The term refers to partying in a parking lot, but college and NFL football fans across the country treat tailgating as over-the-top celebrations with enviable food.

This piece is reprinted from Food and Wine .

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno lost his job of 46 years in November and passed away of lung cancer this past weekend. In 2008, he reportedly told sportscaster Brent Musberger that he was afraid he’d die if he ever stepped away from the game.

Ever wonder why male American politicians have such boring clothes? Why do the Kim Jong-ils, Mummar Quaddafis, and Fidel Castros of the world get to have all of the great looks?

One of the best language lessons of my life came from a randy invisible woman named X, a talking owl with her own creepy theme song, and young sleuths with relationship issues. I recommend this strange experience to anyone trying to learn German on the cheap. It worked because it wasn’t what I expected.

NASHUA, N.H.—If you showed up on time for Ron Paul’s first New Hampshire rally since the Iowa caucuses, you had to be prepared to walk. A parking lot outside a Nashua air hangar filled up long before the event began, and helpful security guards turned cars away from the private lots nearby.

BOONE, Iowa—You know you’ve arrived as a candidate in this state when you can’t talk to actual voters. At the Rising Sun Cafe in Polk City, Iowa on Monday it was all madness and jostle as the press from all over the world swarmed to cover the latest hot candidate, Rick Santorum. Fussy foreign journalists whistled in winter jackets, tripods poked unmentionable places, and heavy cameras swung with a threat of contusion

1. Breaking Bad (AMC) was the best TV show of 2011

The world’s “time director,” Felicitas Arias , runs the time department at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris, France . In the interview below, she explains why we need to fundamentally change the way we measure how time passes.

As a boy, one of my Christmas chores was to make the little cr