Wisconsin Ready to Raise Beer Tax to Fight Alcoholism
Some lawmakers in Wisconsin are ready to increase the tax on beer in the state, from just over $0.02 per bottle and $2 per 31-gallon barrel, in an effort to raise funds to pay for more alcohol treatment programs and law enforcement efforts to fight drunken driving.
We don’t really have anything to add to this–we just thought it was kind of funny.
Chicken Wings, the New Chicken Breast
As the economy continues to struggle, strange things are happening in markets that usually don’t see a lot of change–like the chicken wing industry.
Chicken wings, for a long time the red-headed step child to the chicken breast, has recently become the most expensive chicken part at wholesale prices–largely due to high demand, as many wing chain restaurants (Buffalo Wild Wings, Hooters, etc) have seen strong growth despite the down economy–apparently as wings are considered a cheap luxury.
In September, average wholesale price for a pound of wings was $1.48, vs. $1.21 for a pound of boneless chicken breast. This is compared to $0.94 for wings and $1.15 for breasts as recently as May 2008.
The trend has also led to an increase in the number of restaurants offering “boneless wings,” which are actually the now cheaper breast meat shaped into pieces that vaguely resemble the wing–or, as they were known before wings became popular, chicken nuggets (or McNuggets, if you’re a McDonald’s aficionado). These boneless wings, which seem to generally be priced at a premium over the authentic wings, are actually making more money for restaurants.
Personally, I’d just stay home–find some good chicken wing recipes on the web, and fry up your own. They’re cheaper, usually better, and you don’t have to deal with some moron restaurant manager who prefers playing video games to actually doing anything. And if you’re really nice, maybe your wife will put on those orange shorts…
Candles For Men?
My brother asked me a question this morning that jogged a memory–he asked if anyone had invented a bacon scented candle, because that would be…pretty much awesome.
It reminded me of an idea I had several years ago, when I was still single, living in an apartment with a couple other guys. One day at the local retail behemoth, I found myself in the candle isle, because it was right by something else I needed, and I had come to the conclusion that if we ever had any girls over to the apartment, they weren’t probably going to be impressed by the funk of my roommates.
Figuring that a candle could potentially serve the dual purpose of impressing a girl AND covering up that funk, I set about to find an aroma that would be suitable. After a couple minutes of looking (because who can take more than that), I had a EUREKA moment–although it was not named as such, I found a candle that smelled exactly like stripper perfume.
After telling a friend of my find, we quickly hashed out a few other scents that could make up a potential line of candles for guys–beer, bacon, and new car scent being a few that I remember. The idea was then promptly forgotten.
Beer & Stripper Candles
Until yesterday, when my brother mentioned the idea of a bacon scented candle. So I jumped over to Google, did a quick search, and sure enough, found HotWicks Candles, which featured not only a bacon candle (just introduced), but beer, whiskey, football, sawdust, and of course, the stripper scented candles.
Unfortunately, they also have some rather lame scents available–hippie and ‘The Man’ candle in particular seem like strange scents to present to a theoretically manly audience.
So check them out if you have some time, and let us know what you think of their scents–and if you go ahead and order, let us know if the candles smell as good as advertise.
Federal Package Stimulus – NSF is NSFW
The cost for employee misconduct investigations in at least one federal government agency increased sixfold in the past year–largely the result of government employees using their work issued computers to access pornography.
The inspector general at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is a taxpayer funded foundation that provides billions of dollars in scientific research grants, was forced to cut back on its primary mission of investigation grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars to focus on the porn issue.
Amongst the offenders was one senior executive that spent at least some time looking at porn and chatting online with strippers on at least 331 days. Assuming that’s over the course of the year, that means he was putting in some significant overtime. The cost to the taxpayers? Somewhere between $14,000 and $58,000 (way to narrow that down a bit, guys).
When caught, the official promptly retired–and offered up a humanitarian defense, claiming that he “frequented the porn sites to provide a living to the poor overseas women.”
Of 10 NSF employee misconduct cases closed in 2008, seven of them involved employees accessing porn online–and those numbers don’t include active cases.
One would have to wonder if similar investigations in other government offices would net similar results–although I would guess most politicians are far too busy to spend time looking at porn.
Guiness Turns 250 Years Old
Back in 1759, Arthur Guiness signed a lease for a brewery in Dublin, Ireland, to start brewing his now famous stout beer. To celebrate the anniversary, stout-lovers around the world lifted a glass of the foamy black brew to Arthur Thursday at 12:59 PM CT, on what the company has dubbed “Arthur’s Day.”
Guinness parent Diageo PLC celebrated the anniversary with a invitation only party at the brewery at St. James’s Gate, while other parties were held in more than 150 countries around the world.
While Guinness has now been around for 250 years, Diageo still has a while to go on that lease that Arthur signed–with options, the lease will run until approximately the year 10,759 AD, at £45 per year (about $72). A copy of the lease is on display at the Guinness Storehouse.
Darn Kids–Turn Down That Stereo!
One Ohio city is contemplating a law that we think might have some legs. Apparently, car stereos being blasted at unreasonable levels are a bit of a problem in Lorain, OH–so the City Council has passed a new law that would increase fines for offenders, and give police the option of removing the stereo from offenders’ vehicles. The mayor is considering the law now.
That’s right–if you don’t play by the city’s rules, they’re going to take your ball and send you home…or something like that.
Personally, as someone who gets rather annoyed when he’s forced to listen to the heavy techno bass of some douchebag who thinks spending more on his sound system than his vehicle while I’m enjoying a nice day with the windows down (or sometimes even with them up), I think this law makes sense.
Maybe not for first offenders, but if someone can’t take the hint the first time someone suggests turning down the noise…