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Today’s Google Trends: Topless Coffee Shop Burns Down

If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends—an hourly rundown of search terms “that experience sudden surges in popularity”—is the Web’s best cultural barometer. Here’s a sampling of today’s top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)

No. 7 “project natal for xbox”: Bing, the search engine that will (maybe) destroy Google, isn’t Microsoft’s only big gambit of the week. At the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, the company showed off a wannabe Nintendo killer, Project Natal. The gist: It’s a Wii without a controller. If you want to kick a ball, just kick your leg—Natal’s 3-D motion-sensing camera captures how your body moves. Google’s top related search for Natal: “project natal release date.” Hold on to your Wii for now—there isn’t one.

No. 11 “grand view coffee shop”: The opening of a topless coffee shop in Maine made national news back in February, both for what the baristas weren’t wearing and on account of the fact that 150 people applied for the 10 shirt-free positions. The employees of the Grand View Coffee Shop appear to have lost their shirts all over again this morning: The store has reportedly burned down.

No. 14 “carlos araya”: Searchers are digging into a Wall Street Journal article about a laid-off crude oil trader who’s now working as a maître d' at the Palm. The headline: “From Ordering Steak and Lobster, to Serving It.” The story’s lede, which notes Araya’s former penchant for ordering $200 bottles of wine, might suggest that the searching masses are reveling in the riches-to-rags story of a financial-industry bozo. Details from later in the piece—“Recently, their oldest daughter asked Mr. Araya if the family would have to move. … He went into the bathroom and cried”—hint that this might actually be sympathy Googling.