I went to the Takara Sake factory (in Berkeley!) yesterday, and looked at their museum (actually a single room) of 19th century sake-making equipment, and did the free tasting of their different brews. Much like in wine tasting, being able to try sips of 8 different sakes one after the other highlights the differences between them so that now I might be able to order intelligently the next time I go for sushi. They also had some plum wines, two mixed with chardonnay, and one with sake, and all pretty tasty, albeit sickeningly sweet. Definitely a dessert kind of drink.
Then I went to play ultimate, where I learned the meaning of pain from lack of endurance.
I saw a post earlier this week on MetaFilter about Bob Dylan having lifted some of his lyrics from a Japanese gangster novel, and then the same story appears in the NY times today, although the latter is more of an apologia for Dylan. Interestingly enough, Harvard rescinded its acceptance offer to Blair Hornstein, the girl who sued her school to be the only valedictorian, over her plagiarism in a journalism contest. Perhaps “plagiarize” should be the word of the week.