A little vignette for background: A few months ago I was walking past the boss's office and he called me in and said 'hey Dave, come here - I want you to look at this website.' So I came in and crawled over the detritus all over his office to look at his computer screen and as I watched, he slowly pecked out the address of ...our own website. He poked his finger at the screen for about five minutes, and I could tell he was trying to communicate and that perhaps he was unhappy about something, but I'll be damned if I could tell you what. Flash forward to two days ago when I was copied on an email to our art director, regarding our website:

good mechanics under the hood .....but it looks like an absolute bore....

which then went on to compare our site to another extremely popular and more brightly-colored local website. So I said that

The popularity of a website has less to do with how many colors it uses than with what it has to offer readers.

and explained that if one wants people to visit a site more often than once a week, it had better have fresh content more often than once a week.

Yesterday I was told by someone else that there were going to be professional web consultants critiquing websites at an upcoming conference and would I like to volunteer our site? So yeah, I said of course, it would be great to have an actual professional look it over. She said great, but clear it with the boss first. So I emailed him and he replied that we'd better hurry because

they may not accept us if they are looking for more primitive newspaper sites that are really bad

So in a way, I'm actually really relieved that while our site is pretty bad, there are some out there that can be considered really bad. Go me!!

- Z

I wish I could say that this was the first time this happened to us (e:zobar,12) . They called us up to tell us one of our lines was down, we said go ahead and test it, and they took down the other one for the rest of the afternoon.

One of our lines remains up, the other remains down, and Verizon has been notified. More updates when available and possible. Sorry guys.

- Z

A healthy dose of randomness to start your week. My new user sound is 'A Man Like Putin,' by a short-lived band called 'Singing Together,' widely believed to be a concoction of one of the political parties trying to curry favor with the President.

On a trip to Pakistan after this song became popular, Pres. Musharraf said to Pres. Putin: 'So I hear they even write songs about you,' to which Putin replied, 'Yes, I have to put up with everything.'

My boyfriend is in trouble again.
He got in a fight and got stoned on something nasty.
I've had enough, and I chased him away,
and now I want a man like Putin.

A man like Putin, full of energy.
A man like Putin, who doesn't drink.
A man like Putin, who wouldn't hurt me.
A man like Putin, who won't run away.

I saw him on the news last night
He was saying the world was at a crossroads.
It's easy with a man like him at home or out on the town,
and now I want a man like Putin.

gather:0314877001147695425

- Z

We: lost in Livingston County
Me, driving, blithely: Which way should we go now?
She, under a pile of maps, furious: What, so I'm the navigator now?

---

Our little wine-tasting junket was just perfect, I think. I admit I took a wrong turn in Livingston County, heading southwest along the wrong side of Letchworth instead of southeast along the right side of Letchworth, but to my credit we did see a really keen house along the way.

Even though this development put us off-schedule on our unscheduled vacation, we still managed to hit Bully Hill Vineyards in Hammondsport before closing time. Bully Hill has a reputation for making cheap sweet wines with funny names and funny labels; it should be mentioned that they also make some very good cheap dry wines with funny names and funny labels. For a long time, Bully Hill produced Cylinder Head grape juice, unpasteurized and packaged in wine bottles - until Welch's brought this to the attention of the FDA, who told them they had to pasteurize it and produce it somewhere else [and in the process ruining my faith in humanity]. I am pissed, but that is another rant for another time.

After that, the wineries were closing, so we mosied on over to Watkins Glen, where we ment (e:dragonlady7) 's younger sister for a pint and a burger at the Crooked Rooster , where they brew up a mean selection of ales and grill up a formidable burger. I ordered a light ale from the mystery tap; she had a brown ale - mine was good, but hers was better.

It was getting late and beginning to rain, so we made some quick reservations at the Tudor Rose . Having never stayed at a B&B before, I was astounded to realize that it was just some lady's house. The rain on the roof zonked me right the hell out until I was awakened the next morning by the heavenly aroma of French toast and sausages wafting up the stairwell.

The rain had stopped by the time we were done stuffing ourselves silly, so we had a little walk around the Glen. The gorge trail was not yet fully open for the season, but we still got to see a couple of the waterfalls, including the one that comes down over your head. Freaky.

The next winery we hit was Cascata on NY 14 overlooking Seneca Lake. We nearly missed it, and when we pulled in to the driveway I said, 'You can't fool me! This is just some guy's house.' But the winery was housed in the first floor of a B&B [The Professor's Inn]. Cascata makes their own wine, but they do not have the facilities to grow their own grapes or age or their wine; rather they buy their grapes from the local farms and lease space at a larger winery down the street. Their Estate Red is outstanding: subtle, nuanced, complex, as is their Luna Rossa. Sadly, they had run out of their Cranberry Bog mead, a mead/cranberry wine blend, but we did get a taste of their limited-run elderberry wine. Yum.

Next we hit Fulkerson , known for their bright-red and quite tasty Red Zeppelin. They offer a Traminette, a sweeter version of Gewürtztraminer. Their Cabernet Sauvignon is full-bodied and flavorful, and their Matinee is an exceptional sweet white.

We were both looking forward to visiting Earle Estates Meadery , but their tasting facilities appeared to be closed. Instead we grabbed some ice cream in Dresden and took a drive along Keuka Lake back to Hammondsport, where we stopped in at the Pleasant Valley Wine Company . Their champagne is good, but their dessert wines are excellent. We asked about the Cooking Sherry on their tasting menu, and the woman behind the bar narrowed her eyes. 'I fight with the winemakers about this constantly. Local restauranteurs wanted a sherry that was sweeter than our Sherry, but drier than our Cream Sherry, so we came out with an in-between sherry for cooking. It's just sherry; there's no added salt or herbs or anything like that. I think it should be called Gourmet Sherry instead.' We tried their Keuka Blue, which is a traditional Port made with traditional techniques - only it is 100% blueberry wine fortified with 100% blueberry brandy - and it has a very unusual and complex flavor, both sweet and woody. We finished off our trip with a taste of their Vanilla Cream Sherry, which blew my mind so hard I'm still talking about it.

- Z

Been busy lately, with this and that. Now that the Menus/Best craziness is over, I'm taking some me-time.

(e:dragonlady7) and I are going to hop in the car tomorrow afternoon and wander our way down to the Finger Lakes area. The original plan was to poke around Watkins Glen a little and also to do a little wine tasting. The weather may not be cooperative, though, so in that case we'll just have to nix Watkins Glen and do a little more wine tasting instead. Damn damn damn life is tough.

(e:dragonlady7) has been assigned to come up with an itinerary, which already includes:

Bully Hill Vineyards , known for its ridiculous labels and excellent selection of delicious cheap wines
Earle Estates Meadery , who makes mead and several different kinds of fruit wine
and perhaps Pleasant Valley Wine Company (US Bonded Winery #1), the oldest winery in the Finger Lakes, and who also makes a pretty mean sherry

I have been told there may also be a brewery on the tour. Whee!

- Z

how someone becomes a columnist? (e:dragonlady7) was pondering on this some years back, and I just kinda shrugged and said I dunno.

Turns out, the way you become a columnist is, you happen to be standing around when the editor says, 'we need another columnist.' The point of this being, (e:dragonlady7) is our newest food columnist , and I get to be Guest. Yays!

She did Tru-Teas this week, but I'm trying to steer her towards Buffalo's excellent selection of greasy spoons, Greek diners, hot dog joints, and wing shacks.

- Z

Because in no other country in the world would someone invent 'freako instruments' called The Egotar, The Swiss Army Bass, The Droning Betsy, or the Great Train Wreck. Out of duct tape.



- Z

Any country where you can be invited to a state dinner for the president and the press and proceed to lambaste both, and still wake up the next morning, is OK in my book.

Guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

- Z

I just got an IM from (e:dragonlady7) at home - we just had the health inspector drop by for tea and biscuits!

I guess he stopped in, had a look at the Compost Pile of Plague and Pestilence, said 'Yeah, this is cool. Maybe put it up on bricks. I'll give you a week; if you need more time, just give me a call and I'll give you another week. Nice yard, by the way.'

Ooooh. I'm just so irked. But- this means that, bricks aside, we now have legal authority to compost with impunity, and thus shall the End Times begin! Behold my terrible power!

- Z

but I swear I use my powers for good and not for evil. So my miserable old cuntbag of a neighbor, who is most famous for uprooting my garden , started ringing on my doorbell this lovely Sunday afternoon. The first ring, I thought maybe I had a package. The second ring a second later, I thought maybe somebody was visiting me. The third ring I thought a friend was visiting, but by the fourth ring in as many seconds I knew exactly who it was.

'Mrs. Bob,' I said, never having been properly introduced, 'is the doorbell broken?' Which apparently caught her off-guard, because she stammered a bit before laying into me about the compost heap. I leaned in the doorway and kind of half-squinted and half-smiled and just basically thought about baseball. And when she started winding down and expected me to say something, I just kind of kept squinting and smiling like I was waiting for her to get to the point, so she started right up again, and I just kind of stood there. The cycle repeated itself about five times before she finally realized:

'Are you listening to me?'

OK, I admit it - I'm a terrible liar. When somebody calls me out like that I gotta fess up. 'No, not really.'

'Well are you going to take it out?'

'Take what out?' And then it started again. She went through another three cycles of complaints wherein a compost heap would cause rats, a pox on the first-born, and Armageddon. 'So are you going to take it out?'

I didn't really have any inclination to do anything with it except make compost for our vegetable garden, so all I said was: 'no.'

Wo boy, and then she got really mad. Her face split; the skin and hair split and came off of her face so that there was nothing except the skull. An orange light came out of her hair, and it lit all around. Fire shot from her eye sockets and began to burn my stomach.* She left spurting invective and cursing to gods long dead and also, coincidentally, threatening to call the Health Department. I just stood in the doorway and waited until she left. She started complaining to her husband ['Mr. Bob,' who did properly introduce himself], who was then mowing the lawn and who I cannot say I ever thought would ever stand up to her, say 'Stop. I'm trying to mow the lawn. OK?' [Baby steps, Mr. Bob. Baby steps.]

So maybe En-Con will be by tomorrow and we can sit around and work through an Ad Council coloring book about proper composting technique. Wouldn't that be fun? Oh-- and this compost heap which will inevitably usher in the End Times? It's about a foot and a half square by about a foot high.

- Z

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• Bill Cosby, 'Chocolate Cake for Breakfast' gather:0732920001146437417