Hehe :) Look, event methods work like this.... you pass in a function, and that function will be executed then the event occurs...
$("select").change(function() { // code that gets executed when change event the occurs on any SELECT element }); But, if you leave out the argument, then the change method does something completely different... it triggers the event... (as if you changed the selected OPTION(s) yourself) $("select").change(); What the guys at jQuery did in that example is, they first defined the onchange handler, and then triggered it right away... So you got that red "Candy Caramel" text on page load without having to change the SELECT...