The Brunello

For those of you who know me well, you know I work at a liquor/wine store part time. You also know that I am working on a PhD in fuel ethanol and that I run a home brewery that rivals most commercial breweries. To say that I am a connoisseur would probably be an understatement as would aficionado...but I am a great appreciator. Yesterday I acquired my first "expensive" or "cellar" bottle of wine. A 2001 Siro Pacenti Brunello di Montecino and absolutely fantastic wine that will be absolutely more fantastic when I drink it sometime after 2013. So what, you say? Let me remind you of this... The 2001 Brunello's point no lower than 97 in wine spectator, they even have one that was a 100 pointer...that's not perfection, but it is a classic. In addition, these wines are worth $150 plus today and will only appreciate in value as they mature. I have now left the boys and joined the men....now I just need to find a good wine cooler.

XBOX 360 Elite

I got a fellowship for the year and I decided to reward myself with an XBOX 360 Elite. Let me say that I already own a Wii and a Nintendo DS and that I was a huge Play Station fan; hence, I was a slightlyl hesitant about spending $500 on an XBOX 360 when I didn't really care for the regular XBOX's bulky controller. However, with PS3 having almost no interesting games for another year and XBOX 360 having many, many games I decided to pull the trigger. I didn't know what to expect not being that familiar with the xbox gamer mentality and the style of games on the system. The Wii is all fun, family oriented games that I truly appreciate on a 12 year-old mentality. The same can be said for the DS. The XBOX 360 has more of an edgy attitude and I will admit that I am blown away by the XBOX 360 (time for tats, smokes and whisky...no more pink frosted cupcakes).

The most amazing feature to me was a feature that was not even touted on the packaging. If you install the Zune player on your PC it will detect all your music, pictures, and videos and then stream them via your network to the XBOX 360 and play them over your home theater system. For someone who has been trying to bridge the gap from PC to home theater system this is a simple and supprising feature.

My second favorite part is game demos from XBOX marketplace. I like to play many different games and I hate the burn from spending $50 on a game that I think looks cool and then sucks. Now I can play all the big name games before launch and make my purchasing decisions with confidence. For example, I would have never contemplated purchasing Eternal Sonata (a game based on a drug induced dream/trip of Fredrich Chopin) without playing the demo. The graphics and game play of ES are astounding and I have high hopes for the game.

The first game I bought was Overlord and it is fantastic. Set in a Tolkein-esque world and you are Sauron trying to reclaim your dark empire. I should put up a formal review in a week, upon beating the game. I will say right now that achievement points are blowing my mind too...talk about addicting.