News You Can Bruise for 1999 September 7

Is there a better way to get up to speed on [values of x may give rise to] DOM, CSS, ECMAScript, DHTML and all that stuff, than wading through the yawnfests that are the W3 standards? There's nothing I really want to do with such stuff, but I feel I need to know it. Also, if I knew it, I could probably think of something interesting to do with it.