Pimped for The Holidays...

Cheers Friends!

Happy Holidays - With the holiday season right around the corner, I presume that many of you will be visiting friends and family by way of flight or maybe even by DRIVING.

Which immediately brings me to my favorite Holiday subjects...Cars and Sweets!

First, The Car...
How would you like to transform a run-down, busted ride into a slick tricked out machine complete with new tires and nice rims, tinted windows, new paint job, chrome running boards, and even a sunroof?

Sounds appealing...Well, why stop there? Let's add Candy Apple Red paint job with fiery flame decals on the hood and sides, a Cappuccino machine, a Brass shoe rack(Holds 20 pairs of shoes), Playstation console, Wii, popcorn maker, 27” TV monitor, Bubble Gum dispenser, Full set DJ turntables in trunk, stove cook top, Snow Cone maker, Hot Tub, personal gym, leather reclining seats (Hot pink with your name embroidered), neon lights, 12 sub-woofer speakers, retractable roof with pop sun shade, disco ball, dropped, lowered, nitrous oxide power booster, AND an AMG Body kit – Welcome to "PIMP MY RIDE".

Wreck + Drama + Suspense + Excess = PIMPED
As you may know, PIMP MY RIDE is the long running MTV series (MTV Productions) that turns less-than-luxurious rides into pimped out 'masterpieces' with rapper and car enthusiast Xzibit and the guys from Galpin Auto Sports (GAS) to make the dreams of a few young automotive-challenged fans a reality.

During the show, Rapper Xzibit appears on the doorstep of the youth saddled with driving a rundown, “Not sure sure how these cars are legal” to transform the wreck into what some may consider incredible by 'pimping' the car up with the most up-to-date electronics, interior details, rims, and paint jobs.

When extracted, the cars are literally held together with plastic bags, tape, string, spray paint, and other miscellaneous materials. In the end, the cars have been revamped with amazing excessive accoutrement, not even found on the best, most expensive luxury vehicles. The transformations are equally exciting, appalling, amusing and hugely entertaining in a compact 30 minute show.

SWEET Rides
Admittedly, I do enjoy my vehicles and have owned about 16 cars in my driving adult life, thus far. Of course, I am discovering the more mature my age, the more mature my tastes with my last 5 being Mercedes (And one Lexus).

My dream car (This week) is somewhere around an Aston Martin Vanquish...Oh, but my concern has largely subsided and next week, I will fall back into my perceived unclear need for Range Rover, due to my on-going unclear perceived need to haul unclear and unknown things (-?)...It's endless really...

Pimp My Snack
Speaking of SWEET, a few years back, a few acquaintances had a brilliant idea to start a website about what else, "Snacks". For some time the guys were gaining traction with their simple idea - a website about Snacks and where confectionery geeks could take them to the limit (Translation: Extreme).

The site was called, "PIMP MY SNACK" and featured elaborate, everyday, and exotic recipes for decadent super sized snacks such as Fried Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches, Frozen Kit-Kat Chunky Peanut Butter Cake, home made multi-layered Snickers Ice Cream Cake, Mega Munchie Pie, Supersized Smore, Giant Pop Tart, or your own giant Klondike Bar, and a whole host of gut-busting enhanced treats.

That was a couple of years prior, until one day, they received a "Cease and Desist" letter from Viacom, Inc (MTV's parent company). According to big bad, they were infringing on their copyright "Pimp My Ride" - who knew that "Pimp My" would be allowed a copyright - yeah, it's not according the Patent Office.

Upon hearing this news, I had personally contacted the owner with a number of suggestions as I had been a subscribing member and longtime fan of the site since it's launch.

Tangent Alert: My point (Here we go...), is that nothing happens to my Internet peeps without my knowledge (I have people everywhere). Further, we were using the web years before any of these mega-corps even knew they needed to be here! We are smarter, faster and know the architecture that we grew up building (When I was a Programmer in school back in the 90's). Take notice Hyper-Global-Mega-Nets of the world, we create multimillion dollar companies in a matter of months based on our ideas...

My suggestions were for clever rename such as MACK MY SNACK and PIMP THIS SNACK - The owner settle on what is now called, PIMP THAT SNACK (Ah, I may have helped somewhere). All of publicity certainly helped the site garner even more attention.

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Check Out Pimp My Ride here:
MTV's Pimp My Ride

Or, have some more SWEET fun here:
http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/gallery

*The above image "Pimp My Ride" is property of MTV Productions/Viacom, Inc. and the giant oversized home made Oreo Cookie (Pictured with regular sized Oreo adjacent) is compliments of "Pimp That Snack".

Tom Cruise Control?

Greetings Friends!

It is the start of the weekend and another busy week has just passed - can there ever be a week without something happening?

Just in case you missed the massive, saturating media coverage here is a recap of the major events (Again, related to television - not so much Celebrity Gossip, Politics, and whatever your topic of choice).

The Cruise In Control...Let The Brainwashing Begin?
Tom Cruise (Thomas Mapother IV) appeared in a two-part series on Oprah - feedback has been largely positive and we are now back on track with celebrity PR rehabilitation; All is right with the world again.

I have yet to view the ratings report, however it is safe to presume that both episodes (Very much hyped and over-speculated by the media) were more than likely the highest rated daytime programs of this past week.

Admittedly, in the office we did watch the show (We watch so very few programs in actual real-time thanks to TIVO) and aside from the Oprah episode with the cute, adorable little Jonas Brothers, the episode with Tom Cruise was the second-highest rated daytime show viewed here in the office - we all unanimously agree.

The first hour (Oprah at Tom's house 'Retreat' in Telluride), we were G-L-U-E-D to the television - the interview appeared candid, slightly guarded and a little remorseful.... Yes, 'Things could have been handled differently' was the conveyed theme of the first hour.

But Wait...There's More...
The second hour on Monday was Tom's 25 year retrospective and we were largely dis-interested as it played out more like an elaborate commercial promotion to go out and purchase Tom Cruise movies on DVD. Complete with free clips, customer (I mean 'Friend') testimonials, and sales talk - all we needed was an 800 order number and a few free bonus gifts for the first 100 callers.

Ah, you must largely acknowledge the similarities between Oprah's show and HSN (Home Shopping Network)- they both sell products or in Oprah's case: People as well; her show is just a differently disguised form of direct marketing. Get on Oprah's show and you have instant profits.

Attention Oprah Shoppers
In fact, when Oprah proclaimed that she was going to own a television network (As she was once a co-owner of the Oxygen Network) - I counter suggested that her new network should be a SHOPPING NETWORK, due to the reason that she is always pitching someone (Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Nate Berkus) or product (A book, a movie, cars) or a concept (Living well) on her show to an audience of predominantly savvy female 'Wonderwomen' - myself included within this group - an advertisers dream audience! Could you imagine if Oprah had her own TV Shopping Network - she just does not hear my masterful ground-breaking genius!

My Personal Tom Cruise
Back to our subject, I have never personally met Tom Cruise (ol' TC), but I have a close friend who looks just like him. The funny thing (I may have mentioned before) is that people (Mostly female) often mistake him for Tom and will often laugh, cry and scream...

However, I am largely puzzled and unclear as to the reason why - to me my friend closely resembles Tom, but he is NOT Tom. Besides if he were Tom Cruise, would one want to act in such a frenetic and hysterical manner when meeting him for the first time? Perhaps I am underestimating the power of what it is like to be a fan of a public figure.

The White Couch Cleaned
Basically, TC stated that he was not remorseful about jumping on O's couch, during the episode three years prior, as it was an expression. Quite frankly, I am one of the few who believed that all of the couch jumping was not really THAT big of a deal - We have all been witness to persons in love do far more unusual things. This was a rare instance of media hyperbole more than anything.

Most important, if I were Oprah, I would have been more annoyed - do you realize how difficult it is to keep a white couch clean? The last thing you would want is someone's dirty shoes all over your nice pristine furniture.

Mission Impossible 4.
With all of the repentance in the works - formal apologies were never aired, however Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone announced the welcoming of a possible Mission Impossible 4.

Personally, I rather enjoyed the Mission Impossible franchise. The last MI installment provided a more insightful, sensitive and more relatable Ethan Hunt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant! However, MI 2 had the best action sequences. I would love to see a combination of both - dangerous action sequences combined with sensitive marital commitment for the next installment - This would clobber the James Bond franchise and give it a run for the money!

Oh, and Matt, Matt, Matt - something tells me you are next! Let the Cruise kiss and make-up continue...


*The photos above are the property of Harpo Productions.