Fragolino!! We had some on a tour in Italy about 10 years ago and could not find or get strawberry wine in the USA, until recently. Just ordered some, actually. Hope it’s as good as our memory of it.

From Ryan Zimmerman’s quote on ESPN:

Yeah, and they learned all of that from the Christians, the most barbaric “civilization” in all of history. Well, so far.

Having lived in Germany for 3 years, I would not go back for the food. Beer? Yes. Food. no. So, if you want spaetzle (or close enough for me), take the above recipe and remove any and all flavor, flavorings, spices, or anything resembling a spice. Then cook. Add a beer in a stein and you are good to go. (Then again,…

I think this is a “pendulum” move on the part of the owners. Since the day that players could be become free agents (1976), there has been the problem of older players playing awful (batting less than .225, etc.) and mgmt thinking that they were stuck with this guy until his contract runs out. (Ignoring the fact that…

I went to a doctor’s office which had “I love Lucy” reruns. Didn’t mind the wait there. Might work for restaurants and pubs, too.

Scooters need to be treated like rental cars. You should get your credit card charged until you turn it back in to the proper station. Until that happens, I hope that they get banned. 

I am firmly in the camp of both sides. Since forever, when veteran players (of any age), getting paid a lot (since the 90's anyway), with great “track records”, start doing poorly, for an extended period of time, say batting below .250, the kid in the minors kicking butt just sat there as the manager was either too…

Well, I am old, too, and easily pleased, also but, um, what was the question, again? This stuff is great fun!

This is such a great article. All ideas of “race” are complete constructs of convenience and are complete hogwash. There is no “black” and there is no “white”. People who hated everyone outside of their “tribe” (and often in it) just use this sort of “idea” to foster more hate. Thousands of years of wars proves that…

Japan is cool, but this is just too much for any westerner (lazy me). This is like western teenagers on steroids. I would guess that every country has its flavor of this sort of thing, if you look close enough. For example, the USA’s culture of ‘masculinity’ has definite rules on how males should act (outside of the do…

Both good points. I was just brain-storming. Maybe a “minimum cover charge for the restaurant per person missing” when seating less than half of a requested reservation?

Maybe the customer should be “on the hook” for a 15% tip times the number of seats at the table if their reservations are for more than, say, 2 people. So, if only 2 people show up at a 6 person table, then on a, say, $40 meal., then $6 x 6 = $36 dollars gets added to the tab. The customer has to agree to this policy…

I don’t remember where we got the idea, but we used music to teach our kids their home phone number and their address (“10 little indians”, if I remember right.) at the age of 3 and 1/2. Music really helps memory work in kids. Enjoy them! They go up SO FAST!!! (Ours are in their late 20's now. /sigh)

I agree with everything you say, but I am totally off bratwurst, forever. Bratwurst is like the lima beans of meat. I do not have either of those two taste buds, apparently. I doubt I could taste the difference between lima beans and bratwurst. Or asparagus. God Help Me, that’s one of my wife’s favorite foods. 

Absolutely. If you aren’t going to (or, for whatever reason, can’t) go as close to full immersion as your resources and situations allow, you are going to spend years, many years, doing what immersion could do for you in many 6-9 months. THEN do all the SRS, Memrise, flashcard-y stuff to get better. Oddly, Duolingo…

I think baseball is the safer and wiser alternative. Also, not a lot of (relatively) short QB’s in the NFL, as in zero. I think Doug Flute, 5'10", was the last QB under 6'. He was as good as anyone (imho) but there were not as many willing to let him lead their team as the 6'4" not-nearly-as-good QB’s abound. (/end…

So much good SF&F out there. Simmons, Hamilton, Brin, Kim Harrison, and on and on. Also, get good writers. Every mega-success has (at the beginning, at least) wonderful writers. Crap shows with crap writers usually don’t do much. 

I grew up in the Midwest and left in the 80's. Never heard of these things. I guess finger-food wasn’t a real big that a keggers. (I do not miss those days. lol)

Agreed. I feel the same way about pistachios. I once found a jar of “unwrapped” pistachios somewhere. I probably ate that whole jar in a ridiculously short time. Trying to remember what I have binged on recently is not always easy.