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As the Office Microwave, I keep an ear to the streets and hear the best conversation topics for your work friends, for your boss, for your latest client, and everyone in between. Here is this week’s totally not boring Work Talk.
#1: For your wine snob
TLDR: "Natural wine" is not a process of winemaking.
Natural wine has been trendy for years now (might not even be cool anymore), and I’ve always been scared to admit… I had no idea what it was.
This week, I learned that the term refers generally to wine made without pesticides or additives, and not to a specific process of winemaking.
Hopefully that simple bit of information will make a bit easier to navigate a conversation with your local wine snob.
#2: For your royal family
TLDR: King Charles III’s Aston Martin runs on wine and cheese byproducts.
On the topic of wine, King Charles III proudly told BBC in 2021 that his 1970 Aston Martin DB6 Volante “runs on wine and cheese” — the dictionary definition of a weird flex.
More specifically, the custom luxury car runs on E85 fuel, composed of 85% bioethanol and 15% petrol. The king’s personal blend of bioethanol is derived from leftover wine and fermented whey.
When the car first made headlines, experts criticized this unusual form of renewable energy, saying it is not a scalable solution. But that doesn’t seem to bother King Charles, who brags that his car “smells delicious as you're driving along.”
#3: For your office's board game nerd
TLDR: It took a former submarine engineer to fit this giant board game in a box.
If you aren’t familiar with the world of critically acclaimed board games, you’re forgiven. But you should know, it goes much deeper than "Clue" and "Sorry."
"Frosthaven," the sequel to the popular "Gloomhaven" game is so deep that its map and pieces weigh about 35 pounds. It took a submarine engineer to fit it in a box.
According to the publication Polygon, engineer Matt Healey transitioned from government contracts working on submarines to running a small business that packages board games.
Because international shipping is typically charged based on volume, it’s imperative that packages are as compact as possible.
Pepsi joined the growing list of brands, particularly beer brands, that have returned to variation on an older brand identity
Here are March Madness predictions from the nerdiest source possible: FiveThirtyEight.
FOR YOUR WAY OUT: 5 MEMES
That’s it for this week’s Work Talk. These topics are meant to be shared with your co-workers, so if you liked it, forward this email to you best friend or colleague and have them subscribe here.
And if you made it this far, reply back to this email with a meme I should put in the next send.