<I>Scientific American</I> says cognitive scientists believe chess really is "the touchstone of the intellect." Although it makes for a good story, I suspect they just think that little horsie looks cool.

The thing about Tuesday is that I've got my therapy session at 6pm. I spend the day processing submissions for our <i>Buyer's Guide</i>. I go through each Excel spreadsheet making sure things look the way they're supposed to. It's a tedious, generally unfulfilling, task. A task measured out in columns, rows, and cells. I have found no way to incorporate art or love. I transfer the tidied files from one folder on our server to another. Cut and paste. Control X, Control C. Kristina then collects the new file and transfers it to a Master spreadsheet. It is a strange kind of communication, this digital dance we do.

It really wasn't the planes that killed him, you know.

I hate when that happens.

Jon Carroll reports on his summer reading&mdash;<I>Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England,</I>&mdash;and proves yet again that he can turn out better stuff daily than most of us can hope for in a lifetime.

One of the weirdest musical phenomena that I know of is the symbiotic relationship between really bad music, mostly classic rock schlock, played at maximum volume, and professional sporting events. I mean have you ever been to an NFL game where you didn’t hear Ozzy Osbourne’s "Crazy Train"? And let's not even discuss the NBA where the prospect of being exposed to more Kelly Clarkson or the All American Rejects keeps me from even thinking of attending.