The Sounds of Summer

It's just about time to start thinking about outdoor eating, drinking and being merry, but with your music collection all digital, using a boom box for musical ambience is just so passé. Unless you like being referred to as "charmingly retro," you might want to consider these two options.

The £99 ($197) Solar Wireless Speaker (pictured) is what it says -- a single unit powered by a solar panel (what, you were going to use it on a cloudy day?) that you can place anywhere within 150 feet of the transmitter to which you connect your audio player. It gets points for convenience -- do you really want to walk over to the speaker every time someone has a request? -- but I have to wonder why, when they were handing out solar panels, they didn't put one on the transmitter as well. As it is, you're going to have to put the transmitter near an outlet or a car adapter, which kind of limits your roaming potential for picnics.

On the other hand, if you figure you'll spend most of your time tending to sizzling meats and vegetables, there's always -- I swear I'm not making this up, I'm not that deranged -- George Foreman's $149 iGrill, which combines an electric grill/roaster with a 10-watt speaker and amplifier. The tagline "knockout tunes and knockout the fat" pretty much says it all.