Smokin' Hot Stereo

For some reason, this story about how to avoid overheating all your components made me smile for its simplicity and its usefulness. And, it reinforced the pitfalls of having so much stuff.

the worst lede in history

For those of you who don't know, a "lede" is the first sentence of a newspaper article. A good lede should be an invitation to the story, and draw readers to want to know more. A lede is so important, that this seems to be the point at which many reporters say they get writers block. (Never happens to me, though. However, I always start at the middle when I write newspaper articles, which is one way to avoid getting stuck at the lede.)

Now that you know all that, I think you can see why this lede from the New York Times fails on so many levels (I included the sentence following the lede, just for good measure):

WHY a blissful newlywed would rise from the conjugal dining table, abandon the defrosted lasagna dinner her young husband had prepared and navigate a sketchy stretch of Ninth Avenue near Times Square to meet another man at a shadowy restaurant augurs the stuff of urban melodrama.

As she passed Xtremes DVD and Video on Eighth Avenue, her neatly ironed “Grease — Too Pure to Be Pink” T-shirt drew the unwelcome attention of a gentleman sauntering south. Laura Osnes looked away.

Should I laugh or cry? I can't decide.