We've got a pretty full calendar at the San Francisco store leading up to Father's Day on Sunday, June 21st.

On Thursday, June 11th, the winemaker from JAQK Cellars will be in attendance from 5pm-8pm to pour their fine wines and answer questions. Appetizers will be served. You can RSVP for this event on our Facebook page here.

And, on Thursday, June 18th, the Single Malt Scotch Ambassador from Balvenie will be on hand from 5pm-8pm to educate gentlemen on their craft, and of course, pour some Scotch. Again, appetizers will be served, and you can RSVP for this event here.

Attendance is limited to each of these events, so kindly RSVP. We look forward to seeing you at one -- or both -- of these special events.

GQ is all over the news this week thanks to the attention given to Robert Draper's article on former "SecDef" Donald Rumsfeld. It's a fascinating - perhaps downright scary - read, but if you're like me, you were probably dying to know what all those acronyms are atop each brief.

Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic says, "The briefings are replete with bodacious classification markings, like TOP SECRET//HCS-COMINT-GAMMA//ORCON, NOFORN//EXDIS/X1, X6."

He then proceeds, for the benefit of us civilians, to break them all down here. Please commit these to memory as it is quite possible that future On The Fly email campaigns will borrow some of them. This post will self-destruct in 5...4...3...

If I'm going to promote movies that aren't even being shot yet, I might as well link to a trailer for a movie coming soon: Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. Stars Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel McAdams. From the trailer, it seems to bear little resemblance to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novels, but I will (1) go back and re-read one with an eye out for fist-fights, and (2) keep an open mind. If the movie attracts to new fans to the detective, surely that can't be a bad thing. 

(h/t kottke.org)

Last week, I wrote a post linking to a James Fallows post on how Liaquat Ahamed made some Great Depression history much more interesting through the style of his writing in Lords of Finance. Now almost halfway through the 500 page tome, I have come across what will probably be my favorite paragraph even though it's really not that interesting:

"Having jettisoned the simple operating procedures of the gold standard, which linked credit creation solely to gold reserves, Stong began to improvise an alternative set of principles to guide monetary policy. the Fed's primary goal should be, he believed, to try to stabilize domestic prices. But he thought that it should also respond to fluctuations in business activity...This new set of principles, somewhat cobbled together on the fly, represented a quiet, indeed carefully unheralded, revolution in monetary policy."

Emphasis mine for obvious reasons. "Cobbled together", "unheralded", and "revolution": equally applicable to the first Fed Chair's monetary policy in 1924, and OnTheFly.com!

Blogging from the road can be tough, so I apologize for coming back to this bit of news on Wednesday: Martin Scorsese is slated to direct a Frank Sinatra biopic. Variety, naturally, has the scoop. 

As they explain, DiCaprio is an easy rumor to play Ol' Blue Eyes since he has starred in the last 4 movies Scorsese has directed: "Gangs of New York," "The Aviator," "The Departed" and the yet-to-be-released "Shutter Island." While he has his detractors, I think he's an immensely talented actor, but I'm not sure he can pull this off mainly because of his physical attributes. While the young Sinatra was DiCaprio-thin, his lifestyle quickly caught up with him, and I would have a hard time imagining a rail-thin Sinatra in his 40's or older just as I had a tough time imagining someone under 6'0" playing Howard Hughes.

It will be very interesting to see the final product. I'm sure for most men my age, the idea of Sinatra is that of a crooning ladies that loved to drink, smoke, and not afraid to throw his money around while cavorting with other cool cats. "Men wanted to be just like him, and women wanted to be with him," to steal a line from Austin Powers. But there was much, much, much more to him, and not all of it was good. Last year, I spent a round-trip flight to Florida reading two different Rat Pack tell-alls, and it was jaw-dropping to read some of the stories.

Needless to say, I'll be seeing it on its opening night.

The New York Times Fashion & Style section featured an article on Wednesday entitled "When No One Wants to Look Like a Banker". Of course, this is ground we covered back in October here, but perhaps it just hadn't sunk in yet. 

So agreeing with the main premise of the article, and have admitted to my own unease while wearing a brash navy pinstripe suit, I clicked into the 11 photo slideshow of "looks" that can replace pinstripes, and can only say that not a single outfit in there would be deemed appropriate office attire in a NY financial firm. One can wear a suit & tie without "looking like a banker". I actually love some of the looks they put together, but also know you might not get past security in 85 Broad Street, let alone be taken seriously once you did.

Instead, outfits like those just open one's self up for attack from the likes of LOLfed, who took a whack at the same article with a post entitled "Bearish on Pinstripes". Since they asked for caption suggestions, I submitted one. We'll see if I win...