Nurse the Hate: Master of Wine Results and NFL Week 2

 

The news came to me as all important news comes to anyone in 2023, via an email.  In my inbox an entry appeared from the Institute of Masters of Wine.  I looked at it for a minute as I sat in my work cubicle.  I took in my surroundings for a second.  Various office drones tapped into their machines, the keystrokes allowing for a half dozen people they’ve never met to be rewarded with millions of dollars a year.  The significance to me of whatever news this email brought couldn’t be properly communicated to any of the dozen people in the immediate area.  It’s not just that they wouldn’t get it.  They don’t give a fuck even if they wanted to understand in the first place.  I looked at the screen.  There it was.  The result of over 18 months of intense effort.  I clicked on the email.

 

Thank you for sitting the S1A in June.  The Institute’s Education Committee has reviewed your performance, and we are delighted to confirm that you have reached the required standard to progress to stage 2 of the IMW study programme. This is a considerable achievement and one that has been hard earnt.

 

Holy shit.  I did it.  I can’t believe it.  I fucking did it.  Now granted, my reward for passing this insane test is I get to double up on my prep to try and past the next test, the last test, the Grandaddy of All Tests, allegedly one of the most difficult exams in the world.  I looked around.  There wasn’t anyone I could tell the news that would get it.  I stood up, filled with adrenalin.  I sat back down with nowhere to go.  I felt like letting out a “FUCK YEAH!” and kicking my company mandated work station chair across the room, but it seemed sort of pointless.  A call came into me.  “Greg, your guest is down in the lobby.”

I walked down to the security desk to direct the stranger to the studio so they could record a two minute TV segment.  It wasn’t my client.  I was filling in for an ill colleague.  I introduced myself to the client and escorted them to the studio.  The woman asked me how I was doing today.  “You know…”. I paused before continuing, weighing if I should even get into it.  Eh, fuck it.  There aren’t too many victories to celebrate, and this was one of them.  “I’m doing outstanding.  I just passed the S1 Master of Wine exam.”  She looked at me a little blankly, trying to figure out what any of this meant.  Who is this strange man and what did he just tell me?  Why is this TV sales guy talking about wine?  She’s just trying to be polite, looking for a comment on the weather or the Browns or other small talk, and I toss this curveball to the plate.  

“Does this mean you are a soma…suma…soma”.  Sommelier? 

This is the same conversation I have with 99.75% of the any normal human beings that haven’t become obsessive about wine.  The unpronounceable “sommelier” word suggests total command, and nobody knows what this MW thing is except fellow obsessives.  People are always disappointed that I’m “not a sommelier yet”.  It’s like when I worked in radio and people would be deflated when they learned I wasn’t a DJ.  This is in no way a value judgement.  This is my “thing” and one can’t expect people to carry in the same enthusiasm.  Like if someone told me they just had a research piece on a brown recluse spider accepted by the most important peer review journal in that field, I would respond with “that’s like spiders and bugs, right?”.  Meanwhile, the bug guy’s people would be high fiving him, blown away that he’d gotten that loxosceles reclusa research he had been working on for three years into “International Arachnid Quarterly Journal”.

 

I then tried to explain the difference between a sommelier and an MW, the various stages of somms, and then just bailed out before she glazed over.  She had asked me what time it was, and I had started building her a fucking Rolex.  It was selfish.  That’s when she leaned in after sensing an opportunity.  “Let me ask you… When you’re at a restaurant and they hand you the cork, what am I supposed to do?”.  Let’s be honest.  This is what people want to know, not the enzyme protocol possibilities in barrel fermentation of cool climate chardonnay.  (BTW, regarding that restaurant thing, you are just meant to inspect the cork to see if it’s fucked up or gross.  The pro move is to just smell the glass of the small pour of the wine sample, and nod approval to pour as long as it doesn’t smell like a wet basement or rotten eggs or anything else offensive that suggests the wine is out of whack.)

She asked me the wrong question.  What she should have asked me was “Is Miami going to cover over the Patriots?”.  It’s amazing the way the NFL works.  Week to week perceptions about teams totally change.  Miami scored a million points and racked up a stat sheet a mile long against a Chargers defense that somehow refused to get out of basic coverage schemes on The Cheetah and paid a terrible price.  They can never be stopped again.  It is the greatest offense of all time based on this one sample.  Meanwhile the Patriots almost pulled out an ugly win against an elite Eagles team, but the only headline is “Patriots lose again”.  I am going full contrarian on this and taking New England +3 at home.  I have faith in The Hoodie coming up with some complicated blitz schemes and taking Hill out of the game.  Looking for an ugly game with the points with the home team in a divisional game.

I watched that Browns v Bengals game last week with great interest.  The Bengals had been so murky about Joe Burrow’s “calf injury” it didn’t smell right.  Burrow missed not only all the preseason games but also all the drills.  He hadn’t played football in 8 months.  I’ll tell you what I saw.  I saw a guy that got rid of the ball very quickly and wanted no part of running.  Burrow had two chances to take off for first downs in the Cleveland game and didn’t consider taking off.  That guy is playing on one good leg and the other waiting for a tendon to finally fray.  Six first downs from an offense expected to be elite.  The Bengals don’t look right on offense.

Meanwhile Baltimore has implemented a “new offense” designed to turn Lamar into some sort of passing QB that netted less than 200 yards against the Texans.  They lost Dobbins for the year (yet another achilles tear), their center and their right tackle.  They gave up four sacks to the Texans.  As the team spent all offseason designing this “new offense”, they aren’t going to jettison the blueprint after an initial bad outing.  Who knows if Lamar makes the transition into this new vision, but until I see it, I ain’t buying in.  They will try again and undoubtedly have more turbulence.  I don’t know where the points are coming from in this Bengals v Ravens game.  I am in at Baltimore/Cincinnati Under 46.5.

 

OK, I really missed on that Steelers pick last week.  I’m going back in on Pittsburgh though.  SF destroyed Pittsburgh and Cleveland destroyed Cincinnati.  Public money will flood in on the Browns.  I’m going to wait and see if I can get 3.5 on Pittsburgh.  Teams that get embarrassed at home tend to respond the following week.  Tomlin coached teams do well as underdogs compounding this further.  Tomlin is now 16-5-2 ATS at home as an underdog.   The Browns looked out of sync on offense mostly because Watson looks sorta shitty.  This could be a grind of a game.  Pittsburgh +3

Current Record:  2-3