It’s official. Summer is over and autumn has arrived. The leaves are changing colors and there is a distinct briskness to the air. Be sure to bundle up when you head outside, but while you’re still sitting here in front of your computer, here are five fun reads I’ve discovered this week. Hope you enjoy them.

Jon Lee came across an interesting article in the New England Journal of Medicine that says that you shouldn’t drink ice cold water before you study or write a test. This is because cold water lowers your IQ by as much as 15%, which works out to about 10 IQ points on average. The effect is temporary but it could explain some of those test scores you had in school… right?

Search Engine Guide reminds you that Google isn’t the be-all and end-all of search engines. There are other demographics and users that you have to consider, and that’s why they’re offering an extensive guide that describes how to optimize for Ask.com. Sure, Ask only has a 4.3% market share, but Ask users shouldn’t be ignored!

Investor Blogger takes a look around the blogosphere to determine how many posts should be on your blog’s front page. He takes a look at guys like John Chow, who have only five posts, and compares them with GeniusTypes, which has 16 posts. Where do you fit along this spectrum?

Optempo is supposed to be an experiment in rapid paced blogging. You’ll find that “jfc” doesn’t get particularly long-winded with his posts, but I did find one that is a little more substantial than usual. This one tells you to not make one of these 3 mistakes with your eBay ID. Interestingly, none of these three mistakes have anything to do with getting scammed, per se, but rather with the way that you should conduct business on the site of the world’s largest garage sale.

Keeping on the topic of eBay, Ed Lau must have been shopping for more funky t-shirts and other awesome things when he found a missile silo for sale on eBay. We’re talking a complete underground lair, one that even Dr. Evil would be proud of. It’s 45,000 square feet of awesomeness and it can be had for as little as $1.5 million.