The long, Doritos-caked arm of the law—Liverpudlian burglars foiled by American watching store’s internet camera feed. They would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that damned TCP/IP.

Another grateful nod to Paul Hunt (who is Dutch, not Danish, which fact would certainly never be misrepresented and then hastily amended in a prior issue of this publication, because we know the difference) for this contribution.

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What you can’t see…scientists find observational evidence for “dark matter” in the gravitational signature of visible matter. Cosmologists the world over are drinking irresponsibly and telling nebula jokes.

In the office, we’ve been trying out Interns again, but there’s been nothing but disappointment this week—these kids don’t understand The Aural Times. They don’t understand music. They don’t understand why they wouldn’t get paid.

“Tuition,” they cry. “How can I pay my semester fees?” Crybabies.

 

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Big Tobacco vs. Big Animation—Turner to edit Tom&Jerry archives to remove smoking. After that, they’ll no doubt proceed to deal with all the gratuitous violence.

Today’s contribution is the second we’ve run from a fine Dutch correspondent, Paul Hunt—who stages his mad schemes over at Wolkenvelden. You may remember his previous composition, a touching consideration of the letter W and its recent formal adoption by the Swedes.

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Attentive long-time listeners will recognize today’s song—more recent and less attentive listeners will hopefully be pleased by this new-to-you recording.  We’re having an unofficial holiday today, at the office, and so I felt it would be prudent to dust off an oldie rather than leave you wanting for content.

And so, a look back—it is March, and the President of the United States is taking a trip to the subcontinent.  And what were we doing, here at The Aural Times?  We were taking a trip to the dance-pop continent.

Enjoy, and expect a brand new composition on Wednesday.  Happy listenening.

 

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Death’s rich pageant—John Mark Karr confesses to killing JonBenet Ramsey, ten years after the case first became a tabloid staple. Of course, not everybody is buying the mea culpa. But at least The Enquirer has its cover for the week.

In office news, I interviewed another potential Intern yesterday. Spirited young fellow going by the handle Beakers, for reasons he did not go into in any depth. I suspect it may have something to do with pharmaceuticals, however—he recorded today’s song on the spot, insisting in a sort of frenzy that he had to “rock my face with a demo”, and then ran screaming out the door as soon as it was in the can.

If he ever comes screaming back in the door, I think I will keep him.

 

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It’s a hard-knock marine life—Florida woman punches otter to protect her pet dogs.

This scoop, and indeed today’s song, comes from our latest field correspondent, a talented remote agent who operates under the enigmatic cover of The Great Big Mulp. Where this “Mulp” can be found is a bit of a mystery, but I am in his debt.

Specifically, I am still short on Interns. Yes, don’t ask, Greg is still around, and I remain pleased with his awkward pluckiness—his plucky nerdiness—his nerdy awkwardness— especially after the fine work he did on his debut issue—but he’s a bit useless today. I’m not entirely clear about the details, but he’s rather distraught over the fallout of a fire at his “apartment”.

To be clear, apartment in this case means his mother’s basement. And no persons—or dogs or otters—were harmed. But he blubbered something about a “mint condition 2nd Edition PHB” being burnt to a crisp, and he is currently inconsolable. His mother tells me he has been sitting in the ashen mess of his room and sniffing moistly and rolling a pair of twenty sided dice again and again for the bulk of the day.

Be strong, Greg. I need you. I need you to make fresh coffee.

 

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From the trenches of the culture war—China bans foreign animated programming from prime time in a bid to foster the domestic animation studio system.

In utterly unrelated news:

It is our six month anniversary! O delight! O joy! O bitter, clawing perseverance! Though blue sky and through turbulence we have flown this last semiannum, your humble pilot and his varied, inconstant crew—and I look forward to the next six months, and whatever changes and surprises may be in store for both the world of news and the world of The Aural Times.

To celebrate this milestone, I have (at considerable, not to say disconcerting, cost) commissioned a redesign of both the public face and internal architecture of the site. There are more details to be had on the Site News page, but the gist of it is this: it is a brand new day, here at the Times, and the office has that new-car smell.

Should you find anything odd or missing or broken or simply delightful about the news site, don’t hesitate to let us know. And thanks for listening.

 

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First the junkmail, now this—AOL (mistakenly?) exposes search records to the public as part of an “attempt to reach out to the academic community”. While the (leaked?) database had assigned random code numbers to each searcher’s queries, matching up search strings that include, for example, proper names has proven not only theoretically but practically accomplishable.

In the search engine privacy PR-scape, this stands as a stark contrast to Google’s showdown with the DOJ early this year.

Speaking of willful nerds: Interviews continue! And yesterday’s was certainly better than that awkward shirtless Jonny B episode on Monday. I’d like you to meet Greg, or, as he prefers to be called, Grey Thunderstone. He will be called “Greg” in the office—and, yes, I’m keeping him. He’s a creative kid—when I told him we needed a picture for today’s story, he fashioned armor, shield and sword from the AOL Free Trial CDs we’d received this week. You can see the results, and Greg, in today’s feature photo.

He looks so happy. I’d forgotten that the Interns used to look like that. What happened? What went wrong? I’ll sit and ponder that while Greg is out on a scotch-and-coffee-and-drycleaning run.

 

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That’s a paddlin’ — California Governor to play ping pong with 80-year-old champ. Two questions remain: does Arnold possess the ping pong acumen to defeat the octogenerian kingpin, and if so will his political sensibilities override his famously competitive spirit? Regardless, I think it is safe to say that no matter the final score, we are all winners.

Several hundred miles north of Lodi, the office is still quiet, absent of both the chattering of stoned 20-somethings and the beeps and bloops of that infernal (and regrettebly expensive) NewsBot machine responsible for last Friday’s musical SNAFU.

It is too quiet, even, though it pains me to admit it. I have, in fact, been interviewing some new blood. Exhibit A: Jonny B, as seen in today’s feature photo. It is worth noting that, when asked to pose with the ping pong paddles, he insisted that he do so shirtless. It is also worth noting that this did not get him the job, a fact not wholly uninfluenced by the revelation of a “LaRouche 4 Evah” tattoo writ across his shoulder blades.

The search continues.

 

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Don’t blame me—NewsBot 3000 dropped the ball on this one. I was looking for a low-cost alternative to flesh-and-blood Interns, and I have to admit the sales folks at LogiSong LLC painted a compelling portrait. No tardiness. No clogged toilets. No incense burners. And the NewsBot 3000 would analyze input text and automatically compose music and lyrics based thereupon!

Heaven. Until I heard the output, anyway: trite lyrics, questionable meter, nearly indecipherable annunciation—and the damned thing couldn’t even come up with a reasonable summary of the current Israel/Lebanon/Hezbollah mess.

So while I did not get the same sense of satisfaction from canning the NewsBot as I used to when doing the same to an Intern—computers, after all, do not wince, or cry, or offer money—you may be assured that it is nonetheless extremely fired.

 

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What can I say? It has been a busy, busy time for us—for me—in relation to things wholly incidental to The Aural Times. I—we—have been distracted, and publishing deadlines have been missed. In the words of that great communicator, that most Ronald of Reagans: mistakes were made.

Apologies.

The reality is that The Times may revert to a less frequent (but, compared with the last two weeks, more steady) publishing schedule in the near future—perhaps once a week, at least for a while—so that we may better attend to unrelated matters while still providing a dependable dose of musical news. I will most certainly keep you, dear reader, posted.

In the mean time, good news: work has begun toward the end of compiling our published work so far in a musical album: a compendium of Aural Times tunes in compact disc format, for your off-line musical enjoyment. On this, too, we will keep you posted.

Thank you for your understanding and your patronage.

As for the Interns…well. I have let the current crop go—I do not believe they ever recovered completely from the disappearance of Dalton during our Montana sojourn—and I am currently looking for a new group. It being summer, I may be able to find a more-or-less able group of PSU students with nothing better to do than work feebly for OSPIRG or Taco Bell. I shall see; I shall see.

Happy listening.

 

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