Cursed (two syllables) email

Have you ever stopped to think about the hefty price we pay for having an email address? I'm not talking about having to sort through the messages relating to Nigerian banking scams or Tijuana-based erectile dysfunction drug companies. Those are certainly a pain to have to weed through, but in my book those annoyances don't measure up to the accountability we are subjected to by electronic mail.

In the past I've had a few potential employers and organizations ask me for my email address only to follow up with the question How often do you check your email? Because I want the position (whatever it is at the time) I always say that i check my email daily, which is usually true, but in doing so I obligate myself, at least to some degree, of being on call 24 hours a day. In other words, it opens up the door for an employer to email me and expect an answer regardless of whether I'm scheduled to appear at work that day.

This is not so much a gripe as it is an observation.

This brings to mind the people who call up and upon getting an answering machine say I know you're there so pick up the phone.

How dare they?

When I was single I would constantly change the message on my answering machine. Once when I was fed up with aforementioned types my message said:

Please leave a message after the beep. Do understand
however that leaving a message does not obligate me to call you back. Also
if I am screening my calls, announcing who you are does not obligate me to pick
up the phone. My phone does not control me; I control my phone.

That message got mixed reviews. Some friends took it as a personal attack which was not my intention. I just couldn't believe the audacity of those who would assume that because they wanted me to answer my phone I should drop whatever i was doing and do their bidding.

Would these same people invite themselves into your living room and ask you to make them a sandwich? Can't you just hear them say Don't forget to cut the crusts off! They probably wouldn't be so bold, but in essence that's basically what they're doing when they make demands of you via the telephone.

Going back to the job application, what if instead of asking how often you check your email, it asked how often you were willing to work for free outside of your scheduled hours? After all, isn't this really what the question is asking when you get right down to it? Otherwise, why wouldn't the sender just wait until you clocked in to ask you whatever they needed?

As cantankerous as I may seem at times, I am not into complaining about things that are within my control. I used to work at a job where coworkers would complain about how little they made, yet they would continue to show up for work every day.

Talk is cheap.

My argument was that we set our own worth every day that we clocked in. Regardless of how "poorly" the employer was rewarding us, we told that employer we were okay with that every day that we showed up for work.

The same is true for responding to someone's email. If I respond during my personal time, I'm telling the sender I am willing to file them into the same category as I do my family and friends. I'm saying I'm just as anxious to receive their news as I am my niece's prom pictures or my friend's latest gossip or my wife's cherished sweet nothings.

If this isn't the case, I have only myself to blame.

I am curious to hear how others have dealt with this dilemma.

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Blessed be the taxman

Blessed be the taxman for he bringeth us our refund. We shout and holler praise for the almighty deductions. Huzzah!

Yes, I know this money is actually nothing more than the piddly remains of what I've already forked out to the government and gotten back in the form of a check, but so what? If we didn't pay our taxes to the United States, who would fund the weapons of mass destruction? And then if there were no weapons of mass destruction, how could we justify the weapons of mass destruction destruction? And then hard working Americans would be out of a job now wouldn't they?

Our checks, both from the state and George W., came and went. No sooner were they in our mitts than they were rushed off to our credit union for deposit. No sooner were they deposited than they were spent. Thanks to a great tax guy and a thousand-dollar procreation credit our family has two more toys to boot.

And there was much rejoicing.

One toy is the notebook computer upon which I am typing to you now. It is a Compaq Presario XYZ-LMNOP or something like that. Does anyone else remember back when we called these things laptops? Remember Y2K compliance? Those were the days, my friend.

This computer replaces the seven-year old doorstop of a laptop I've been working on for the past . . . well . . . seven years. Actually, I won't throw out the old computer. It still works provided I'm willing to sit through the five-minute bootup . It also has writings and other creative endeavors of yours truly dating back to ye olde college days.

I don't know why I keep those papers, but whenever I get a new computer, I always transfer over old documents for which I have absolutely no use. I once wrote an essay comparing a novel by late Senegalese author, Mariama Bâ, to French philosopher Prévost's Manon Lescaut. The long title for the latter is actually Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.

Does anyone really care about the title, much less to read my sophomoric literary opinions on the subject in pisspoor French? Then why has this oeuvre survived now for six or seven hard drives?

Explain your answer.

My new computer is pretty sweet, especially considering I only spent $480 on it after the $30 rebate. I'll keep you informed, gentle reader, as to whether or not I ever receive the rebate. Oh yes, I will keep you informed. Hopefully Staples will pull through though. Signing up for the rebate on their website couldn't have been easier.

I also am playing on Windows Vista which, for all practical purposes is semi-somewhat better than XP. I guess. I haven't taken the bundled cyber tour of what all new features I can expect from this new operating system, but I'm sure it's chocked full of user-friendly features I will never use.

One annoyance is the pop-up program called the HP Total Care Advisor slash PC Health and Security. I really haven't figured out what all this does that benefits me as a person. I have learned from other innerwebbers that the program actually slows down my system performance considerably and it contains an equally annoying innerweb search window down in the taskbar. Again, I'm not sure what good any of this does me. I'm a big believer in if-it-ain't-broke-don't-eff-with-it, and furthermore why is the program called what it is? It sounds like it was installed by Kaiser Permanente or some other health care provider.

And that's another thing? Have computers and their minions usurped the term health care the same way they did viruses? Are we now going to have to distinguish between human health and computer health?

I also recently purchased a Sharp Notevision projector and let me just tell you that this thing rocks in all caps. Why anyone would spend thousands on a large-screen TV when they could get one of these for under $700 is beyond me. You hook it up to your DVD player, notebook computer or whatever and project whatever you wanna watch up on to your wall. The image quality is stupendous. It's like being at the movies only the drinks are cheaper and you can still here the film when you're in the bathroom.

Even cooler is that we plug up the audio to the wireless speakers so we can easily listen to surround-sound. And since the speakers are wireless, we could easily take the whole thing outside and host a neighborhood movie night up against the garage door.

I know that sounds naughty but it's really not.

Anyway, deductions plus good tax guy plus impulse equals toys. And that's what it's all about.

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Where have all the bloggers gone?

A dear friend of mine begins his blog with the phrase If you haven't got anything to say, then by all means, start a blog.

I'm sorry, but isn't this just the truth? What other medium allows us to so blatantly self-indulge or better yet feign author status when in fact we are contributing little more to the literary universe than Marcia Brady's lost diary (if you don't remember, just google it.)

Early on in my career as a professional freelance pro bono autobiographic blogger, I posted about a lot of the goo you find when you surf through internet blogs: political rants, gratuitous profanity, the usual self-aggrandizement and so on. Since that time I've noticed a common trend among those of us who like to share the nothingness of our lives with anyone who might regularly read our blogs or at least stumble upon them after googling "free panties." The trend I'm referring to is the blogging exodus.

Some of the best blogs I've run across have gone through some sort of cyber restructuring or in some cases, just come to an end. There have been still more that I no longer link to simply because they're not updated with fresh material. And while at first I scoffed at those bloggers who made some final spiel before leaving the world o' blogs, I am the first to feel jilted when a blog just stops dead in its tracks without any explanation being given.

Take for example Soap in My Mouth. It was written by a fellow Atlanta blogger. I don't know her from Adam, but her stuff was funny, hip, and genuinely interesting to read. Her last post dates back to mid-January and it talks about her being ill. And that's it.

Well, did she ever recover?

Did she die?

Has she been incarcerated all this time? Without an update, we'll never know. And on some level, this bothers me.

Fat Asian Baby was one of those bloggers who on March 21, 2006 at least told us why she was leaving. One of the reasons she sited incidentally was the very reason also sited by Blonde Vigilante in one of her pre-exit posts, the fear of someone you know discovering your blog. Fat Asian Baby (whose also Jewish -- go figure) finally came back much to my delight, and Blonde Vigilante (whose not blonde -- go figure) shut down her discovered blog and started anew.

Again much to my delight. Her shit is funny. She starts her blog profile with Circle, circle, dot, dot...welcome to my blogspot. It just gets funnier from there. I don't know who it was who found out about her blog, but I hope they don't find this one. I don't want to have to chase her all around the innerwebs again.

The End is Now author is one of those who gave us notice that he was leaving but has since returned. His blog is currently under some sort of overhaul and a lot of his older stuff I can't find anymore, but he's definitely worth checking out. His funniest bit is one I couldn 't find on his own blog, but someone else out there copied and pasted. Why Lie? I Need A Pie is an absolute must to add to your reading list. The guy stands outside a McDonalds with a sign panhandling so he can get money to buy an apple pie. To this day, if my wife sees me reading his blog, she'll ask, "Is that the Ineedapie guy?"

Blog Antagonist is another one gave ample notice of her departure but then returned. We're glad she did of course. Anyone who titles her blog Blogs Are Stupid has got to rock.

I don't know why I thought this new trend deserved a post unto itself. This is not my own final remark. I don't plan on going anywhere. I just think it's kind of funny that along with this relatively new method of expression comes some emerging protocol for its end.

You know, I'm trying to come up with a somewhat interesting way of ending this entry, but I really just don't have anything further to say. Then again if my friend mentioned at the beginning is correct, having nothing to say is tantamount to having a blog.

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Charter sucks (part deux)

For those who care, I've updated my diatribe on my on-going battle with Charter. Click here if you dare.

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I got a haircut today

I got a haircut today.

Please, no more applause.

This was a bit of a milestone for me, not just because I needed one but also because I took the plunge and finally went to a new hair dresser. In a salon. Like, there were actually plants, decent music and faux-hardwood floors there. I'm used to going to one of those in-and-out ten-dollar jobbies.

I am generally loyal to a hair dresser. I find that they are people with whom it's worth it to build a long-standing professional relationship. Even in the in-and-out ten dollar jobbies I always saw the same stylist. In fact, there was a period when I went to the same stylist for almost ten years. I saw her through two husbands, three lesbian lovers and yet another husband.

Did I mention she also eventually found Jesus?

Yes, she had three husbands, three lesbian lovers and she found Jesus. Though it wasn't necessarily in that order. As I recall Jesus came after the lesbians and before the third husband.

Oh my God, did I just say that? That sounds like a line from a racy South American romance novel doesn't it? I will surely burn in tuna for that.

I kept going to her through all that.

That is until one day . . .

(insert blurring image of present day and slowly steadying wavy image of past event)

(Oh yeh, and the sound of someone strumming on a harp)

When I began chemotherapy a few years ago, I knew my hair was likely to fall out. That's a given that most people know about chemotherapy. Your hair falls out. What many don't realize though is that you don't just wake up one morning bald. Hair loss is a gradual process that starts with a few strands on your pillow, then more in the shower, and after several more rounds of intravenous Drain-O and weedkiller your hair becomes patchy and gross and makes you look like the cancer kid that you are.

Being the cancer cult resistor that I am, I didn't want to let my hair get to the point where it looked like I was trying to elicit sympathy from others, so one day I went to my stylist and told her it was time. She knew about my diagnosis so it was no surprise to her. She even had another customer with the same form of cancer.

Testicular for those not already in the know.

Anyway, she cut and buzzed and cut and buzzed and I watched as clumps of hair fell to the floor. I know it sounds sad but choosing baldness before it chose me was actually quite liberating. The only problem was that even the closest setting on a pair of clippers will leave a minimal amount of hair at each follicle, and I didn't want to leave a trail of mousy brown hair dust in my wake.

You never know when that Grissom and his team are going to be trailing along after you with forceps and a plastic baggie. Can't you just see that muppety assistant of his looking at hair under a microscope saying, "we ran tests on it, and it showed traces of bleomycin and cisplatin. That can only mean one thing." Then Grissom would say some cheesy line like "it looks like the ball's in our court now." If you ask me that program jumped the shark about three metro areas ago.

But back to our regularly scheduled blog entry.

So my stylist got this idea and she went to retrieve the wax they generally reserve for eyebrows. A rather novel idea I thought and I told her to go for it. Unfortunately she didn't have enough wax or large enough strips do do a whole head, so she sent me to the beauty supply store to buy my own.

When I came back twenty dollars poorer, she and another stylist took turns running to heat up wax and ripping the last bit of hair from my head. It wasn't as painful as I thought. The only place it hurt was around my ear and at the nape of my neck. As for the rest of my head, it was bright red from the whole ordeal but at least when they were finished I was truly bald.

Here's the kicker.

When she rang me up, she told me my total was seventy five dollars.

SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!

A seven. And a five.

And that didn't account for the twenty I spent at the beauty supply place.

When I asked her if she was joking she explained that had I gone to a more upscale salon and had two stylists working on my hair for that amount of time, they would have charged me $150.

"Would they have asked me to buy my own wax?" I asked.

She crossed out the $75 and instead wrote $55. Remember, this was in one of those in-and-out ten dollar jobbies. With a stylist I had gone to for years. Years, I tell you. When it was busy at times, I'd even be the one the stylists would ask to answer the phone and schedule peoples' appointments for them.

She joked that it was job security because now I wasn't going to be seeing her for several months.

Several months? Do you realize how badly I wanted to shout I got cancer, Lady; I might not be coming back at all. Though, come to think of it, then she probably would have scratched out the $55 and put $95. The money wasn't even the issue; it was the principle of the thing.

Oh well.

That was the last day my hair hit her floor.

Anyway, I got my hair cut today.

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Charter sucks

Note: This entry has been updated as of March 31, 2007. The amended text is to be found at the bottom of the screen.

Dear Charter Communications,

The bad news is you suck. The good news? I think I can help. Allow me first to provide you with some background information and then I'll offer free suggestions as to how you can make your technical support service more efficient.

Because you are a near-monopoly in my area for high-speed internet I have to subscribe to your service if I want to look at the innerwebs. Yes, I have the option of paying a gazillion dollars per megasmurf for a satellite-based connection, but since I can't begin to afford that, I pay you. In return you provide me with shoddy service and technical support that is pisspoor at best.

Here is where my help comes in.

When I call your line and am finally connected to you, I have likely spent the last five minutes of my time fighting my way through a response-driven automaton that requests that I perform such seemingly pointless tasks as unplugging the modem, turning off the computer and confirming that the modem you sent me has in fact worked in the past. After nearly every response I then have to answer the same question again because the fembot on the other end of the phone asks stupid things like I think I heard you say you're having trouble connecting to the internet. Is that right?

Additionally while on hold I likely had to listen to ads for high-speed internet service, the very service, mind you, that I'm calling to complain about. The ads add insult to injury because they talk about what high quality service Charter provides and even goes so far as to call that service an "always-on connection."

News flash.

If the service were truly always on, I wouldn't be calling.

So you see, before you ever answer the phone, my frustration is being elevated even further by the automated prompting and solicitous teasing your company subjects me to. That being said, here are a few things you can do to not irritate me more.

DO NOT ASK IF I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN PURCHASING A FASTER INTERNET SPEED.

If your company cannot even provide me with cheapest speed for which I now pay, why do you think I would be willing to pay you even more money for a service that I imagine would be equally as unreliable?

LIKEWISE DO NOT ASK IF I WANT TO PURCHASE CABLE TV FROM YOU.

Again, even if I were interested in cable television, which I'm not, why would I purchase it from a company that can't even get my internet up and running?

Am I making sense?

Do you see where I'm coming from?

DO NOT ASK IF I WANT TO PURCHASE THE SO-CALLED WIRE PROTECTION PLAN OR WHATEVER IT'S CALLED.

I have called to report my internet being down who knows how many times, and each time a technician comes out to discover the problem is on your end. I resent whole-heartedly the fact that you try and play on my supposed insecurities or lack of intelligence in order to get me to purchase some $6 monthly junk fee so that in the rare instance when my internet connection isn't working because of something I've done you will come and fix my mistake.

If I had paid the $6 fee for the 48 or so months that I've had your service I would have paid for your CEO's orthodonture bill three times over by now with no benefit to me. Conversely if it should happen that someday my internet connection isn't working because I pummeled my modem with a sledge hammer or something I would therefor have to pay $35. You do the math.

DO NOT TRY TO MAKE IDLE CHITCHAT WITH ME WHILE YOU'RE JUMPING THROUGH THE HURDLES YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH IN ORDER TO GET A TECHNICIAN OUT TO MY HOUSE.

I am pissed when I call, and you asking about the crying baby in the background or what my local weather's like surprisingly doesn't make me any calmer nor does it make me want to be your new friend. Asking me things like whether I use the internet for business or pleasure will only result in making me angrier. When I call you, I'm not using the internet for business or pleasure. I'm not using it because you won't provide me with the always-on service you tout. My internet isn't on. That's why I'm calling.

Capiche?

One agent actually had the audacity to ask me how my voiceover internet phone service (i.e. Vonage) was working out for me. First of all this question reaks of a segue into asking if I'd be willing to purchase some phone service from you for an additional fee and secondly, I have no problems with my current telephone service provider except when my internet connection is down. In other words, my phone works until you mess it up.

I am not necessarily opposed to purchasing additional services from you, but before I do so, I'd like to see the one service you do provide me with operate continually for at least six months. Does that sound unreasonable to you?

IF I ASK FOR YOUR OPERATOR I.D. DO NOT RESPOND BY ASKING ME DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG?

One of your agents was kind enough to explain to me that because you are not permitted to give your last name to me for security reasons, you are then required, when asked, to give out your operator ID. I have worked in a call center so I understand the hesitancy in doing so, but the fact is you have to do it. If you refuse, I will immediately call back and ask the agent who answers for the operator ID of the last person with whom I spoke. I will likely preface this request with something like The last person I spoke with was so helpful that I'd like to write a letter telling the VP of sales what a good job he did. So taken aback was I with his outstanding service that I neglected to get his operator ID. Would you be so kind as to give it to me? Thanks.

Granted, that's usually a ruse, but I have written such letters in the past to express my gratitude for exceptional customer service. Regardless, if you were the paranoid ninny who wouldn't give me her operator ID, I did call back to get it from one of your next-cube neighbors.

So booyah!

Now for a few kudos . . .

On the past two occasions I've had to call because my internet service is down (both calls were made in the same week), a technician came out to my house the same day of my call. Before when I would call I was told to wait for as long as two weeks before someone would come out to the house. And even then that person could only diagnose the problem. I had to wait even longer for someone else to come out and fix it.

This newly implemented prompt service could simply be an improvement in your company's inner workings, but I can't help but wonder if it's because my customer profile shows I've previously filed a complaint against you with the FCC. Regardless, thanks for the speedy service.

I do however wish you would send someone out to my neighborhood to bury the cable you currently have stretching across three driveways into my lawn. The makeshift repair job your crew did has already been disconnected once. I'm tempted to blame some hoodlum kids waiting for the bus because I'm crotchety that way, but truth be told it could be the result of any of the three next-door neighbors pulling out to go to work in the morning. For all I know a squirrel is the culprit, but it wouldn't have happened if you made the necessary repairs.

I swear that doohickey R2-D2-looking thing down the street where you have all those bootleg wires coming out is reminiscent of the communications device that E.T. jerry rigged using a Speak & Spell and some dental floss. Is that actually dangerous or just ghetto? 'Cause either way, we don't roll like that around here.

In closing, I just want to state that I don't think the biggest dumbasses out there are your customers; they're your stockholders. Sure, I continue to pay you for a crappy product which is pretty stupid when you think about it, but if your company continues its current standard of service once regional monopolies are busted up by encroaching competition, Charter sales will plummet and so will your NASDAQ rating. I'm no doomsdayer. This just goes without saying.

Once this happens, Charter Communications will go the way of Betamax and meanwhile I'll still be trying to get my blog fix via some clothesline and 1980s children's toys.

With any luck Drew Barrymore will show up and offer to take me trick or treating.

Sincerely,
The Management

3/31/07 -- Because my headache with Charter continues, I have decided to keep a running log of progresses and setbacks I encounter along the way. Here's a brief rundown of today's events.

I received a bill in the mail for $90.29, a whopping $40 more than my usual bill. Closer inspection showed a $35 charge for cable television service for which I do not subscribe and the price I normally pay for internet service increased by $5. I know from personal experience having worked in a call center that these types of issues are best handled one at a time, especially if the customer service rep isn't a native English speaker. I got the impression from this rep's accent that indeed he was not.

No worries. I don't care if a guy has an accent. I just want my problem solved.

I spoke with Michael who freely gave me an operator I.D. He was polite, efficient and easy to understand. He claimed that the $35 was a one-time service charge because of the technician who came out to half-ass repair a broken cable along my street.

OK, half-ass was my wording not his.

When I explained to Michael that I had been told I would only have had to pay the $35 if and only if the wiring problem was inside my house (which it was not), he put me on hold, came back and removed the service charge.

That was nice, but I still had lots of issues with my bill.

I pointed out that my previous bill had been for only $50.29 and most recently I was being charged $54.99 for the same service. Michael again put me on hold and returned saying I was sent something in the mail about an upcoming increase in my monthly service charge. Because I had received no such notice, he not only said he would reinstate my $49.99 plan but also give me three months of a promotional deal at only $39.99 per month. This would take effect on my next three billing cycles, i.e. the bills I would receive on or around April 27, May 27 and June 27.

Already let me just say that Michael has provided me with far better assistance than most of the previous people I've spoken to at Charter put together. And that's a shitload of people. Then again if Michael worked for a company that better handled its billing and service provision, he wouldn't have to deal with people like me on the phone.

Anyway, I still had some concerns about my bill. The front of it looked like this:

Mind you this was after a bit of scribbling on my part, and I edited out my personal info and such. I don't need you weirdos trying to hunt me down.

But notice the charge for cable television and the increase in charges for internet service. Incidentally I love the little blurb that says Expect More from Charter.

Trust me. I do.

A lot more.

But the back of my bill looks like this:


I'd like to say it sheds more light on the whole matter, but really it just confuses me further. Look at the $5 fee. You know what that's for?

You'd think by looking at it that I rent a cable modem from Charter, but indeed I don't. I own the modem outright. When I asked for further clarificaiton on this charge, Michael informed me that this was a fee I pay . . . are you ready for this? . . . because I don't order any other lines of service from Charter.

In other words, they charge me for internet service, and on top of that they charge me more money because I don't order anything else from them. You might think they'd just roll the fee in to my one service fee, but they don't. They write it out plain as day.

Well, not exactly plain as day. They try and make it look like it's for a legitimate service, i.e. modem rental, when in fact it's nothing more than a penalty fee. To further confirm this, I asked Michael if I were to cancel my Charter services (trust me in that I've thought about it on multiple occasions) would I be expected to then return the modem?

"Certainly not," he said.

While Michael provided me with more help than I expected, he still was unable to provide an answer to my next question. Frankly, no one else at Charter has either. That is: What happens if I receive my next bill one month from now and at that time Charter's maintenance team still has not come out to my house to repair the jerryrigged contraption in my neighborhood with a cable that stretches across three driveways?

So far my answer has been that once they do come out, I can call and get a credit for the time the service was down. As I understand it, this means they expect me to continue paying for lack of service with the expectation of getting back the money I already paid once the service comes back up.

As ludicrous as this sounds, I might be okay with that if I were truly going to receive a credit dating all the way back to when the service was down. But something tells me that when that time does come and they do bury the cable in the neighborhood, I'm going to call back for a credit dating back to March 21, and they're going to tell me I'm out of luck because I already paid the bill for that billing cycle.

I don't know this for a fact, but I do suspect, and I'm going to let you know if and when it happens.

I am thankful for the help I received today, and I likely will write a letter expressing my gratitude and restating what was said to me for purposes of clarification. After all what people say to you on the phone means nothing. It's what they bill you for that counts.

Incidentally does anyone know what happens if I write to the governement agency they list as the franchise authority in small print at the bottom of the page? In my case they said it's my county commissioner's office though they didn't capitalize the name of my county. There is no excuse for that.

Gwinnett is great, y'all.

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Beverage Superstore presents the tasting room

There are a number of firsts that dads and daughters celebrate together like the first steps, the first word and the first dance recital, but few of these momentous occasions measure up to the one my daughter and I recently shared at the Beverage Superstore in Suwanee. I'm talking of course about my ten-month-old daughter's first wine tasting.

Oh, stop!

I didn't actually let her taste anything, partially because she's ten months old but largely because these wines were all over $55 per bottle. I'm not wasting those libations on a kid whose pallet hasn't yet developed beyond Similac and Gerber stage threes. A mere glass of any of these wines at a restaurant would set me back somewhere between twelve and twenty dollars. As far as I'm concerned, Meryl's going to have to do a little better job earning her keep before dad lets her enjoy the pricy Italian reserves.

For a mere three dollars -- yes, ewe red me write, only three dollars -- I got to have a hearty sampling of five different wines, none of which came from a box and all of which would normally find themselves far outside of Daddy's price range. For a fraction of what it would cost me to sponsor one of those ungrateful hungry children in the Third World, I got to taste from the following bottles:

• Banfi Brunello di Montalcino..............................................$69.99
• Fresobaldi Castel Giocondo Brunello di Montalcino...........$54.99
• Antinori Pian delle Vigne Brunello di Montalcino...............$59.99
• Terra Rossa Brunello di Montalicino..................................$54.99
• Il Palazzone Brunello di Montalcino...................................$59.99

I was in heaven. My Italian consumpton is usually no more exotic than your basic sub-par chianti and the ever-famous That's-a-spicy-meataballa, both of which generally run $4 per box slash can. Here I got to taste the nectar of the gods while hobnobbing with some of Gwinnett County's wine snobs and slobs.

So what if I had to hold a twenty-pound baby the entire time. After I bit her wrist twice, she knew not to reach for Daddy's glass anymore, and the Beverage Superstore provided crackers and bread for her to nibble on. She kept the squealing to a minimum and elicited the usual number of oohs and ahs from fellow lushes wine connoisseurs.

Currently the Beverage Superstore in Suwanee offers wine tastings every Saturday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM and for the price this is a real bargain. It was more like a class than a tasting. Meryl and I are taking mom next time, as this made for an ideal date activity especially if you tie it in with a visit to the Suwanee Town Center park. Sure, one of their rules is no alcohol, but with just the right amount of concealment, who's going to be any the wiser?

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