So the generous folks at Mondavi Wines put together this little event wherein a whole bunch of 99.5 The Mountain listeners got to come down to Elway’s Cherry Creek and enjoy some fabulous wine and food on the house!

Before things really got rolling I spent some time with our two guests of honor, Kyle Orton and Ryan Harris from the Denver Broncos. Apparently they’d both done their homework and discovered that I was the 11th String Back Up Quarter Back at Mellon Junior High School in Pittsburgh back in the day, so obviously they wanted to ask me for some pointers on technique. Being the man of the people I am, I was more than happy to oblige.

And then we spent the next few hours hob-knobbing with Denver celebs, sampling wine after brilliant wine from Mondavi and generally having a whale of a good time, especially when you consider it was free….AND it was a Monday night! Jeez! No one has fun on Monday Nights unless they’re under the age of 25!

Thanks to everyone who helped put together this event, especially the folks from Elways and from Mondavi Wines and a special thanks to the Mountain listeners who took time out of their busy schedule to come hang out with me. (It could be argued they really wanted to meet Ryan and Kyle….but at the end of the day, I can live with that.)

Further proof that there are numerous intangible benefits that come with listening to 99.5 The Mountain!

Former Chicago Cubs and Montreal Expo star Andre Dawson, former St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey were inducted in the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.  I guess after the ceremony Whitey Herzog kicked dirt on Doug Harvey’s shoes and was ejected from the ceremony. 

France’s Alberto Contador won his 3^rd Tour De France title this weekend.  Look for him to start dating Sheryl Crow later this month.

Rockies got swept by the Phillies and have lost 9 of their last 11.  In an effort to rebuild some confidence Manager Jim Tracy has requested a 47 game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

Paul the octopus—who correctly predicted eight of eight World Cup games—is seeking agency representation.  Tiger Woods agent Mark Steinberg seems the logical choice given the number of women who’ve come forward to suggest that Tiger also has 8 arms.

Okay, so it was more than 4 sentences today.  So sue me……

(NEWSER) – India plans to roll out the world’s cheapest tablet computer next year. The $35 touchscreen device—that’s one-14th the price of an iPad, notes the AP—is aimed at students, and the price could eventually come down to $10 or $20. The government still hasn’t lined up a manufacturer, however. “This is our answer to MIT’s $100 computer,” says one government official.

 ”On the software side, it sports a web browser, PDF reader, office software, media player, multimedia input/output capabilities, video conferencing (it must have a camera, then) and remote device management capability—all of it open-source and Linux-based,” reports Mashable. As for hardware, reports are all over the map. But the device definitely has a touchscreen.

Mike’s Thoughts:  If I invented this thing I’d call it The “I-Cheap”.

(NEWSER) – The Rolling Stones are planning a 50th-anniversary tour that will also serve as a farewell tour, the Daily Mail reports. “They want to bow out on top of their game, and not short-change their fans,” a source says of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood—whose combined age will be 268 when the tour launches next year..

 The tour will wrap up in 2012, 50 years and 200 million albums sold after the band was formed—and 41 years after their first farewell tour. Wondering where you’ve heard about the Stones recently? Jagger figures in the new tell-all biography of Angelina Jolie.

Mike’s Thoughts:  Call me crazy, but Keith Richards with a lot of spare time on his hands doesnt’ seem like a good idea to me.

I expect Mrs. Palin will refudiate everything in this video later this week.

(Newser) – Some intrepid researchers at Harvard and Northeastern culled hundreds of millions of tweets over the past three years and analyzed the language to put together a handy YouTube visualization of people’s moods across the country. Essentially, everyone’s happiest when they wake up or are about to fall asleep and they’re otherwise least cheerful midday, and midweek.

West Coast tweeters display the same mood cycle as their East Coast counterparts, but the whole curve is more upbeat. Also, if you focus on where Michigan is on the visualization, you’ll notice it never once reaches happiness. Read the full article on Mashable.

Mike’s Thoughts:  Who in the hell is happiest when they wake up in the morning???

Should you be interested, you can follow my Twitter postings @  mikecasey24

(Newser) – Airlines that lose people’s bags shouldn’t be charging them for the service, says an angry passenger suing American Airlines. Danielle Covarrubias has launched a $5 million class action suit against the airline, complaining that after it lost her bag containing $800 in possessions managers refused to refund her $25 baggage fee, ABC News reports.

“American Airlines is just another example of how companies have forgotten about customer service,” said Covarrubias. “When American charges a fee for a baggage service it should deliver your bag, unharmed, or give you a refund.” A spokesman for the airline said the company is reviewing the lawsuit, the first of its kind since American introduced baggage fees.

Mike’s Thoughts:  MAN!  This kind of thing really gets my panties in a bunch. 

Wanna know how I get back at the airlines in my own little passive agressive way?

I NEVER move seat to the full upright and locked position during take off and landing.

I know….it’s not much.  But it’s a start!

Are you having a boring summer? Need something to spice up your dreary life? How about ninja lessons. Seriously.

A teacher in New York City who has full Shidoshi status teaches “effective methods of self-protection using elusive timing, control of distance and subtle angling, i.e. like how to avoid the assault of a sword.”

Only $195 per lesson

Golf lessons?  Boot Camp?  Gardening classes???? BAH!

Can you imagine what a hit I’d be at parties this summer if I could honestly tell someone I was taking NINJA lessons?  This is capital A AWESOME!

A UK man has legally changed his name to Buzz Lightyear.

26-year-old Steve Bolton, a mechanic from West Bromwich, said, “I’m a massive fan of Toy Story and Buzz is a great name. My girlfriend is going to love telling people she’s going out with Buzz Lightyear.

“I hope kids will ask me for my autograph. It’s going to feel great signing my name and introducing myself to people.”

Mike’s Thoughts:  Here’s the most telling sentence in this story:  “My girlfriend is going to love telling people she’s going out with Buzz Lightyear.”  Hm.  Sounds like you two are PERFECT for each other.  If I were so fascinated with a kiddie movie that I even contemplated changing my name to one of the characters, my wife would dump me like a bad habit and enter a witness protection program.

(NEWSER) – Pabst Blue Ribbon is known as a cheap beer beloved by hipsters…in America. In China, it goes by “Blue Ribbon 1844,” gets compared to Scotch, and will run you $44 a bottle. Gawker points to the beer’s official website—where you can see the fancypants bottle it’s packaged in, a far cry from the familiar PBR cans found in the US. (1844, by the way, is the year the Pabst Brewing Company was founded.)

Chinese media blog Danwei points to an ad for the beer from a business magazine, reading, “It’s not just Scotch that’s put into wooden casks. There’s also Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1844,” and going on to call Pabst “truly a treasure among beers.”

Mike’s Thoughts:  If ever you needed proof that 90% of the cost of anything you buy has much more to do with market perception than actual quality, this is it.  So all you chumps wearing 500 dollar brand name jeans?  Just remember what it is that you spent your hard earned money on.