Centerfield

I work in a company that's more vertical than K2.

Dallas Mavericks will win the NBA championship this year.

Spent 8 days in Belize last week, I highly recommend it. Also, Glenlivet is $24 a liter in the Belize City Duty free shop.

That should kick things off.

$24 a liter????

I could learn to go back to whiskey as a standard at those prices.

Yup. I've always wondered what the attraction was to duty free shops because it never seemed to be more than a couple of dollars cheaper than my local discount store and why would I want to lug 4 liters of alcohol around to save $8. But in Belize, it's different, very very different. I don't remember other prices (I was distracted by the Glenlivet) but they were all about 50% less than what I see here. Oh and cigarettes were $12 a carton. I'm not interested in that but that's also an insane price.

So I'm stocked up for a great weekend.

Scotch;

Dallas Mavericks will win the NBA championship this year.

Amen on not toting glassed gallons through the airline maze to save $8! I used to raid the duty-frees and other-country liquor stores for stuff I simply couldn't get at home. The one time I did tote back a case or whatever of liquor just to save a few bucks, by the time I got home I was MORE than ready to pay the "savings" to someone else to do all the ****ing toting.

But it's tough to see the prices and not grab just one or two bottles....

(Just like the one time I did my own transmission swap on the old truck to save a couple hundred bucks, on finishing I decided that the shop could HAVE the $2-300 next time, it was worth it.)

$24/l! Not half bad!

Last time we went to Mexico, we bought about four bottles of various liquors. but broke two before we ever got to using them (one in Mexico, the other taking it out back at home).

On a completely different note, if you haven't seen this it may be interesting:
http://fpwatch.blogspot.com/2007/01/report-this-week-that-ayatollah-ali.html

I sometimes wonder if any of several countries (iran certainly not alone among them) are in a situation not unlike a supersaturated solution. Everything may look smooth, but any little event may cause an abrupt change in the mix. And economics can galvanize a people faster than almost anything else. Could be good or bad news for the outside world, of course. ut almost certain to be bad news for whoever the local autocrat is.

C3, it might just be the other way round. :-)

'round Boston, we're hoping for an ongoing parade of well-played Celtics losses to lead to a #1 or #2 pick. The Celtics are really stocked with young talented guys still learning, and they are piling up losses while Paul Pirce is hurt. If they add Oden or Durant, the could show a drastic turnaround next season. Really.

I like both the Mavs and the Suns, hopefully they'll meet in the playoffs. The sports guy had a great column on the Suns a week or so back.

Since Scotch brought up Glenlivet, I'm going to repeat my plug for Michter's small batch single barrel rye. I paid $27 for what I think is a 750 ml bottle. It's a bourbon made from rye, and it's a tiny bit sweet with almost no whiskey burn. A VERY pleasant drink. Not easy to find, but worth the hunt.

This is the schizzle:

michters rye

You could get me to try the 10 year old, Brian, but the regular? Fuggedaboutit.

"Life is too short to drink bad whiskey. And I don't drink young whiskey, it seems....statutory."

That's weird, I embedded a hypertext link to the Michters. Dunno where it went. The link had a picture of the exact bottle I bought. Can't find it now.

The small-batch single barrel stuff (which is what I linked to) is the 10 years old stuff. And it's very, very, nice. Someone said it had a "honeyed finish." I'd say that's close to the mark.