Monday was Boston Marathon day, and I was happy to see that the screech tunnel at Wellesley College’s halfway point lives on, worthy of reporting year after year. This year’s t-shirt: “Boston — 13.5 miles” with an arrow on the front; “Wellesley College Scream Tunnel — 2004” on the back. Some runners reportedly held up cell phones to relay the immense density of the noise to others.

Starbucks is enticing the non-caffeinated crowd this summer with two Frappuccino drinks that have no coffee. There’s Strawberries & Crème and Vanilla Bean. Also available is Java Chip which does have coffee. However, in the details it is noted that the two non-coffee drinks are available blended with coffee, and the Java Chip is available without. So there’re really three ways to join your caffeinated friends in cooling off with a luxury beverage.

If high gas prices aren’t enough to get you down, how about rising dairy prices? Ice cream is one of the products expected to go up in cost with expected expensive milk prices this summer. Dairy farmers are happy, but ice cream sellers may be forced to pass the cost on to consumers. Other contributing factors, according to the National Ice Cream Retailers Association: “a cyclone that reportedly wiped out the vanilla crop in Madagascar, the world’s leading producer” and “political unrest in West Africa, a major supplier” of chocolate. Two annual free cone days are coming up next week, so get your freebies while you can: Ben & Jerry’s on April 27th and Baskin-Robbins on April 28th.

How could you not love an opera about hockey? With singers in hockey jerseys, a conductor in referee stripes, a geisha, and three periods instead of acts, the opera “Nagano, the Birth of a Legend” celebrates the Czech national ice hockey team’s 1998 gold medal. The work premiered in Prague on April 8th at the same theater where Mozart first premiered Don Giovanni.

Whatever happened to Sandra Boynton? Her “hippo birdie two ewes” sentiments were everywhere in the 1980s. Ballerina rhinos and singing pigs capered through greeting cards and books. She had a nicely done book on chocolate in which I remember she claimed there was no such thing as a good chocolate ice cream — she loved chocolate so much no ice cream could do the flavor justice. I’m curious about how she feels towards the grandiosely flavored gourmet chocolate ice creams of today, but I still get her point. Anyway, Boynton is still out there, writing a few books and also creating accompanying music. She’s no longer creating greeting cards, but you can catch her on calendars and buy her classic books. Perhaps it’s time to launch a big retro-Boynton fad.

I often hear about the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in association with arts funding and medical resource. Duke inherited a $100 million estate when she was 12, the results of her father’s successful American Tobacco Co. She died in 1993 at age 80 and, following years of sorting out legal hassles, her jewelry, furniture and wines are being auctioned off by Christie’s in June. To entice those able to afford the baubles, Christie’s has been holding invitation-only viewings of Duke’s jewels in cities around the world. At the two days of showings in San Francisco, guests enjoyed breakfast, tea, or cocktails and were allowed to try on items such as a Belle Epoque diamond and pearl pendant necklace (valued at $800,000 to $1.2 million) and a 1927 Art Deco Cartier bracelet (valued at $350,000-$500,000). Other pieces of note of note are a 19.72 carat cushion-cut diamond ring and an emerald necklace with pomegranate shaped beads. Proceeds from the sale will, of course, go to the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Why don’t companies sell watermelon juice? Are watermelons too seasonal? Is there no point to drinking watermelons when they are so much fun in their sliced and chunked fruit forms? The ingredients of Snapple’s What-A-Melon drink (Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Pear and Watermelon Juices from Concentrate, Watermelon Flavor With Other Natural Flavors, Citric Acid, Salt, Fruit and Vegetable Juice (For Color)) are hardly a match for a cup of the real thing. Nantucket Nectars has “Watermelon Lemonade” and “Watermelon Strawberry” juice cocktails, but no 100% juices with watermelon. Watermelon Works “the first and only watermelon juice on the market” test marketed their product in 2001, to some success it seems, but beyond their website still being up, it’s difficult to tell if they are planning a go at the fresh juice business. Maybe I can make a go of selling watermelon juice on a street corner with some local lemonade kids.

As I researched yesterday’s QM2 and tugboat topic, I came across the exciting existence of Tugboat racing on Puget Sound!

Mammoth cruise ship, Cunard’s new Queen Mary 2, is on its way to Manhattan, and the PR trivia machine is ready. Clearance under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at high tide: 13 feet (I’m guessing they’ll prefer a different time of day). The ship was specifically designed to fit under that bridge, thus the shortened funnel. Length: 1,132 feet, which makes it more than 100 feet longer than the pier it will dock at. Because of the extra length, a tugboat will be out to keep other ships away. However, thanks to its bow thrusters, the QM2 won’t need tugboats to help her dock, unlike her older sibling, the QE2.

The Mercury News’ Food section editor has seen a rough cut of “Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters” and deems it “more in keeping with the heart and spirit of the original cult-favorite Japanese version.” She found the William Shatner version “painful to watch” but this one is more on the mark. The lineups: Flay v. Sakai, Morimoto v. Batali, Morimoto v. Puck, then a mix-em-up tag team finale: Morimoto and Flay v. Sakai and Batali. Hosting is Chairman Kaga’s nephew, and of course there’s the real reason for us to watch: Alton Brown as commentator. The fun starts April 23. (Alas, the Merc has started up registration for content access, but here’s the plain link to the review.)