Caffeine Compensation

Posted 13 Nov 2008

Daily Life, Drinks, People | 2 Comments 

I’m pretty sure that the guy who works in this cubicle …

… gets paid in direct proportion to the number of coffee mugs he uses each day.

Then again, I didn’t check the name on the cubicle, perhaps this is where Juan Valdez sits.

Liquid Luggage

Posted 14 Oct 2008

Commuting, Drinks | 5 Comments 

Not sure who might think it is a good idea to put a full pint of beer and several other open containers of booze into their briefcase. I just hope my bags aren’t piled underneath this one when the plane hits turbulence.

This picture was taken from a sign illustrating the regulations regarding bringing alcohol into the UK from Ireland.

Recommendation: If you do hire someone to pack for you, don’t hire the person who packed this.

Poorly marketed pear cider

Posted 18 Sep 2008

Drinks | 2 Comments 

I enjoy pear cider. I do. And over the weekend, I savoured a bottle of St. Helier’s Pear Cider. It was tasty. My thanks to the people on a smaller island than the one I am on for making it. Very nice of you, indeed.

As I sipped my way through the pear cider, I took a few moments to study the bottle. I had not tried St Helier before and wanted to learn more about it. In reading over the back label, I discovered that cider makers are, perhaps, not the best at sales or marketing. Consider the following:

The label reads: In days gone by, cider makers always kept a corner of their orchard for growing pears. They used this to produce a pear cider for their family to enjoy, as they believed it to be superior to apple cider. They were right.

So, my immediate thought was why are pear cider makers admitting this? Previous generations of pear cider makers were either too stupid or too selfish to sell what they clearly believed to be their best product. Why tell the world this?

And upon re-reading the last sentence, I wondered the marketing value of a company suggesting that pear cider is better than apple cider – when that same company also makes apple cider. Doesn’t that tell the customer that its apple cider is inherently a lesser product?

You know you’re in a martini bar when…

Posted 11 Sep 2008

Drinks, Food, Places | 5 Comments 

Below is a photo of my tab from a recent trip to Bossa Nova, a tapas restaurant in Pittsburgh with a very large ‘chill’ bar area.

As I glanced over the tab, I suddenly realised that this place was pretty much exclusively a Martini and wine bar. My tab was labeled simply ‘Penn Pilsner’ because I was the only one in the bar drinking beer!

Pittsburgh Pirates scam their fans!

Posted 1 Sep 2008

Drinks, People, Places | 7 Comments 

The Pittsburgh Pirates (American baseball team) don’t win much and I can’t even count the number of Pittsburghers who have told me that “the Pirates have a great stadium, but the team is no good.” Apathy about a sports team is odd in this city of sports fans; Pittsburgh’s support for the Steelers (American football) and Penguins (ice hockey) is evidence of the typical sports fervor.

Earlier this summer, I went to PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, to investigate why this might be. It was my second game at the stadium and once again, despite perfect weather, moderately priced tickets and a fantastic ballpark, the fans were nearly outnumbered by employees of the various food vendors. What was causing such low attendance?

It turns out that the Pirates scam their fans out of cash every time they buy beer at the stadium! The “small” cup above sells for $4.75 whereas you pay $7.50 for the “large” cup. If you couldn’t tell from the above picture, the cup on the right is the “larger” one. Now, before you watch this video below, recall that the “large” cup sells for a full $2.75 more than the “small”.

One of the more scrupulous beer vendors at the park was kind enough to point this deception out to us and save us some cash, but it disgusts me to think about how much pure profit the Pirates are fleecing from the few people who still attend the games! I guess they are the Pirates, so maybe this is just their way of making their namesake more tangible to the average fan.