I've recently enjoyed some especially writing on the web, like these pieces:
1. Even - especially - if the strongest stimulant you've ever ingested is caffeine, read this amazing article in the Denver magazine Westword about some upper-crust morons' three-day binge on "Shabu," a pharmaceutically-pure kind of methamphetamine. The piece is exceptionally well written, and makes Shabu sound both alluring and repugnant. The tweakers sound merely repugnant. (Cross-posted on After School Snack.)
2. Writer Michael Lewis (Moneyball, et cetera) describes some nascent "stock markets in athletes," fascinating experiments in selling shares of professional athletes. A talented youngster might sell shares worth 20% of her future earnings to generate the capital needed to train, travel, and compete. On making it big, part of the star's earnings would be used as dividends to her investors. If her career tanks, well, then, see Pets.com. I thought it was initially hard to understand the idea Lewis describes, but after a while, it seems obvious, and I immediately wondered why you can't buy stock, in say, top-of-class MBA grads, or rising young math PhDs.
3. A British restaurant critic, writing in the Times of London, makes a hilarious and disgusting attempt to eat like a well-to-do Edwardian gentleman. (It's part of a BBC series on the Edwardians). His first day's dining:
Lunch: Sauté of kidneys on toast, mashed potatoes, macaroni au gratin, rolled ox tongue
Afternoon tea: Fruit cake, Madeira cake, hot potato cakes, coconut rocks, bread, toast, butter
Dinner: Oyster patties, sirloin steak, braised celery, roast goose, potato scallops, vanilla soufflé.
(Link via the Spiral Staircase.)