June 2006 Archives

When I took that trip to Russia and Ghana by way of Amsterdam a few years back the cultural constants were the Peruvian pan flute bands, Abba, those woven plaid pastic shopping bags, and Irish Pubs. There are Irish pubs all over the world, apparently disseminated in part or in whole by the Irish Pub Company. Some Baffler guy wrote about this phenomenon in an essay that was reprinted in The Boob Jubilee. I don't have it in front of me, but from what I remember the essay talks about how Guinness is behind the proliferation of Irish Pubs around the world as a way to increase its markets. I personally think Guinness is kind of nasty, hot or cold.

The Irish pub franchise comes complete with Irish pub furniture
and fully branded bric-a-brac. The obvious thing is how ironic it is to try to franchise authenticity. (On the other hand, that thought reminds me of this review essay that Sallie Tilsdale wrote years ago -- can't find the cite, it ran in Harpers -- on travel books and tourism, that made the point that if tourism is what a town is selling, experiencing their tourist trap or whatever IS an authentic experience of that place. Jordan and I loved that essay so much we sent her a fan letter. She wrote back with her grandmother's recipe for artichoke dip.)

Anyhoo, point is, I think Pabst Blue Ribbon should develop a bar franchise based on Pacific Northwest dive bars for exporting around the world. Given the generally shitty economy here in the Pacific NW, they could set up their own employment agencies, just like the Irish only instead of Irish people, they'd pimp out hipsters.

You'd partner with indie click somehow. You'd sell hipster merchandize.

And, if you played your cards right, hipsters themselves would take it under their wing -- you know, ironically -- and you'd get their business, too.

They sell tennis balls for $.10 each at the local racket club. What a bargain!! If you can think of anything brilliant to do with tennis balls other than trying to blow your dog's mind by giving her a bunch at the same time, let me know.

Pica keeps running upstairs to visit Keno, Erin, Justin and the big fluffy rug. It's kind of cute to hear her thunder up and down the stairs. I think so, anyway. And it's good that she's acclimating to spending time up there, since I'll be gone for six days in July. I'm a little worried about leaving her for so long.

Here's a cute pink iPod Gadget Cozy hiding in the bamboo. I still haven't come up with a very good name for the product, but I'm going with "Gadget Cozy" as the generic term. And I bought the domain name. Someone needs to get to work quick on the website.

And here's where you can learn EIGHT WAYS TO KILL SOMEONE BY USING AN IPOD NANO.

This idea goes out to anyone who has been the subject of ridicule or contempt for bringing Two Buck Chuck to a dinner party. You may be too cheap or poor to go out for dinner, but you can't be too cheap or poor to be a good dinner party guest. Granted, most people (myself included) would rather receive some exciting fancy pretty bottle of wine than Two Buck Chuck, but the truth is, I'm not sure I can tell the difference in taste or, in any case, that I actually prefer the fancier wines.

We conducted an interesting experiment at a dinner party where we had a taste test between the Charles Shaw and other wines -- different grapes for the most part (this test was by no means scientific); we started with the question "can you tell which is which is which" which was kind of humiliating, but then we switched to "which do you prefer" and that was really interesting and less judgemental. I strongly recommend tast tests as a fun party game. So far I've only done fancy sparkling water in addition to the kind of sloppy wine tasting, but we're doing a cheese one on Saturday.

In any case, what I do prefer without question is the fancier wine labels, but I like to save my money for cheese. So here's a couple ideas.

First, Trader Joe's should sell vintage wine labels (sticky ones) in the check out line for you to slap on a bottle before taking it out in public.

My other idea is DIY wine labels, which isn't really a new idea, but mine is a little more down-home, because the whole point is to be cheap.

So, first you take your supplies: a piece of paper and some pens (I like Sharpies, although I'm feeling a little manipulated by them lately).

Then, you fold the paper in half and wrap it around the wine bottle and mark how much room you'll have to write.

This one is for a romantic occassion, where you don't your date thinking you're cheap, you want him or her to think you are sweet and sentimental for making something by hand!

Here's an example for when you just want to be friends.

I tried to create a flickr group so that other people could upload their great wine labels. I know that Pete has made some awesome homemade beer labels for his homebrew, and I see a flickr group on homebrew beer labels) but I don't know if I did it successfully with handmade wine labels -- I don't really understand flickr all that well.