Well, this is a big day in the Monkey family calendar: our son became a teenager today. Happy Birthday, Myles! If that's not cause for celebration, I don't know what is. It's amazing to think that it's 13 years ago to the day since that mad dash to the hospital in our old beat-up Ford... red lights and road signs didn't exist that day, and I think we were pretty close to breaking the sound barrier as I rounded the last corner. 1996... the time has really flown by. And he didn't cry when popped out and opened his eyes for the first time: he just scowled and looked a bit confused. And that's pretty much the way it's been ever since.

So we'll be breaking out the bubbly this evening, celebrating with a nice dinner and rounding it off with a good bottle of fortified: a Caught Redhanded if we could lay our hands on a bottle, but that stuff is rare as hen's teeth so we'll have to find a substitute... any good suggestions? Please leave them here.

:: TOAST TO THE COAST COMPETITION
Our competition this week is sponsored by Toast To The Coast, Geelong's Wine and Food Festival which takes place over the Melbourne Cup Long Weekend at the end of this month. We have 10 double tickets to give away and winning couldn't be easier: CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

:: VW MAPS COMPETITION WINNERS
Congratulations to our VW MAPS Competition winners: Phil, Jules, Alex, Margie and KangaRue. We had an extra winner too -- Cleo scored herself a prize for suggesting that the next map should cover "the state of inebriation, because many people have been lost there."

:: COOBARA WINE WINNER
Congratulations also to our Coobara Wine competition winner, Kate Writer from Rutherford. Not only did Kate come up with the correct answer (a blue wren), but she impressed the judges by doing her homework and pointing out that there are many different types of Blue Wrens and that the label features the Superb Blue Wren. She also mentioned that the first Coobara Cab/Merlot release in 2004 featured the Diamond Tail Finch. Excellent work, Kate. And well won. We hope you enjoy your prize.

:: SOPHIA SPAM MESSAGE
Thanks to everyone who reported the message they received at the weekend from "SOPHIA": as you rightly pointed out, it was a spam message and you were right to just ignore it. We do our best to make sure you receive as few of these messages as possible (and more often than not, we manage to identify the spammer accounts within half an hour of being set up and delete them) but inevitably some of them will get through from time to time. Because the spammers are persistent.

Unsolicited messages are irritating, but please be aware that they are not a threat to you. If you are interested in finding out more, there is plenty of information on the internet about these kinds of spam messages if you care to search for it, but as a basic rule whether it is "I am a lonely, pretty girl looking for love" or "you have won $10 zillion in the Zimbabwe national lottery", it's a scam from a gang working out of the Ivory Coast.

We know you're not the type to be taken in by this sort of thing of course, but you would be amazed how many people fall for it every day. So if you get an offer which sounds too good to be true, just delete it, pour yourself another glass of Shiraz and thank your lucky stars you have more sense than the average Joe.

:: BEER ON BOOZEMONKEY
We love wine of course, but we love variety too, and Roscoe pointed out recently that life wouldn't be the same without good beer. So we set up a new area on the forum for BEER ON BOOZEMONKEY. If you love suds, check it out! And if you have any suggestions for other things you would like to see ANYWHERE on the site, just let us know -- BoozeMonkey is YOUR website, and you can help us by telling us how you want to see it develop.

:: WINE QUESTIONS
Just a quick reminder that our winemakers are keen to answer your wine questions and all you need to do is ask... CLICK HERE and check out our experts.

That's all for today folks. I have a birthday dinner to prepare so I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off and working up a storm in the kitchen.

Have a great week.

Cheers!

Matt
http://www.BoozeMonkey.com

PS -- please feel free to leave any comments here.