Wine Secretary, an Android App for Wine Lovers by Wine Lovers

Let me tell you, living in Paris isn’t easy! Aside from dealing with stressed out Parisians on the Metro, one of my big problems here is that there are so many different wines: some great, some OK, and some terrible— and it isn’t easy to remember which are which! I thought that there must already be a great Android Wine App for that, so I searched and searched… to no avail.

And thus Wine Secretary was born. It’s free, so if you like wine and have an Android phone, give it a try now! If you share this app and give it a good rating I will love you forever 🙂

I did find many Apps that promised they would do the job, but when I tried them, they were all terrible! Without exception, they were hard to use, ugly and filled with advertising that I wasn’t interested in…

This led me to  realize that there was an opportunity to design an App for Wine Lovers using Android phones! A couple of months later, I am proud to announce that Wine Secretary  is now available in the Play Store for free. It allows wine lovers to have a list in their pocket, of all the wines they have tasted.

Adding a new wine to my list is easy, I just type in the basic information and in seconds I’m done! Of course if I want to,  I can also rate the wine, and take photos of the front and back labels. To make it easier, Wine Secretary lets me search by Wine Type (Red, White, Rose, Sparkling, or Other).
This is an early version, and we are working very hard to improve the App, so your feedback is greatly appreciated. Please download the app and let us know what you think.
p.s. I would really like to have an iPhone version but it will have to wait a little… 🙁

Kindle and I, a love affair…

I have been wanting to write about my Kindle ever since I got it two years ago; the following is how the Kindle and I feel about each other.

I absolutely love my Kindle! I thought that as a bibliophile, I will hate any e-reader but I can’t find any fault with this quiet, light, patient, non-demanding, treasure chest of a library that goes from my purse to my bed table and travels everywhere with me from a crowded café in Paris to my quiet bed table.

It lets me highlight any passage in the book which I can print later; I don’t even have to open a dictionary to see the meaning of a word – my kindle whispers it in my eyes…My sneaky Kindle lets me read a sampler of the books I am interested in and only then gently pushes me into making money for Amazon…

Now it’s my Kindle’s turn to talk about me:

Hello, my name is Kindle Bezos and I am to tell you how my  mommy, Michele loves me. I am a spoiled, pampered, well loved little gadget; Michele lost my brother but she bought me one day later. She loves me and my dad, Jeff!

*She hugs me and kisses me to make the world jealous…

*She loves it that I am not a battery vampire like her iPad .

*She learned my instructions quickly (I am easy) and she types on me with patience and she talks to me often in 3 languages!

*She loves it that I can communicate easily with the mothership and get her almost any book her little heart desires; she likes the good deals I broker for her and I am working on showing her my French side (no luck on any Persian titles showing up on my screen soon!)

*She takes care of me – I even have a great polka dotted cover! She downloads almost everything I suggest to her (Papa Jeff will be happy with me if I succeed to make her read the New York Times on me!)

I don’t like it when:

a) She highlights long passages (sometimes I want to shout so she stops before underlining the whole damned book).

b) She stops often for a word’s definition (I am expecting that from my foreign owners; they always exhaust me with the dictionary…)

All this said, nothing comes close to a real library which I had in a previous life:

Those old friends are sitting in a storage room in Los Angeles and waiting for me to go and rescue them!

I love my Kindle but in defense of books, watch this very funny clip here.

The best commercial for Kindle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hg7bYEZ6e8&NR=1

 

Ralph Lauren’s Mighty Jaguars to blazing Ferraris

Museum of Decoratif Arts in Paris showcases Ralph Lauren car collection where not only you can see these gorgeous cars, but you can listen to these babies engines growl (his site does a great job at that too). I am not crazy about Ferraris but his 250 Testa Rossa (red head) was a dream in red…

I  loved the Jaguars: they made the XKD to race; it has a graceful rear with a surprising fin! It was the most successful racing car of its generation. It became so successful (three consecutive victories in Le Mans 24 hour race) that Jaguar made a road version a few years later: the beautiful XKSS:

My absolute favorite was of course the magnificent Atlantic Bugatti, a masterpiece in speed and luxury made in 1938.

Ralph Lauren cars here.

my other post about fast cars here  and here.

The lost and found Art of Bookbinding, a second anniversary issue

It’s been two years since I started this blog and I just have to make this post fabulous…I’ve been wanting to write about the new Kindle for a while but I have felt guilty towards books!

duby feodalite figurine michele roohani

As many of you know I am a shameless bibliophile but  even though I am a rather “early adapter” of new technologies, buying a Kindle has not been a priority (you can carry a big chunk of your library—1500 books— and the neighborhood’s news stand in one Kindle).

lionheart coeur de lion book michele roohani

I am tactile and love touching books and feeling the pages, the type, smelling the paper, the ink, etc…this little soldier guards my books valiantly!

knight books chevalier michele roohani

This one—Herman Hess’ Narcissus and Goldmund— was one of my favorites and I have read it in three languages during the past 30 years (talking about obsession!) and I can’t imagine getting the same pleasure from reading it on Kindle…

herman hesse Narcissus and Goldmund michele roohani

Could I have appreciated Jean Michel Maulpoix‘s poetry without his signature blue covers? No paper?

jean michel maulpoix michele roohani l’instinct du ciel

Would he have wanted to be read on a gadget? Knowing him, I would say non!

“Blue makes no noise. It is a timid color, without ulterior motives, forewarning or plan; it does not leap out at the eye like yellow or red do, but rather draws it in, taming it little by little, letting it come unhurriedly, so that it sinks in and drowns in it, unaware.”

maulpoix books livre une histoire de bleu michele roohani

I can read Lukacs or Gopnick on a Kindle but not the Shahnameh (even writing about it is sacrilegious). One of my favorite blog posts is the one I wrote about this passion of mine.

napoleon john lukacs borges michele roohani

I audited a bookbinding course on my last trip to europe and was pleasantly surprised to see that this beautiful art is not dead.

bookbinding press leliure michele roohani

people in the atelier were restoring old books—resewing the pages, making new covers, etc—with a lot of love, attention and reverence. These fonts were for leather book jackets:

font bookbinding police reliure michele roohani

Is Amazon.com cannibalizing its own industry? They are the makers of Kindle.

bookbinding jargons michele roohani

I have to admit that  even I would love to have all the newspapers I read daily, on one gadget. The gadget that carries most of my books to choose from on a trip; I guess all I am saying is that it’s very hard to read poetry on a machine—wouldn’t these beautiful poems feel/sound better on paper?

i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e.e. cummings


fernando pessoa book of disquiet livre de l’intranquillité michele roohani

“Parfois je me fais presque honte
De croire autant ce que je ne crois pas.
C’est une variété de rêve
Avec le réel au milieu.” Fernando Pessoa

 

Thank you all for the kind comments and support through these past two years.

michele roohani narcissus thank you card

Revisit my post on books here.

A book is a present we keep opening—again and again…

Delahaye, Hispano Suiza, Kurtis 500, Bentley, Ferrari, Bugatti

With these shameless gas prices, it’s less painful to look at cars than driving them. I went to an auto show today and two hours and 100 pictures later, I was about to over-dose on beautiful antique cars, gorgeous vintage sports cars and even the vulgar Ferraris and Maseratis…

race cars michele roohani

I’ve never seen so many shades of red outside the cosmetic counter’s lipstick section! A good name for a shade of lipstick would be a “Ferrari red” – a “Corvette carmine” for a nail polish:

corvette carmine michele roohani

Amazing tires:

car tires michele roohani

Lovely 1956 Chevrolet Bel Airs:

blue chevrolet belair michele roohani

Great interiors and fins:

red chevrolet belair michele roohani

It was Rolls Royce galore in Rodeo Drive today but that will be for another post.

This 1938 Dubonnet Hispano Suiza is out of this world:

hispano suiza michele roohani

or this Delahaye:

Delahaye michele roohani

To see more about fast cars, go here. Happy Father’s Day!

haute wheels hat michele roohani

Fast cars for dummies

The Bugatti Veyron is the most expensive car in the world and it is street legal. The price varies between $1,200,000 to $1,500,000 (by the time I finish this post the falling dollar will make this European made car even more expensive). With a maximum speed of more than 400 km per hour, the Veyron is unmatched in the super sports category and offers a total of 1,001 hp; it is the fastest accelerating car reaching 0-60 in 2.5 seconds.

bugatti expensive car micheleroohani

I took the above picture in Berlin a couple of years ago (the only one in this post I actually took) and decided to do some “soft” research about the subject to share with friends who can be as clueless about this as I am – try not to roll your eyes every time I am stating the obvious. Fasten your seat belts and get ready for testosterone galore:

Stock Car: a souped up version of a factory car that is only allowed to reach top speeds of approximately 187 mph (301 km/h) – the most prominent championship in stock car racing is the NASCAR championship. The 700 horsepower engines of these cars have been altered from their original factory design.

stock car Jacom Stephens

Daytona 500 is one of the most watched events on American television and the most important race in the NASCAR series – it is a 200-lap, 500 mile (805 km) race held annually in Daytona Beach, Florida. Even I have heard of Dale Earnhardt (both father and son)…

Formula One car: a single-seat, open cockpit, open wheel race car with substantial front and rear wings and engine positioned behind the driver. It’s made out of composites of carbon fiber, light but extremely strong. By regulation the cars use rear wheel drive and can handle 900 horsepower (in comparison my car has around 250 hp). The top speed of these cars is around 230 mph (370 km/h).

formula one mark evans

Formula One race, is the highest class of open wheeled auto racing . The “formula” in the name is a set of rules which all participants and cars must meet. The F1 world championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix. The big name in this category is Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari. The Indy Racing League is essentially the American version of F1.

Pit Stop: “in motorsports, a pit stop is where a racing vehicle stops in the pits during a race for refuelling, new tires, repairs, mechanical adjustments, a driver change, or any combination of the above” but what is interesting and not so obvious to the non-initiated, is that pit stop work is carried out by up to twenty mechanics (pit crew) and that pit strategy is one of the most important features of the race.

So, this wasn’t that bad, was it? The next step for me would be to actually watch a car race on tv and witness the thunder of roaring engines beating their chests…

Coming to life with an iPod

I love my iPod! It’s ancient but I don’t want to get a new one yet; I have to admit that having a portable music library has not been my primary concern but the podcasts…oh the podcasts…

ipod tahlia music podcast books eyes

Many of my friends have asked about subscribing to podcasts with an iPod (or any other MP3) – this is how I listen to my news from around the world – it’s like TiVo-ing your favorite radio shows; you have to install itunes and take it from there:

1) if you don’t already have itunes download it for free at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
2) install it
3) go to itune store/podcast http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html
4)search for shows you like halfway through the screen:

podcast, ipod, searching teaching

And the rest is pretty easy. Here are some of the things I listen to: NPR morning news, scientific american , slate magazine, 2000 ans d’histoire, in our time with melvyn bragg, Radio Lab, NYT’s Frank Rich/Maureen Dowd , etc… I do download a “medley” of different stuff and I hardly listen to music on my ipod but that’s just me – the beauty of it all is that I can listen to what I want when I want and with a little gadget (iTrip), it even plays on my car radio.

ipod classical music itunes podcast jazz

Five minutes in the morning to download the podcasts from my computer and this can carry me through Life‘s rush-hour…Happiness is a lot of small/little things.

Time, Poetry and Einstein

I am obsessed with Time; not only I have a weakness for wrist watches, I have several clocks around my house. Only when I am traveling (especially in france where Time is an elastic commodity) the passage of time becomes kind of blurred but I’ve never had any desire to go back nor forth in Time; the whole notion of a Time Machine has never appealed to me (not even to my trekkie side). Entropy rules supreme!

luxembourg_chairs_fall_leaves_absence_time_gone

Aragon, one of my favorite french poets, has written his most beautiful piece about Time so have many other luminaries. “Newton, forgive me…” said Einstein who wrote his most beautiful piece about the same subject…

watch_armani_bracelet_time

“Je vais te dire un grand secret Le temps c’est toi
Le temps est femme Il a
Besoin qu’on le courtise et qu’on s’asseye
A ses pieds le temps comme une robe à défaire
Le temps comme une chevelure sans fin
Peignée
Un miroir que le souffle embue et désembue
Le temps c’est toi qui dors à l’aube où je m’éveille…
Louis Aragon

calvario’s time

I love this piece by Diana Calvario, my new friend at redbubble.

Musical DNA, experiments in musical intelligence

I am in love with my iPod. One fabulous podcast i listened to last week brought tears to my eyes and inspired me to make this image.

musical, intelligence, DNA, binary, computer, bassist
musical, DNA, intelligence, binary, radiolab, bassist

the radio program was the one about the “Musical DNA” from WNYC’s Radiolab. David Cope , a composer and professor at UCSC, talks about how a computer program he wrote, can imitate the musical DNA of great artists; “His program, named EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence – pronounced Emmy), deconstructs the works of great composers, finding patterns within their compositions, and then creates brand new compositions.” Imagine some undiscovered pieces from Mahler or the Almighty Bach…Life can be amazing. We have worshiped dead musicians for ever, can we admire their ghosts’ music now?

beethoven-deaf.jpg

I love this picture of Gary Oldman playing a near deaf Beethoven in Immortal Beloved. I often wonder how different his music would have been were he not deaf…

I just discovered this great image from Paul Louis Villani, a photographer and digital artist, i met on redbubble.

music, sheet, score, notes classical, hand