The barbeque was fun, but I hate when the host does not cook the meats thoroughly and it's all rare. Don't they know that some of us want our fish totally cooked.

Do other people have friends like this, who in the middle of a conversation find a way to say, "By the way, I'm a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell". Isn't that special?

My friends do know their wine though. I had a great wine called "Santino Satyricon". Besides being a great wine, the label has a great story.

The original wine label had a nekkid woman on it, but apparently our federal government regulates what goes on wine labels. Like doesn't the government have anything better to do than to regulate what goes on wine labels?

Anyway, the Santino winery had to put a white dress on the woman courtesy of our federal government. And no, this isn't a John Ashcroft, let's put dresses on the nekkid justices statues. The government wine label regulations predate Ashcroft.

Check out Bloombury's five-year financial summary. Now that's a graph any CFO would love.

Thank you Harry Potter!

Bad and Good Business Decisions

I watched last Sunday's 60 Minutes interview with JK Rowling. She said four or five publishers turned Harry Potter down, as well as a few others before Bloomsbury picked it up.

Guess those publishing house which turned Harry Potter down are totally kicking themselves today.

I found this on the Yahoo UK & Ireland site.

""On the basis of sales of 'Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix' to the UK and international booktrade for the launch at one minute past midnight tonight, the board of Bloomsbury now expects that its pre-tax, pre-goodwill profit for the year ended 31 December 2003 will be not less than 15 million pounds," the publisher said. "

I'm going to a barbeque tonight in the burbs filled with some friends who are total wine snobs. They love to talk about which wines they've bought, their cellar, which bottles are almost "fit to drink", etc. BORING!

Anyway, so I'm looking at my haphazard wine collection and trying to decide which wine to take. It's a barbeque, and they asked me in advance if I wanted to eat red meat or chicken/fish. I said chicken/fish, so I'm thinking I should probably bring a white wine to go with my meal.

I used to be really into chardonnay, but I'm not that into it anymore so I mostly buy pinot noirs, cabernet sauvignons and merlots.

The only whites I have that don't look that bad are a french white wine called sancerre and a chardonnay. I don't even remember why I bought the sancerre or where I bought it or how much it cost. I bought the chardonnay after having it as a restaurant, and I remembered that it didn't taste too bad.

Next, I tried looking up both wines on Google but could only find the reviews and prices for the chardonnay. I was surprised to find the chardonnay selling for $20. Did I even pay that much for the bottle?

I so want to bring "Chuch for a Buck" white wine, that Charles Shaw wine that was in the papers and retailing for $2-3 and is so hip to drink in the SF Bay Area right now. It's supposed to be really good wine for the price, but I don't think my wine snobs friends would appreciate this fact.

I think the best piece of information I've ever heard about bringing wine to party was "when in doubt, bring the wine the costs the most." Guess it's going to be a chardonnay night - La Crema 2000 Chardonnay.