Ken C. Pohlmann

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: You want to buy a DVD-Video player to impress your friends with your techo-hipness (and besides, you're tired of watching fuzzy VHS rentals). You have a digital surround receiver, so the player doesn't need a Dolby Digital or DTS decoder.

How much is music worth? Nietzsche wrote, "Without music, life would be a mistake." That places a high value on sounds that entertain and sometimes inspire us. Then again, at 3 o'clock in the morning, you'd pay good money to have the music at the party next door shut off.

Who or what is Alcyone? I would have accepted the following answers: 1) In Greek mythology, the daughter of Aeolus. 2) The brightest star in the Pleiades cluster.

I would also have accepted: 3) A compact home theater system with speakers that look like softballs.

"Hey, stop hanging around! You're blocking the doorway!"

That's what shop owners were shouting at teenagers who were loitering outside stores and in malls. The kids were supposedly deterring adult customers - that is, the ones with more spending power.