New Logo

Someone sent a message to me the other day in which one of the sentences began, Obviously you're a woman.." In my reply I corrected them, but it was certainly an honest mistake given the profile picture that I had up on the page at the time (see the poor besotted thing below). When I image-Googled the word "wino" that particular picture came up as #3; I thought it was twistedly funny so I commandeered it for this blog.

Then on the Wine Life Today and Domaine547 sites, I ran across something called Gravatars which I found out are Web-wide avatars I could use to identify myself on blogs that made use of this feature. So I thought, why not? But I also thought, do I want this tragic wino (wina for the feminine case?) following me around the web as my (gr)avatar? Methinks perhaps not, although that was the subject of much hot debate between me and myself before finally deciding to chuck the old picture. Hence, the new logo. I'm no Photoshop wiz and don't even know how to use it; I just did something quick on Fireworks and uploaded it. I guess it's a bit classier than the old one although it's the same old low-class blog posts.

Maybe some of you are wondering, what's a Monkuwino, anyway? Monku in Japanese means to whine or complain. I know hardly any Japanese words but for some reason I seem to remember hearing my parents use this all the time when talking to or referring to me in my formative years.. So I've sort of made this a part of my web moniker. On other sites you can see me identified as Monkuboy (like on Chowhound or Amazon) and on other wine-related sites as either Monkuboy or Monkuwino. Not that you probably care, but I thought I'd do some explaining in case you did.

For old time's sake, here's the old picture one last time:

I have to say that she was more noble than she appears. She actually told me I should replace her, for my own good. I hesitated. She persisted. Our parting conversation went like this:

Me: I want you to stay.

Her: Look, do you have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if I stayed here with you? Sooner or later you'd regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life. Nine chances out of ten people would see my picture and refer you to Alcoholics Anonymous. Isn't that right?

Me: You're just saying that to make me let you go.

Her: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us we both know that this is where you belong, with your blog, writing about one wine per week. Not like me, with my one bottle an hour.

Me: But what about us?

Her: We'll always have Metamorphosis 88.

Me: And I said I'd never leave you..

Her: What do you expect? You're a man. You're all like that.

Me: Well, so long, baby. Here's looking at you, kid.

Her: You're really blurry.

And she staggered out of my blog, bound for another one of the countless sidewalks beneath a neon sign.