Pinot noir are more fragile

Yesterday, after a particularly brutal day at work, we went out with friends for drinks and a movie. Life seems a little more manageable after a Manhattan. Particularly when they don't skimp on the bourbon.

The film,Sideways, was a lot of fun. Paul Giamatti was fantastic in American Splendor and does a great job countering the madness of Thomas Hayden Church. (How he can elevate being a complete jerk into a likeable character is fascinating.) Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh are even more intoxicating than the wine that serves as one of the driving forces behind the plot. Plus there are some truly laugh-out-loud moments, a bunch of touching moments, loads of sex, and almost as many shots of wine as there are images of The Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

The thing is, I'm not much of a wine person. I'm far more into beer. So raving about what Wine Spectator ranked something, buying a case to rack up for years, arguing over what vintage from a winery was better, etc., are not that interesting to me. Yet I did like the film even without caring that X vintage was $150 a bottle (though I did get a running commentary about just that kind of thing from the wine snobs in our group). It's worth a look even if you like Franzia or Gallo. If it was just a wine wankfest, it wouldn't have such a huge rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, and before I forget, the only trailer I remember was for Schultze Gets the Blues, which I totally need to see.

Watching the film reminded me of one of the best days I've ever had, where we drove through Napa Valley in a '65 Mustang convertible, sampling wine and seeing friends we don't see enough of. (Obligatory rant about time and geography goes... right about here.)

Finished volume one of The New Frontier this morning. I held off on buying this in single issues since it was like $8/pop, but now I'm wishing I had them, as DC's decision to split this into two trades means I have to wait for the second half.

Found something on BoingBoing I hadn't thought of: Microsoft has released a new anti-spyware tool. For who, other than the makers of the least secure OS on the planet, would be best qualified to put a tiny bandage on the gaping arterial spray that is spyware today? But anyway, Ed Foster notes that by removing spyware, Bill and pals could be hoist by their own EULA petard:

So it seemed to me that this poses something of a quandary for Microsoft. After all, the software EULA as we know it today is basically a Microsoft invention, and no other company has been as big a supporter of UCITA and other legal efforts to make sneakwrap licenses completely binding. So Microsoft isn't going to want to go around violating any other company's EULA, not even those of companies of whom they might not completely approve.

I'll be sticking to SpyBot and Ad-Aware at work, but that's just me. At home, it's OS X all the time. Until I get that gaming rig built for World of WarCraft and/or City of Heroes.