Immediately following "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," the sound system at Shea Stadium broke into one of the songs from "The Godfather." I cannot find the name of the song, but I think it's a traditional Sicilian song performed at weddings and special events. Whatever it is, the crowd was on its feet cheering the Mets on to victory.

Almost as much as our mania for baseball, is our passion for Farmers Markets. Here's the one in New York's Union Square. Quite wonderful, and the perfect time of year to sample its bounty--summer stone fruits, tomatoes, greens, etc... Also, some wonderful handmade pretzels from the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. The market compares favorably with its California counterparts.

On 7th Avenue in New York City, we encountered a peaceful and meaningful protest of the persecution of millions of followers of Falun Gong in China. Falun Gong, according to the group's literature, is "a practice of meditation, gentle exercises, and the cultivation of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance in oneself."

AOL's purchase of Wildseed, a start-up that's been working on mobile phone software that allows a high degree of personalization, is an important step in its efforts to making AOL an important digital media portal.

Given last week's announcement that AOL was purchasing Xdrive (see, er, listen to our most recent podcast), and now this, AOL continues to make some intriguing moves in its post-walled-garden incarnation.

Is the CEO of a major public company -- with one of the most envied stock prices in the world -- a public figure? (We'd say so.) Shouldn't a news organization tasked with covering said company use all legitimate and legal means to seek and report information about the CEO? (Depends on what information and its context, but generally, we'd say yes, they should.)

So why is Google's vaunted PR team so up in arms about the fact that a CNET (we'll always call them CNET) reporter went and used Google to find out information about it's CEO? In fact, they're so upset about such disclosures as the fact that the CEO is, gasp,a resident of Atherton, CA. And, gasp, hosted a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Al Gore's failed presidential campaign.

Perhaps they're too thin-skinned? Hubris? Lame? Really, this is all information available in public records (especially the fund-raising). Does being CEO of Google, or any large public company, convey some special status in terms of disclosure of personal information? We don't think so. We think such disclosures come under the heading "comes with the territory -- and the millions of $$$." 

Honestly, banning Google employees from speaking with CNET reporters for a year seems, well, pointless.

In today's 'cast, Allen and Mike talk about AOL's purchase of X-Drive and Yahoo Music's new search technology.