In a story that received almost no airplay, given what a media sensation this man once was, Rodney King was shot on Wednesday evening on a street corner in San Bernardino, California. The article says he was hit two or three times in the face, arms, back and torso by birdshot fired from a shotgun from a distance, and that his wounds were not life-threatening. It reminds me (and several of the stories commenters) of the time Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face with birdshot during a quail-hunting trip earlier in the year.

What I find most interesting about this is how Rodney King has "fallen from grace" in the eyes of the media. Back in 1991, he was an iconic victim - an African-American man who was savagely beaten by white police officers in Los Angeles, touching off a series of riots in the city that left 55 people dead and caused more than $1 billion in property damage. He received a $3.8 million settlement in the ensuing lawsuit, and would occasionally pop up in the press to reiterate his rather inspiring tag line, "Why can't we all just get along?"

Since then, though, he's had many run-ins with the law, including a 2004 jail stint for driving under the influence of PCP (the drug he was high on when he got beaten by the LA cops). After this week's shooting, police officers found it difficult to get information at his home because his house guests "appeared to be drunk and few cooperated with officers by providing information."

While no one's justifying the beating he took, I think perhaps the media has realized that Mr. King has some serious problems, and that while he was a victim, the term "innocent victim" is probably too much of a stretch. I'll also note that no one has even mentioned the skin color of the person who shot him. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I think on the whole, it's probably a positive thing.

Yesterday afternoon, I tried something I hadn't tried before. I went to Technorati, searched for "Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree" and then posted a comment on the Top 5 resulting blogs that basically said, "Hey, I have a photoblog - come take a look!"

(Actually, I posted to the Top 6, since one of the Top 5 was Simple Tricks and Nonsense, where my online friend Jason Bennion did a post specifically about my page).

As of last night, the results were poor. Three of the five blogs had removed my comment altogether, probably mistaking it for comment spam (or, maybe it is comment spam? That's a philisophical discussion, I guess, although I'd argue that while self-promoting, at least the link was to a relevant topic. Plus, I'm not collecting IP addresses or selling anyone anything). But, I digress...

Anyway, this morning I checked my Google Analytics stats and found that the volume to my site had increased 100% over the average volume for the month (201 pageviews, as opposed to an average of just over 100). Seventeen of those hits came from Simple Tricks, and thirty-eight came from one of the two blogs I posted to. The other blog generated no hits at all.

Two interesting thoughts:

1) The blog that generated traffic is run by the New York Times. So while blogging is all about the little guy having a voice to compete with big media, we once again see that big media is correctly named - even a very small percentage of their much larger audience can move the needle on a small site like mine.

2) Self-promotion works. The photoblog page had been averaging around 11 pageviews per day since I started it, so only ~25 of the extra 100 views came directly from the link. Pages/Visit yesterday was 1.97, as compared to 1.60 the rest of the month - a 23% increase. This further exemplifies Scalzi's Bacon Cat Incident Effect which recognizes that when you get someone to your site for a particular reason, they often look around a while before they leave. Hopefully, a few of them come back from time to time and an audience builds.

This concludes today's random observations about the Googleverse. You may now return to your regularly scheduled lives.

Oh, and P.S.: If you're here because you viewed the photoblog yesterday and came back to check out the blog, welcome! Please come back often and tell your friends!

All I can say is, that was definitely worth the wait. Check out the completed Photoblog for all the latest pictures.

One administrative note: now that the tree is lit, I've put the pictures back in chronological order, as opposed to reverse chronological order, as I had them throughout the process. For those who have been reading all along and just want to see the latest, click the double-right arrow to go to the end, and the click the left arrow to see tonight's batch (13 pictures from tonight, 55 in all). I figure this is a better way to organize the pictures for those hundreds of people who will Google-stumble across this page in the months and years to come.

So all that's left to say now is Merry Christmas to you and yours. There's no denying it now - the turkey is eaten, the tree is lit, Black Friday has been blackened, and Cyber Monday has been processed. It's Christmas season, boys and girls! Deck the halls, roast the chestnuts over an open fire, and jingle all the way!

As Monica said to Chandler, "This. Just. Got. Interesting."

Check out today's daily update. We've got large screen monitors, performance stages in various, well, stages of readiness, as well as behind the scenes pictures of the technicians and equipment required to put on this kind of shindig. And then there's that beautiful full-frontal shot of the tree as seen from in front of Saks Fifth Avenue. Definitely not to be missed!

Tomorrow, I'll post more pictures, of course, as well as a review of the show itself. Scheduled to perform, according to NBC.COM are Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Barry Manilow, Taylor Swift, Ashley Tisdale and Carrie Underwood. I know the Rockettes are in the show (they are every year), so I'm sure this isn't a complete list. Like I said, I'll keep you posted.

One final bonus today. A live web-cam of the tree, taken from a camera posted somewhere high up in 30 Rock. I assume this will be active during the show, so it might be something worth popping up on your screen.

The national show takes place between 8pm and 9pm Eastern time. If you get New York TV, there will be an extra hour of performances and various other merriment from 7pm to 8pm on WNBC-TV (Channel 4). Two hours of Al Roker! Who could ask for more? ;-)

Today's daily update almost got rained out, but the photoblog perseveres! Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night will keep this blogger from his appointed rounds!

Seriously - today's update has both rain and gloom of night. Check it out.

I hope everyone had a nice Turkey Day. The weather in the New York area was fantastic, so we got up early in the morning, hopped on the 7:09AM train into New York City, and took in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

This, of course, put me just a couple of blocks away from Rockefeller Center, allowing me to add another couple of pics to the Photoblog. Click for a Macy's Parade balloon and some small children posing in front of a big tree.

The scaffolding is down!

That is all...

The daily deed is once again done. Today: More lights, handsaws, a Fotomat for crystal jewelry, and Spongebob Squarepants!

Curious? I thought so.

Just so those Italians know you don't need a leaning tower to do clever camera tricks. The $10, $20 and $50 bills are here.

Hat tip: Lisa Fiorenzo

 

Another daily update in the books. Not much going on with the tree today, but there are some cool pics of the Ice Rink, and some classic New York City midtown shots.

As always, click here to join the fun.

Alex Rodriguez says his contract talks with the Yankees are in the bottom of the fifth inning.

I have no idea what that means. But I do know what this means:

"Long after baseball, New York is going to be part of our lives," he said. "I have some unfinished business in New York.

I can't tell you how glad I am to hear him say this. When he opted out of the contract, and had his agent do it during Game 4 of the World Series, I had written A-Rod off as a businessman who just happened to play baseball. A hired gun.

This tells me that it bothers him on more than just a professional level that he had one of the greatest indivdiual baseball seasons ever and fell apart in the post-season. I know that the rest of the team fell apart as well, but I think A-Rod expected himself to carry the team on his shoulders, and he didn't do that. And that bothers him.

The only thing better than having one of the best players in baseball as your third baseman is having him there with something to prove.

Here's one from the PC crowd that just takes the cake:

Aspiring Santas have been told not to use the term "ho, ho, ho" because it could be seen as derogatory to women. Thirty trainees at a Santa course in Adelaide last month, held by recruitment company Westaff, were urged to replace the traditional festive greeting with "ha, ha, ha".

Two Santa hopefuls reportedly left the course after the trainer's edict.

The term "ho" is also American slang for a prostitute. "We were told it (ho) was a derogatory term for females and can upset people," said the Santa, who did not want to be identified publicly. "As far as I'm concerned, a hoe is something you dig the ground with."

Critics have branded the instruction for Santas to use "Ha! ha! ha! Merry Christmas" as nonsense and madness.

The silver lining to this story is the near universal agreement that such a suggestion is insane. That said, it doesn't seem like Political Correctness is about to burn itself out in the flame of public opinion any time soon...

The daily update is up again. Hope it's enough to get you through the weekend.

Today's installment features power cables, giant scary trumpet players, and angels - harked and heralded for your viewing pleasure.

Enjoy!

A month ago, I blogged about Apple's new OS X Leopard operating system, and commented on how so many of its features seemed similar to those in Windows Vista, a comparison that usually runs the other way when it comes to comparing OS's.

Well, the other day, Apple did something else that made it seem hauntingly similar to Microsoft:

Apple has released a major security update to current and previous versions of its OS X operating system.

Most significantly, the update fixes 41 vulnerabilities, many of which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary -- ie: malicious -- code on the affected system. The affected software includes the Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) Flash Player Plug-in, AppleRAID, the Mach Kernel, the Safari Web browser, and other core system components.

On Thursday, Apple released an update (10.5.1) for Mac OS X "Leopard," which debuted last month. It includes three fixes to the Application Firewall that could lead network services to be exposed. Apple also released a security update (3.04) for Safari 3 Beta for Windows XP and Vista on Wednesday. The patch fixes a tabbed browsing flaw that could expose user credentials, several cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, and a buffer overflow bug, among other issues.

As I've said many, many, many, many, many, many times before, Apple's starting to play with the big boys now, and they're bound to encounter similar issues (and take similar) action in this regard.

Tune in next week, when we read about the poor sysadmins who didn't install the 41 patches right away because they decided to spend some time testing on their network infrastructure before rolling them out to hundreds of users, only to be attacked by the hacker who has now downloaded the patch, reverse-engineered the malicious code, and sent it crawling for servers in exactly that position...

Welcome to the party Apple. Sit back and enjoy Microsoft's new ad campaign, starring John Hodgeman comforting Justin Long: "It's OK, Mac, it happens to everyone eventually. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm told there's a patch you can get that will clear it all up. Kinda like smoking..."

They're writing Daily Show YouTube clips:

(Hat tip: Wil Wheaton)

 

The daily update is up. Today: Christmas lights, extra boughs, and High School Musical! Check it out.

In the window of The American Craftsman at Rockefeller Center this morning:

I don't even want to know...

Meanwhile, I'm really liking having a digital camera with me as I walk to/from work every day. I'm tellin' ya, they should put these things in cell phones!

Check out the Cal Marching Band's 16-big Video Game Halftime Show:

The Gizmodo video doesn't lend itself to easy embedding like YouTube, so the picture above is a link to another page, but trust me - it's worth the click...

I wound up working from home today, so I don't have a live picture of the tree to share. But there is an update. Depending on your glass-is-half-empty/glass-is-half-full score, I'm sure you'll conclude that I'm either very resourceful with the tools at my disposal, or a lousy, stinkin' cheater.

Also, Jason Bennion pointed out to me in the comments from my last post that the oh-so-witty captions I'm putting on my posts are not available on Firefox, as they are on Internet Explorer. Given my limited skills with Javascript, I'm quite frankly surprised that Firefox can't handle something I've written. Either I've written the code wrong, or Firefox breaks on the simplest of Javascript code.

For the geeks out there, here's the relevant snippet. Any feedback? Also, if anyone knows how to set the alt text on the picture when it changes, let me know & I'll do that. I don't know off the top of my head and I don't have time to Google it right now.

function Fade_Image(inc){
//Set fade speed
if (document.all){
document.images.imagetofade.style.filter="blendTrans(duration=1)"
document.images.imagetofade.filters.blendTrans.Apply()
}

//Load up next picture
curr_img = curr_img + inc
if (curr_img > (p-1)) curr_img=0
if (curr_img < 0) curr_img=p-1
document.images.imagetofade.src = preLoad[curr_img].src
caption.innerText=Cap[curr_img]

//Do the Fade
if (document.all){
document.images.imagetofade.filters.blendTrans.Play()
}
}

[...]

<td width=605 height=1000 valign="top" align="left" colspan=2>
<img src="images/shim.gif" name='imagetofade' width=600 height=400 onclick="Fade_Image(1)"><br>
<center><span id="caption"> </span></center>
</td>

 

The new pictures are up. Today - the Swarovski star, an office-eye view, and men sweeping pine needles!

Fun for the whole family...

So I just realized how annoying it would be to look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Photoblog (hereafter referred to as the RCCTP) each and every day, and have to click through a bunch of pictures you've already seen just to see the one or two new ones I posted that day.

So, I've reversed the order. The most recent picture will now be first, so you can click "Next" until they look familiar, and then you're done.

Those who would like to see the entire album in sequence, can click the double right arrow (end of album), and then use the left arrow to page through the set backwards.

Next week: Getting over myself & just using Flickr for cryin' out loud...

(Oh, and P.S. - the November 12th pictures are up...)

Matthew Baldwin of Defective Yeti:

Watching Sesame Street today with [my son], it suddenly occurred to me that every time Maria hugs Elmo, some lecherous muppeteer is copping a feel.

38 years of Emmy-award winning children's television right down the drain. Thank God my kids have moved on to all things Nickelodeon...

I took special care to setup the photoblog so that I could post pictures to it without being at my home PC. I remembered to bring the camera, and oh yes - I took the pictures. But alas, there are no devices in the office that can transfer an image from an SD memory card to a PC for uploading.

And so, the daily pictures will post sometime between 9pm and 12AM each evening. Those suffering from anticipation can rest assured that after today, they will still have a picture to see each morning - it'll just be day old news. Like a newspaper.

OK, I'm trying something new here at I Should Be Sleeping - a photoblog. Every weekday between November 8 and November 28, I will take at least one picture of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (which stands in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York - just across the street from my office at 50 Rockefeller Plaza), and post it to this page. Click back there every day to follow the arrival, hoisting, decorating, and finally, lighting of the most famous Christmas Tree in the World.

While I'm at it, some background: This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree was planted in 1947 in Shelton, Connecticut by the first owner of Joseph and Judy Rivnyak's house on Soundview Avenue. It was cut down with a handsaw on November 7th, loaded onto a flatbed truck, and transported into New York City. Four of the past nine Rockefeller Center Christmas Trees have come from Connecticut.

The tree is 84 feet tall and 48 feet in diameter at its base. It is estimated that by the time it is taken down, more than a billion people will have seen the tree, either live or on television. Or, of course, on the Internet.

If you'd like to fall into this last category, remember to click on the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Photoblog each day for an update!

James Lileks calls this chart, "horrifying, if you're in the newspaper business." He's not in the newspaper business, of course, but yet he still works for a newspaper. Ah well, my life is complicated enough without trying to figure out his.

Anyway, as regards the numbers, the basic message is this: in the last 2.5 years, over a million people have cancelled their subscription to one of the Top 20 newspapers in America. TV News viewership has been declining for years as well.

There is always much speculation as to the reason, but for my money, it's simply this: why would I pay anything (even a few cents) to read news that is at least a few hours old when I can read up-to-the-minute news on one of a dozen widely available devices for free?

Everyone says that newspapers will never die, just as television didn't kill the radio. But here's the thing: the radio changed. "All News, All the Time" stations have been largely replaced by (opinion-based) talk radio, local traffic and weather reports, and quick news snippets at the top of each hour. If newspapers don't find a new niche quickly, it won't be the Internet that killed them, it will be their own stubbornness.

OK, here's a phrase I've never typed before: Following up on my post about Tic-Tacs...

But seriously, there's more.

You see, the orange-in-flavor-but-not-in-color tic tacs are truly awful. They don't taste good, and they don't freshen your breath, which is the main reason I bought Tic Tacs in the first place. So, I went to a different newsstand in hopes of finding the old standby: plain, white Tic Tacs. Well, I found them, but guess what else I found!

So apparently, there are two types of orange Tic Tacs. Excuse my french, but what the fuck is up with that? The mind truly boggles...

Ah, but wait, there's still more: looking closely at the back of the containers, I learn, well, more than I ever thought I would reading the back of a Tic Tac container. To wit:

The orange Tic Tacs are listed as having 1.5 calories per mint. The white ones are listed as having 1.9 calories per mint. Anyone else remember the "one and a half calorie breath mint" commercials? Are there really different formulas for these things? Did Tic Tac add something to the white flavor to give it 0.4 more calories? Was there fine print on the commercials that said "Calories refer to orange flavor only" that I missed all those years ago?

Also, the back of the orange-flavored-but-white-colored Tic Tacs doesn't list calorie information at all, but lists the ingredients in both English and French. Maybe these are French Tic Tacs being sold illegally in the United States? Ooh, a Tic Tac scandal! You read it here first!

And...there's a website. Here's the product page at TicTacUSA.com. You'll notice if you click around - no white Tic Tacs that taste orange. We're definitely looking at some foreign mints here, folks...

Finally, I just couldn't resist checking why they used TicTacUSA.com, instead of TicTac.com. Turns out there is no site up at TicTac.com, although the domain is registered to an Italian gentleman named Oscar Saglietti from Alba, and the technical contact is in the UK.

Someone ought to write a book (someone other than me, that is...)

The Writer's Guild of America has gone on strike over the issue of residuals for DVD and internet sales.

When asked for a comment, an Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers(AMPTP)spokesman said, "Er.....um.......well, you see.......uh.......hmmm.......let me think......ah! No......errrr.........LINE?!?!?"

So, the inexplicable popularity of my Cal/Stanford post makes me think I should post this:

Trinity College uses 15 laterals to beat Millsaps in a Division III game in the final seconds of the fourth quarter. Amazing...

The Categories

Category	October Count	September Count
Technology	196	146
Billy Joel	183	112
Celebrity Look Alikes	54	30
DSL	46	44
Bruce Springsteen	27	0
Adult/Porn-Related	23	33
Cal/Stanford	23	22
ISBS Song	18	14
Politics	15	17
Concerts	14	14
Penn	13	16
Overrated Films	12	10
Baton	12	0
Baseball	11	23

Queries were up dramatically again this month (736 vs. 626), thanks primarily to increased Technology queries, and queries about Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

Technology still leads the pack, but rumors of Billy Joel touring again seem to have fueled a resurgence in Billy Joel related queries, to the point where he almost caught the technology queries this month. The other categories were pretty much the standard group, although I'm pleased to see that the Adult/Porn-Related queries have died down a bit. The one that continues to surprise me the most is the Cal/Stanford queries - how so many people wind up on my site as opposed to YouTube for that clip is beyond me. It kind of makes me wish I had something meaningful to add on the subject, so that all the visitors to that post have something interesting to read. I don't, though - I just like watching the video...

The Referring Sites

Each month seems to have a new favorite referrer. Last month, it was The Gothamist, who linked to my taxi burning post and generated hundreds of visitors and thousands of pageviews. This month, the honor goes to Backstreets, the site dedicated to all things Springsteen. I posted a link to my review there, and 51 visitors looked at 86 pages because of it. A comment on John Scalzi's blog, ironically about the practice of commenting on blogs to drive traffic to your own blog, yielded 16 visitors and 36 pageviews. My friend Ilya's blog generated a consistent 14 visitors and 41 pageviews, although for some rather shady content (you'll have to click over to find out what). Also, the Penn Band's baton related shenanigans drove some traffic my way from IvyGate, digg, Facebook, and del.icio.us. Ah, college...

The Keywords

All told, 736 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in October (about 110 more than were used in September). Here are some samples:

In honor of the baseball post-season, we begin this month with baseball:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
when's the world series	>500 / 250,000	Clearly a huge baseball fan here...
commentators for rockies padres game tonight	>500 / 23,400	I'm only watching if I can hear Jerry Coleman...

Moving on to some interesting Billy Joel-related queries:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
belly joel my life lyric	4 / 232,000	Belly joel - it's like "jelly roll" with a head cold...
billy hoel just the way you are lyrics	1 / 15,900	Billy Hoel - the German version!
use of transistor radio in billy joel songs	1 / 35,300	For listening. In 1975. Time to upgrade to an iPod, my friend...
what can i expect in a billy joel concert	1 / 297,000	Get out of the blogs and get over to YouTube, my friend...

And onward to the just plain wild and whacky:

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
can someone find me a monologue from harry potter	>500 / 164,000	Hermione, or not Hermione - that is the question...
html- celebrity look alike	55 / 1,710,000	Here's someone who's not so much interested in what celebrities he/she looks like, but more about how the website works. My kind of Googler...
is section 36 row d good seats in madison square garden	13 / 120,000	No. It's on the floor, so it's not elevated, and it's all the way in the back.
madison square garden seating sec 94 reviews	4 / 176,000	Section 94 was in great form tonight. They started with a couple of well known rock tunes, then sat down comfortably for a ballad. Their encore left something to be desired when the first three seats in the second row left early, and the fourth row, seat 5, kept getting up to go the bathroom. Now, section 92 - that was a great show...
scalp wachovia center price concert	1 / 750	A criminal who does his research. Redeeming qualities? Perhaps...
incredible lawsuit	5 / 1,470,000	Maybe a guy who's suing a Disney cartoon?
inverted universe	>500 / 901,000	This guy was querying with Bizarro-Google.
8 track tapes	>500 / 9,770,000	Googling for 8 track tapes? What a mixed anacrhonism...
funny quotes using the word "overconfidence"	>500 / 15,200	Ah, those overconfidence jokes - hours of fun for the whole family...
should i keep cds	>500 / 3,650,000	No. Buy an iPod.
titanicstop	n/a / 10	Iceberg. Next question.
warning underwear why should we have them	>500 / 914,000	Ewww...if you have to ask, it's way too late.
what 7 thing i should do if you are in a hurricane	>500 / 1,880,000	#1) I should help you. #2) I should help you. You get the idea...
what is a reason people should live new york	>500 / 10,900,000	It certainly makes the commute easier, no?
when is ross gelbspan's birthday?	n/a / 267	Ross Gelbspan is a Boston Globe writer who wrote about global warming. This guy must send birthday cards to his favorite columnists...
spotlight search for windows xp	n/a / 487	No. Spotlight Search for Mac. If you want that with Windows, upgrade to Vista.

And finally, back by popular demand, it's the Adult/Porn-related queries (WARNING: You have been warned):

Query	Rank / # of Results	Comments
wife sleeping pictures, pictures of sleepy naked wife, rate my naked sleeping wife pics, spouse took nude pictures of wife while asleep	122 / 2,260,000 >500 / 2,020,000 >500 / 1,2340,000 63 / 263,000	I can only imagine that these wives don't use the Internet much...
daddy does sons sexpics, mom and son sex pics	>500 / 274,000 >500 / 2,290,000	Gross, gross, and gross. I can promise you these folks were disappointed when they clicked over to my site...
naked guys asleep, naked guys washing cars	>500 / 1,340,000 231 / 749,000	How about naked guys washing cars while asleep?
breast sleep sex pictures, sleeping breast sex pic	>500 / 2,130,000 >500 / 2,130,000	The problem with sleeping breasts is that when you wake them, they get all cranky...
mythical creature sex pictures	>500 / 286,000	OK, this guy is weird even among this crowd...
should i sleep naked	>500 / 1,820,000	Apparently not - someone (probably your spouse) will photograph you and put your picture on the internet.

 

Metric	September	October	% Change
Visits	2,203	1,519	-31.05%
Pageviews	3,573	2,380	-33.39%
Pages/Visit	1.62	1.57	-3.39%
Avg Time on Site	0:38	0:43	+14.45%
Bounce Rate	80.44%	79.46%	-1.21%
% New Visitors	91.47%	86.18%	-5.78%

OK, I was prepared for this. Last month, my post about a taxi cab that burned up in front of my office generated an incredible 870 visits and 1,300 pageviews. While it felt good at the time, I was mentally prepared for the stats to drop back down to earth this month. The fall was cushioned a little bit by the Penn Band's Guinness World Record Setting Conductor's Baton, which generated around 180 visits. Also, Billy Joel going back on tour, which has regenerated interested in my most popular post ever, my concert review of his Madison Square Garden show. That post received 352 visits in October, up from just 139 in September (+153.24%).

For a better comparison, I ran the stats last month without September 18-20, the three days that generated the bulk of taxi-related visits/pageviews. Here's how October stacked up against those numbers:

Metric	September'	October	% Change
Visits	1,080	1,519	+40.65%
Pageviews	1,570	2,380	+51.59%
Pages/Visit	1.44	1.57	+9.02%
Avg Time on Site	0:48	0:43	-10.42%
Bounce Rate	83.43%	79.46%	-4.76%
% New Visitors	86.56%	86.18%	-0.44%

Looking at it this way, October was a great month indeed. Traffic was up 40-50%, and my visitors looked at more pages and left after one entry less often. The only site that was down was Avg. Time on Site, which dropped 10.42% (or five seconds). I can definitely live with those numbers.

Here's hoping something cool happens in November to keep the momentum going...