Just last month, when it wasn’t anywhere near this hot, he and a friend got stuck in Los Angeles when the car they were driving over heated. They were in a terrible neighborhood and he was hours from home, late at night. It was a nightmare.

But you know what, I didn’t have to worry about him or me having engine trouble because we’re both driving Toyotas. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a commercial, but it’s true. Ever since I started writing these little pieces for Toyota I’ve been reminded of how insanely reliable our cars are compared to what we had before.

Regular maintenance is still required, and I do need to pop in for an oil change this week. But I’ve never had to worry about being stuck on the side of the road since I started driving my Toyota Yaris or my Corolla before that.

Hokey sounding or not, I’m no longer afraid to drive in the heat since I got my Toyota.

I’m participating in a Toyota/TwitterMoms campaign, which inspired this post. My opinions, thoughts and feelings are my own. As a TwitterMom, I’m eligible for a courtesy gift of $50.

Here’s one tip that will help you get more traffic to your blog: Be a Name Dropper.

I stumbled on this phenomena quite accidentally.  I had written a blog post about a charity event and I was overwhelmed by the number of hits I had the next day on a post I thought would go nowhere. Turns out a popular adult film star was one of the names I mentioned as being on the guest list. Instant traffic.

When you mention a specific name (first and last) in a blog post, you’re giving search engines a nice nugget to latch on to. Think about it. How many people search the names Bill Gates, Lindsay Lohan or Barrack Obama on a given day? Lots. Names are specific, unlike words such as celebrity, president or technology. When a person pops up in the news, thousands of people search that name to get more information and you could benefit from that traffic.

Couple of things:

The names you reference must be relevant to your subject matter. Don’t mention Paris Hilton on your tech blog unless she just invented a new iPhone app. Name dropping isn’t keyword stuffing.

Check Google and Twitter Trends to see who is being talked about at the moment. If it fits your blog, jump on it now, not tomorrow. Fame is fleeting and most will fall of the grid 24 hours later.

Don’t overlook evergreen names. Elvis has left the building but people still search his name everyday.

Try name dropping on one of your posts next week and see if this tactic can work for you.

This post is an entry to MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip contest where there are $2000 worth of prizes at stake.

The second time was after the show came out on DVD. Marathoning my way through the seasons, I found that I had never lost my love for these two cops who can’t keep their hands off each other.

Yes, let the bromance jokes begin. But’s it’s okay. I live for bromances as is evident by my love of Supernatural and Simon & Simon. But Starsky & Hutch were a special bred. They came from a time when community policing was changing and undercover cops were all the rage. They were tough but they cared about making the world a better place and they cared about each other which is why we all tuned in week after week.

During the second coming, I switched loyalties to Paul Michael Glaser who played Starsky. He was so sweet and impish with his bowlegs and goofy grin and man, that head of hair.

This time around, I’m keeping my options open. It began innocently enough, with an airing on Hulu while I did some mind-numbing cleanup work on my computer. Three episodes later I was hauling out the DVD sets and then the David Soul CD went on to my iPod and I dug out my scripts. I sold my Torino die cast a few years back, but I can always get another one to sit beside my Supernatural Impala.

The funniest thing about all of this was something that happened at the store today. I was shopping in Walgreens and the canned music began to play a familiar tune. “Don’t Give Up on Us Baby!” Yep, David Soul playing in my drug store and I swear I haven’t heard that song twice since it was released in the 70′s. That’s karma.

Now, if you are not familiar with the original Starsky & Hutch, hop over to Crackle where you can watch entire episodes cut down to five minutes. Shootout is my favorite. The boys walk into an Italian restaurant and get in the middle of a mob hit. Starsky is shot and it’s after that it’s all whispers and grabby hands, and partner worry. It’s the best.

If you’re an A-Team fan, you’ll see this same script played out with only minor changes in that last season of that show with Face taking the bullet and Murdock arranging the save.

The picture on this post? That’s from Coffin for Starsky, where a madman poisons him and he only has hours to live! More hugging, more holding, more angry “do somethings!” from Hutch.

If you want to see Starsky doing the comforting, check out The Fix (villain hooks Hutch on heroin and Starsky has to see him through the shakes) and Plague.

All kidding aside, Starsky & Hutch actually dealt with some pretty heavy issues including investigating the murder of a 40-year veteran on the police force only to find out the man was gay and the sexual assault of a mentally challenged young woman whose testimony is unlikely to hold up in court.

Starsky & Hutch were a force to be reckoned with, both on the streets of Bay City (which looks oddly like LA) and with the fans.

STARSKY & HUTCH STUFF

You can buy the whole first season of the show for only $8.00 used on Amazon. That’s kind of a crime in itself!

You can pick up David Soul’s original first album on CD at Amazon, too. It’s light, singer/songwriter kind of stuff with a folksy bent.

If you’re a fan of Starsky’s red Torino, the car has it’s own fan page.

David Soul’s website is here and you can see what Paul Michael Glaser is up to here.

Finally, I must direct you to a place that is both sad and full of hope and that’s the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation which was formed in honor of Paul’s daughter and later his wife Elizabeth.

Let’s end with the music of David Soul.

As I grew older, I tried living without a car in New York, and then I did that really scary thing – I shopped for a car by myself. I don’t remember if I went in with a certain car in mind but I came out (after a great deal of patronizing behavior from the salesman) with a Ford Escort. I got the car because the salesman assured me it was safe and reliable. I’m pretty sure what he meant was it was the only car on the lot I could afford.

As the years went by, I stuck with Fords, buying a new Escort every couple of years because I had to. The ones I had kept breaking down. The worst breakdown occurred on a Los Angeles freeway interchange at rush hour. It was raining and I was already late picking my son up from daycare. I didn’t have a cell phone, so I was stuck listening to nasty people honk at me until a young man was kind enough to help me to the side of the road and offered me his phone to call the sitter. If it had been a movie, it would have been a comedy but to me, it wasn’t funny at all.

As I waited for AAA to come and tow me in, I was miserable to the point of tears, but what can you do, right? All cars break down all the time. Or so I thought.

A year later, my husband and I walked into another car dealership to buy yet another car. This time we went to a Toyota dealership and I distinctly remember why. With a new baby in the house, we had really over extended ourselves so we had a tricky time getting a car loan. We tried to go cheap – another Ford – but the loan officer at the bank told us to buy a Toyota. You’ll get the loan, he said, because Toyota’s are reliable and they hold their value. Yes, they cost more upfront, but they’ll save you in the end. I didn’t believe it, but he was the man with money so we agreed.

We bought our first Toyota Corolla and I was amazed. I could merge into traffic without sputtering! I wasn’t ashamed to drive people around in my car and best of all, the car never broke down. Never.

We paid for oil changes and did tune-ups and I had to have the tires replaced once, but the car never left me stranded on the side of the road.

When it came time to turn in my husband’s old car, we went with Toyota again. A Tacoma pick-up. Today, my teenage son drives that truck and even with all the miles on it, it runs and runs.

Last year, I switched from the Corolla to a new Yaris and I couldn’t be happier. The Yaris is a fun, smaller car (I like the feel of a car around me) with the same reliability as my former Corolla.

When I think back at all the money we spent repairing the cars we owned before our Toyotas it makes me mad. I wish I had known about the advantages of going Toyota back when I walked into that dealership alone for the first time. It would have been nice to have a solid, reliable car for myself and my child — my baby, who is now old enough to drive himself.

I’m participating in a Toyota/TwitterMoms campaign, which inspired this post. My opinions, thoughts and feelings are my own. As a TwitterMom, I’m eligible for a courtesy gift of $50.

I still read. But now it’s webpages and emails and Twitter threads and Facebook updates.

If I collected every word I read in day and put it on a piece of paper, I’d probably find that I read the equivalent of a novel, every day. But they’re scattered words.

I don’t like that. I feel like I’ve lost something – my creative edge – my brains. I feel like I used to be smarter.

I started reading a book called Off the Grid, which I agreed to review for Globalshift.org, so it was more of an obligation read than a fun read. Three pages in and I’m hooked. It’s a fascinating look at what it takes to live outside of a community with water and power and 9-5 jobs. The author references Thoreau’s Walden and I remembered reading that book in college and studying the whole Walden Pond movement, which was somewhat akin to the hippie commune concept of the sixties.

It reminded me of Los Alamos phase a few years ago where I read everything written on Oppenheimer and the bomb. I miss being that invested in a subject.

Thoreau said, ‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.’

I think this is why I haven’t written any good fiction lately. Because I’ve stopped learning and stopped living. Though I did learn how to move a database, but I don’t know that that really counts.

I’m going to read more. Books.

Articles of the Week:

The Clean-Slate Guide – a fascinating, counter-intuitive way to clear clutter.
Why I’m Cutting Back on Multi-Tasking - the title says it and it’s a lesson I need to learn.

I am a fan girl and I am not ashamed to say it. I fall apart over the sight of Jensen Ackles from Supernatural and I wouldn’t kick Zac Efron off the bench at the lunch table, that’s for sure.

Because of this, I love the Teen Choice Awards. That’s where Jared Padalecki (Jensen’s Supernatural brother) got his start, you know and now I’ve got a chance to go there – in person – and so do you thanks to Invisalign Teen.

Invisailgn (the people who make those cool invisible braces) are giving away a VIP trip for 4 to the Teen Choice Awards 2010.
The grand prize includes:

• Trip for 4 to attend Teen Choice 2010, including air, hotel, and transportation
• 4 Post-Show VIP Party Tickets
• 2 Flip Cameras

They also have some amazing runner up prizes including an iPad, laptop, surfboard, and iPods.

To enter the contest go here:  http://www.invisalign.com/teen/tca/Pages/teenchoice.aspx

It ends on July 11, 2010, so you have to hurry over there right now if you want to win.

And just so you know, Invisalign gave me a gift card for telling you about this sweepstakes but I really do love the Teen Choice Awards so if you win the grand prize, you better post lots of photos for me to enjoy.

Here’s how it works. Visit the website, then take a virtual trip around the world by clicking the four differences in the photos before your time runs out. Remaining time and unused hints will earn you bonus miles. Wrong guesses will cost you time and could end your trip early.

Game players can post their score on Facebook and Twitter and challenge their friends. The top player on the leaderboard at the conclusion of the game will win the Grand Prize. There are also top 10 prizes and daily prizes awarded for top score of the day.

I love a contest where you can actually see where you stand and what an exciting prize. I visited London once when I was a teen and I’ve never been out of the country since, so this would be the trip of a lifetime.

Remember, the game starts today and ends July 23, 2010, so sharpen up your visual skills and get ready to win in the Accor Around the World Photo Hunt game

Just so you know, I was given a gift certificate in exchange for my help spreading the word about this game.

I love the Bertolli pasta sauces and in the frozen meals, the shrimp scampi is my favorite. They cook up really quickly but they taste so much better than the average frozen meal. They also have this neat create a dinner gizmo on the site where you mix and match an appetizer, pasta and main dish and then you print the recipes right there.

Thoughtfully Simple is a hostess blog! It’s all about simple ways to put on a great party be it a birthday, a baby shower or just a night with friends. One of my favorite ideas are the placemats made out of scrapbook page paper. Those papers come in so many wonderful colors and designs, it’s easy to find one that fits your theme.

So thanks to Thoughtfully Simple and Bertolli!

Want to win something? Here’s a tip:

Search the words “giveaway” and “ends” in Twitter Search. Look for ones that are closing soon where you can see the number of entries. Not too many? Then enter – your odds of winning will be very good.

First up is Mashable

Mashable covers social media news but even more importantly, they provide great tips for making the most of your social media experience.  I do social media marketing for a number of websites and I’m always finding a better way to do things on Mashable.

The Kindle version of the blog is easy to read and well organized. You get the full context and images so you don’t have to be connected to read your issue. If you are connected, each post has a series of additional reading links at the bottom and I’ve discovered some of the best content by flipping through these links.

Recent stories include:

How to Make Sure You’re Tracking the Right Data

How Does Twitter’s New Social Good Initiative Stack Up?

How to Embed a Tweet

You’ll also find the latest news about Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube and the whole social media biz. It’s the must have blog for anyone into social marketing or with an interest in the Internet. It’s even a fascinating read for sociologists who want to study how we all get along.

Mashable is .99 cents a month and you can get it by clicking right here.