Thousands of people line McCarren Pool on Sundays, standing in place of where water used to be. This summer JellyNYC's Sunday Pool Parties are continuing, in what has become an instant summer tradition.

We headed over there for the first time this season on Sunday to see Man Man, Illinois, Dengue Fever and enjoy some ice cream. We chatted with some of the folks involved, too. Check it out. And be sure to check out some of the shows (TV on the Radio, Ted Leo, Ghostland Observatory!) this summer.

Amidst all of the iPhone hoopla there was probably more than one incident of unkind words being exchanged around the long lines. Boing Boing points out one in which a mascot for a hunger-awareness campaign named Hungrr got assaulted by the NBC News crew! This happened outside the Apple store on 5th Avenue as the mascot was handing out pins for the organization. Hungrr was there buying an iPhone to sell on eBay to raise money for the Northwest Louisiana Food bank, helping Katrina victims.

They managed to get an iPhone prior to being harassed by the crew and the cops, and it's up for auction here.

Saturday we posted about Reverend Billy getting arrested during Friday night's Critical Mass as he recited the First Amendment. The above is a video of how it went down. Each police officer involved is identified by the cameraman, and at the end you'll see Lt Daniel Albano, "one of the main architects of the recent NYPD crackdown on civil rights." That night Reverend Billy was in jail for 20 hours, and charged with harassment of a public official.

This afternoon, back in Union Square, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, Bill Dipaolo of Time's Up! and Norman Siegel (civil rights attorney) showed the video and made a public announcement requesting that the charges be dropped, while also discussing the ongoing harassment of cyclists and their supporters. Reverend Billy and his choir then sang the First Amendment in the very place where he was arrested.

While we're still iPhone-less (AT&T; Activation has been screwing up about 38% of the purchases), we're not above recalling the frenzy from Friday night. Gothamist went out with vdeographer Kelly Loudenberg to check out the line, chat with some of the people (dog Beta and his owner Dan, Kensu who is blogging at The Story Gets Deeper, and others), and marvel at the madhouse. The NY Times' David Pogue gave us his impression of the crowd, too.

And CNet has this list of the top 10 tech product launches before the iPhone - it's not a great list (why is Gizmondo there?).