Barry's Life in Napa Blog

Some people say it tastes better because it has cane sugar instead of corn syrup, and others say it keeps its fizz better in the old school glass bottle. But either way, Coca Cola "hecho in Mexico" seems to be all the rage. I saw a random blog reference to it being available at the Wal Mart here in Napa, and today the SF Chronicle says it's being sold at Costco stores all over the Bay Area. It's news in Santa Cruz , too, and in San Diego : "If there's a tiny amount of Coke from Mexico sold in the U.S., it's a pin drop compared to the ocean of American Coke sold by the U.S. bottlers," said John Sicher, editor of the New York-based industry publication Beverage Digest. A "pin drop compared to the ocean?" Is that some kind of special beverage industry language, or just a mixed metaphor? Anyway, over at this site I learned some people say Italian Coke is better than the regular stuff, and I also learned that Coke with corn syrup is apparently...

I like to think if Johnny Carson was still around, he would be thinking that title would make a great Karnak setup. But Johnny's gone so we're on our own out here. A whale, now and then, gets confused and swims through the Bay and heads up north or east and before you know it we have round the clock team coverage on every TV station. A few years ago it was Humphrey the humpback whale in Rio Vista or some such place, and right now we have a mother whale and her foal (cub? whelp? calf!) floating back and forth and just making a heck of a big stir. It always makes me wonder. If a bear or a cougar gets confused and shows up where it's not supposed to be, our first instinct is to shoot it but if it's a whale or a sea lion we get all motherly and need to take care of it. Whales always get cute names, too - somebody wanted to call these latest lost whales "Delta" and "Dawn," which created an annoying ear worm across the nation. Nobody ever names the mispl...

At first glance you might say "nice painting" but in fact this image a photo, taken by an 18 year-old from Minnesota. At second glance you might say "that doesn't look like Minnesota" and you would be right - it's New Zealand. This is the grand prize winner in Smithsonian Magazine's annual photo contest. This one's been photoshopped so it's in the "altered images" category - but still a heck of a shot. How do you get a lion to pose for you like that? Bacon on a string up there some where? And this one from Lake Austin, Texas is amazingly unaltered. You can see all 50 finalist photos here.

From thesmokinggun.com : MAY 24--In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Do you ever find yourself amused by something that really shouldn't be the least bit funny? I am ashamed of myself, but I found myself in that condition as I was looking at these "crude drawings." The first few were shocking, but when I got to this one... Is it me, or is the guy with the iron smiling? There is something about the angle of his head that conveys a sort of contentment. "You know you are enjoying this, my friend. What did you say? No starch? When we are done with the housework I will make the Cup 'o Soup and we will watch Dancing with the Stars, ok my friend?" OK, I got that out of my system. There is something odd about this series of instructional torture illustrations. Do you really need drawings to t...

New word for the day: blook "A blook can refer to either an object manufactured to imitate a bound book , an online book published via a blog , or a printed book that contains or is based on content from a blog." - Wikipedia Recently, a Bay Area guy named Colby Buzzell won the "Blooker" prize for his Iraq war front blog. He wrote using the name CBFTW. From Defense Today magazine, an article by Nathan Hodge: Blogs are, in some way, a defining cultural phenomenon of the war in Iraq, much as psychedelic music provided the soundtrack to the Vietnam War. There are dozens of Iraq blogs, posted by ordinary Iraqis, civilian administrators living in the Green Zone, rear-echelon soldiers and combat infantrymen. One Iraqi blogger, known by the nom de plume Salam Pax, even saw his Web diary published as a book, The Baghdad Blog... Some blogs are patriotic, others are personal rants. CBFTW—a native of the San Francisco Bay Area who listed his interests, variously, as "dri...

When summer approaches, I always think of a teacher I had in high school who rhapsodized about reading War and Peace . He said he loved it so much, as he approached the end he rationed the pages to a set number per day to make it last longer. Wouldn't it be great to have a week or two (or a month or two) to do nothing but read War and Peace , and love it that much? Truth is, I can't sit still for that long. The older I get the antsier I get. So I guess that's why I have a tendency to read several books at the same time. Well, not literally. That would be clumsy. What I mean is there are always three or four books around with dogears in them. Well, not literally. The dog would never go for that. At the moment, here's the lineup: The Wisdom of Crowds , James Surowiecki. This is my new Tipping Point book experience, the kind you look forward to at the end of the day, always some revelation, and you want to tell everybody about it. I, Claudius by Robert Graves. When th...

A southern California web-based news entity has hired reporters to cover Pasadena news - from India. That was described here 5/15 . C.W. Nevius wrote about the outsourcing local journalism story in the 5/20 Chronicle. ...Macpherson's core idea, covering sleepy Pasadena "block by block," as he says, is one of the trendy new theories in modern journalism. "In this community, the local newspaper had to cut back and has left a vacuum," Macpherson said. Pasadena Now, which he says attracted 45,000 unique readers last month in a community of 155,000 and is now in its third year, intends to fill that need. He's not the only one. Rob Curley, a self-described "Internet nerd from Kansas," has pioneered a new "hyper-local" coverage that he's selling to major news organizations. Starting at small newspapers in Kansas, his approach has been such a hit that Curley is now setting up a model for the big, influential Washington Post. Cu...

In our last episode , antihero Phil Mycrackin, a purveyor of the Nigerian scam, was on display with an embarassing sign - the indication that he had become a victim of the scam-baiters. These intrepid do-gooders seek out the evil con men and women who try to steal our money with email scams and turn the tables on them, tricking the scammers into performing all sorts of demonstrations of gullibility in order to get their hands on the money they seek. Hence, the pages and pages of funny photos found in the "Trophy Room" at 419eater.com - like the one seen here. (Believe it or not, there are something like 2,000 photos on this site.) The last post also referenced the article in the June Atlantic Monthly where I first learned about these scam baiters. And here's where the other shoe drops. As I am grinning along with the story and imagining the schadenfreude that would come from scam-baiting, the Atlantic article shifts into a collective white guilt theme. Notice that most...

If you have an email address, at some time you have gotten the "Nigerian scam" offering or some variant. Someone wants to give you a large amount of money, but to get it you have to give a small amount of money - it's a scam as old as dirt. Or more accurately, the concept dates back to the 1500s when it was known as the "Spanish Prisoner" con. I heard a friend say recently that he likes to answer back to these email con men and engage them in a conversation. He said maybe it keeps them from pestering someone else. An altruistic act. Imagine my surprise when I open the June issues of Atlantic and there's a story titled "The Art of Scam-Baiting." (I'd link it for you but Atlantic requires a subscription so here's an excerpt.) A vicious and intriguing cyber-war has broken out in the Spamosphere, or more specifically in what I’d call the “Scamosphere.” I’m speaking of the emergence of “scam-baiters,” the avengers of the Scamosphere, who’ve ar...

From the Boston Herald story : P ASADENA, Calif. - The job posting was a head-scratcher: "We seek a newspaper journalist based in India to report on the city government and political scene of Pasadena, California, USA." Granted, the world is flat and outsourcing work to far-flung places is good for keeping prices down. (Perhaps not so good for actually getting help from the help desk in a dialect you can understand, but that's another story.) But one might think that there are some jobs that just cannot be done from a remote location, some things that simply require your presence in proximity to the job. Then again, maybe not. The story in question relates to a web publication called Pasadena Now . Management of this outlet made news last week when it was reported that they are outsourcing news reporting duties to India. Pasadena Now is a very low budget affair, and James Macpherson is trying to beef up his news content affordably. It's the same problem small local ne...

When I was about 12 I had the walls of my room completely plastered with full-page color photos from Sports Illustrated . There was no place on the room where you could see the panelling. Every square inch was action sports, edge to edge, perfect rectangular symetry. Back then you had no other lasting memory of a great sports moment at your fingertips - no VHS recording, no ESPN highlights - it was just your memory, and Sports Illustrated . A lot of the pictures I had on my wall were of athletes I didn't know. It wasn't about being a fan of a particular sport or team as much as being a fan of the great photograph. There was something compelling about the fluidity, focus, intensity and power captured by those still cameras. If a photo also could tell the story of a whole game, if might become a true classic. I think we may have a nominee for true classic standing in this one from the SF Chronicle : I am no basketball fan, but we happened to be watching when the Warriors pasted U...

Three items of Stupid News for you here. Number one: Fight breaks out at Boston Pops concert BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Concert-goers, and even Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, were caught off-guard when a fight broke out on opening night at usually sedate Symphony Hall. Television video of the fight Wednesday night showed two men struggling in the balcony -- one with his shirt pulled off -- as several people stood around them. Top possibilities of what got them started. 1. Insulting remark about how all of John William's movie themes sound the same. 2. Disagreement over whether Barry Manilow was better than Billy Joel. 3. Noisy candy wrappers. 4. Dodger fan in the Giants section. 5. Misheard reference to Yo-Yo Ma thought to be a comment on "yo mama." Number two: The tampon taser/stun gun is the latest in portable and personal security systems. The beauty of this taser/stun gun, aptly named The Pink Stinger, is its ingenious design and ability to be conceale...

You might have heard Conan O'Brien was in the Bay Area last week, and his visit included a trip to Napa Valley. Does the premium wine business still have a problem with being perceived as snooty?You tell me after you watch these videos.

Thanks to my friend Dan, I flew in a B-17 yesterday. There's a group of guys who travel all over with these restored classic planes . For a few bucks you can look at one up close. For a lot of bucks you can get a ride. Kind of indulgent, so I wouldn't have done it if I had to pay, but it's probably worth the money for the thrill. I've done my share of flying on commercial jets, including some small ones where you get a real sensation of flying, but nothing could compare to this. Not just the history of the thing, but the way it felt alive, organic, thrumming and surging and powering through the air. Truly memorable. There were two WW2 B-17 vets on the flight. You will see them at the end of this short video. You can only imagine the thoughts going through their minds, the memories...

Today is Earth Day. Well, not precisely, but in the grand scheme of things what's a few days difference? And aren't we supposed to think and act like it's Earth Day every day? So there. Today's topic is superuse . I have just discovered this term about 10 minutes ago and have invested quite a bit of time in studying the subject since then, and now feel qualified to consider myself an expert. Superuse means going beyond just piling cans and bottles in a bin to be picked up - it's about finding another use for things. Like this, for example: Here we have a collection of used up Rubik's cubes. (I can't imagine who would throw one of these away, they are so much fun.) Some superuser has superused the cubes to make this cool mosaic portrait. If you had enough Rubik's cubes you could go into business as a "portrait mosaician," make a lot of cash and superuse that money for lots of things. Here's another great idea: This chandelier is made from ba...

Sports just ain't sports without nicknames. I don't know what happened exactly, but somewhere in the 70s I think the players decided they had too much dignity for nicknames. So suddenly all the Leftys and Whiteys and Big Trains were fading away and all that remained was Dave and Tom and Jeff. It's not the same, my friends, not the same. You have your good boxing and football nicknames, but baseball was the game that seemed to make them mandatory. Dizzy, Daffy, Ducky, Dazzy, Bump, Cookie, Goose, Rusty, Red, Pepper, Scooter, Babe, Yogi - these from the great era of nicknames when a guy's real name would disappear completely. And then you have your great descriptors -Catfish, Mudcat, the Big Cat, the Big Hurt, the Big Unit, the Baby Bull, Shoeless Joe, the Iron Horse, the Yankee Clipper, the Splendid Splinter, the Rocket, Charlie Hustle, the Georgia Peach, the Spaceman, the Mad Hungarian, and my all-time fave, Three-Finger Mordecai Brown. (That's him in the picture.)...

I was watching The Daily Show last night, and there was a bit where the correspondent was talking with someone who was supposed to be an expert in American Indian culture or something. He said "She showed me the ways of the Indian" or some such line, and the video showed her giving him an "Indian burn." You may not be familiar with the "Indian burn," and I would like to show you in person, but since that is difficult we will rely on the definition from answers.com: A prank done by grasping the victim's forearm firmly in both hands, and then twisting the hands in opposite directions about the victim's arm, causing the tender skin to stretch making it red and sore. Having had no reason for many years to perform, or even think about the "Indian burn," I was delighted to be reminded of this particularly painful technique for child-on-child torture. And I took a little trip down memory lane, recalling other signs of love we often inflicted on ...

Mashups using Google Maps: the salvation of mankind, or tool of the devil? Perhaps I draw the parameters a bit broad. But these mashups are proliferating, and they range from silly fun to useful to kind of subversive. (A mashup, by the way, is a blending of different things. The term seems to have originated with music, and now has gone multi-media.) Examples of Google Map mashups: Napa Valley vineyards map A basic use of the concept. Find Starbucks Now this is useful. How many times have you bumbled all over a strange town looking for a Starbucks. Never more. Roadside America - Guide to offbeat attractions Every state is included here. This link will take you to the Missouri map. You can see how useful this mashup can be - otherwise you might miss the statue of Marlin Perkins or the world's largest pecan. The Geography of Seinfeld If you want to know where the real soup Nazi can be found... Following the Dollars: Map Political Campaign Contributions in Your Area Here's where i...

Back in about 1987, KRON-TV discovered the delicious irony of a homeless problem in Napa. (Great in-depth story here on the days when KRON had a real newsroom.) Imagine! Homeless people in Napa, where each and every citizen receives a volcanic mud scrubdown and bathes in milk each morning, and breakfasts on Beluga caviar and truffles before being carried in a litter to their chateaus, where they oversee the production of their $100 per bottle boutique wines. (That's really the way it was back in '87. If you weren't living here then you really missed out.) Sylvia Chase, who was the star of Bay Area TV news at that time, oozed with indignation. "Some people here have so much, and you let these poor wretches live in the gutter - how I pity your souls." I am paraphrasing here. So flash forward 20 years and guess what? We still have the same problem, only there seem to be more of the them. And we have the same debate points - the homeless are local people, they grew ...