Jamie’s Brain

Now that I live next door to wine country, I figured that I need to learn a little bit more about wine. You know, beyond just what I learned from watching Sideways. My first thought was that I should take a class, but further research showed me that they are mega expensive. So I ended up finding this show in The Fine Living Network called Simply Wine with Andrea Immer. I checked it out a couple of months ago, under the assumption that it might be interesting to watch, but I probably won’t learn anything.

However, you can learn a surprising amount from the show. It is structured in a way that you learn from here introduction to the topic - details - pre-commerical summaries - end of show ‘60 second sommelier’ summary. The topics range from basic wine information to regional wines to rarities.

Through watching the show I also found out the Andrea is from Texas. I thought I recognized a twang in that voice! She has been voted Best Sommelier in the US and is one of a handful of women who are master sommeliers. She had one show where she discussed the extensive testing that a sommelier has to go through to become a master…..yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon.

It’s Tuesday night. The weekend’s already forgotten and the coming weekend is too damn far away.

So we have a weekly tradition of meeting our friends for pub quiz night at The Chieftan, our neighborhood pub. We have some drinks, eat fish & chips, and dig deep in our brains for obscure and random bits of information.

There are usually only 3 or 4 of us there, so our combined knowledge is not as vast as some of the tables where I have seen 10 people to a team at times. But we’ve managed 3rd place once or twice, and one time we even won a special World Cup round where we got some Miller comped concert tickets to see Fiona Apple and Damien Rice way far away in Concord way in the back of a big venue. Lucky us, I sold them on eBay for $6.38 and bought a partial round of drinks.

Pub Quiz has had an intersting effect on what I now consider potentially useful knowledge - like country’s flags and state mottos. I tend to only be useful in pop culture info, particularly excelling in the match up rounds like ‘tv shows and supporting casts’ and the picture round, where you identify who is in the picture.

Our team’s usual name is Turd Party (long story that has something to do with third party politics, though it was chosen pre-Jamie, and I am usually the only gal), though we have strayed from that once by using Practice Brisket pre White Trash BBQ. They usually have a contest for best name. and we never win that.

what up with the moustache trend? what i thought was a general worsening of the dirty hipster boy look, has turned into a full fledged independent trend. even the manfriend has one.

my name is earl really brought it into the spotlight, nick from csi grew one for part of the season, and snl did a whole skit on it.

there are contests and clubs, crazies galore…

leave it to men to bring back a trend that involves less work on their part and doesn’t cost anything.

clean. friendly. a shiny holographic credit card. they take back anything you want to return, no questions asked. they walk around the counter to hand you your bag when you buy something.

nordstrom, how i love thee. it is truly department store heaven. trendy and classic, affordable and expensive, young and old; nordstrom is able to have something for everyone while maintaining a personalized, sophisticated feel.

nordstrom has one of those classic stories of an immigrant founder who came to america with $5 to his name. the first store opened in seattle in 1901, and was just a shoe store. the founder instilled 4 principle values for the company to exist on that are still visible today : exceptional service, quality, selection, and value. it wasn’t until the 1960s that the shoe store merged with a portland clothing store. nordstrom is currently #46 in the top 100 companies to work for.

today, the departments within nordstrom have well defined identities. bp is the juniors department. funky and fashion forward, loud music, a mac counter, and a special website with tips, trends, and quizzes cater to the hip young affluent types. ‘my’ area, savvy, is the ‘fashion first’ area for the slightly more grown up. individualist - ‘Career and casual fashions with contemporary appeal designed to perform through day and night with style’, encore - the plus size clothing section for all occassions, petite focus, for women 5′4” and under, narrative - ‘Effortless fashions for work, for play, for evening, for day. Dresses, sportswear and coats beautifully styled, instantly gratifying’, otherwise known as the department i never wander into, point of view - ‘A versatile collection of up-to-the-moment fashions that are as inspiring as they are accessible’, t.b.d. - ‘Your destination for the season’s best trends—new looks designed with versatility and vitality, and the style to make them your own’, studio 121 - ‘Quintessential, timeless and luxe styles with refined designs. Sophisticated pieces with polished style for career and casual wardrobes’. Then there is my aspirational Designers section. A little like a clothing museum where I feel like I can’t touch anyhting. St. John has their own special section. Then they have the usual breakdowns - shoes, lingerie, coats, and special occasion - while men are pretty much just stucj with the ‘men’s department’. heehee.

nordstrom rack is the out of season leftovers store that they didn’t have in texas, but there is one near me that i have yet to visit. i just know it will be dangerous.

The Alamo Drafthouse is one of the things I miss the most about Austin. Dinner and a movie has always been one of my favorite things to do, and being able to do them both at the same place just rocks my world.

The Alamo started as one small theater in Austin’s warehouse district. The theater is set up with stadium style seats, but with every other row taken out and replaces with long bar like tables. Their menu has everything from regular movie fare - popcorn, soda, and candy, to salads, burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, desserts, and beer, wine and mized drinks. They even have coffee drinks for late movies.

Currently there are multiple locations of the Alamo throughout Texas, and each location has multiple screens with the except of the original Alamo. Regular movies are shown there, but it is just as well known for it’s special events.

The Alamo understands kitsch very well. Every experience is unique, with the movie always being the focal point that every other element adapts to. Every movie starts out with an original, well put together montage of clips that have to do with the theme or previous actors work in the feature film. For instance, before Million Dollar Baby, they had a clip from a Clint Eastwood film that was apparently a musical because he was walking around singing. They also had some ’80s workout videos that were really funny, I think one was Gsa Gsa Gabor’s, where she barely moved. Also, the menu usually has a few special items that reflect the movie, like Nacho Libre had some special Nachos.

But the best things that are at the Alamo are their special events. They have celebrity guests, like when I went to see John K, the creator of Ren & Stimpy. They have an ongoing show called Mr. Sinus Theater, which was actually in a legal dispute with Mystery Science Theater, where 3 comedians add their own voice overs and actions to a well known classic. I saw Dirty Dancing and it was hilarious. They have Butt-Numb-athons, 24 hour movie marathons, and food and film events such as showing all 3 Lord of The Rings while having a hobbit feast (first breakfast, second breakfast…) and a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Chocolate Feast, complete with golden tickets ($50 gift certificates to the theater, which we won one)!, and have an annual Quentin Tarantino Film Festival.

The Alamo Drafthouse is currently franchising, and I am really hoping that it comes out here to San Francisco. If had had more money I would totally do it. Doesn’t some rich retired dot com-er want to make an investment???

fan site
downtown location to close?

yay for music festivals!

and this one was quite good, though most people would probably punch my friend eryn and i if they knew that we left before the 2 main acts - the ho-hum Strokes and the mildly annoying AFI.

Honestly, I paid $65 to see She Wants Revenge, and they sure did deliver. Give me more material, a solo show, and more Justin and Adam and I will be one happy little girl. Justin and his poses are priceless.

I was happily suprised by The Sounds - that swedish chick can croon and she does some interesting things on the stage. Of course, not as interesting as Karen of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs…though the sound left a lot to be desired as did the small amount of space I was forced to survive in during the set due to twig like high school girls and their much too old and dirty boyfriends. Echo and the Bunnymen were cool to see, but not super impressive. Excessively long sausage lines caused us to miss Every Move a Picture. But Franz Ferdinand walked past us while we were waiting for our brats, complete with their little screaming fans waiting for them at the backstage gate.

BFD, while delivering on its name, is also a great f’ing deal. We left happy, tired, and ready for next year’s.

so let me start out by saying that my man and i used to hate lady sovereign. after stumbling in to club six one night and finding her waddling around on the stage, with her side pony tail and wretched sound, we couldn’t stop making fun of her. this was back in december.

a few months go by, and i’m looking at the coachella lineup, and there i see, lady sovereign again. and i’m like, what is this chick doing? how is she coachella worthy. so i go to itunes, download her top song, and decide i’ll actually give her a second chance. i planned on joking about it with donnie, but the i found ‘random’ to be quite catchy and bootyshakeable.

we ended up not going to coachella, but then end of may rolls around, and we see that the streets is coming to town, which donnie loves and i like a lot. so, we decide to go, and check into it and see that, you guessed it, lady sovereign is the opening act. donnie is amused and i am a little excited, because, what the hell, that one song is kinda fun.

so we go to the fillmore, which i may suggest it should be renamed the fillymore for the sheer amount of underage people up in there. the crowd i always find to be an odd mix of young abercrombians and pseudohipsters + some real hipsters + some surviving hippie relics + grandma/grandpas that are searching for the fountain of youth.

so lady sov comes out and the show rocks. she is really funny and makes these contorted faces so that you realize she is this strange hybrid of talented young rapper + white chick that doesn’t take herself too seriously + proper bird with a darling accent. and her dj is off that hook.

the comes the streets. he dons just the right amount of bling, a kick ass pair of sunglasses, and a bottle of bourbon and grey goose. unfortunately his sidekick has become increasingly annoying, i can’t find his name, but he really gets in the way. so mike skinner gets really attached to this one fan in the front, who i can’t see but must be wearing something really interesting because i heard skinner say the word lycra. on several instances he pours him large amounts of bourbon, and also pours some grey goose down a few girls throats. donnie knows every word to every song and and i still can’t understand why they also call that english. so, skinner keeps looking up at the balcony and saying that he’s going to jump off of it. and, after the encore, he indeed does - into the crowd of malnutritioned high school students. ah, the power of bourbon. but they miraculously catch him.

as we exit we get our first official fillmore free poster, though we’ve been here before. donnie gets a pink streets shirt with palm trees on it. we walk away happy.

but not quite as happy as i am when i go to write this and find this little gem - i remember her making a comment about this at the show, but i had no idea what she was talking about. what a guy.