Nov 18, 2009 5:55 PM 
Think about this one. Would you drink wine (or beer or vodka) without the buzz from the alcohol? Andrew Zimmern submitted this Good Question, he's been sober for years, so he doesn't drink wine anymore.
I'm as much of a wine snob as the next guy. Well, I'm probably more of a wine snob than the next day, but I'm less of a wine snob than your typical "wine snob."
Anyway, I love the taste of wine. I love the complex flavors, I love the way wine interacts with my food. But I also love the social lubrication. The fact that it can be relaxing. The fact that it helps me lose just a little bit of control.
I talked to Bill Ward, who writes a wonderful blog called Ward on Wine and Bill Summerville, the wine guru for La Belle Vie. I was concerned about having two Bills in one story, but I checked with the authorities, and it's fine.
Zimmern thinks we wouldn't drink it. Bill Ward thinks we would and says wine is a food in Europe, not a vehicle for alcohol. Bill Summerville says only the hard-core wine lovers would drink it sans alcohol. What say you? Nov 13, 2009 10:06 AM I wonder if our experience today would be a Good Question for Monday. What would life be like without the Internet? Today, WCCO-TV has no internet. We get our service out of New York, the corporate headquarters, and we've had issues at our owned and operated stations throughout the country. I'm not a web guy, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Luckily, we have a couple broadband cards, which are powering a temporary wireless connection in our building. That's why I can fire off this blog entry. Think about it, though. Could you do your job without internet access? What would be different in your life? In my first job at WREX in Rockford, and my second at KWQC in Davenport, I didn't have web access. I remember going to the public library to look things up. Frankly, I could never do Good Question five nights a week without internet access. It'd be impossible to get the depth of information we get on a daily basis. We could do Good Question, it would just take longer. And of course, I'd need a huge telephone answering machine to take everyone's phoned-in questions. Anyway, share your thoughts in the comments! Nov 6, 2009 2:48 PM Last night I hosted the Minnesota Magazine Publishers Awards. There's a lot of amazing work happening in our regional magazines and in trade magazines produced out of Minnesota.
Photographer Carly Danek and I whipped this little beauty together in about 45 minutes yesterday.
They truly did give an award for best Table of Contents last night. Awesome.
The Magazine people had to get back at me, and at various points in the middle of the program, they put up these gems. 
I love the Metrosexual Guide to Snowmobiling. The photoshop work on Rider Magaazine is killer. Nov 6, 2009 12:22 PM 
A couple events, on late notice, if you're looking to make a difference in our community.
Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm hosting the fundraising gala for the Hearing and Service Dogs of Minnesota. It's an amazing organization, Dennis Douda just did a story on them graduating their 300th service dog.
The Fetching Ball is Saturday at the Minneapolis Marriot SW in Minnetonka. It's a fancy event, with dogs. It's going to be awesome.
NEXT Saturday, November 14, is the Starlight Gala for People Serving People. PSP is one of my favorite charities and this event is going to rock. It's at Solera, so the food is going to be incredible.
It starts at 5:30 p.m., so if you can swing the tickets, the money goes to a great cause, and I promise a great time! Nov 3, 2009 9:19 PM Lots of debate and controversy over tonight's Good Question, on whether uninformed voters have an obligation to stay home and not vote. Here's a link to what people were saying on Facebook. Here's an ABC News article on the issue. A couple notes: I would never try to decide if someone else was uninformed. It has to be a self-selection. You look in the mirror, feel you don't know enough, and have to make a decision. Is it better to vote somewhat randomly or better to not vote at all? Nov 1, 2009 8:08 AM It's the day after Halloween, and I'm looking at an enormous bowl of candy for my two boys. So are a lot of you.  I've been getting a handful of Good Questions like this from Steve: "Looking for good suggestions on where to donate candy left over from Oct 31." The Wall Street Journal has a few suggestions: Donate to the Ronald McDonald House. The local Wish List doesn't have candy on it, but the WSJ says they do take candy. They're open 9am-5pm, Monday through Friday. The Minneapolis Ronald McDonald House is at 818 Fulton St. SE, 612.331.5752. Operation Shoebox sends candy to overseas troops, but they prefer heat-resistant candy. So that doesn't help you get rid of all those Kit Kat bars. Still, if you have a lot of suckers and hard candy, that may be an option for you. (UPDATE: HERE'S HOW TO SEND HALLOWEEN CANDY TO OP. SHOEBOX)
A local orthodontist offers a candy buy-back program, you can drop off candy on November 2 at 3340 Sherman Ct. in Eagan. That candy gets shipped to troops. Metro Dental Care does the same thing, drop off November 2nd from 4pm-7pm. They donate to Operation Gratitude, and Second Harvest Food Shelf. I've checked a handful of websites for local food shelves, and none ask for candy on their wish lists (which is understandable- they're trying to feed the hungry with nourishing, nutritious foods). BUT, this time of year, I imagine they're not going to turn down candy. So call ahead before you donate. In the DeRusha house, the candy often ends up in the WCCO newsroom, where it disappears faster than a ghost on Halloween night. Amy Rea, author of our Wander MN blog, notes: " I have friends who hang onto the more colorful candies to use on gingerbread houses for Christmas." Good idea!
Oct 27, 2009 5:39 PM 
Look at TV ratings, TV revenue, attendence, overall profitability - it's clear Football is the real national pasttime, not baseball. According to the Harris Poll, 31% of sports fans pick football as their favorite. 16% said baseball. Not even close.
So what happened to baseball?
My thoughts (informed by interviews with experts): Football is perfect for TV. Football is perfect for gambling (and now fantasy football has taken that to the next level). Football is scarce, and therefore anticipated. The NFL is brilliant at marketing.
There's some thought that there's a psychological thing at play here: we love to watch people beat each other up. The physicality of football taps into something raw and human.
Anyway: What do you think is the real pasttime? Football, baseball, or hockey? And why do you think football is such a big deal?
(For fun, see what George Carlin had to say on the topic - h/t Patrick) Oct 26, 2009 10:15 AM
Halloween is the number two holiday in terms of spending in the United States. It's come a long way from the days of those awful hard orange and black peanut-buttery candies. What were those called?
Anyway, the family carved our pumpkins this weekend. That's my pumpkin on the left, Seth's in the middle, and Sam's on the right.
In our Good Question meeting today, we talked about a story for later this week about trick-or-treating. Is it just us, or are there fewer people going door-to-door to trick-or treat? It seems to me that Halloween is a bigger deal now, but a lot of the action has shifted from the neighborhood to the malls and organized parties.
When I was a kid in suburban Chicago, we'd get home from school, grab a pillow case, and start knocking on doors. We did the four blocks in my subdivision, then the "new houses" (which had big candy bars), and then we got in the car, went to my grandma's neighborhood, and did another four or five blocks.
No one does that today, do they? I buy 30 full-size candy bars every year to give to kids that are friends (and to anyone who mentions seeing this on the blog!), plus lots of the fun-size candy. And I always buy too much. I'll try to find some research to answer this one-way or another, but what has your experience been? Is trick-or-treating dying?
UPDATE: Lots of discussion at A Day In the Life and MNSPeak on this. General consensus: There's still lots of trick-or-treating. This probably won't end up being a Good Question on Thursday. Probably. Oct 19, 2009 4:42 PM 
Two years ago, I did a story about Minnesotans uploading videos to YouTube. One of those profiled was Adam Bahner, a guy you probably know as Tay Zonday.
He was a charming, quirky, interesting guy, truly passionate about social justice and interested in the idea of using his talent as a means of spreading a message. What message? That's for you the listener to decide.
Today, as part of our story on how people cash in on their 15 minutes of fame, I contacted Tay to see what he was up to. Did his 15 minutes of Chocolate Rain fame pay off?
I asked him what he was up to since we last met in 2007:
"1) Decided to stay in my Ph.D. program in American Studies at the University of Minnesota one more year, but ended up 'dropping out' (or finishing early, if the glass is half-full) with a Masters Degree in the Summer of 2008.
2) Decided to move out to Los Angeles in October of 2008 to pursue voice and film work alongside being an independent internet musician.
3) I've realized that Los Angeles is a long-term plan even for seasoned professionals. Like any other career, one has to view success in "traditional" entertainment on a five-year or ten-year timeline, even if one has a good head-start.
4) After getting stuck in an apartment for a year that was a bad place to be noisy and make music, I'm back from a hiatus and posting music on Youtube again.
5) I have been fortunate enough to stay satisfactorily employed and make the occasional headline (working with Weezer, Youtube, Intuit, and other brands) while the above events have played out. I still find myself appearing in pop culture from time to time. Last week I was a $25,000 question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire that the contestant got right. (I guess if you're really famous you get to be a $500 question)."
I wrote back and e-mailed that I imagined people think he's "loaded" because of his 15 minutes of fame.
"'Loaded' a voyeuristic sound byte and I'd never volunteer myself for that type of headline. It's much better to let the media guess from property tax records, divorce filings, and whatever else we all read at TMZ ;-)
I would call myself "successfully self-employed." There are many Minnesota Musicians (like Lorie Line) who have done quite well with no national spotlight. Did public attention present me with a career opportunity to transition into self-employment? Certainly. The challenge is to pursue a successful business every day and that task can be independent of a national spotlight."
Tay's latest YouTube upload:
Oct 15, 2009 11:38 AM It is back to reality, after a wonderful vacation exploring the wineries and eateries of Napa and Sonoma Counties in California. As you probably know, I love wine, and I love learning more about how my food is farmed. That's an irresistable combination in Wine Country, where you get to experience massive, industrial wine-making alongside tiny, boutique farming and wine crafting.
I'll have more to say about this kind of thing over the coming weeks, telling these stories in a trickle. But I do want to thank Duane Hoff, who took a ton of time to show us around his Fantesca Estate Winery. Good lord, that's good wine.
We tasted grapes right off the vine. The cab grapes on this side of the row tasted different from the grapes on the other side. The amount of sun exposure is a big thing, along the side of the mountain.
Duane used to live in Minnesota, he met his wife at the U of M, both worked at Best Buy from the very early days. That paid off. His wife Susan is the head of Best Buy's Children's Foundation. Both live on the property in Napa.
We got to go inside the cave and taste directly out of the barrel. (That's my wife Alyssa). It was a great experience, and fun to talk about the differences in lifestyle from being a corporate executive to being a winery owner. You can find Fantesca online, and in some local stores and restaurants.
I have more pictures from my trip here.
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