I need to share with you how easy it is to be a lazy writer. I missed my Friday’s Thirteen because of a wine tasting event that took most of my day and early morning. A legit excuse you might say. No it’s not! I could have started earlier in the week as I knew the event was coming. LAZY. Once I skipped that self-appointed assignment, I failed to get my Bits & Bobs article out on Monday…LAZY! I literally had to force myself to sit at the keyboard this morning and extract an article from this lazy brain of mine. Writing is very much like a muscle that needs to be exercised daily if you want it to improve. I know this is true and yet I allow myself to skip writing days. The more I skip, the harder it gets to start up again. Lazy is not allowed in the writing world, so here I go.
Is there anyone out there that is adept at video editing that would be willing to give me a hand with VideoPad. I purchased this new editing tool along with the book “Video Editing with VideoPad For Dummies.” I must be especially dumb, because I am having great difficulty even understanding half of what they are trying to explain in the book. This is a great editing tool, and should improve the quality of my You Tube channel. I so badly want to understand how to navigate through this tool. I can teach myself of course and will eventually. However, it never hurts to get hands-on instruction. HELP!
I subscribe to to the Wine Spectator, not for the wine scores. I subscribe for material for my blog. The reason I pay very little attention to the scores in the Spectator is simple. They get paid big bucks by wineries to advertise in their periodical. Would it surprise you if wineries had some influence on how the magazine scores certain wines? I understand they try all the wines in the blind format. The question is, do they come up with a final score in the blind format? Not sure about that one myself. The currant edition has a nice spread on Allegrini, a famous winery in the Veneto in Italy. I love their wines. They make some of the best Amarone I have put my lips to. A couple of years ago, they were acquired by Gallo. I have no problem with this since Gallo plays a hands-off approach, allowing the winery to continue doing what they do without a lot of intervention. Do you think Gallo advertises in the Spectator?
Matt Kramer is one of my favorite writers in the Wine Spectator for great fodder for this blog. He writes some of the most inane things I have ever read. He’s been a good boy lately however, giving nothing in the way of material to have fun with. His recent article entitled “That Special Wine” is like reading soft porn of the wine world. He tries to project a little romanticism, but can’t pull it off. He did a some name dropping, which always raises a red flag for me and completely kills the mood of the story. One of the things he wrote actually shocked me a bit (surprise!). He said he didn’t enjoy older wines, yet he fancies himself a wine lover. Hmm. How does that work? I think the definition of a “true” wine lover is the excitement that comes with experiencing any wine, old or new, cheap or expensive, well-known or unknown. Do you agree? I love wine, and eagerly look forward to trying any wine at least once. I believe Matt didn’t really mean he doesn’t enjoy older wines as he waxed poetic about the ’73 cab he shared with Paul Draper (Ridge winemaker) and Paul’s wife (a concert pianist no less). Obviously he enjoys older wines only if they deliver for his palate. Right? Matt. Really? I can only hope that Matt gives up the soft porn approach to writing and gets back to giving me better material to use.
Cheers!
Stan The Wine Man
