Welcome back! It's September, if you haven't noticed, and our instant-messenger software is beeping every three seconds as our faithful correspondents inform us of the breaking news that they're back from the beach — or Burning Man's playa. If you didn't bring your EVDO-card-equipped laptop on vacation, here's a quick catch-up guide to the biggest news in an August that proved surprisingly hot for news.

• At Burning Man, the giant wooden statue of The Man burned. Twice. The first time was, allegedly, arson; the second, intentional. See our complete Burning Man coverage from Black Rock City, including an exclusive interview with accused arsonist Paul Addis.
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt's girlfriend has a desk at the company's New York office now.
• NBC and Apple broke up, citing irreconcilable difference about how much to charge on iTunes for the network's TV shows.
• Videoblogger Robert Scoble went completely bonkers.
• AdBrite, the online-advertising network run by FuckedCompany founder Philip Kaplan, had a spat with porn-ads partner AVN — though they appear to have patched things up.
• Yahoo president Sue Decker pushed out the Web giant's sales chief and promoted pal Hilary Schneider, as the company reorganized.
• Fark founder Drew Curtis continued his pursuit of a Fox-linked hacker.

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