The weekend, otherwise...

Well, Friday we had the usual fish dinner, where I tried to make miso-glazed salmon and the miso soup, which worked only somewhat but wasn't disagreeable. There was a wine, something Australian which was best described as working very hard to be utterly inoffensive. amythis and fallenpegasus joined in the feast and rounds of Gimme The Brain and A Very Special Drawn Together. I didn't need the latter; that was sick, sick, sick.

My new laptop finally came in the mail, three and a half months after ordering it. It works quite solidly, although there is much question about the used battery's remaining worth. Other than that, it's in very good shape and, unlike the P2/266 (128MB), its P3/1333 (512MB) is fast enough to actually support my thinking processes without the delay that distracts.

Saturday, Omaha and I and Kouryou-chan all went to Kouryou-chan's school for more gardening. Somehow, I ended up on the roof again, mucking out gutters. The recent windstorms made a real mess. We also moved about a ton of dirt, much of it in plastic bags, and my back was killing me before the day was out. That evening I went out with a friend to the 'Spot, which was fun, although I'm starting to get really tired of the progressively less melodic music.

Sunday, we did yard work. Since the weeks are so darned full, I promised Omaha I'd stay home Sunday. I'm annoyed: the power washer Omaha bought me died after less than six hours of use. It's only the gun handle, but now it's leaking and doesn't deliver. Problem is, she bought it for me on Black Friday, which means it's well over its ninety-day warranty.

And I stayed home Monday to do paperwork-- and catch up on my DVD burning. Unfortunately, the completely reliable Sony drive died with a noise that I said (and made Omaha laugh with), "I'm afraid to imagine what's going on in there."

Wine: Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Shiraz 2003 and Tefft Cellars Cabernet-Savignon 2003

Last Friday, the wine was Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Shiraz 2003. This was the wine I characterized as "trying very hard to offend nobody." It was a very soft wine, mildly oaky, with nothing much at all to recommend it other than that it is utterly unchallenging. You can easily drink the whole bottle, not that I recommend this. And at $5.99 a bottle, it's not a bad buy.

On the other hand, I tried Tefft Cellars Cabernet-Savignon 2003, and this is not a wine I can recommend to anyone. My initial impression of the smell was very strong and vaguely chemical, not at all a good sign. The taste is dry and not all that tolerable; it's been oaked to death and can best be described as "dusty". Might go well with some serious beef or pasta sauce, but otherwise pass on it: at $8.99 a bottle from Trader Joe's, not a worthy find.