Why you get more of a buzz from that cold beer on a hot summer's day. (News you can use!)

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?