The Vineyards

Three pages into the chapter I was reading this afternoon, I noticed the book alone was not doing a very good job of keeping my mind busy. I needed some wine as well.

The fridge was discouraging. One bottle of champagne (not good champagne, even) that was a gift, and one bottle of white wine from Washington state (... what?) that I have no idea why is there. Better not touch either - red wine it would have to be, since red is not supposed to be cold. So I looked at the pile of bottles right next to the fridge - and three bottles of white wine I bought some time ago were there, waiting anxiously to be saved from the dreadful room temperature. I put one in the fridge - even if I cannot drink it today, it is a crime to leave all of them outside.

On top of the forgotten white wine bottles there was, indeed, one bottle of red wine. I dare not touch that one, since I first tried the brand. Cheap, bad, tastes like overly sweet, bad grape juice. No, no good. The living room cabinet, then, would hold the answer. Would, if I wanted scotch or brandy. The big shelf in the back room, then! Scotch, brandy, tequila, and some other things with names I do not care to remember. Ignobility.

But behind them all, hidden under bottles of strange beverages I have little intention of trying, there was one bottle of red wine! Something I can drink at room temperature, at last. I picked it up, causing the disjointed pyramid to crumble and promising myself to have a proper cabinet for storing bottles someday. What little joy the sight of violet liquid inside that dusty bottle had brought me faded when I read the label, "Beaujolais Nouveau".

Unlike most wines, the Beaujolais is best if consumed no more than a few days after bottled. It stays drinkable up to a year or two, with proper storage and good luck. But for one to stay good beyond that, the fact is unheard of. This bottle was from 1997.

Pulling out the cork was an endeavour of its own, as it split in two when I tugged it out. First time I see that happen. I had to pull it out in two phases. But after many minutes of struggling, I was pouring some wine in my glass. I knew from the scent it was not perfect, but I kept my last hopes up. One taste, and they disapeared. I have tasted better apple vinegar.

Drowning sorrow in beer is not at all of my taste, but I had little choice. The moment required alcohol. The loss of sixty-eight gigabytes worth of anime, movies and music, collected over five years, requires mourning with red wine.

The comments to the last post put me in a strange mood. At times I was angry over it, then just confused. Whie I was away from home today, I settled on doing one or both of two things.

First, I would ask, either in a post or in a comment, "why". I would use wording like this: "You girls are over ten years late in telling me Air Supply is bad. Should had come say it when I finally opened that door and stood at the corridor of my metaphor, waiting for guidance. I am past the point of accepting a simple 'It is bad' - I want to know why it is bad."

Really, it is somewhat tiresome to hear it over and over from so many people. "Air Supply is all bad, and you should abandon it at once. Listen to Pink Floyd and Ozzy Osbourne instead." Why? What is so bad with them? What is wrong with the unparalled keyboards of Air Supply? Other than guitar solos, I have seen only one thing rival it: the violins of Kansas.

I was hoping to ask that on a standalone way, so I would get answers for it. In the middle of a post it probably will not. I hope otherwise.

Second. No, no second. I might still do it, sometime. Just not now, it is not the time for that.

So, with those two things settled, I was thinking of the comments themselves. Courtney mentioned the chaotic collections of Mp3 we all have now. And, indeed, although I spoke mainly of bought CDs in the previous post, my collection is quite chaotic. Over 30 hours of music of all sorts and genres. Sometimes I avoid downloading a song I like because I know it will fall into the abyss of E:\Mp3 and never be touched again.

With that in mind, I thought of all the anime I downloaded and did not see yet. The most classic of all shoujo, "Rose of Versailles"; that one everyone saw and I did not, "Cowboy Bebop"; the one that I saw half and found wonderful, but stopped seeing, "Last Exile"; the one I heard only good things about, "Tenjou Tenge". And so many others that I do not remember half. So, for a brief moment, before horror struck me and I pushed the idea away, I thought...

"The only way to put order to that chaos and make things right would be to lose all those files and have to start over."

When I got back home, Asgaard was behaving strangely.

After I reset it, I could no longer access the E: partition.

Its label, "Media", for the obvious reason the vast majority of its used space was populated by music and anime, was replaced with "Local Disk" in "My Computer". The total size is not visible. Trying to access it returns a "Disk is not formatted. Format now?". Going to DOS and doing a chkdsk /f /r returns lots of errors from the index table, then puts me on hold forever as the "Step 4 of 5" lingers hopelessly in 0%.

I stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago, and that belief is not coming back so soon.

Posted by Etienne at August 18, 2004 01:59 AM