Wine Fest

I'm getting really excited about the upcoming Playhouse Wine Festival in Vancouver in March. Last year was my first one and I was much more mezmerized than I thought I would be. Also I quite unexpectedly fell in love with the wine industry. I had been introduced to fine wines a few years ago by a friend of mine who was visiting Vancouver and had retained a strong interest but was always tentative to go exploring. Being at the wine festival I discovered I had a bit of a passion for wines - not just the drinking, but the learning. I have a deep deep passion for music and I feel that wine is a kindred spirit to music. Just like music there are different genres, different instruments, different creators - but the same song will never sound the same twice. It can come close, but there will always be a new nuance to discover. I suppose the same can be said of many things, but I just find it amazing that one little grape can tell such vast and varied stories.

I'm still floundering a bit with my learning but I'm picking up more and more. I'm planning on studying my various resources and doing my research over the next month with the hopes of this year's wine festival taking me to the next level of my relationship with the grape. If anyone reading this has any suggestions for "must try wines" - please let me know.

Gaiman messing with Penn

From Neil Gaiman's journal:
(and who am I to deny Neil's request)
(and who are you to deny Neil's request? - now go clicky clicky)

I'd like to ask a small favour of those of you who have read down this far. Would anyone reading this, anyone with a blog or a website that is, mind linking to the last post -- http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/02/and-in-time-it-took-to-say-that-neil.html -- with the link text Penn Jillette? Given Penn's recent rant about the power and ubiquity of this blog on his radio show, I'd like to mess with his head just a little and see if we can actually google-bomb it so that that entry shows in the top few entries if you google Penn's name.
And sshhh, don't anyone tell him. I want it to be a surprise.