It is a buyers market, and picking the wrong wine is no longer a very costly mistake. It literally take me back to the 90′s, right before (and perhaps as) the asian and US markets conspired to jack up the prices of wines. Now that both the Asians and Americans lost their funding sources, they stopped paying exorbitantly for wine.

This is so good. The bubble has funded extensive knowhow in wines. How to extract as blockbuster a wine as possible from newly planted berries: and make a killing in the process. So there are many great wines out there. And they have no buyers, so some great ones sell for 30c on the dollar. Their future prospect is questionable: They may fold, they may redo their business model, who knows. But for now, run out and get them!

Now I do have to watch the calories, though…

I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.

Personally, I do not see ANY problem with that. In fact, despite the somehow graphic langue and maybe some over bragging, I think that Mark Pincus was/ is doing the right thing. All we have to do is wait and see how it goes…

The Heroes

So Marvel is getting acquired by Disney ($4 billion and some change). Personally, I like the idea. It will make life easier as now I do not have to think who owns a specific comic character. If Marvel shareholders approve the deal, they would receive $30 per share in cash and 0.745 shares of Disney for each share of Marvel that they hold. The deal is valued at $50 per Marvel share, more than a 29% premium, based on Friday’s closing price. Shares of Marvel (MVL) soared 26% in morning trading.

But the story is even better. Marvel, once a bankrupt company and the target of a how-to-mess-a-company book that was acquired for $82 m (and change) is now sold.

“When Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989, he described the company, home to heroes like Captain America and the Fantastic Four, as “a mini-Disney in terms of intellectual property.” His junk bonds and grandiose expansion plans swiftly raised Marvel’s market value to over $3 billion, but also brought its debt past $600 million, at which point corporate raider Carl Icahn smelled blood. He managed to wrest control of the company from Perelman, but the takeover process dragged Marvel through bankruptcy court for years. “

As a person interested in business strategy, I can only admire the level of thoughts, planning and execution my colleagues delivered. (I’m also jealous for the amount of fun and satisfaction they had during this fun ride).

Brownnose

Yellow brownosed G’s spot. G, as result, was convinced Yellow was leading the pack. Yellow, as a result, too home the Q trophy.

Congrads to ES on yet another smelly victory.

/al

If you believe Rafael’s marketing director, they are pretty consistent in the way they think about marketing movies:  ”We try to make the movies about the place where the defense expo is located,” the company source said, adding that in previous years Rafael had won prizes for its pavilions and marketing techniques. 

Whether you think that the movie is bad and wrong or just not according to your taste, it proves again that there’s no bad marketing.  Just look at the youtube counter. 116,000 and growing..

Hi, we had a delay of one hour. I’ll probably arrive to you place around midnight. If it’s too late can you please leave the keys outside?

No problem. I’ll wait for you. Is it tonight or tomorrow? 

Tonight… In flight internet is awesome…

Is it really IN flight internet? Can you see porn?

When my “neighbors” will sleep I’ll definitely try it…

You need protection.  For the next flight buy one of those 3com protection screens… 

So that’s the real reason you need it…

I’m thinking about a smart answer, since this conversation is being blogged….. 
 

In my opinion, this post speaks for itself.

And the most interesting dish just happened to be on the Vegetable Tasting menu. Very interesting indeed.

Hmmm. Delectable meal. Hmmm.

 It was a dish labelled: Chickpea “Croquette” – Sweet Peppers, English Cucumbers, Sesame Seed Yogurt and Eggplant Confit. Now Larousse Gastronomique defines a croquette as a “small savoury or sweet preparation…… Croquettes are shaped into corks, sticks, balls or rechtangles. They are usually coated with breadcrumbs, plunged into very hot oil and fried until they are crisp and golden…”.

So why is a Chickpea “Croquette” interesting to a group of Israelis eating at the French Laundry?

Well, because most people from Mediterranean states have another name for it. We call it “Falafel”. And whatever the disputed origin of this dish - it is THE fast food choice in Israel.

Hmmm. Falafel. (I apologize for the dark picture, I didn't want to disturb the other diners with a flash)

This was a great Falafel, on par with that served at the best Falafel stands in Israel, but for me it was a mere ball of Falafel. At any Falafel stand you’ll get 5-6 balls for about 5 bucks. Was this going to be a McDonald’s like “fast food” experience (and thus the disappointment of the meal), or was this another epitomy of world cuisine where the recognition of quality just happened to be masked by mere abundance, and thus serving as the East Mediterranean equivalent of Joel Robuchon’s famous Mashed Potatoes?

And I was immediately reminded of Dima, an Army buddy who had originally been from one of the Russian cities directly situated on the Caspian sea. In one of our discussions my mention of just how great Sturgeon Caviar can be and how lucky he was to have lived on the shores of the Caspian sea, was greeted with a shrug and the remark that he despised Caviar. Caviar for them was just plain Caviar. They had lots of it. In large jars. Everywhere.  Growing up he got fed up with Caviar. Having left Russia he became surprised at just how revered the stuff actually was by Westerners. In Dima’s perspective, Caviar was farmer food. It was not the stuff you serve at restaurants awarded 3 stars by the prestigious Michelin ”Red Guide”. 

It is a matter of perspective. For me, falafel is fast food. Great fast food, but still fast food. However, there are too few good falafel places in the US (unfortunately in the US, most so called “mediterranean” places serve soggy, microwave reheated falafel balls), so a really good falafel can and should be served at 3 star Michelin rated place. In fact, it seemed right-at-home with the “salsify croquant” and other eclectic, world dishes.

Perhaps, one day, the ancient chickpea and it’s dishes will become popular in the US. At that point it will join the other successful imports from countries such as Germany (e.g. Frankfurter and Hamburger) and France (double fried “French” fries) and Italy (Pizza). It will also join the original American dishes such as Burrito, Taco, Popcorn, Tomatoes, Chocolate, Potatoes, Corn and many more. We look the those staples of fast food and forget just how good they can be when done right. Abundance makes us ignore the greatness of these dishes.   

Returning to falafel: And like everything else around the Mediterranean Sea, falafel is way too old to have a clear history. And as can be expected, falafel has it’s place in providing fodder for the animosities between the inhabitants of the levant. So it seems the Lebanese have decided to explore suing it’s neighbor to the South claiming falafel is somehow a “controlled appelation” like Feta.

Luckily for us, in the odd chance that Lebanon succeeds, we now have a new name for falafel. We can now call it Chickpea “Croquette”. As in “Te’n li bevakasha mana Chickpea “Croquette” be’ pita, im thina, salat, veksat hamutsim. Meh-at zhug. Toda” (Translation from Hebrew: “Please give me a portion of Chickpea “Croquette”  in pita bread with tahini sauce, salad and few pickles. A little hot sauce. Thanks”).

Life is like data security: One simply cannot have a sense of security without backup plans.

Thank you Thomas Keller (owner/chef) for an amazing meal and for saving the Israeli falafel. Now that I know that my favorite fast food is safe I can rest easy and concentrate on computer and data security.

/al

* Not to be a wine bore, the wines we had were excellent: a white Mas De Daumas Gassac 2007 and Nuit St. George 1er Cru Clos de L’Arlot 2004

First class is nice. Very nice. But XX (name removed to protect the innocent) G5 is still nicer. Much nicer.

More updates to come