vino fantastico

i picked up this book the other day and it's been surprisingly good. i love this passage:
a few weeks later i learned an invaluable lesson from a wealthy businessman here in Portland who owns a chain of coffee shops. a few of us were sitting in one of his shopes one molrning, and another friend asked if we had seen the world series of poker on television the night before. none of us had, but that mention led to a conversation about gambling. my friend who owns the coffee shops told us, in a tone of kindness and truth, that nobody he knows who is successful gambles; rather, they work hard, they accept the facts of reality, they enjoy life as it is. “but the facts of reality stink,” i told him. “reality is like a fine wine,” he said to me, “it will not appeal to children.”