A FOX affiliate in Sacramento, California became the first TV station to air a medical marijuana ad earlier this week. KTXL "FOX40" aired the 30-second commercial Monday morning paid for the Sacramento-based Canna Care and produced by the station. It features testimonials about the benefits of medical marijuana -- although the word "marijuana" is never used -- while text on the bottom of the screen informs viewers that it can be used for relief of the symptoms or many diseases, including diabetes, HIV, Hepatitis C, hypertension and others. Of course, the ad has created controversy, with one opponent asking, "What's next, medical cocaine?" Take a look at the commercial here and tell us what you think!

"Chargin' Up Your Summer" In Style Last Night!

We held our big party last night to award the HEMI-powered, tricked-out, super-cool Dodge Charger from Miller Lite, Pischke Motors, Flynn Brothers Customz, United Auto Supply, 100.1 Classic Rock & CC106.3!  Jason Houzenga of Onalaska ended up being the BIG WINNER!  The video of the actual moment when he found out he won is below.  Pictures from the night can be viewed HERE.

Beautiful New Facility--Smooth New Southside Route

I had the pleasure of touring the new Grand River Station Transit Center this morning...and then going on the new southside bus route with the MTU today.  

The new southside route was FULL!  It was almost standing-room only on the bus!  But it makes sense.  That route serves both of the hospitals and a lot of major businesses on the southside.  The route was smooth and fast and everyone seemed to be enjoying it.  There may have been a few "bumps" as with any new changes, but if there were--I didn't notice any of that.  The buses we have with our MTU system are supremely nice!  I love that they have the hydraulics on them to lower the bus, allowing for an easier climb on and off for everyone.  

Back at the Grand River Station Transit Center, of course, my first stop had to be to the see the facilities at the facility!  :) Very nice, as you can see in the photo to the left.  For a full look at all of the photos from the morning--click HERE.

Who Holds the Power with the Remote?

Watch a TV show with a man...if he's not holding the remote...he begins to fidget and sigh...a lot.  Give him the remote to hold and he's instantly much calmer.  And falls into a trance as he stares at the glowing box in the living room...albeit changing the channel, on average, every 4-5 minutes.  

But put an inoperable TV remote control in a man's hands and watch him go bananas!  

The other night, I spent 2 hours on the phone with my satellite service provider, trying to fix a remote control problem I was having after installing a new receiver.  They passed me off to one guy after another, after another...none of them were able to help fix the problem. Eventually, they transferred me over to the "Advanced Technical Support" department.  (I was worried that I required the "advanced" team, but hopeful this NEXT GUY would know something.)  As it turned out, it wasn't a guy.  It was a woman named Stephanie.  

Stephanie knew her stuff.  In 2 minutes, the remote control issue was fixed.  Two minutes.  

Coincidence?  I think not.  Maybe women need to hold the remote more often.

TRAFFIC JAM: 

9 Days...and 60 Miles

Have you seen this over in China?!  A traffic jam caused by construction has left a 60-mile trail of gridlock that's lasted 9 days...so far.  This would never be tolerated in our country.  Seriously.  Not that we don't have traffic jams to endure...but we're a very impatient breed.  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't just sit aimlessly behind the wheel of my vehicle for 9 days.  I would've turned off at the nearest exit...blazed my own trail on the side of the road...SOMEHOW found my own way out of the constipated commute.  Wouldn't you?! 


I'm going to take a stab and guess that when you live in a country where your government tells you what to do, how to do it and when to do it--you've been trained to not make choices on your own--even in traffic.  What do you think?  Drop us an email!

Sense of Humor Makes Sense

So, I joined the Country Music Association for several reasons, mostly because I intend to return to the CMA Music Festival again next year and believe it will be beneficial to be a member.  As a member, I now get to vote in the three-tiered process for deciding who will pick up which awards on the big night in November!

What's cool is that the artists (or more specifically, their record labels & PR companies) send out a lot of things to try to entice you to vote for them.  I've received Dierks Bentley's new bluegrass CD and let me tell you--it IS phenomenal!  There have been a number of other items too--all very interesting how they target your vote.

But the most amusing thing received so far is from Blake Shelton.  It's a CD that has Blake's personality ALL over it.  The cover of the CD is above...but this is what the CD reads when you open it:

I had already voted for Blake in the first & second round of balloting (each of those two times, you vote for 5 artists/groups for every category, so Gary Allan got my support too!)...but rest assured, if I HADN'T voted yet, this would've stuck out to me and certainly helped to secure my support!  I really agree with it too...Blake Shelton is incredibly underrated in the "industry" so I would love to see him get some love this November at the CMA's.  We'll see.  Hopefully Gary Allan will get a little too...although I haven't seen anything from his camp.  That's not really his style though either to lobby for votes.

The final vote is coming in October...that's when we'll see who made the cut for the final ballot.  And then I'll have to decide on just ONE artist/group for each category.  It will be interesting to see if both Blake & Gary make it onto the Male Vocalist category.  Kenny Chesney took the year "off" but his people sent out a piece on what he did on his year "off" in an effort to secure a spot for Entertainer of the Year, among other categories.  We'll see!

Kid with Text Overages of $112? 

You open your cellphone bill and are shocked to see it more than $100 than normal.  Upon closer scrutiny, you see that your kid has gone over their allotted texting plan to the tune of $112!  You're ready to throttle them...but know that wouldn't solve a darn thing.  

They are under 16 and don't have a job to help pay for the big bill.  How do you handle it?  What is the best way to address this issue and what is the proper punishment?  Drop us an email with your thoughts HERE.

SERIOUSLY?

So...this bottled water has a claim of "going green" by creating a smaller cap, thus using less plastic.  THIS is going green?  I think this is going too far to try to create the illusion of "going green."  Give me a break!  Will that minuscule change in size REALLY help reduce the impact on the environment?  

Don't get me wrong...I don't want our planet to perish...but seriously.  What do you think?  Is this a big deal?  Drop us an email.

Let's admit it: Haven't we all had nightmares of something crawling out of the toilet while we're doing our...uhhh...business? Well in Akron, OH, it's happened! They're dealing with sewer rats coming up through their toilets! Barb Burns has taped her toilet shut after finding a couple of rats in her home. An exterminator ruled out all other possible entry points and says dry weather may be to blame. Health officials have baited the sewers with rodent poison, but Burns says she won't use her toilet until she hears for sure the rats are dead. Read more on the story here...if you dare!

Here's your weird one of the day..75-year-old Ron Sveden of Massachusetts, a lifelong smoker, was sure he had lung cancer, but it turned out to be a pea pod growing in his lung. After experiencing fatigue, loss of appetite and coughing fits, he went to a Cape Cod hospital expecting the worst. But a CT scan showed something far stranger than a tumor. It was an inch-and-a-half pea pod sprouting from his lung wall. Sveden and his doctors believe the pea went down his windpipe when he was eating. He's made a full recovery. And you wonder why I don't like peas!!!

Have you seen this video? A Toledo, Ohio McDonald's security camera caught a woman while she proceeded to punch two employees and smash a drive-thru window because she was unable to get Chicken McNuggets. The incident occurred on New Year's Day, but the video was just released. She was unable to get the nuggets because the restaurant was serving breakfast at the time. The culprit was sentenced to 60 days in jail and ordered to pay McDonald's for the broken window. Click here to see the video?

Let the death threats commence. Kim Kardashian goes full cougar on Justin Bieber in photos that just hit the Internet. Kim -- who was threatened by fans after she jokingly called the Biebs her boyfriend earlier in the year -- blogs, "Remember those paparazzi pics of me and Justin Bieber in the Bahamas!? Well I can now reveal that we were shooting for Elle magazine! The theme of the shoot was The Graduate, for obvious reasons, LOL." Click here to see the rest of the pics...but probably not if you have a young Justin Bieber fanin the house!

This one is for all my bartender friends! It doesn't take any real skill to open up a beer bottle. Anyone can do it. But few can open 200 beer bottles in only one-minute and 20-seconds. Watch this guy do it.

Found this on the internet and had to share it woth you! There's a popular reality show in Alabama called County Law, which is like a local version of the long-running Fox show Cops. On a recent episode, cops arrived at a house to arrest a woman and found out just how popular their show is. While the arrested woman was being led out in cuffs, another woman living in the house got so thrilled to be on the show that she couldn't control her excitement. Click here to see the video.

A Jet Blue flight attendant, who had enough after a dispute with a passenger, has become an overnight folk hero for telling off a rude passenger with an expletive-laced tirade over the plane's intercom, and then dramatically exiting the plane by activating and sliding down the emergency-evacuation chute --after grabbing a beer from the beverage cart. The dispute began Monday on the tarmac of Kennedy International Airport in New York after a passenger stood up to get his belongings from the overheard compartment. Flight attendant Steven Slater asked the passenger to sit down, but the passenger continued to pull down the luggage, which hit Slater in the head. When Slater asked for an apology, the passenger cursed at him. Slater returned the words over the plane's P.A. for all passengers to hear, adding of his 20 years in the airline industry, "It's been great!" He fled to his home in Belle Harbor, Queens where he was arrested by police and charged with felony counts of criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. Later in the day, Slater started a Facebook page that more than 2,000 "likes." Among his favorite pages --- "Quitting your crappy job" and "JetBlue Airways." Click here to watch the news story.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is considering pardoning the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, 129 years after he was shot down by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett. Richardson is considering making good on a promise made to Billy by New Mexico Territory's Governor Lee Wallace, who told the gunslinger he'd grant him amnesty in 1879 if he testified in a murder case. Although he was an outlaw, Billy the Kid has been celebrated in films and brings in big tourist bucks to New Mexico, which promotes a six-day self-guided tour of his old haunts on its website. However, the possible pardon of the Kid -- born Henry McCarty -- has angered Garrett family member Bill Garret, who says, "Why doesn't the governor attend to doing his governor work and stop trying to be a tourist agent." Whatca think of this? Publicity stunt or legitimate legal decision?

Willie Nelson is bringing Farm Aid to the home of the Milwaukee Brewers. The country legend joined Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp for a webcast Monday, during which they revealed that the upcoming event will take place at Milwaukee's Miller Park. Tickets for the October 2nd show go on sale August 14th. Along with Nelson and Mellencamp, Farm Aid's Neil Young and Dave Matthews will also perform. Additional participants will be announced over the coming months. This year Farm Aid is marking its 25th anniversary. Click here for all the details.

Golden Gate Bridge to Get $45M Suicide Net

It's taken years to accomplish, but the iconic bridge in San Francisco will soon have a special net 20 feet below the deck to catch any would-be suicide attempts.  

Apparently, dozens jump to their deaths each year from the bridge that spans 200 feet above the water.  It's estimated that somewhere between 1,300 and 2,000 people have taken their lives by jumping off of the bridge in it's 70 years of existence.  While officials have installed 13 call boxes on the bridge that are labeled "Crisis Counseling" and they have trained workers patrolling the bridge both on foot and by bicycle on the search for suicidal folks, the haven't been able to stop all of the death jumpers.

The net has to be created so that it isn't a detriment to wildlife (birds), etc. and it has to still be aesthetically pleasing to the construction of the bridge.  They're spending an additional $5M on the design of the net.  

For a state that is in terrible financial ruin and had to give it's residents IOU's for their tax refunds, it's surprising that they would fork out a total of $50M on this project.  One would think that kind of spending, when the state is already essentially bankrupt would push more people in that state and community, who are in financial trouble to allow their minds to toy with taking their own lives. 

What do you think?  Drop us an email.

What a shakeup at Idol! The now American Idol has two judges to replace. Ellen DeGeneres has left the show after only one season. She says Idol "didn't feel like the right fit for me... It was a difficult decision to make, but my work schedule became more than I bargained for." Ellen adds that she didn't feel comfortable criticizing the contestants. "I also realized this season that while I love discovering, supporting and nurturing young talent, it was hard for me to judge people and sometimes hurt their feelings." Who'll replace Ellen on Idol? A source says that Jennifer Lopez is close to signing a deal.

O.k. I've got a reason for sharing this story with you: An Ohio county has decided to stop replacing signs for rural "Wildman Road," because the signs are stolen so frequently. "You could put it up today and it'd be gone tomorrow," says Greene County Engineer Robert Geyer. "It's out in the boonies and easy to steal." Geyer says the stolen signs are now decorating bedrooms, garages and dorm rooms. Check out the full story here.
Now, I got thinking about this: Are there any road signs in the La Crosse area that would be "ripe" for the picking because the roads have an unusual name? E-mail us your ideas, johnandjacklyn@cc1063.com