Blackout!

To my great surprise, I came home to a dark house last night. And, I'm happy to report, it wasn't that I failed to pay my electric bill. Unless, of course, all my neighbors forgot to pay theirs, too - and that seems unlikely, as most of them are pretty responsible.

It wasn't a lightning strike or an ice storm, as the weather was clear and reasonably nice yesterday. It wasn't even the usual cause of blackouts around here, a hurricane. No, it was the far more typical cause: a tree (or big branch) fell on the above-ground lines.

Well, no surprise, I suppose. When one lives in a residential subdivision that's over 50 years old and was built in a fairly heavily wooded area, one learns that these things happen.

(Don't know when the blackout started, as I no longer have non-digital electric clocks in the house. But the area was dark at 7:30 when I got home from work, and the electricity came back on around midnight and the cable was back by 9 a.m. So the stuff in the freezer is still safe, or so I've convinced myself.)

The Gray Ghost update.

The new outdoor cat is willing - barely - to allow me to touch her, although she still tries to squirm away. But she's hungrier than she is squeamish, so she puts up with it while she's eating. And yes, her fur is soft.

And after she eats? She's more than happy to have a conversation with me, so long as I stay five or more feet away, and even better if I'm on the other side of the fence from her.

But she's not interested in coming inside to be warm, even though nights lately have gotten down into the teens.

No, it's not.

A quick little quiz:

What's the correct spelling and punctuation of the federal holiday being celebrated tomorrow (the third Monday in February):
(a) Presidents' Day,
(b) President's Day, or
(c) Presidents Day?

Certainly, if you look in the ads in the paper today, you can find support for all options, sometimes with two or three of the variations being used in the same ad. And it makes a difference, as the first would seem to celebrate all presidents, regardless of how poor they might have been; the second would appear to celebrate a single, albeit anonymous, president; and the last looks like it honors the father-and-son pair of presidents whose last name is "Day."

So which of the possible answers is correct?

You guessed it, this is a trick question. The correct spelling and punctuation of the holiday is "Washington's Birthday".

If it makes you feel better - and I'm not sure it should - the schools systems in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and the City of Alexandria, Virginia (where George Washington was born and where Mount Vernon is located) both refer to the holiday as "Presidents' Day." And shame on them.

A spot of yellow.

Time for the annual posting on how early the crocuses are blooming. I first saw them peeking up on Tuesday last week, but lethargy and the weekend snow kept me from taking their photos until today. (Seventy degrees today - might as well take some photos.)

And yes, the crocus blooms are surrounded by the remains of last year's leaves. When the darn things stay attached to the trees until the middle of December, I figure they can jolly well stay on the ground until I get around to mowing the yard sometime this spring. (My neighbors sometimes figure otherwise, alas.)

Guns don't shoot people.

Dick Cheney shoots people.

Or, if you prefer, Star Wars valentines.

Just not commercially available ones.

Breakfast time at the Cellar door.

The gray cat greeted me this morning. Well, if complaining that breakfast is well overdue can be described as a greeting.

She - or he - still won't let me get within 15 feet, unless there's a closed door between us. So while her/his fur looks soft, for now we'll just have to assume that it is.

And I got to see interaction between the two cats yesterday. This cat was sitting on my back deck, and the "tuxedo" cat (who actually turns out to be black-and-gray tabby-striped with a white hind leg, not that you can easily tell the difference between black and black-and-gray-striped at 11 p.m. as the cat is diving under a parked car) was walking up the steps towards it. You could pretty easily figure out that the gray cat was saying the feline equivalent of "This is MY house and MY territory and MY food so you should just stay away" while the tabby was responding "Yah, yah. It's a free country, and I'll go where I want."

R2 Potatoo.

For those wondering what the next Star Wars / Mr. Potatohead tie-in would be.

And surely there must be someone like that.

The neighborhood cat lady.

You know how hoboes had a whole intricate network of signs they'd mark on fenceposts at people's houses or going into town, indicating such things as "wealthy person lives here" or "tell pitiful story" or "mean sheriff" or, above, "kind woman lives here."

Well, cats must have a similar network.

It would appear that last year's saga of The Outdoor Cat has been making the rounds, as there are now two cats I'm feeding at my back door.

One is a tuxedo cat with a white hind leg, and might well be the father of last summer's kittens. (Or some degree of sibling.) The other is solid gray - almost Russian Blue in color.

Neither one seems to be to interested in making friends with me or in coming inside to sleep, which is perhaps just as well, as I'm scheduled to get my father's two cats sometime this spring. And even I would agree that three or four cats inside the house would be too much.

People with too much time on their hands.

The Lego Suicides - a slideshow of various ways to do yourself in. Using Legos.

Possibly not what the manufacturer had in mind.

Self-distribution: Another update.

It's like a "good news / bad news" joke, except for not being funny.

The good news is that the proposal to allow self-distribution isn't dead yet. The bad news is that it's not especially healthy, either.

Yesterday, the entire General Laws Committee voted to table the bill, thereby keeping it around to be finally voted on at a later time. And it seems pretty clear that the alternative to tabling the measure would have been a vote killing it.

Opposition to the bill is coming from wholesalers, who want to maintain their monopoly stranglehold on the industry. And they've got more money to give to the Delegates than small farm wineries do.

Don't know what can be done to change the minds of people on the Committee. I've suggested to the sponsor of the bill that he try a two-part change:
1) Authorize the self-distribution as a one-year (or better, two-year) test, and
2) Charge the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission (who would issue the licenses and collects the excise taxes) to study how much wine is actually distributed by out-of-state small wineries. It should be easy to find: the wineries would be identified by having to obtain the special license to self-distribute, and the wineries will then have to pay the state excise taxes to the ABC.

My guess is that such a study would show that only a handful of wineries - all located in bordering states - would self-distribute into Virginia, and even then, they'd only be distributing 10 or 20 cases per year. But even if my guess is way off, accurate information from this study would conclusively show whether enacting self-distribution has any impact on the financial viability of wholesalers.

It's that time of year again.

You know, Valentine's Day. And this year, something special: "Law & Order: SUV" Valentines. They make the Marge Simpson candy valentines I gave last year look positively tasteful.

Self-distribution: Update.

Actions of politicians continue to astound, although I really suppose they shouldn't.

On Thursday, the subcommittee (of the House Committee on General Laws, which has jurisdiction over alcohol-related matters) considering HB 1288 - the wineries' self-distribution provision - voted down the provision by a 4-1 tally.

There has been no press coverage of this bill, so it's unclear to me why the delegates voted against the bill. I can think of only two groups who might oppose the legislation: (1) the neo-Prohibitionists, who knee-jerk oppose anything that makes it easier for adults to purchase a product they're legally permitted to purchase, and (2) Virginia wineries who are big enough that they already have distributors in order to get their wines throughout the state and who won't be able to benefit from self-distribution because their contracts with their distributors prohibit it. (And I don't see those Virginia wineries opposing the bill, because their future is dependent on a strong, growing Virginia wine industry.)

Distributors aren't going to oppose the bill, because they don't want the hassle of distributing small wineries' products, when there isn't much profit potential in the small-volume, small-markup wines. But if the bill passes, the Virginia ABC will force distributors to distribute the wines - I've seen it happen in the case of a small microbrewery - with threats to the distributors' licenses. And if that happens, no one involved with the distribution - wineries, distributors, retailers and restaurants, and customers - will be well served.

And plenty of groups - among them, the Virginia Vineyards Association,
Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, Virginia Agribusiness Council, and
Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association - supported the bill.

The good news - to the extent there is any here - is that the bill is scheduled for reconsideration on Tuesday, by the entire House Committee on General Laws. There's still time to contact your representatives (and, more importantly, the members of that committee).

Just in time for the World Cup.

Bumper car soccer. At least it's not on my insurance

Self-distribution.

There has been legislation introduced into this year's General Assembly, designed to address the distribution of wine by in-state wineries; a subject thrown into some turmoil by last year's Supreme Court decision requiring that states not discriminate between in-state and out-of-state wineries. This bill addresses the ability to small wineries to self-distribute their wines, directly to retailers and restaurants, without having to go through a distributor.

Self-distribution seems to be a win-win for all interested parties: Wineries get to make sales to retailers and restaurants without having to yield a portion of the proceeds to distributors, retailers and restaurants get to deal with those who are most interested in selling them the wines, and distributors don't have to concern themselves with low-volume, low-profit wineries.

So this legislation would allow wineries "small enough" to qualify for the federal small winery tax credit (27 CFR 24.278) to self-distribute. Yes, it's an arbitrary cut-off, but at least it's not one easily changed by the Virginia ABC regulators. And yes, I believe that all current Virginia wineries fall under that limit. But my guess is that this set-up would pass muster as being constitutional on its face.

I've heard from two wineries, asking that I contact my state senator and delegate in support of this legislation. That's fine, and a reasonable request. What bothers me about the requests, though, is that they both stray into Parade of Horribles territory, suggesting that some/many/most Virginia wineries will go out of business without the ability to self-distribute, and that some/many/most Virginia wines won't be available at retailers and restaurants. Well, baloney. I suppose that might be true if the legislation didn't pass and these wineries did nothing to find distributors. But I think that if the legislation isn't enacted, those wineries would find it in their best interest to go together and create an independent distributor whose main purpose was to distribute Virginia wines, and I'm sure they'd find support from the retailers and restaurants who would otherwise not have wines available for the customers who want them. Market forces will find a solution to this dilemma, even if the legislature does not.

My other concern with the requests was that they both urged me to use their cut-and-paste form letter to send to my representatives, without even considering that I could write my own. Knowing that elected representatives ignore obvious form letters, I'd think that asking us to send our own notes of support would have been the better approach.

How'd they do that? Not to mention, Why?

I'm a sucker for cool marketing ploys. Not to the extent that I'd buy a car for one, but I've certainly bought boxes of cereal for the neat premium inside.

In the car category, however, is this ad for the Honda Civic. Appears to be a British ad, so we're unlikely to see it here. (Unless they show it once, during the Super Bowl.) Push the "Watch" button, and be amazed.

Cool, eh?

Weather. Or not.

Bizarre weather of late. (Yes, that's the best excuse I can come up with for not posting lately.) Fairly warm days - each week of the month has had a couple of days in the upper 50's and one making it to the 60's - and little cold weather. And for the past two or three days, lots and lots of wind. (Enough to bring down small limbs from the tree in my front yard. Thankfully, the limbs hit my front yard, too, and not the house.) The wind was blowing so hard this morning - especially when funnelled down the streets of Richmond - that it almost knocked me over; a sensation I last felt while going outside during Hurricane Isabel. Weather- and wind-wise, you'd think it was March.

My suspicion is that we're being set up for a cold and snowy February.

And a couple more.

Recommendations, that is.

When you sit around inside the Atlanta airport for untold hours on end ("Atlanta" is an Indian name, meaning "excessively long waits for no apparent reason"), you have the opportunity to read a lot of books. Thanks to Delta Airlines, I got just that opportunity on my trip out to Colorado. In both directions.

Lance Armstrong's War is an in-depth look at Lance Armstrong's 2004, the year he became the only person to win the Tour de France six times. An interesting approach to a biography: you get a lot more detail about what goes in to winning a Tour and what it's like to be a professional cyclist than in books that cover a longer timespan. (And you have to love the internet: here's an NPR interview with Daniel Coyle, the author. And here's an excerpt.)

And I got out to see Munich this past weekend. Excellent movie. Definitely worth seeing.

Yes, yes; I'm still around.

Trying to recover from the cold I caught on my trip to Colorado over New Year's. The wedding - no, not mine - went off just fine. Let me tell you, though: airplane flights when your ears don't pop properly are no fun at all. They make sitting around for hours and hours and hours in the Atlanta airport, awaiting flights which were delayed for no apparent reason, seem like a party in comparison.

Not my tree.

Although I'm impressed: a Christmas tree with 52 science fiction and fantasy ornaments. And a Yoda on top.

And allow me to repeat: Not my tree.