Wine from… Montenegro? China? Bosnia?

Our latest Wine Tidings magazine has a long and highly entertaining piece on LCBO wines from less-expected locales, and has accompanied it with some highly entertaining reviews. The article is unfortunately not online, but here’s an excerpt: 86: Monte Cheval Vranac 2007Montenegro, $8.35This is an unapologetically rough red that puts the rust back in rustic.continue reading

Ah, science.

The BMJ’s Christmas issue is full of goodness as usual. Ingested foreign bodies and societal wealth: three year observational study of swallowed coins Objective: To examine the relation between coins ingested by children and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But sadly, for it would’ve made a fine headline had the results been different, Conclusion: Therecontinue reading

I need a drink

More cocktails for the recession/depression, courtesy of the New Yorker online: Nasdaiquiri Add a dozen I.P.O.’s to portfolio, wait until bubble bursts, drink all day every day. BlackBerry Sling Discover that your BlackBerry doesn’t work because you haven’t paid the bill. Sling it against the wall, then buy a prepaid phone and make some rumcontinue reading

A deconstruction after my own heart

Courtesy of McSweeney’s — CRITIQUE OF YOUR POWERPOINT PRESENTATION TITLED “SALES FORECAST, THIRD QUARTER.” Another highlight was your complete rejection of Tuftean convention through the use of colors without meaning, location without purpose, and position without movement. How daring it was to represent the quarterly shortfalls in revenue with the color purple—the color associated notcontinue reading

Your call is important to us

The Financial Times has announced the 2008 winners of “twaddle” awards for ludicrous business phrases and practices — they’re all good, but this one is truly outstanding: Third is the award for Most Aggravating On Hold Message, which in 2008 was as hotly contested as ever. However, the clear winner was the UK’s Driving Standardscontinue reading

End of year mindless headline extravaganza, day 2

Another helpful headline: TSX expected to reopen after stall Was there any question about that? Gigantic Hound’s recommendation of a year-long prorogation of the market aside, the TSX isn’t really designed to stay shut. Here, by contrast, is an informative headline on the same topic: TSX to resume trading Thursday And for bonus points oncontinue reading

End of year mindless headline extravaganza!

I can’t really concentrate and there’s only a week to go until Christmas. What better time to grab some of the low-hanging fruit that headlines present. Here’s today’s: BoC chief says economic crisis will ‘end’ Insightful. End, he says –as all crises eventually do. What I really like are the quotation marks around “end”, whichcontinue reading

They make no sense in Russian either

Anti-coalition protester in Ottawa holds up a hand-drawn picture of Stephane Dion as some kind of Communist commissar. Unfortunately, what is written on the sign would be a non-existent word pronounced “ee-oo-yot” in Russian. I’m guessing they were going for “nyet.”

Oh ouch

Quotation of the Day for October 9, 2008 “They were waiting for a translation from the original Australian.” – Bob Rae, Liberal Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre, jokingly explaining why the governing Conservative Party took so long to release their federal election campaign platform. He was referring to a scandal earlier in the campaigncontinue reading