From today’s UCLA Daily Bruin: “And just in case 52 punches to the groin weren’t enough, Washington’s upset over Washington State in the Apple Cup means USC goes to the Rose Bowl if UCLA beats Washington State on Dec. 7. So that leaves us with a question: is it better for the Bruins to win and send USC to Pasadena on Jan. 1 or to lose and screw the Trojans?”

That’s from a column by Jeff Agase. Click here to read the Daily Bruin’s main game story, or here to read their analysis. Oh, and you view a graphical version of the Bruin’s sports page, too.

Needless to say, things are a lot happier in the Daily Trojan. For the first time since I’ve been at USC, the DT has a sports game article on its front page. The headline: “Bruins plead no contest.” Click here to read the article. Click here for the rest of the DT’s game coverage.

I stand outside the Rose Bowl on Nov. 23 moments before kickoff in USC’s 52-21 win over UCLA. Click here for more Trojan-Bruin photos!

“My world” broke its all-time record for daily traffic Sunday, but fell just short of the elusive century mark, finishing the day with 98 unique hits. The previous record was 96, set on Oct. 28. The record-breaking 97th hit came at 11:05 PM from an Adelphia Internet user in Glendora who searched on Google for the phrase “usc ucla football 2002 pictures .jpg” and found this site.

The record-tying 96th hit had been recorded less than 20 minutes earlier — from the Netherlands. A user of that country’s UPC Internet service found “My world” at 10:46 PM through a link from Blogger.com. (The day’s 98th and final hit came from a student at Notre Dame, USC’s next football opponent, at 11:13 PM.)

Forty-two of Sunday’s hits game from Google searches. Eighteen came from Yahoo searches, and seven from other search engines. The most popular search topic was the new Harry Potter movie, which attracted 17 hits because of my photo gallery for the movie’s opening night in L.A. The non-search engine hits resulted from direct hits, bookmarks, and links from Blogger and other sites.

The day’s traffic was quite evenly distributed throughout the day, with at least one hit every hour. The maximum hourly total was eight hits, between noon at 1:00 PM.

Sunday was just the latest example of a monthlong surge in hits. The average daily total in November has been 60 hits — compared to between 20 and 25 in previous months — and the monthly total of 1,447 has already smashed the old record, last month’s 1,083, with six days still to go.

The traffic surge actually began in late October, when the frequency of my blog posts increased markedly during the World Series and the D.C. sniper drama. The frequency of changes to my homepage apparently caused “My world” to be listed higher on Google and other search engines, which produced new hits. The Oct. 28 record of 96 hits was the culmination of five straight days of 50-plus hits and four straight 60-plus days, both of which were entirely unprecedented streaks at the time.

Traffic cooled briefly from Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, with only one day out of five topping 50 hits — and that was my birthday, Oct. 30, when a mass e-mail brought lots of friends and family to my site. But then my search-engine traffic picked up again, and since Nov. 3, “My world” has recorded 22 consecutive days of 49 hits or more. Sunday was the site’s fourth straight 60-plus day, tying the Oct. 25-28 record, and its tenth straight 50-plus day, breaking the Nov. 5-13 record of nine days in a row.

The four busiest days in “My world” history are now Nov. 24 (98), Oct. 28 (96), Nov. 18 (84), and Oct. 27 (82, including three hits not shown in the chart above because Daylight Savings Time made it a 25-hour day). The old record holder, May 28 (80), has fallen all the way down to fifth place just 28 days after that record, which had stood for almost five months, was broken.

The website’s first daily traffic record, 72, was set on its launch date of Nov. 30, 2001. It was a mark that stood for 179 days, until May 28, 2002. Then that day’s record of 80 hits lasted for 152 days until the Daylight Savings Time-assisted record-breaker on Oct. 27. But the Oct. 27 record (82) only lasted for one day — it was shattered when Oct. 28 saw 96 hits. That record stood for 27 days. It remains to be seen how long this new record will last.

One last traffic note: “My world” will probably surpass 7,000 hits today. It now stands at 6,953 since the present hit counter was installed on Feb. 23.