Wine Review - Hedrington Cellars Sauvignon Blanc

by Jonathan Ray Keller

Greetings, oenophiles! The wise editors of this fine publication have asked to enlist my vast expertise in the ways of fancy frivolous fluids to steer the wine-drinkers among its readership toward - or strongly away from -a featured wine. Taste along with me, what?

This episode's featured wine: Hedrington Cellars Sauvignon Blanc ($14 at the tasting room)

Nose: The aroma of this vintage can be best described as playful - playful in traffic perhaps, but playful nonetheless. Upon first whiff, the light, airy aroma of hibiscus and juniper tantalize your senses. This unbridled delight is followed a tenth of a second later by a more pronounced scent of cider vinegar, light Italian salad dressing, and whore's crotch. The nose of their Sauvignon Blanc awards the House of Hedrington a complete victory over the previously haunting mystery "What would be the scent of giant grapes douching?"

Mouth Feel: The mouth feel of Hedrington's Sauv Blanc is truly a unique experience - simultaneously citric and creamy. The most accurate analogy I can surmise would be if one had just orally serviced a grapefruit to satisfaction... and he'd have to offer more than the standard extra five to justify swallowing.

Fingers: The quickly receding narrow rivulets of wine momentarily adhering to the side of the glass cause the drinker to wonder where those fingers have been. Considering the meek shame into which they rapidly retreat, my guess would be up its Nose.

Flavor: Traces of pineapple and grapefruit distinctly punctuate the overall flavor experience. More accurately, the flavor is as if pineapples and grapefruit were dissolved in tank of kerosene, the kerosene were set on fire, and that fire were extinguished with the furious pissing of a thousand inbred carnies.

Overall Experience: The management at Hedrington Cellars truly enhance the experience of this sauv blanc with the aesthetic of their tasting room. Imagine soft light classical music lilting in the background of a blissfully stocked tasting room the size of a small warehouse with hardwood floors, oak bars with brass and walnut trim and the light aroma of cinnamon and vanilla wafting blithely throughout. Maintaining that image is the only way you'll survive the reality of being served the above described pecker-squeezings of a demon by malodorous college fail-out stoners who blast the noise of some neo-hippie fauxlk "musician" with the guitar skills of a constipated mule, the voice of Bob Dylan afer gargling with diesel fuel and broken glass, and apparently playing a harmonica via arse.

In conclusion, I highly recommend a trip to Hedrington Cellars for a sample of Sauvignon Blanc to any potential future vintners. The message to be taken away: "Sweet Jumpin' Jesus... this could be me. Maybe doing accounts payable for a produce wholesaler until I'm seventy-four years old won't be so bad."

Play Time Is Over, Banker Girl

by Steve Edder

Yeah, I got the message, Banker Girl. "Have a nice weekend" indeed. I know what you're *really* saying - let's you and me have a nice weekend together in a hotel room with nothing but a hot tub, two or three bottles of champagne, some baby oil and a pecker-shaped loofah sponge.

Play time is over, Baby - we need to get this thing on. We won't be this hot forever - it's time to make it happen. You're totally hot for me and I'm hip to that - we both know you don't smile and say "Have a nice weekend" like that to every bank customer. Remember Halloween, Sweet Thing? I came into the bank in my Darth Vader outfit. Before I left, you smiled and said "Have a nice afternoon" in that sexy-sly way you always do, because you knew it was me under that Vader mask. That's how in synch we are, Baby.

Oh hell yeah. Mmmmm - I'm getting hot just thinking about it. You. Me. On a tropical beach... naked. We'd be so into each other, we wouldn't even care how much sand got gummed up in our sweaty butt cracks.

You know you want it even more than I do. C'mon... let's do this! Grab a few stacks of bills on your way out of work and meet me at the Hilton downtown. We'll get so hot and freaky for days on end that we'll only stop for Gatorade and Power Bars so we could go at it again. And if you *really* want to get freaky, I'll invite that cute barrista chick at the Third Avenue Starbucks with the black nail polish to join us for an epic three-day three-way. I know she'd be down. She can't get enough of my smokin' man-stuff - why else would she remember my half-caff soy latte each and every morning? Yeah, Baby, she knows how I like it and that's just how she wants to give it to me!

Presidential Primaries - The First Last Word

by Kussmich Imarsche, IbK News Political Correspondent

The results are in from the first Presidential primaries and the entire nation - Republican and Democrat alike - have lifted their voices to cry out in unison an empassioned "Whoop-De-Shit!"

You'd think with the tens of millions in campaign funds spent, demographics analyzed, town halls addressed, farmers polled, doors knocked upon, hands kissed and babies shaken that we would have half a stinking idea where we're going and who we're going with in this Presidential choosery-thingie... but not so much. So far we've had two parties run five contests in three states with five different winners. Iowa went to Huckabee and Obama, Wyoming to Romney, and New Hampshire to McCain and Clinton. How could this happen and what does it all mean?

First question first.

To begin with, each political party runs its primary system entirely differently. Democrats have over 4000 delegates of which the winner must get one more than half; Republicans just under 2400. Democratic caucuses allow for (and actually count) second choices; Republicans make no time for backups. 186 Democratic delegates have been awarded in states that haven't voted yet; Republicans have similarly pledged only six. For crying out loud - they don't even vote in the same states at the same time: Republicans are already done in Wyoming, and the Dems are still trying to find it on the map (No, Dennis... that's Colorado - Wyoming is the other big-ass rectangle in the West.)

On the subject of states, let us look closer at the states which have cast their ballots in this primary season already to get a gauge as to how representative they may be of the country as a whole: Iowa is a state which manages to rank in the top five in the nation in both average education level and pork production per capita. New Hampshire is settled by a fiercely independent and well-armed hearty woodland folk of which over 95% are Caucasian, thus earning it the title New England's Idaho. Wyoming is... well... the big-ass Western rectangle that isn't Colorado. Pretty easy to see how Floridians and left-coasters could be scratching their heads over the results so far, what?

As far as what it means: Bollocks. Looking at the delegate scorecard, Hillary Clinton leads the Democrats at 183 with Barack Obama a distant second with 78, but Obama leads Clinton in earned delegates (those determined by the people's vote) 25 to 24. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney leads the delegate race with 30, Mike Huckabee is second with 21, John McCain third with 10, yet Rudy Giuliani who has yet to earn a single delegate is considered one of the frontrunners. It makes about as much sense as eating a wallet full of umbrella piss, but such results arise from systems designed by ivory tower bureaucrats.

The upside to all this madness is that no matter where you live, the odds are pretty good your vote will still count. Nobody anywhere is even 10% of the way to a nomination - no Republican can even claim 3% - so it's still anybody's game. When it's your turn, be sure to get out and vote. Don't know who to vote for? Neither does anybody else, but that doesn't seem to stop them. Have fun with it... write your Mom in - the way this thing is playing out, she's got as good a chance as anybody else, so why the hell not?

2007: The Year In Sports - Way To Guh, Ohio!

by Espen Jockovitch

The 2007 sports year can best be described as a year of near-surprises - a year full of gritty upstart teams that gave everything they had to win more and go farther than any of the self-glorifying wet-sausage-fart-in-a-suit sports analysts ever gave them a chance to go... before they got ground into braunsweiger a la jock-strap in the well-greased tank treads of a juggernaut in the end. To recap the Year That Could Have Was, you need turn your eyes to but one location: the State of Ohio.

January 2007: The BCS Championship Game featured an undefeated and largely unchallenged The Ohio State University Buckeye football team led by Heismann Trophy-winning quarterback Troy Smith against the SEC Champion #2 rated Florida Gators. In what felt at the time a theme-setter, OSU's Ted Ginn, Jr. returned the opening kickoff all the way to the Gator House, giving the Buckeyes a 7-0 lead 15 seconds into the game. In what proved to be a more accurate theme-setter, Ginn immediately injured himself jumping around in the end zone, and Ohio State never saw the lead again.

The Florida Gators outran, outblocked, outhit and outcoached the Buckeyes for the final 59:45 of the Championship Game, entirely pasting the former #1 41-14 - a score that "close" only by virtue of the sportsmanlike mercies of Gator Coach Urban Meyer.

[Side note: Troy "Heisman" Smith, after spending more time in the title game on his back than OSU's chapter of the Delta Gamma sorority at a week-long Intra-Greek kegger went on to hit the buffet circuit before getting drafted late in the fifth round by the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens went on to a 2007 campaign that featured a nine-game losing streak (including an overtime loss to the 1-15 Dolphins), a 5-11 overall record and the unceremonial shitcanning of their former-Super Bowl-winning coach Brian Billick.]

April 2007: The OSU Basketball Buckeyes, led by three freshmen, stormed their way through the Big Ten season and tournament earning a #1 seed for the NCAA Championship Tournament. Although their inexperience showed and the Buckeyes did struggle on occasion, they made their way into the Final Four by handily defeating a talented and much ballyhooed (though lippy and a tad light above the neck) Memphis team.

Once in Atlanta for the Final Four, the Bucks showed their grit in grinding out a hard-won semifinal against Georgetown, earning them a shot at their first national title in 46 years against... wait for it... the Florida Gators - the Gator team that returned its entire starting five from their 2006 NCAA Basketball Championship. Surprisingly enough, a Buckeye team led by three freshmen and a sophomore were outclassed by the returning National Champions, losing 84-75 in a game that was really never that close.

[Side Note: All three Buckeye freshmen declared eligibility for the draft in June of 2007, most notably center Greg Oden who was chosen first overall by the Portland Trailblazers. Oden went on to twist his knee in a warmup so severely that it required season-ending surgery two months before the season began.]

June 2007: The Cleveland Cavaliers posted a 50-win regular season, rode a #4 seed into the playoffs, swept the Wizards, made light work of the Nets, and upset the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals by winning four straight games after falling behind 0-2 to punch their first-ever ticket to the NBA Finals.

The Cavs faced the Western Conference Champion San Antonio Spurs , who squished them like gnats in four straight games. As a matter of fact, this articlet about the 2007 NBA Finals lasted longer that the actual 2007 NBA Finals.

[Side Note: LeBron James, home-grown hero and Mr. All-Everything for the Cleveland Cavaliers, made a national TV appearance at a Cleveland Indians playoff game... in Cleveland... against the Yankees... wearing a Yankees cap, thus committing the only unforgiveable sin in Cleveland sportsdom. Before that day, were LeBron caught ass-raping the alpacas in the MetroParks Zoo, local sportswriters would say those saucy Andean ruminant sluts were asking for it - now King James actually has to produce something.]

October 2007: The Cleveland Indians, fresh off their sixth straight rebuilding year in 2006 where they finished 78-84 and dead-except-for-the-Royals last in the AL Central, somehow with duct tape and bailing wire posted a Major-League-Baseball-best 96-66 record in 2007 winning their division and home field advantage in their Divisional Series match-up against the heavily-favored New York Yankees. With the help of 90-degree October weather and an invasion of Canadian Soldier flying ants, the Indians eliminated the Yankees in four games and advanced to face the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series.

Before FOX Sports could dust off its AL East-issue kneepads and Listerine the Yankees and Red Sox jizz out from between its teeth, the Indians took a 3-1 lead over the Red Sox with Game 5 to be played in Cleveland -although viewers could hardly tell by FOX's in-depth coverage of large-breasted and/or famous people in the stands only on occasion being interrupted by live baseball broadcasts. At that point however, the Red Sox decided that enough was enough from these pesky young upstarts and decided to earn their $130 million paychecks. To this day, the Red Sox haven't lost another baseball game; leaving one little, two little, 25 little Indians in their wake, scattered and scarred with rent flesh and protruding bones like so many dessicated walleye on the shores of Lake Erie.

[Side Note: Indians pitcher C. C. Sabathia won the AL Cy Young Award and manager Eric Wedge took the AL Manager of the Year Award for 2007, thus futhering Major League Baseball Writers' Special Olympics-like tradition of making sure every team wins something.]

December 2007: The play of the Cleveland Browns from their 1999 return to the NFL through the 2006 season can only be described as "shitty," (I would describe it as "wretched", but the Browns could never come up with the needed "W"), and their 2007 season opener against the Steelers looked like more of the same. A shameful home-field 34-7 scrotum-squashing at the hands of their blood-deep rival forced the Browns into trading their starting quarterback to Seattle for a handful of magic beans just to show the fans that the team meant business. The Browns winning nine of their next 13 games brought that point home to the fans in spades. Suddenly a team who flipped a coin to determine its starting quarterback in the preseason is 9-5 and in control of its own playoff destiny.

Never give control of ANYTHING to a bunch of overachieving, energetic, n00bz - the first thing they'll want to see is if they can blow the tits off it. Turns out they could - and they did. A performance against the Bengals in Game 15 reminiscent of the Trent Dilfer days featuring four first-down interceptions (including two in the last minute of the fist half which Cincinnati converted into 13 points) led to a 19-14 loss and an eventual early exit. The Browns won their season finale to give the New Age Browns their first 10-win season and cliched the coveted 20th pick in the 2008 draft - the lowest pick a team can get without actually making the playoffs.

[Side Note: The Browns season ended two days ago. Give them time to do something stupid - they're still cleaning out their lockers, for crying out loud!]

So the theme for 2007: Feel-good stories with the real-world more-experienced/better-funded/more-talented establishment team pecker-slapping the Johnny-Come -Latelys-all-the-way-back-to-training-camp endings. I'm sure this year's Buckeyes are praying for the writer's strike to end quickly so the snot-nosed backer-inners to next Monday's 2008 BCS Championship Game get that Hollywood ending would will have them hoisting the crystal.