What I'm drinking

So, I felt like drinking a little wine tonight, and my stash of cheap, everyday wines had pretty much been depleted, so I stopped by Whole Foods to see what they might have on sale. After walking around and sampling their 12-grain and seed bread, some Irish Dubliner cheese and some Spanish date cake, I found a jug that looked promising.

Yes, I said "a jug." It's a jug of wine. One liter of jugged vino. It's the Tempranillo by Three Thieves, and a steal at $10.99. I'm not a huge Tempranillo connoisseur, but this is extremely drinkable. It's not the kind of wine you'd want to try to store for a long time -- I think it's definitely a "drink it now" kind of thing, but it's not bad.

Here's a little blurb about it that I found at BestCheapWine.com:

The Three Thieves brand is a kind of new concept in wine. The founders of the company, 2 guys in California, and one in France, are expert finished grape sourcers who find wine on the bulk market and mix them (or not), put them in specially designed jugs and distribute them around the country with the "Three Thieves" label. The company aims for a price point right around $9.99, which is even a little better than it sounds because the jugs are actually 1 Liter instead of the standard wine bottle .75 liter. So far, all the Three Thieves concoctions have drawn massive acclaim even among higher end wine drinkers and reviewers. There is more info about the whole "legend" and process on the company website http://www.threethieves.com. I personally LOVED the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon, and have been sad to see that it has largely dried up around here. So, I was very happy to see the Three Theives jug today while out doing my shopping. Turns out it's a new variety though-a Red table wine made with Spanish Tempranillo grapes.

And again, a hit! This stuff is really good, a very sophisticated blend with tempered flavors. Light and zesty, with a strong berry finish.Combine the nice taste with a great bottle, cool label and nifty lore and you have the perfect wine for impressing guests or taking to party (it even has a screw top--so you can take it to a non-corkscrew-people party).

I really love Three Thieves, try any of their wines that you can get your hands on, and buy extra bottles before they're all gone.And, by the way, if the whole jug/screw top thing puts you off, I swear this is a situation where it really adds up to cool. Trust me.

Yes, this jug o' wine is not only cool, it's tasty. And there is something quite endearing about the screw top, I must admit...

DRINK UP, PEOPLE! There's plenty of Three Thieves to go around!

Holy shit! (or, "Whatever happened to the Crazylegs progress?")

I realize I've been lax in logging my Crazylegs training progress. I'm not sure why that is, but I guess I'm comforted by knowing that I've been more diligent about actually doing the training than I have been about blogging about it.

In short, I'm in approximately week six of my training, with six more weeks to go. Today, I had a personal best, and I'm frankly quite proud of myself. About 3:00 this afternoon, I set out into the 22-degree March cold and wind for my run. My intent was to run three miles, and I sort of wondered if I would make that.

Well, I made it, and then some. I ended up running about 3.6 miles. Holy shit! Holy, holy shit! That's as far as I've ever run in my life. Way to go, Wendish girl!

March Madness approacheth...

So, one of my favorite times of year is finally here. The beginning of March Madness is less than a week away. Mom has fired up the March Madness Wendish Spartans group on Yahoo, commentators are throwing around terms like "bubble," "Big Dance" and "Cinderella."

The Big Ten tournament is this weekend and, alas, my Spartans were one and done yesterday with a loss against Iowa. After hearing the recap from Mom, I feel badly for them, but it sounds like they played well -- it was just one of those things. Not their day. I feel somewhat better by knowing that that same Iowa team ALMOST bested Wisconsin today, and the Badgers only pulled that game out thanks to a lucky, desperate, buzzer-beating three-pointer by Alando Tucker. Not that I wanted Bucky to lose, but I feel like MSU and Wisconsin are pretty evenly matched teams, and the fact that the Hawkeyes made Bucky sweat a little makes me feel like the Spartans just had the basketball cards slightly stacked against them yesterday. Oh well, on to the Big Dance, and the lure of glittering brackets, six games simulcast at once and Dickie Vitale all over the place, baybee...