good condition as it could be--it is bent and the borders are cut off--the nuns have put it up for auction, hoping to get between $150,000 and $200,000, which they will use for their ministries around the world.

Thus far, the highest bid is $60,000.

Why is the card so rare? The story goes that Wagner, who played most of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and was one of the first entrants to baseball's Hall of Fame, did not smoke, and when he found out that his likeness was put out on a 1 1/4 inch by 2 1/2 inch piece of cardboard as part of a series of cards put out by a cigarette manufacturer, he hit the roof. He ordered the production of the card to stop, and the manufacturer heeded to his wishes.

Thus, only maybe a few hundred of these cards ever hit the market, and about 60 are known to exist today.

The card is nearly 100 years old, and when collectors hear that another one of these cards has been found, they consider it a revelation second only, perhaps, to the coming of the messiah.

This particular card was in possession of the man who died since the 1930s.

So there is your feel-good baseball story of the day, once again solidifying the fact that baseball is our national pastime and nothing even comes close to its popularity.

Have you ever heard of such a brouhaha revolving around a football card?

Rant #1,717: Peanut Butter's Better

Heck, the Republican National Convention is going on, and according to Yahoo, many millennial women are deciding to go braless.

Yes, we are in the middle of summer, and nothing much is happening.

And when nothing much is happening, I like to talk about food.

I like to talk about it more than eat it, because I am on a self-imposed diet of my own creation.

I have lost about 17 pounds, but I still have a bit of a bulge in the stomach area which is not going to go away anytime soon, if at all.

But as a nice segueway, I also adore peanut butter, and that obsession isn't going to go away anytime soon, either.

Perhaps the braless and the brainless should all sit down and have peanut butter sandwiches themselves.

I bet they would all be better for having one. I know that when I have one, I am better myself.

I just love peanut butter, always have, always will.

Like I spoke about yesterday related to tuna fish, I have loved peanut butter since I was a kid, and if you put all the jars of peanut butter I have eaten--the contents of these jars, not the jars themselves, of course--it would probably stretch from New York to California, or so I would like to think it would, because I really have no accurate measurement of this.

I think I began eating peanut butter in the second or third grade of school. It was a convenient way for my mother to make me lunch in a jiffy. Just spread it on two pieces of bread, slap them together, and there you have it.

The funny thing is that like tomatoes and ketchup, I don't like peanuts but I love peanut butter. I know this doesn't make sense, but I just don't like peanuts in that form, but I love peanut butter.

As to what type of peanut butter I prefer, I think Skippy is the best. It is the smoothest of the peanut butters, and to me, it really is the Cadillac of peanut butters, the one that all others aspire to be, but just aren't.

When I was a kid, there was basically the smooth peanut butter, and that is it. I think in the late 1970s or early 1980s, peanut butter makers started to come out with variations of the original, and today, we have chunky, low-fat, organic, and probably some other varieties I am leaving out.

So today, we have a cornucopia of choices when it comes to peanut butter, and I kind of prefer the chunky variety myself.

If you notice, I haven't mentioned jelly with my peanut butter, as in peanut butter and jelly. I know millions of people love this, a concoction that reminds them of their youth, but I hate jelly, and I absolutely hate peanut butter and jelly.

I like peanut butter alone, and not with other things added to it.

As a kid, I must have had peanut butter for lunch probably at least once or twice a week. I brought it to school, ate it during the summer at day camp, and ate it while at home.

But in today's world, peanut butter has become something of a non-entity for school-age kids, and it is banned in many school districts because of peanut allergies that many kids have.

I don't understand the methodology of peanut allergies--I think it probably has to do with the pollution in our environment, although I wouldn't even say that that was an educated guess--but during my childhood, no one had peanut allergies.

So kids today really can't enjoy the wonders of peanut butter, because they can't eat it during lunch at school.

And that really is a shame, because the wonders of peanut butter are really experienced the greatest when you are young.

Kids today are missing out on one of the simplest and best lunches they could have, and that is a true shame.

I often say that I am glad that I was born when I was, because I experienced things that kids in other generations could not have witnessed or been a part of.

I feel the same way about "the peanut butter experience." If you don't get peanut butter as a kid, you will never "get" it, if you know what I mean.

I got it, and will always get it, and for that, I have to thank my mom, who weaned me on this stuff, like most mothers of the time did.

Good for her, good for me, and good for peanut butter!

Classic Rant #362 (October 27, 2010): You Bet Your Life

Today is the anniversary of the debut of one of the most beloved game shows of all time.

On October 27, 1947, "You Bet Your Life" debuted on radio. It later moved over to TV, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Hosted--if that's what you want to call what he did--by Groucho Marx, the show brought the wit and wisdom of Groucho to a whole new audience.

The format was pretty simple. Groucho would ask a question about a wide variety of topics, and the two contestants had to answer. Each time they answered, they moved up a notch in the money area. During the run of the series, the value of the questions ranged from $10 to $100. I think it even got higher than that, but I am not sure.

Anyway, contestants could also get the "Secret Word," which was a pre-picked word that, if said, would net them extra money. A duck came down with a crisp $100 bill. One time, Harpo Marx actually came down with the loot.

But all of this was secondary to the quips Groucho made to the contestants and to the audience. George Fenneman, the announcer on the show who became forever linked with the comedian, would come out and say, "Here he is, the one and only ... GROUCHO!", the audience would clap, and Groucho was on from there.

The comedian would ad lib from there, and much of what he said never made the air. Thus, I believe the show was the first game show to go through an editing process, as what the audience saw was much longer than the half hour show that was aired. Groucho would get into amusing banter with pretty contestants, and heavy editing had to be done on these sequences.

But Groucho was the show, and eventually, that was acknowledged, and during the last year or so of its run, it became known as "The Groucho Show."

One story, which has been taken to task by experts and cannot be proven because not all the shows are intact, had Groucho speaking with a contestant who had 11 children. He said to her, "Why do you have 11 children?" and she responded, "Because I love my husband."

Groucho supposedly responded, "Well, I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while."

The audience supposedly roared, but that repartee was removed from the broadcast and it can't be proven whether it actually happened or not.

The program ran until 1960, but was heavily rerun in the 1970s, and that is when I picked up on it. It was supposedly the first game show ever to be revived in syndication reruns.

Although I always preferred Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges as far as movie comedy groups, this show cemented Groucho, at least with me, as one of the great comedians. I really was never much of a Marx Brothers fan, but the reruns of this show were the backbone of the Marx Brothers revival in the early to mid 1970s, and since Groucho was still alive then, he became a fixture on talk shows, including "The Tonight Show."

And he was witty, and had a keen eye for the ladies, even then.

There have been a few revivals of the show since Groucho's death, one with Buddy Hackett and the other with Bill Cosby, but they both failed dismally. There was also a pilot with Richard Dawson which I don't believe ever aired.

The show was Groucho, and that is why these efforts failed, even though the talent involved was of a very high level.

There will only be one Groucho, and that's what made "You Bet Your Life" one of the most successful TV game shows in history. It's available on DVD and is well worth a look.

Rant #1,716: You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish

I first heard that saying years ago, when it was used as the title of an REO Speedwagon LP.

I have no idea if they cleverly made it up, or borrowed it from somewhere.

I recently heard it when I was at Yankee Stadium with my family.

They were doing one of those things to keep the fans occupied during breaks in the action, and they did "corny jokes" recited by the players themselves.

Anyway, it got me to thinking ... how much tuna fish have I eaten during my 59 years of life?

I don't know when the first tuna fish I ever had took place, but I look in today's lunch that was prepared by my wife, and look what I have today--tuna fish!

I remember having it all through school when I bagged my lunch--nearly every day of my schooling probably from first grade through undergraduate school.

I had it during summer camp, probably at least once or twice a week, and I have had it as a working person probably at least once a week my entire working life.

I also have it maybe once on the weekend, every weekend, including this past weekend.

And I am never tuna-fished out. I just love tuna fish.

Of course, we are talking about the tuna fish that is either in the classic metal container or the newer pouches, not fresh tuna fish.

I have had fresh tuna fish a few times, and it is good, but you know what? I prefer the tuna fish that is prepared in the can or in the pouch to the fresh version.

I guess I am just very used to something I have eaten pretty much my entire life.

And yes, I even ate it through the mercury poisoning scare, and I eat it now, whether the fish is "humanely caught" or not.

I feel tuna fish was put onto this earth for man to eat, so honestly, I don't care how it is caught, it all leads to the same can or pouch, anyway.

And today, we have so many varieties of tuna fish, not just packed in oil or packed in water.

We have different flavors of tuna fish, like chipotle or even tuna fish mixed with jalapenos.

There is sweet tuna fish, and tuna fish with heat.

It just gives me more choices of what to eat.

And I love the pouches. They are handy, easily stored, and kind of portion controlled, unless you are like me, a person who mixes three of them together--usually two different flavors--to get what I want.

You have to be careful with the pouches, because it is difficult to get the entire contents of the pouch out, but I have found it becomes a skill after awhile.

And if I am talking about tuna fish, I have to talk about mayonnaise. Mayo goes with tuna like Abbott goes with Costello, Laurel goes with Hardy, and Amos goes with Andy.

They were made for each other, and neither would be as good alone as they are as a team.

I mush that mayo in with the tuna fish, and boy, does it taste good!

Sometimes, I even really go nuts and mix in some relish, which gives it a sweeter taste.

And when it is on my sandwich, even if there is lettuce on the sandwich, I just love to put corn chips on the sandwich, and eat them all together.

I tell you, tuna fish, mayonnaise and corn chips go together as well as Moe, Larry and Curly did.

So there you have it about my relationship to tuna fish.

It was a match made in heaven.

Sometimes I think I am going to turn into a tuna fish, with all the tuna fish that I eat over the course of a year and during my 59 years on this earth.

But that would make me a cannibal, something that I am not.

I just love tuna fish, and remember, you can tune a piano, but you can't ...

I think you get it by now.

Classic Rant #361 (October 26, 2010): Hiccup, Hiccup

I haven't had a bizarre story to report on in a while, which makes this story all the more inviting for its gruesomeness, and also due to who it involved.

About three years ago, Jennifer Mee, then a 16 year old girl, made national headlines when she could not stop hiccuping. Mee's hiccups, at about 50 a minute, could not be stopped by any remedy. She appeared on the "Today" show and met some famous people who learned of her plight and wanted to know that they supported her.

After several weeks of hiccuping, they stopped, all by themselves.

But Mee's life spiral evidently started. She ran away from home twice, and the teenager's mom said the girl had not lived with her in over a year.

In the meantime, Mee has become a felon. She, and two others, have just been charged with first degree murder in the death of Shannon Griffin, a man she met online. Allegedly, she and her accomplices lured the man to a house, robbed him, and then fatally shot him.

Concurrently, her family has sued a hiccup cure company for allegedly using Mee's image for profit without permission.

What a story! I can see a TV movie coming out of this, can't you?

Did the hiccups make her crazy, or did the lack of hiccups drive her insane?

Maybe the hiccups--or lack thereof--had nothing to do with Mee's behavior since she stopped having them, but somehow, this girl moved into a downward spiral that might had led to murder.

Evidently, although she lived with her mother in Florida, she pined to move to Vermont, where her estranged father lives.

We have all had hiccups, and depending on the length of the episode, they can drive you crazy.

But for most of us, the episode lasts a few minutes, and then it is gone.

But for Mee, the episode lasted several weeks. I have heard of others who have had hiccups for months at a time. It does happen.

But what drove the teenager to allegedly commit this heinous act?

Who knows, but she probably won't be able to hiccup this one away as quickly as she got rid of her hiccups, that's for sure.