Jill Lapore on how she spent International Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2003. It's a good 'un, me barnacle-encrusted boobies.

My first year in New York, my friend Larry Bassman was stunned to learn I'd never been to an opera, so he picked up the phone and ordered two tickets to that night's performance at the Met. It was <I>Peter Grimes</I>, starring Jon Vickers. What a tough act to follow.

This comic strip from the Perry Bible Fellowship seems to suggest that you can screw your way out of a crises. If they say so . . . .

I am in nerd heaven! The Royal Society has just put <I>all</I> of its journals online, going back to volume one in 1665. Read Robert Boyle's "Observables upon a monstrous head," Ben Franklin's kite experiments, Edmund Stone's invention of aspirin, Daines Barrington's observation of a "remarkable young musician" (Mozart), William Henry Fox's first accounts of photography, and Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA.

Like all Wilson Audio Specialties' speakers, the Series 8 redesign of the venerable WATT/Puppy combination is available in flawless, clear-coat automotive finishes. I do wonder, however, how many of the Utah company's customers choose more conservative finishes than those on display at CEDIA. Arrival of a pair of WATT/Puppy 8s in reviewer Wes Phillips' listening room is imminent. What color will they be?

I couldn't resist posting one more photo of Bruce Thigpen's fan-driven infrasonic subwoofer, this time showing the drive-unit in operation. Loaded with an infinite baffle—it is in the next room—it fires into a foam-lined sub-chamber, which low-pass filters the residual fan noise, leaving just the awesome infrasonics to pressurize the room next door. Because the fan is providing the main motive power, just 30W of audio signal was required to create an spl of 115dB at 8Hz!

Somehow it all relates to Maslow's hierarchy of human needs.

When I was younger, I wanted to grow up to become a Major League baseball player. Baseball runs in my family. My grandfather played in the sugarcane fields, my father played in the street, my uncles played Little League. Each generation, it seemed, got better and closer. I had one uncle who made it all the way to a Major League farm club before injuring his knee.