It didn’t take us very long to uncork that Aglianico I referred to in my last post — we shared it with one of J.’s classmates in a post-term informal celebratory pizza dinner on Friday evening. It’s the Bisceglia 2006 ‘Terra di Vulcano’ DOC Aglianico di Vulture, at $14.95 and 13.5%, in the Easter weekendcontinue reading
Wines update
Way back when we posted a brief note praising the 2005 Rothschild Vin de Pays d’Oc Cab Sauv as a very reasonable wine for about $10. I forget exactly what we liked about it — probably some reasonable sense of cab-sauvy-ness with decent fruit and tannins. Unfortunately 2007 has been unkind to Rothschild — orcontinue reading
The Men Who Rule the World
All right, it’s not every day I link to a blog promoting conspiracy theories, but this one has a Canadian angle — and some connection to reality. There has been a plethora of articles in recent months about the close ties between Goldman Sachs and the past and current presidential administrations, AIG, etc. And it’scontinue reading
Beyond the single Pale
I can only imagine what Richard Florida thinks single life consists of, given that the top two Canadian cities he considers best for us to live in are 1. Calgary and 2. — wait for it — Iqaluit. That’s right, Iqaluit, population 7,250. That’s not a city, that’s CityPlace. I could barely make it throughcontinue reading
Cellphones vs. Trucks
A question I’m pulling out of a comment on another post, from Return of the Bees: — Here’s the Highway Traffic Act: Pedestrian right of way (28) Every pedestrian who lawfully enters a roadway in order to cross may continue the crossing as quickly as reasonably possible despite a change in the indication he orcontinue reading
Your brain likes to let your financial advisor do the thinking
N of only 24 on this study, but very interesting stuff: Expert Financial Advice Neurobiologically “Offloads” Financial Decision-Making under Risk A simple financial decision-making task involving risk was employed in the current study to investigate the behavioral and neural mechanisms by which financial advice, provided by an expert economist, affected decisions under risk. Behavioral resultscontinue reading
When did “large, bureaucratic telephone company” become “Bay St.”?
Star today: How I lost my Bay St. job and found true happiness It’s a familiar story — to me, at least:-) Girl gets MBA, pursues high-paying job, is laid off/gets a bonus that makes it easy to walk away, soul-searches, finds lower-paying dream job. OK, her story has a Marley-and-Me-esque dog involved. But let’scontinue reading
Ideas that shouldn’t be controversial but are
Part one: Basic French-English language skills needed or citizenship denied, federal minister says I’m happy that the city of Toronto has services available in many languages, and I love the fact that I hear at least five languages spoken in any given day. But do I think newcomers should make an effort to learn onecontinue reading
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
On a train during a family vacation a few years back, with the carriage filled almost entirely by my large, chatty, argumentative, politically-charged American Irish Catholic family, my aunt-by-marriage explained to another by-marriage relative that it had taken her years to adjust to our style of conversation, which, according to her, consisted of endlessly assertingcontinue 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