Because it has just been too long since I posted anything about Harry Beck's iconic <A HREF="http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps/tube38.jpg">London Tube Map</A> and I gets all itchy when that happens.

"Imagine that your only contact with 'English' as a subject was through classes in school. Suppose that those classes, from elementary school right through to high school, amounted to nothing more than reading dictionaries, getting drilled in spelling and formal grammatical construction, and memorizing vast vocabulary lists&mdash;you <I>never</I> read a novel, nor a poem; never had contact with anything beyond the pedantic complexity of English spelling and formal grammar, and precise definitions for an endless array of words."

This 10-minute F. Lyle Goldman/Max Fleischer cartoon about how talking pictures work is full of interest for us audiophiles. Vintage technology, vacuum tubes, and Western Electric Research Project humor&mdash;what's not to love?

Remember when <I>Rolling Stone</I> actually wrote about music? Me neither.

I gotta say, if <i>I</i> had a summer to while away and found <a href="http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=55707806">this job opportunity</a>, I'd be all over it, too.

Unconventional portraits of US presidents, the works in <I>Mr. President</I> "run the gamut from irreverent humor to deeply felt homage."

Speaking of having fun . . . .

Researcher Amanda Melin posits that color blindness might be an advantageous adaptation for capuchins hunting camouflaged insects. For us humans? Not so much&mdash;"selection pressure for maintaining color vision could have relaxed because it wasn’t a big advantage in the habitat or types of hunting used at the time."