Video game enthusiasts are stunned—Nintendo unveils the name of their upcoming game console: ‘Wii’.

Reactions among North American bloggers has been mixed, with commentary tending toward a sophomoric fixation on the similarity to “wee”—with the implication that a buying public might be somewhat dissuaded from purchasing the system for fear that it will contain urine.

Reactions in the office have been altogether more positive.  The Interns spend enough time playing their damnable video games that I’m inclined to consider them an expert panel, of sorts, and today’s song is testimony to their opinion:  not “wee” but “whee!”.

Give me Spacewar on a PDP-1 any day, I say.  Perhaps I am showing my age.

 

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How would we write without it?  The letter W joins the Swedish alphabet, at long last.  At long last, Bert is vindicated.

Do not be alarmed if today’s song sounds different.  No, I did not hire a new and talented Intern—if only it were that easy.  No.  Today’s issue is brought to you by our first field correspondent: Dutch staffer Paul Hunt.

When he’s not performing his duties as our European Correspondent, Paul is making excellent music, which you can listen to (and buy!) at his site, www.wolkenvelden.com.

Happily enough, today is my birthday.  I will be locked in the office with a fine bottle of scotch and some earplugs—anything that doesn’t bear kicking down my door is officially not my problem.

On that note, purchases from the Gift Shop are the gifts that you give yourselves.

 

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The time has come at last—Former Enron CEO Ken Lay to testify.

May the tradewinds of justice divert that golden paratrooper into the snagging, grabbing tree branches of Financial Ruin.

Some site news—or at least site vague rumours—we’ve been talking with some potential field correspondents (see here!) and may soon be bringing you contributions from remote agents in the field on a semi-regular basis.  Which is excellent news for two reasons:

One: a little more variety in your music news buffet—and a chance to expose you, our readers, to some new independent musicians, and vice versa.

Two: I can let go of some of the less tolerable Interns.  That’s right, Lance.  Pack up your PSP and your TurboBong^TM and clear out of here, before I call the cops or, failing that, your mother.

 

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These are some sweaty, nervous, stonewalling shoes to fill—Scott McClellan is stepping down as White House Press Secretary.  I am almost afraid to contemplate the next data a point on a line descending from Ari Fleischer through McClellan.  Time will tell.

As for the song—we have several Irish Interns, or at the very least Interns who habitually patronize a nearby Irish Pub.  The seem to have got it into their heads that standing on a table and singing their assignment to local alcoholics is an acceptable use of company time.

And it’ll have to do; the entire staff seems to be in that rare state that goes beyond what could be decently described as hungover or even malaise.  I believe I will never see humans who more closely resemble the living dead.

Exciting things happening behind the scenes—more news next week.  The Marketing Director keeps high-fiving his assistant, but as his assistant is a life-size cardboard cutout of The Fonz, I do not want to unduly raise your hopes.

 

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This is what it has come to—Tom Cruise has to clarify that he doesn’t intend to eat his daughter’s placenta.  Needless to say, Sir Alec Guinness rarely had such image problems.

It has been a long week, and it is only Tuesday evening as we here at The Aural Times struggle to meet our press deadline.  You will excuse me, therefore, if I am less loquacious than normal; I’d prefer to simply yell at some Interns, threaten to fire someone, and call it a night.

 

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Man vs. nature:  black bear mauls family of three, killing one.  Tennessee Rangers locate bear.  They put it down.

Which brings up another Aural Times office rule:  put it down.  How often, and how forcefully, do I find myself repeating it to an Intern?  Words cannot express it—which is why I have recently invested in a paddle.

The telephone on which you’re making a long-distance personal call, Jimbo?  Put it down.

The coffee pot in my office?  That’s my coffee, Zowie.  Put it down.

The petty cash till?  Thwack!

Put it down.

My only concern is that some of them seem to enjoy it.

 

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As a web-based publication, we are perhaps more attentive to Internet product releases than more traditional (which is to say obsolescent and doomed) news sources; and so you will forgive us if today’s headline seems unduly geeky—Google Launches Calendar.

As the primarily (or, as it seems at times, solely) responsible party for the running of The Aural Times, I find myself nigh obsessed with time-management—meeting such and such deadline, fulfilling this or that obligation with our service providers, getting one Intern or another to soccer practice in the staff Minivan—and so I am naturally interested in whatever Google might roll out.  So far, Calendar seems to bear a healthy if not precisely ground-breaking feature set; but as seems to be the trend with their product announcements, the blasted site is so bogged down by enthusiastic response that it’s difficult to judge amid the din and strain of it all.  Time will tell.

And so, let us talk about other things.  Let us talk about the song.  Let us talk about the juxtaposition of seven syllables against eight quavers, of the meeting of even and odd in a youthful, bristling exploration of time signature.  Let us, in short, blather on like some intolerable Pitchfork Media wank.

And then, let us get some coffee.

 

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As in America, so in Italy—Silvio Berlusconi refuses to concede the election.  Crucial absentee votes, demands for recounts, questions about discarded ballots: it hits a bit close to home.  But the current results favor challenger Romano Prodi.  If you’ll forgive the allusion, smart money says that the center-right cannot hold.

And so, an Italian song for an Italian story.  Or at least, an Italian-y song.  The Interns made various hand-waving arguments for the authenticity of the composition, mentioning (more times than one ought to) the notion of gondolas and lasagna.  I suspect their credentials on the subject are largely restricted to interactions with a certain ubiquitous Italian plumber, but, well, what does one do?

Often, one drinks.

 

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A song about a boy, a multiple-choice test, and the lawyers that brought them together—student sues over SAT errors.

And with this snappy pop tune about litigation and education, The Aural Times has—you may want to sit down for this—published our 25th issue.

25!  A glorious number.  Grant you, it may seem no great feat—after all, you might say, The New York Times has been publishing daily for years.  Decades, even.  But then, the NYT is dull, dull, dull.  Frankly, they’ve all the musical-headline sensibilities of a rock.  A tone-deaf rock.  Damn the NYT!  Damn them all to—

The Interns are staring at me again.  Did I get carried away?  Apologies.  What was my point?  Yes!  25!  25 glorious, melodious issues!  A small milestone it may be, but it is our milestone.  And with 25, we can say, yes, good!  Let us on to 50!  And 100!  1000!  And then we’ll see what those toneless creeps in New York have to say about it, with their “press badges” and their “expense accounts” and their—

Oh, stop staring, all of you!  Get back to work!

 

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News with an Internet twist—DHS deputy press secretary busted in child-sex net sting. Which is necessarily glossing a bit—for one thing, there were no actual children involved, just a detective with a thing for role-playing, as it were. Still, not a flattering situation for Mr. Doyle.

There are a lot of tricky questions here, but one thing is, or should be, clear: it’s not a good idea to start off a chat with a purported 14-year-old girl by declaring that you work for Homeland Security, as the real 14-year-old won’t much care, and on the flip side the undercover agent will be telling his buddies about this for weeks.

May your Friday be wholly without criminal charges.

 

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Tom DeLay, we hardly knew you.

Voices have spoken loudly—shrilly—gallingly—from both sides of the American political structure, and so I find that, standing here in the middle, their opposed and yet congruent protests cancel one another out in what our Audio Engineer likes to call destructive interference.  The result is a sort of storm-eye here in the office; I sip my coffee and see to business in the calm and quiet of it all.

In fact, it’s rather too quiet.  God knows what the Interns are doing.

I have heard it on the wire that we may see a good number of Yahoo! readers today, and so I say welcome; leave us a comment; don’t break anything; and, for god’s sake, buy something.

 

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Let’s get one thing straight: when Pamela Anderson talks, the world listens.

It is no surprise, then, that when Pamela Anderson calls for an end to seal hunting, the world perks up and says, “oh my god, do you remember that time when we were watching Baywatch and Brian called you on your cell and he was soooooo drunk, and you were all like, whatever, and he was all like, I luuuuuv you, and you were all like, click! omigod that was so killer.”

And that is, frankly, enough about Pamela Anderson.  Let’s talk about something more exciting.  Let’s talk about…

Merchandise!  Merch!  Swag!  Duds and trickets!

Simply put, I insist you go and spend some money at the brand new Aural Times Gift Shop.  We’ve got shirts.  Mugs.  Stickers.  Additional shirts.

And this is just the start—is there something you’d like that isn’t there?  Do you have a suggestion about the store?  Complaints, brainstorms, proposals?  Let us know, and we’ll be happy to accommodate you.  Fire an email at our Marketing Director:

merch @ auraltimes . com

 

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