Continuing on with our semi-regular practice of shouting out old Sports Illustrated stories that have stuck in our mind, I’d like to call your attention to this “Where Are They Now?” piece about the fabled Steve Dalkowski—a man who recently popped to mind when news of Ryan Leaf’s latest travails broke wide. The thumbnail sketch […]
Entries Tagged as 'wine'
The Scourge of Wine
January 29th, 2010 · 2 Comments
Given our obvious enthusiasm for the effects of alcohol, we were a bit taken aback by a recent New York Times piece extolling the virtues of half-bottles of wine. Apparently there are people out there for whom a regular ol’ 750-mL bottle of wine is too much to split with a loved one—the writer includes […]
Tags:alcohol·ancient history·Cleomenes·Herodotus·Sparta·wine
Up on Trickle Creek
January 27th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Having spent some time in Alberta’s northern climes, we’ve taken an unusually keen interest in the arrest of Wiebo Ludwig, a religious patriarch with a Luddite streak a mile wide. Having served time for vandalizing oil-industry equipment in the past, Ludwig recently presented himself as man capable of coaxing a fellow pipeline bomber into giving […]
Tags:Alberta·alcohol·Canada·cults·energy·religion·Wiebo Ludwig·wine
Best of Oh Nine: Booze
December 30th, 2009 · 18 Comments
Being anchored to headquarters and relatively penniless meant that the Microkhan clan engaged in much low-brow imbibing throughout 2009. (Think Ballantine in the 22-ounce bottle, and some occasional Jim Beam.) But we’re of the mind that life isn’t worth living with somewhat alcoholic splurging, a mindset that led us to encounter a number of fine […]
Fatally Besotted
July 20th, 2009 · 10 Comments
Upon reading this tragic yet all-too-common tale from this morning’s New York Times, we were reminded of our long-held hypothesis that a huge number of homicides would never occur were it not for the ingestion of alcohol. Yet we’ve never really had a good sense of what percentage of killings involve inebriated parties—at least until […]
Goes Down Smooth as Fire
July 16th, 2009 · 5 Comments
Anyone who’s ever sampled Thunderbird is unlikely to forget the experience—or, for that matter, to recall it with much fondness. The stuff is the very epitome of bum wine, heavy on the alcohol and the commensurate taste of metallic burning. This detailed review breaks it down for the broke oenophiles in the audience: For all […]
The Risks of Prison Wine
March 20th, 2009 · 3 Comments
If you’re looking for proof of mankind’s inveterate need for altered states of consciousness, look no further than pruno. Long created beneath the bunks of prison inmates, and often consisting of such odious ingredients as ketchup and sauerkraut, pruno is notoriously unpalatable, even for the most hardened toughs. According to a participant in a harrowing […]