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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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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Laptop warriors rejoice—Portland City Council approved Wifi contracts on Wednesday to bring free internet service to Portland. Deployment is expected to take 18 months, which should be plenty of time for Qwest and Comcast to totally freak out.

As an Internet-based musical news-source—arguably the finest in the world—we are, of course, glad to hear that our native city is embracing such a progressive technology measure. The Interns in particular are pleased, though mostly because it means they can play Mario Kart DS with one another without showing up to work to leech the Internet service for which, needless to say, they are not paying.

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Fiduciary bottle-smacking ahoy—ketchup fixture Heinz will reduce it’s workforce by 8% in what is being billed as a “growth plan” for the ailing company. Mustard spread over too much bread, as it were.

Personally, I’m a mayo man.

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You have to admit, they’ve got moxie—two teenagers arrested in attempt to extort from myspace.com. The only problem with their plan is that it was stupid, which is not something that an 18- and a 19-year-old can be expected to account for. Especially, if you will forgive me, where Myspace is an influence.

We have had a pleasant (if impromptu) Memorial Day Weekend vacation here at the Times, and so I apologize if you have been wondering where the song was Friday and Monday. I blame the military-industrial complex. For this, and many other things.

As for memorials themselves, several of the Interns (none of whom, I would like to note, have attempted, at least with any success, to blackmail a major corporation while under my employ) have been playing Call of Duty on their Playstation 2, in what they have loosely described as an homage to half-remembered uncles and grandfathers. Touching, from them.

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The bigger they are, &c—cooling tower at Trojan nuclear power plant successfully imploded.

Needless to say, the Interns will simply not stop the “Trojan” jokes. If I hear one more weak jest about erect towers I may snap.

And a hello to the folks reading Making Light.

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Running late? Alliterate! Soda czars ceasing sales to schools! In, well, a couple of years. And not diet soda. Or sports drinks. Or juice products. All of which have seen rising sales while traditional high-calorie soda products have been declining.

And there’s that issue of mounting legal pressure from various states.

Speaking of states, we at The Aural Times are heading, en masse, to Montana for a few days—which means, of course, renting a bus, packing in the Interns, and reminding them every five minutes (1) to sit down, (2) to shut up, and (3) that no, we are not there yet.

We may find a way to provide updates from the road—I have it on good authority that portions of the Big Sky state are now equipped with electrical power—but if you do not see an update on Monday, or even Wednesday, do not be alarmed. We are most likely not lying dead at the bottom of a cliff, amidst the smoldering wreakage of a mangled, cliff-overridden Bluebird bus, but rather merely enjoying the wilderness.

I just wish Dalton would stop talking about “getting back to nature.”

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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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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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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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