The torrential downpour that drenched the city this week clogged drains and traffic. By the time I headed home, the rain had stopped, but, alas, so had the cars exiting the city, which meant that I wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.
So, having nothing better to do, I switched on my Google Glass and took this picture
which I then sent to my Google Glass, absolutely confirming to myself, for myself, that I was indeed stuck in traffic. And also confirming that I have not yet found any real reason for needing Google Glass.
But then I thought that what I really needed was not Google Glass but a nice glass of this stuff:
My using the word “stuff” is a dead giveaway that I am no oenologist. But I do like a good glass of wine. I think my favorite is a certain Argentine Malbec. Not certain which, though. Also, it might be from Chile and a Chardonnay. Or maybe from Detroit. And a Malibu—no, no, that’s a Chevy.
Like I said, I’m no oenologist. An oenologist is a wine expert. I’m no expert, but at least, I think, that I can tell a good wine from a bad one, or at least a white from a red. At least I thought so, until I read a fascinating post by the New Yorker Web-site psychology writer Maria Konnikova, “What We Really Taste When We Drink Wine.” She cites a study in which students in the University of Bordeaux’s oenology program could be fooled into thinking that a white wine was a red just by adding an odorless red dye to the white.
Well, I think that would be discouraging to those budding oenologists, but not to me because, from now on, I’ll just be buying white and some cheap red dye. Clearly I’m lacking in wine connoisseurship, but let me make that up to you with a slide show demonstrating my connoisseurship of wine cartoons. I think you’ll pick up some notes of satire and irony, along with a nice bouquet of whimsy.
