Published by Adam October 20th, 2008
in Adam and Wine.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I always look forward to the annual Wine and Food show, traditionallyheld the 1st weekend of November (this year is the 2nd weekend, which should have been my first warning). I was looking at the details today and I was shocked, bordering on angry. The wine and food show has been held in Ottawa for the past 22 years as an open event, one price for admission, and then pay as you go for all of the booths (food, wine, beer, etc) when you are inside. There are additional seminars you can attend for extra, but they were just that…extras.
After last year’s show it was ’sold’ because theoriginator no longer wanted to run the show. I can understand that, the event is a huge success (lineups around the block all three days) why not go out on top?
On to my point, this year they have created a VIP section for the wine show that costs 3X the price of normal admission and will carry bottles of wine that retail for no less than $25 and are not available as part of the regular LCBO offerings. In other words; the wines I want to try out! In previous years, tastings of more expensive wine simply cost more. If average Joe consumer wanted to pay more for an Estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon from their favourite producer because s/he couldn’t buy it anywhere else, then so be it.
By the loks of it…not this year. Ottawa is not Toronto, yes there are ‘famous’ people here, but generally the affluent here aren’t stratospherically rich, and there isn’t a ‘need’ for a VIP tasting room with exclusive samples. Nothing more that short-term thinking to recuperate the investment at the expense of alienation of the core group of consumers.
Published by Adam September 9th, 2008
in Adam.
I heard today that Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement to race in five events next year, including the fabled Tour de France.
At first blush I was happy he is making a comeback and I hope he will compete and not fail in his attempt at another title.
The cynic within me spoke up a few moments after that and it said…wait just a minute here…Is this just another Michael Jordan “retirement”? It is widely rumoured that MJ was asked to retire for a period of 18-months to cover up his suspension for gambling. Albeit Armstrong was out for three years not two (the norm for a doping offence) so it could just be an overactive imagination.
Now Armstrong is the most tested athlete on the planet, and I believe that he was clean for his victories. With all of the scandals in sports, it is tough to be optimistic anymore.
Here’s looking forward to ‘09.
Published by Adam August 19th, 2008
in Adam & Elizabeth.
We received our gas bill last night and it was higher than our pre-defined billing program we had signed up for so I decided to call Enbridge to see what was going on.
First problem: Their number on the bill 1-877-ENBRIDGE. Enbridge is EIGHT letters! While trying to multitask and pre-dial the phone I nearly lost it because I kept getting “We are sorry this number cannot be completed as dialed”. After some careful examination I realized the problem and dialed 1-877-ENBRIDG.
After punching in the customary information into the IVR system I get passed through to a CSR person. She was knowledgeable and provided the information I was asking about. Which leads me to:
Problem Number Two: The pre-defined billing program runs from September to July, and then you pay for what you use in August. It makes sense to some extent, a re-leveling so to speak. What I can’t understand for the life of me is why they used an ESTIMATE for the month of August that was FIVE times our actual usage last year!!! Seriously, if you KNOW that people are being billed for actual usage in August, take a reading! If you know what I used last year during this time period, perhaps.. PERHAPS you would estimate a value that remotely resembles what we historically use. I would LOVE to see some of these modelling programs.
I’m almost happy Enbridge has to pay the extra $0.52 plus bill printing costs to send me a proper bill.
-End Rant.
Published by Adam July 28th, 2008
in Adam.
Cuil (pronounced “cool”) is a new search engine that lays claim to the “world’s largest”. Created by former Google engineers Cuil claims to have indexed over 120 000 000 000 (120 billion) web pages, a number they claim is 3x Google and 10x Microsoft.
I tried to search for Cuil on Cuil’s website and it didn’t return www.cuil.com. If you can’t find yourself on the Internet should you really be looking for other things?? I liked the pitch-black background, but not much else.
Just my opinion though.
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