Good Links
Comedian Tom Green is quietly and humbly doing some great interviews on his self titled show Tom Green Live airing on AXStv (formerly HDNet). He asks some good open ended questions, and then gets out of the way to allow his guests to talk about how they made it in their respective careers. The format and look is similar to the old Tom Snyder show, except features callers Skyping live into the show with questions for his guests. The couch dwellers of late include Stacy Keach, Dana Carvey and Buzz Aldrin (together on same show) and Adam Carolla, who came to talk about his new book "President Me", his Man Show inspired swill called Mangria and his early career days begrudgingly slogging a hammer and pencil working as a carpenter. For his comedy and take on inventing, read the cover article on Adam in the vaults of Inventor's Digest (Sept. 2010).
Guitar Center Sessions: ("featured band name here") is another great AXStv show, with brit Nic Harcourt handling the rock star intimate style interviews. The show features older and now wiser bands that made it, but are maybe now in their twilight years...bands such as Blondie, Social Distortion and The Cult. The show rocks back and forth between the Q and A with band members and live performances in the Guitar Center Showroom...the format leaves the viewer wanting more, especially for bands they've religiously followed...
Inventors have a kinship with other artists such as actors, musicians and comedians...as they all must pay their dues with rejection and failure in cultivating their own body of work that will hopefully provide a lasting and sustainable career...
Sometimes the grill produces the best of food...but sometimes there can be some bad links...either something gets undercooked, it sits too long cold, or falls into the charcoal and gets burnt...here are a couple "bad" links, which I don't recommend:
Bad Links
Netflix quietly unveiled a new logo last month...They inversed their once classic red background to the red lettering of the company name, sans black border..and substituted a bland whitish background, leaving a incredibly boring and bland logo to make their brand less noticeable in a marketplace needing to be noticed...look for the classic logo to hopefully return after tepid consumer liking.
InventHelp, (aka ISC, Invention Submission Corporation, INPEX, Intromark Inc, Inventtech, Technosystems Consolidated Corp, Western Invention Submission) has enlisted former professional boxer George Foreman to be their tv spokesman. InventHelp's website proclaims that they provide "invention assistance services for inventors". But anyone in the business knows that this company preys on people's desires to make an idea a reality, whether it has merit or not. Successes on their webpage include the Ear Visor..a product that solves a problem for probably one person in the world, the person who invented it. Inventhelp has learned to do a delicate dance by downplaying customer successes on print and tv advertising (they are honest here!) and actively resolving the high number of complaints by the Better Business Bureau in order to keep a respectable rating...Prudent prospective customers should Google the words "Inventhelp" and "complaints" and read what comes up to decide if it is a company they wish to do business with.
I had a lot of respect for George, from his early boxing days, to his second career hit with the George Foreman grill. But he sadly succumbed to the evil of easy endorsement $$, I'm sure to further secure his retirement and the future of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. He has always been a humble man with a good heart, but now his credibility is being negatively diluted by being associated with a company that is known for providing questionable services. Customers can pay thousands of dollars in fees for Inventhelp's self serving "Basic Information Package" report, patent referrals, and helping the inventor to find a licensee or manufacturer or marketer for their product. Now George is acting as the inventor-predator...his ad tagline is a sure tipoff to their weak professional services "I can't guarantee a company will be interested in your idea, but every inventor deserves the opportunity to step in to the ring and take their best shot". My advice to novice inventors out there...Step into the ring on your own! And don't enlist the inventor-predator type services of this company!
**clicking on any links above that do not go to the respective website, i.e. bad links, may have been done on purpose by the editor ;)