The Off Topic Topic

[Capetan Mihali]

$10.00, that's wild.  Even taking into account the lack of need to tip vs. the US, I don't know if I'd pay that more than once or twice even in a world capital, let alone Switzerland.  Better to get on their heroin maintenance program.

Guess it's going to depend on the bar and the beer.  I don't drink crap like PBR (sorry, CCR) or Budweiser, and at any bar I've been to that's been above dive-quality, those are easily at least $6-8 a shot.  Last time I ate at World Cafe Live (expensive, but not very much so), a Yards IPA set me back $11.

Damn.  I had a Yards (possibly for the first time) at that same place maybe 8 or 9 years ago, and I think it was only $5 or so.  In all fairness, that's really a "venue," not just a bar with music.  But that's still really gouging, I've had fancy beers at "venues" that were inflated but never that badly.

[crazy canuck]

"White Synapse", that's awesome.

Violent husbands in Barcelona? That's pretty much all of them, isn't it?

It's a well know, but crap Spanish Death Metal band.

I was referring to the hilarity of a black guy named "White Synapse".

I'm as white as I am black - maybe whiter.

It reminds me of a show I saw on the guy who goes around doing genetic ancestry tracing.  One of the points he likes to make is there is really no such thing as race at the genetic level and that people are sometimes surprised when they discover what their dominant genetic markers are and where their ancestors actually came.  I am talking about relatively recent ancestors of course given the fact that we are all descended from people who travelled out of Africa.

For example there was one young fellow living in New York who was convinced his most recent genetic ancestry was from Africa (the descendant of African slaves).  His appearance seemed to confirm that assumption as did his family's oral history.  But his genetic markers were dominantly European.

[The Brain]

One drop rule didn't just magically appear.

[Martinus]

  @ Zanza's racist thingie.

The part about Poles adopting communism because they thought it is a Catholic rite it is so insightful it's not even funny. 

[CountDeMoney]

I'm as white as I am black - maybe whiter.

[Martinus]

Wenworth Miller is apparently black.

[derspiess]

Let me take a wild-ass guess-- he's also gay.

[Liep]

Wenworth Miller is apparently black.

Miller is of multiethnic origin: his father is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, Jewish, and Cherokee background, and his mother is of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian, Lebanese, and Swedish ancestry

[CountDeMoney]

So, he's black then.

[Admiral Yi]

He's beige.

[crazy canuck]

The attempt by Target to enter the Canadian marketplace comes to an end. Billions lost and almost 20,000 people losing their jobs =  FUBAR.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/target-killing-canadian-operations/article22458161/

[Jacob]

Sony is closing their stores in Canada too. Mexx is bankrupt. Le Chateau is on their way out, and I think Sears is pretty much done. Several other chains are hurting too.

Things are being shaken up a bit.

[CountDeMoney]

The attempt by Target to enter the Canadian marketplace comes to an end. Billions lost and almost 20,000 people losing their jobs =  FUBAR.

"We missed the mark from the beginning by taking on too much too fast," Mr. Cornell said.

These guys never learn.  Planting a new retail model into a foreign country, or even Canada for that matter, never works when they drop the hammer all at once.

On Thursday, in Target's filings, it asked the court to approve an employee trust, entailing what he said is an unprecedented move. The retailer plans to set up a $70-million (Canadian) trust to provide almost all Target Canada employees with a minimum of 16 weeks of wages and benefits coverage during the wind-down period.

  Yeah, it's a foreign country alright.  They wouldn't even think about doing that here.

[MadImmortalMan]

These guys never learn.  Planting a new retail model into a foreign country, or even Canada for that matter, never works when they drop the hammer all at once.

Yeah no joke. They really blew it on the real estate front especially.

[crazy canuck]

  Yeah, it's a foreign country alright.  They wouldn't even think about doing that here.

Yeah, they are doing this because unpaid statutory severance triggers a personal liability for directors of the company.