Hello again sports fans. Another challenging week behind us. Last night's Orin Swift dinner came off well; the food was great and everyone had a good time. Thanks to everyone that attended. But I tell you if they invent any more technology to my my life easier I don't think I can stand it. Between the Internet, cell phones, crackberrys, e-mail, Facebook and the like it's wearing me out. It's hard to unplug. These days if you don't immediately get back to someone they freak out.."OMG are you ok? You didn't answer my e-mail and I thought something must be wrong???" Folks don't you ever want to just unplug yourself from the grid once in awhile? I know I do. No problem finding something to do in my free time.. There are some good things that come from all this static  though.   I'm not knocking the Internet though, it's been a great boost to our business and Facebook has become the way I keep up with everyone near and far. That's why I try to make this weekly newsletter an electronic version of a York peppermint patty. You know, falling backward into an icy cool swimming pool... Ahhhhh!

 

 You remember Mundy, the great Irish Singer-songwriter that I featured a few months back? Well he friended me on Facebook last week... how cool is that? Not a Mundy fan page or record label site  but the guy himself... Turns out he loves to eat hot porridge for breakfast and just became a father this week. He may even subscribe to this newsletter for all I know??? That could never have happened ten years ago... This new media is a powerful tool for democratization, kinda of like the new town square except this town square is the entire world (except for backward authoritarian places like Iran and China but that's changing fast, trust me.) I surprisingly got nothing but positive feedback  from my Bastille Day rant which is a good thing. I think we're all slowly realizing that we're in this big world together. Somebody sneezes in China and we catch a cold here. As you know we're all about wine at the shop but I like to use this little square of information to chill and say what's on my mind. Trust me it's a lot better that me being out in public. I 've heard some of my competitors say it's too long (thanks for thinking that I'm important enough to keep up with...) but I say no it's just right. That's what the scroll bar is for. Mainly it's about wine but wine doesn't exist as a thing in and of itself. It's something you have with your meal but it's also much more. I like to have it with music. If fact why don't you go pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine and check out this video. It's a young Scotsman (what is it with the UK and great music?) named Paolo Nutini. He sounds like a candy bar but he's much more. A fourth generation Scot, his dad's family was originally from Tuscany. He left the family fish and chips business to pursue his love of music and it wasn't long till people took notice. This is the single from his new album "Sunny Side Up" and it's called "Candy." You can throw all your John Mayer CD's in the trash right now. This guy's got soul. I just can't play this song enough and I think it'll get under your skin as well. He's already pretty big in Europe but he will be will be alot bigger I'm guessing...