The OJ story gets weirder
By Brian | August 14, 2007
Back in November, I blogged about a book OJ Simpson was writing called If I Did It, in which he described how he would have gone about murdering his ex-wife and her boyfriend, if he had, in fact, committed the crime.
Well, as it turns out, this very strange story was only just starting to get strange. Fasten your seat belts, this is a doozy:
It seems HarperCollins, the would-be publishers of this book, gave OJ a $630,000 advance for the book. Simpson then went and setup a shell corporation to keep the money away from the Goldman and Brown families (who are supposed to receive a portion of his earnings as part of the civil suit they won after the murders).
Last month, a Florida judge awarded the rights of the (completed) manuscript to the Goldman family. Let’s review that again: a judge awarded the right to sell the book describing how OJ Simpson would have killed Ron Goldman to the surviving family of Ron Goldman, who had decried the entire project as “immoral” when it first happened. But wait, you say, maybe by winning legal rights to the manuscript, their goal is simply to ensure that no one ever publishes such trash? No such luck:
The Goldmans are responsible for the costs of getting the book out there, but will be entitled to 90 percent of any proceeds, with the remaining 10 percent being split among the Brown family and the bankruptcy trustee that took charge of Simpson’s bogus enterprise, Lorraine Brooke Associates.
After they won the book rights, the Goldmans’ attorney said they were planning to change the name of the ghostwritten tome to Confessions of a Double Murderer and market it as a confessional.
“The family and publisher have pledged to leave Simpson’s manuscript entirely intact, but they will also add key commentary,” [a spokesman for the publisher] said in a statement. “The Goldmans, the publisher and [the Goldman’s literary agent, Sharlene Martin] will all contribute portions of sales proceeds to the Ron Goldman Foundation for Justice.”
So Ron Goldman’s family is now going to profit from his murder, by publishing what they call a confessional, when the author says it isn’t, even though the whole thing was ghost-written to begin with.
Here’s the capper – OJ Simpson is outraged:
Simpson claimed in a streamed online interview that he only agreed to include one chapter about the murders after his original publisher, Judith Regan, swore that it would be labeled as purely hypothetical.
“I find it sort of hypocritical that they talked everybody in America to boycott the book: It was ‘immoral,’ it was ‘blood money,'” he said, referring to the Goldmans’ acquisition of the publishing rights. “But we now see it wasn’t ‘blood money’ if they got the money.”
Not that OJ has the moral high ground here, but I gotta say – in this case, the man’s got a point.
Categories: The World Wide Weird | 2 Comments »
JibJab gets personal
By Brian | August 13, 2007
Hey – remember JibJab? They’re the folks that made that hilarious This Land is Your Land parody back around the 2004 election? Also, they’re the kids who grew up two doors down from me in central New Jersey. I’m happy to report that they’re much better at web video than they ever were at kickball on Barklay Street.
Anyway, they’ve got a new service available now, where you can upload your own faces & star in your own JibJab video. Too cool to resist, so…
Ladies & Gentelmen, Brian & Sherry dance the Charleston (with some help from the JibJab boys…):
Check them out at jibjab.com!
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »
The 13-year old Finnish Fact Checker Strikes Again…
By Brian | August 12, 2007
Gotta love this:
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world – including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited – alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week. But it has now emerged that the footage actually showed two Finnish-made Mir submersibles that were employed on location filming at the scene of the wreck of the RMS Titanic ship in the north Atlantic some 10 years ago. This footage was used in sequences in James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster about the 1912 disaster.
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.
Categories: News and/or Media, The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on The 13-year old Finnish Fact Checker Strikes Again…
A Week of Milestone Homeruns
By Brian | August 12, 2007
Just catching up on some blogging tonight, so for posterity sake, here are the videos for three notable homeruns, all of which took place in the space of three days:
Barry Bonds ties Hank Aaron with #755 (August 4, 2007):
Alex Rodriguez hits homerun #500 – youngest player ever to accomplish the feat (August 4, 2007):
Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s homerun record by hitting #756 (August 7, 2007):
And because people will ask, here’s my take on the steroid scandal: Baseball’s obsession with statistics and records has always been misplaced. Yes, it’s likely that Bonds used steroids and Aaron did not. But Bonds and Aaron also played in different sized ballparks, with bats that were made differently. Bonds had access to weight lifting equipment that Aaron did not have, as well as training facilities, rehab facilities, medical procedures, and conditioning techniques that didn’t exist in the 60s and 70s. So much has changed in 33 years, that the only thing I can think of that is exactly the same between the two eras is the distance between the bases, which doesn’t matter a lick when it comes to hitting homeruns.
So I don’t really care who holds the record for most career homeruns. Both men have hit a lot of homeruns and will long be regarded as two of the best long ball hitters ever to play the game. What matters is this: To my knowledge, Aaron didn’t cheat. I (and, apparently, no one else) can prove that Bonds cheated, but the evidence seems to suggest that he did. If it turns out that’s not the case, then please put me first in line to apologize to Mr. Bonds. Until then, I can tell my 7 and 4-year old sons that Hank Aaron was a great baseball player. I’ll be telling them that Bonds was a great baseball player too, but also a stupid man (they’ve learned in school, and at home, that people who take drugs are stupid people) and a cheater (they’ve also learned in school, and at home, that if you cheat, no one will want to play with you again). If I’m raising them right (and, of course, I believe that I am), then they’ll grow up to understand both men’s accomplishments, and hold Hank Aaron in far greater regard than Barry Bonds. That’s about right, I think.
Categories: Sports Talk | 4 Comments »
The Latest Unbelievable OJ Thing…
By Brian | August 9, 2007
OK, here’s the picture:
The address is 360 North Rockingham Avenue in Los Angeles. That’s OJ Simpson’s house.
The van says “Knife Sharpening Service” on the side. Seriously.
(Hat tip: Instapundit)
Categories: The World Wide Weird | Comments Off on The Latest Unbelievable OJ Thing…
Voting made easy…
By Brian | August 6, 2007
Check out this site (hat tip: Willow Gross), which asks you for your position on 25 issues and their relative importance to you, and comes back with who you should vote for in 2008.
All the data is from a site called 2decide.com which, at first glance, seems like a gross overesimplification of the issues. I gotta say, though, the results are pretty consistent with how I’d have ranked the candidates if I was asked to do so by “gut feel.” Here’s my list. What’s yours?
| Candidate | Party | Support (+/-) |
| Giuliani | (R) | +31 |
| Biden | (D) | +23 |
| Dodd | (D) | +22 |
| McCain | (R) | +20 |
| Edwards | (D) | +20 |
| Clinton | (D) | +20 |
| Obama | (D) | +17 |
| Thompson | (R) | +17 |
| Kucinich | (D) | +12 |
| Richardson | (D) | +10 |
| Romney | (R) | +5 |
| Gravel | (D) | 0 |
| Hunter | (R) | -3 |
| Brownback | (R) | -7 |
| Huckabee | (R) | -10 |
| Cox | (R) | -14 |
| Paul | (R) | -16 |
| Tancredo | (R) | -24 |
Categories: Political Rantings | 5 Comments »
How People Found Me – July Edition
By Brian | August 6, 2007
The Categories
| Category | July Count | June Count |
| Technology | 184 | 151 |
| Billy Joel | 76 | |
| Celebrity Look Alikes | 50 | 70 |
| DSL | 30 | 22 |
| Politics | 23 | 12 |
| Overrated Films | 19 | 19 |
| Family | 16 | 8 |
| Cal/Stanford | 16 | 10 |
| ISBS Song/Lyrics | 14 | 10 |
For the second month in a row, technology related queries lead the list, surpassing the once dominant Billy Joel entries. In fact, Billy Joel is in serious danger of dropping to #3, behind the inexplicably popular Celebrity Look-a-Like searches. New to the list this month are searches involving politics, searches directly involving me or my family, and a small uptick in searches for the Cal/Stanford “big game” and searches for the lyrics to a country song called “I Should be Sleeping Instead of Dreaming About You,” which I’ve never heard.
The Referring Sites
New to the referral section this month are burlaki.com, a blog belonging to a friend and colleague who is currently residing in London and keeping his American (and Russian) friends & family up to date on his travels, CNN.com who was nice enough to link to one of my posts (for more on that phenomenon, click here), and imdb.com, where a commenter on one of their forums (which I didn’t know existed until now), quoted one of my posts. All told, the above links resulted in roughly 25 visits & roughly 30 pageviews (or about 2% of the total).
The Keywords
All told, 563 queries resulted in hits to Familygreenberg.com in July (about 120 fewer than were used in June). Here are some samples:
We begin with the odd and interesting:
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| its a groovy time for a movie time | 4 / 1,490,000 | I didn’t realize I was the purveyor of Austin Powers-inspired cinematic marketing slogans |
| feel something wrong with the world | 7 / 50,800,000 | Gotta love this logic: 1) feel something wrong with the world, 2) Google it, 3) Click on a familygreenberg.com link to find out what it is. Sorry to disappoint… |
| do you want to display the nonsecure items? explorer boring | 31 / 309 | Boring? I’ve heard it called lots of things, but never boring… |
| who sang dum de da | 34 / 279,000 | Er….I’m guessing just about everyone at one time or another, no? |
| examples of teenage cellphone voicemails | 148 / 271,000 | Are there really such things on the internet? And who’s searching for them? |
| what are stem cells good for | 270 / 2,150,000 | It’s actually quite an impressive list, and I’m proud to be on it… |
| ratings graph chart evening news katie couric -debut | >500 / 17,700 | I think someone finally figured out that her debut was the exception, huh? |
| who needs a babysitter in lakewood,oh | >500 / 21,900 | Quite a specific request for Google. Serves ’em right for clicking through to my site… |
| chez greenberg | >500 / 270,000 | Oui, Oui, Bonjour Madame e Monsieur. Ca va? |
| how to sneak things onto a cruise | >500 / 295,000 | We at ISBS do not condone such behavior… |
| wind blew my car into my own home will insurance pay for the damage to the home | >500 / 310,000 | OK, this guy either lives in a tornado zone, or he has the worst excuse for driving his care into his house I’ve ever heard… |
| what do i do when my bank account balance vanished? | >500 / 556,000 | World’s most desparate Google Query? |
| rationale of gambling | >500 / 698,000 | Gee, I hope it’s not the same guy as the one above… |
| i’ve been working on the railroad | >500 / 1,640,000 | Seriously? Someone should write a song about you… |
| sleeping the laptop good? | >500 / 1,900,000 | Ladies & Gentlemen, the winner of this month’s foreign language query! |
| most interesting google searches | >500 / 65,000,000 | A query for interesting Google searches turns up a page with a list of interesting Google searches. Ugh…my head hurts. |
| one of these please | >500 / 528,000,000 | Er…sure – help yourself. (What could he/she possibly have been Googling for?) |
| fighter jets over leominster ma | n/a / 432 | Again, the logic astounds: hear fighter jets, Google, click on Familygreenberg.com for answers… |
| guess the dictator sitcom star | >500 / 45,500 | Sounds hysterical… |
And now, for the first time since I’ve been doing this, we come upon some queries that are, shall we say, “adult” in nature (WARNING: you have been warned):
| Query | Rank / # of Results | Comments |
| advancements about cervical incompetence (2005-2007) | n/a / 107 | OK, it’s a little explicit, but it’s medical, so we’ll give it a pass… |
| did harry potter sleep with emma | 365 / 491,000 | Now, now – that’s just wrong… |
| naked pictures of kristy brinkley | >500 / 167,000 | OK, we’ve achieved the common every porn search… |
| sleeping sex movie | >500 / 3,300,000 | More creative, and more relevant to this site, but still rather common… |
| mother inlaw in lingerie | >500 / 348,000 | Bingo – now we’re into the bizarre. Forgive me while I go wash a mental image out of my head… |
| he gets it up the ass by a heshe | 1 / 713,000 | Well, that’ll do it. Thanks. The bad news is, this is the only #1 on the list this month. The good news is this query somehow made it’s way to my post on Michael Moore… |
| videos of any president peeing | >500 / 921,000 | Oh, man – seriously? |
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | 2 Comments »
Familygreenberg.com Health Check – July Edition
By Brian | August 6, 2007
A week late, but better late than never:
| Metric | June | July | % Change |
| Visits | 945 | 1,041 | +10.16% |
| Pageviews | 1,416 | 1,574 | +11.16% |
| Pages/Visit | 1.50 | 1.51 | +0.91% |
| Avg Time on Site | 4:13 | 4:40 | +10.38% |
| Bounce Rate | 78.94% | 81.17 | +2.83% |
| % New Visitors | 84.87% | 86.55% | +1.98% |
Well, that’s much better. Last month, all the major statistics were down. This month, they’ve rebounded a bit (although not to May levels). The increase of roughly 100 pageviews is explained by topical posts (Harry Potter and the Apple iPhone), as well as a marked increase in hits to my archive files and my family’s personal pages. The former doesn’t seem sustainable, while the latter does, so we’ll have to see how August treats me.
Also, a note to those who are curious abuot such things: Google Analytics has changed the way it calculates Average Time on Site. A big ol’ hat tip goes to Yohay, who found out that they now exclude bounce visits from both the numerator (total time on site) and the demoninator (total number of visits). So, while in June, I reported 53 seconds (up from 46 in May), I’m now showing 4:40 in July (up from 4:13 in May). Still positive news, but not as positive as it might appear at first.
Altogether, a pretty good month…
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on Familygreenberg.com Health Check – July Edition
Objections to Wiretapping Mysteriously Vanish
By Brian | August 6, 2007
In December, 2005, there was much ado made about the National Security Agency’s secret program to wiretap phone calls to/from known terrorist phone numbers (e.g., cell phones captured in the war zone) and phones in the United States. Critics interpreted the program as an opportunity for the NSA to listen in on calls made by innocent American citizens, without the need for a search warrant or even a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. There was much discussion on the legality of this program, particularly during the run-up to the 2006 congressional midterm elections.
Fast forward to August 3, 2007, the summer in an off-election year, when far fewer people are watching or listening to what Congress has to say. On that day, the Senate passed a bill that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make everything the original NSA program did legal, plus more (16 Democrats voted for the bill). Here’s what the New York Times had to say:
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.
But wait, it gets better. The article goes on to lay out this chain of events:
1) January – under pressure from the major telecommunication companies and members of Congress, the White House places the NSA program under the auspices of the FISA court.
2) The change suddenly swamps the FISA court with an enormous volume of search warrant applications, leading the administration to seek the new legislation.
3) The legislation is drafted and passed just before Congress adjourns for it’s summer holiday.
4) The law contains language that allows the government to force telecommunication companies to comply with spying operations. Telecom companies are now threatening to challenge the law in court.
So, it seems, what started as moral outrage just before the elections turned into a logistical nightmare, which led to the passage of legislation directly opposed to the original moral outrage, and is now headed for a court challenge. Round and round we go.
No wonder no one trusts the federal government.
Categories: Political Rantings | Comments Off on Objections to Wiretapping Mysteriously Vanish
This is CNN…
By Brian | August 6, 2007
So check it out: CNN’s story on Danica McKellar’s book links back to my post on the subject.
It’s in the “From the Blogs” section (you have to expand it to see). So far, eight people have clicked through.
Next thing you know, I’ll be interrupting posts on important topics to talk about what Paris Hilton had for breakfast this morning…
Categories: Blogging about Blogs | Comments Off on This is CNN…