Stopping by the city Health Department's website a few minutes ago to try looking up a restaurant's inspection violations, we noticed the menu bar down the right column of the department's home page:

With all the "excitement" at the new Apple store on Friday, no one seemed to notice the perpetually wandering Bucky Turco, who managed to con his way past the line and get into the store before the masses. Once inside, he hit as many computers as he could, changing all of their browser homepages to his website, AnimalNewYork.com. A great method of free advertising, and probably the only way to ensure that Kevin Bacon sees your blog.

One of the major new features promised when the Times announced an exciting new redesign of its website at the start of April was the MyTimes personalized homepages — enriched with the expertise of real, live Timespeople. Of course, MyTimes wasn't actually available then, and, six week later, it's still not. But good news: It's getting close! A memo to Times staffers yesterday afternoon announced it is finally being introduced internally. ("Please do not distribute information about it outside the company," the memo says. So: Shhh!) Invitations will go out to those readers who signed up to be notified in a week or two, and it'll go to all readers a bit later. We can barely contain ourselves till then.

AdAge reports on the celebrity weekly wars (didja hear about that one?) and, in turn, reveals that Us Weekly plans to give their website a makeover. Wenner has brought in former Maxim EIC Keith Blanchard as launch editor for the site's "major revamp," which seems to have been conducted late yesterday:

• Pill-popping kiddie porn freaks need love too: Charlie Sheen has been using MillionaireMatch.com to meet women online. His profile says he's a talent agent, ensuring that he meets only the most desperate young things. [Gatecrasher]
• Britney Spears announces that she's done with Kabbalah; on her website, she writes, "My baby is my religion." As if Sean Preston didn't have enough problems. [Us Weekly]
• New York mag says Tina Brown's name has been dropped as a possible successor to Time managing editor Jim Kelly, but Lloyd Grove hears that New York editor Adam Moss is a more likely choice. Fuck it: we hear Lloyd Grove is in the running. [Lowdown]
• For $56K, you can enjoy a downward dog with Gwyneth Paltrow, which is probably more exciting than just going doggy. [Page Six]
• With young American soldiers dying in Iraq, what better time for Hollywood to start working on movies about the war? The reality of it all makes the drama feel more "real," you know? [R&M]
• Good Morning America producer John Green is back after a month's suspension; he's tan, 15 pounds lighter, and promises never to use the phrase "Jew guilt" ever again. [Page Six]

Google continues to expand its palette of random bells and whistles (just wait for Google Gyno!), most recently launching its Google Trends Project, which allows users to track the popularity of search terms by time and location. Wanting to better understand the zeitgeist, we entered two words we think are fundamental to modern life: media and porn. Below, the search volume for each term since 2003:

We were directed earlier today to the Wikipedia bio for MSNBC host Dan Abrams, which contains some awfully surprising news at its very tail end:

Here's the latest Radar rumors, which we have no reason to believe are any less true than any of the others, and which we suspect are likely to be a bit more true than some. The funding is actually there. Is it from Burkle? We don't know. But we know this: In the current plan, Radar 3.0 has been downgraded to a web-only magazine. You know, like Slate or Salon. But for superficial people.

But the more I've thought about the subject and the more research I've done, the more I've realized that the print-vs.-online debate has become as much an outdated cliche as the old Ginger-vs.-Mary Ann barroom argument. Why choose? This is 2006 — why not just have a three-way?

• Today in articles we feel like we keep reading: Air America set to lose NYC affiliate. [Mediaweek]
• While storm clouds perpetually hang over the rest of Time Inc., Real Simple lives it up in Laguna Beach. Where, apparently, the weather was lovely. [WWD]
• Shape EIC to take over Fitness. But first — damned noncompetes! — she'll be special-projects editor at More for three months. [NYP]
• Conde to launch site for teen girls featuring user-generated content. Users will then get town cars home. [BizWeek]
• Dartmouth Review turns 25, and conservatives run the country. Coincidence? Hardly. [NYSun]

• Details missed its rate base on eight of 10 issues in 2005. Fun. [Ad Age]
• Martha Stewart launches Blueprint today in a bid to reach younger readers. There should probably be a joke about Alexis here, but we can't think of one. [NYP]
• Daily Candy remains for sale. [NYM]
• Punch Sulzberger has allegedly said that he'll read the Times on the computer when he can take a computer into the bathroom with him. Now, apparently, he can. [NYT]
• Kurt Andersen thinks we're in a tech bubble again. How does he know? Because Michael Wolff wants in. [NYM]
• Simon Dumenco answers the questions you didn't ask, including whether he has a clothing line and what his jingle sounds like. [Ad Age]
• Existentially speaking, who is Brian Williams? [MW]
• NYT M.E. Jill Abramson's grandfather could have invested early in Paramount Pictures but didn't. [NYSun]

• Ad-sales side of Conde's forthcoming business mag is filling up; prez/pub David Carey expects mag to be fully staffed — biz and editorial — by Thanksgiving. [MIN]
• Breaking: More and more people people are reading newspapers on the web. [WP]
• Candace Bushnell, Cindi Leive, Jill Abramson, and Geena Davis win New York Women in Communications' Matrix Awards. [WWD]
• Bill Keller is overly absorbed with questions of self-absorption, says Jay Rosen. [Guardian]

And at 4:30 in the afternoon, Arthur Sulzberger notices there've been changes to his website:

• A discovery at Conde Nast: It's a good thing for print magazines to also have websites! "You gain a broader audience and more loyalty from your subscribers if you extend the experience into the Web," says Advance.net president Steven Newhouse. Who knew?

The New York Times debuts an exciting major redesign of its website this morning. The fonts are different! It's wider! There are new navigation options! And perhaps most interestingly, there's a new feature for personalized home pages, called MyTimes. Explains NYTimes.com EIC Len Apcar:

• Pew study says young people get their news mostly online. You don't say. [USAT]
• Finally, your chance to be a Times White House reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• That British fashion writer who sold How to Wear Black to S&S if apparently even more full of shit than we already knew; also, Joanne Lipman continues staffing up the TK-eventually Conde business mag. [WWD]
• Boston Globe ad sales stink, and it's bringing down the whole Times Co. [NYP]

• Big media companies like buying popular websites. Who knew? [Mediaweek]
• 2005 was a bad year for newspapers. You don't say. [WSJ]
• David Carr can't quite figure out why CBS wants Katie Couric so badly. [NYT]
• Lewis Lapham's welcome present for Roger Hodge: Lots of readers pissed off about an article on researchers who dispute the idea that HIV causes AIDS. [NYT]
• Diane Sawyer will be the next World News Tonight anchor. [Newsday]
• No, wait. Charlie Gibson will. [NYP]

So after Bloomberg pushed through the huge cigarette tax a few years ago — this was before he pushed through the smoking-in-bars ban, that brief window when enjoying the delicious nicotine rush of lung destruction was merely expensive but not yet inconvenient — you thought you'd be clever and start ordering your smokes online. Hell with eight bucks at Duane Reade, you figured, you could save a fortune by getting your Camel Lights shipped in from out of state. Or so you thought. According to the News:

Oh, you'll learn the word soon enough, guys. It's short for Web log, and we hear there's a whole set of associated lingo that's becoming all the range. William Safire told us so.

• The New Republic has its first "bloodless transition" of editors in many years, as nebbishy-novelist-brother Franklin Foer takes over for incumbent Peter Beinart, on whose watch the magazine lost 40 percent of its circ. [NYT/NYO]
• Sale of Spin closes today for "well under $5 million." In 1997, it was sold for $42 million. [Ad Age]
• Jack Shafer is bored with Barney Calame now, too. [Slate]
• NBC's Winter Olympics coverage had worst ratings in nearly 20 years. [USAT]
• Online ads are getting more expensive. Which is a trend we can only endorse. [NYP]