Award winners are from all 50 states and more than 75 countries and territories. Awards are given across three categories: Award of Excellence, presented to about 2,150 restaurants; the Best of Award of Excellence, presented to about 1,531 restaurants; and the Grand Award, presented to only four restaurants, including two California restaurants, Grasing’s in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Lazy Bear in San Francisco.

The winning restaurant from Middlebury is Vyne Restaurant & Bar at 1365 Whittemore Road. The restaurant serves American and Mediterranean cuisine with a wine list strong in French and Californian wines, according to Wine Spectator.

Wine Spectator said the Award of Excellence winners generally have a wine list of at least 100 vintages, while the Best of Award of Excellence winners generally have at least 350 selections. The Grand Award winners have 1,000 or more selections, presenting diners with a depth of vintages from some of the world’s most acclaimed winemakers.

I like bananas, I really do but singing dead-eyed, soul-reaping bananas are another story altogether. Have you ever seen the opening credits of American Horror Story? If you haven’t, each season features at least one shot of an old school doll with alarming indifference in its eyes.

That is exactly what I saw when Hound Dog Lover 19 posted his new video to Youtube recently.

We can assume this thing is an inanimate object, just a mechanical toy meant to inspire wonder in children until it makes a painfully slow turn and locks eyes with you.

BOOM! Right there, that is the moment we graduate from innocence to chaos and find ourselves in the basement of despair. I have enough to worry about with work and keeping our household running smoothly, I can’t be concerned with whether or not my soul is safe at the local grocer.

Let’s ease up on the raged-out mechanical produce and do something a little more gentle with our imaginations. I saw this video a few weeks back and I have not slept since. I spend my evenings in my favorite chair, staring out the window repeating the word potassium over and over again.

P.S. I love Stew’s I just wanted to make that clear. I can eat a whole box of their cookies alone and I have.

Want more CT News? If so, check out the Ethan, Lou & Large Dave Podcast. The show is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple and Spotify. The program is the same one we do on the radio but with limited commercials and no music. You can also listen live by streaming the show on the I-95 Rock Mobile app, or tune into I-95 (95.1FM).

CONNECTICUT — Social media, school buses, the Freedom of Information Act, and hair strand thickness have all been under the microscope in Hartford recently. These are a few of the laws that resulted, new to the books as of July 1.

The complete list covering 95 pieces of new legislation is on the state’s website.

State law now requires children to be 5 years old by Sept. 1 of the year they start kindergarten in Connecticut. The previous date was Jan. 1. Parents may obtain an exception for their child following a written request and an assessment completed by the school that determines admitting the child to kindergarten would be developmentally appropriate.

When parents pick their children up from kindergarten after their first day of school, they will find a new emphasis has been placed on “play-based learning.” This is an approach to teaching that includes developmentally appropriate strategies that can be integrated with existing learning standards. It does not mean time spent in recess or as part of a physical education course or instruction, according to the definitions in the legislation.

Legislators hope that a new law cracking down on motorists illegally passing school buses will make the roads safer before and after school. The new legislation allows municipalities or districts to install “school bus violation detection monitoring systems,” surveillance technology designed to make collection of newly ramped-up penalties from scofflaw motorists a bit easier. Roadway work zones will also be under enhanced video surveillance, as the results of last year’s Transportation Department trial program convinced lawmakers to make the monitoring permanent.

When school’s not in session, state inspectors will be doubling down on summer camps, according to new legislation in effect July 1. “An Act Concerning Youth Camps” details the infractions and penalties, which can include license revocation, included in the new scrutiny.

It’s now easier to erase your child’s online life, for whatever reason. New regulations require social media platforms to unpublish a minor’s social media account within 15 business days, and generally delete the account within 45 business days, after receiving an authenticated request. The new law also sets tighter standards for the sharing of personal health and medical data, and requires online dating services to adopt a policy for handling harassment.

Connecticut residents can only hope that a reduction in social media usage will result in head-healthier kids. In the high likelihood that it does not, the state is prepared with an expansion of preschool and mental and behavioral services for children, as detailed in the new legislation here.

Three years after Connecticut made recreational cannabis use legal, new legislation drills a little deeper and tidies up a number of the provisions. Among these, the sale of THC-laced beverages will be limited to licensed package stores and hybrid distributors, federally-recognized Indian tribes can expand their growing operations, and other growers approved for large-scale operations will have the option to scale down and cut costs.

A new law places certain restrictions on exactly what kind of law enforcement records can be released through a Freedom of Information Act request. For example, the identity of certain informants, the identity of witnesses whose safety would be endangered, and the arrest records of juveniles will no longer be disclosed.

It will be a little easier to pay for and get into state universities as of July 1. Under a new law, a minimum unweighted grade point average, and not a student’s class rank, will determine acceptance under the Connecticut Automatic Admissions Program. More new legislation permits minors to directly sign for a loan with the Connecticut Higher Education Supplemental Loan Authority.

Public Act No. 24-27 establishes a fund providing health insurance to survivors of a police officer killed in the line of duty. Another new law plugs a loophole in existing firearms background check regulations which limited the access to the juvenile records of people involved in the proposed transfer of a gun.

Finally, and in the category of “you-know-there’s-a-good-story-behind-this-one,” Public Act No. 24-53 caught our eye. Drafted in consultation with the Connecticut Examining Board for Barbers, Hairdressers and Cosmeticians, the new legislation expands the curriculum requirements for barber schools and hairdressing and cosmetology schools to include education and training in providing services to “individuals with textured hair, including, but not limited to, working with various curl and wave patterns, hair strand thicknesses and volumes of hair.”