Barbz were put on high alert yesterday after Nicki Minaj tweeted an “all points bulletin” stating that her stuffed pink monkey Oscar went missing after a flight from New York to Miami. The world was first introduced to the cute ball of synthetic fur when Minaj was snapped while carrying it on her way to the Late Show With David Letterman set last week.

Now the Young Money rapper is offering a reward of $50,000 for the safe return of her young monkey. We took the liberty of drafting up a “lost pet” poster to help out our favorite Harajuku Barbie. Please print out and post on all nearby telephone poles! After the jump: Nicki’s frantic tweets.

The news of Minaj’s lost chimp first broke across the Twitterverse when this message was posted on Sunday: “Dear Barbz, have u seen Oscar? U know…pink monkey I had wen I did Letterman…? He’s gone! Plz help! All Points Bulletin: Where’s Oscar?!!”

Nicki made the search for Oscar interesting with a cash reward offer. “$50,000 reward for Oscar. I call him Osk for short! He was last seen on a Miami bound plane from New York. Plz help!” she tweeted.

Things then took a heartbreaking turn when the “Girlfriend” rapper pleaded, “OSK!!!! OSK!!!!! Plz come back!!!! OSK!!!!! *breaks down n cries*”

Awww. Here’s hoping Oscar swings back to Nicki safe and sound, so she can put all this monkey business behind her.

It’s hardly unusual to see a big artist use their music videos to cross-promote their outside business ventures: Lady Gaga, you may have noticed, donned her Heartbeats headphones in “Bad Romance,” and just about every artist with a fashion line finds a way to name drop it in their tunes. But Diddy, whose appetite for self-promotion knows no bounds, has taken entrepreneurialism to new heights (or depths?) in his video for “Cîroc Star.” Diddy teamed up with Chester French, DJ Clinton Sparks and fellow nightclub enthusiasts in Las Vegas for his latest vid, which seems to exist simply to pimp Diddy’s vodka brand. Catch the commercial video below, in which the titular product isn’t so much “placed” as it is “shown from every conceivable angle every 15 seconds.”

Diddy feat. Chester French and Clinton Sparks – “Cîroc Star” (Director’s Cut)

We don’t know about you, but we could really go for a refreshing glass of Cîroc right about now. But that’s not where the vodka pimping ends! Diddy unveiled a new track at his Super Bowl party this past weekend, “Hello, Good Morning.” And the star of the live video—after Diddy, of course—is his beautiful bottle of booze.

Diddy – “Hello, Good Morning”(Live)

We somehow doubt “Cîroc Star,” an average, uninspired track (which comes off more like a hip-hop TV commercial jingle), will end up on the final cut of Combs’ fifth studio album Last Train to Paris (which still has no official release date yet). We are, however, fully expecting a Cîroc bottle to be front and center on the album cover.

Seriously, though, these videos are one step away from this:

So we assume you saw Undercover Boss last night, CBS' big new reality show that got the plum post-Super Bowl spot? Amazing, was it not? Televised entertainment has now completed its long, winding journey into becoming 100% corporate propaganda.

In Undercover Boss, a CEO goes undercover in his own company to get the real scoop on how hard it is...to work for his own company. Last night's premiere featured Larry O'Donnell, COO of the thoroughly unglamorous, dirty, occasionally union-busting multibillion-dollar trash company Waste Management. Larry met many hardworking employees in heartstring-tugging situations, and was able to help them, by vowing to form a committee to address their concerns about their shitty jobs!

CONSIDER: In the olden days of television, companies would sponsor an entire block of programming—The Colgate Variety Hour, or whatever. In return for their name on the show and some in-show plugs, the audience got about an hour of entertainment content. THEN, the 30-second commercial reigned. In return for minutes-long blocks of commercial content, consumers got (more) minutes-long blocks of uninterrupted entertainment. THEN, Tivo came along. Many advertisers moved towards product placement—they paid to have their products and branding messages integrated into the shows themselves. The 30-second ads remained! So, in return for the same lengthy advertising breaks, consumers got a bit of advertorial-type entertainment content.

AND NOW, with the advent of Undercover Boss, we find we have come to a new stage in television: An entire prime-time show that is, in effect, an hour-long corporate public relations message, broadcast to a far larger audience than the corporation could ever hope to reach itself, courtesy of one of our nation's premiere television networks. Can you even begin to imagine the amount of money that an unsexy company like Waste Management, for chrissake, would have had to spend to buy an amount of media exposure equal to a full hour of prime time directly after the Super Bowl? It quite literally could not have been purchased with all the money in Waste Management's coffers! But, in exchange for what was no doubt hand-and-foot service from Waste Management's PR team in setting up logistics and tracking down appropriately engaging employees for the boss to interact with, CBS gives the company an advertainment opportunity unparalleled anywhere else on television. SO, The deal for you, the television viewer is now this: in return for sitting through lengthy blocks of ads, you are treated to one hour of a trash company's employee-boosting morale video, writ large.

Waste Management played it well: they had the boss admit some mistakes and act humble. Future participants should take notes. This is the best deal corporate America's gotten on CBS since the network dropped that 60 Minutes tobacco story. Don't fuck this up, guys.

There was inevitably some cultural friction when Apple's secretive CEO took his new iPad around to New York's professionally indiscreet media. Exhibit A is a single tweet from a Wall Street Journal editor, which purportedly made Steve Jobs go ballistic:

The Journal's online executive editor Alan Murray quickly deleted the Feb. 4 tweet, which, it is now obvious, was issued during Apple CEO Jobs' show-and-tell with select Journal staff. A tipster told us the deletion ultimately traces back to a furious Jobs. We asked Murray for comment, and he wrote back "I would love to talk about this, but can't." In a later email, he added:

I will say that Apple's general paranoia about news coverage is truly extraordinary— but that's not telling you anything you didn't already know.

Indeed, Apple is a notoriously tight-lipped company, particularly under Jobs, and is constantly trying to control the flow of news about its product. Apple sued a teenaged blogger who published scoops about unreleased products; it lied about Jobs' health problems; Jobs called a New York Times columnist a "slime bucket" for writing about said health problems; and an employee of key Apple contractor Foxconn had his apartment illegally searched after losing an iPhone prototype (he later committed suicide amid intense pressure from his employer).

If Jobs did give Murray a tongue lashing — his withering verbal abuse is infamous — the editor can console himself with the knowledge that this is is an especially touchy time of year for the paranoiac. And not just because of the pressures of shepherding and unveiling a new product.

At Jobs' meeting at the Times, the CEO was mostly on point, painting a utopian picture of happy future world awash in iPads. But at one juncture in the meeting, we hear, he took a detour, telling assembled newspaper staff that he gets tons of hate mail from people whenever he launches a new product — people who have never even used it, including angry Apple "fans." Jobs reportedly described the mail as "really nasty stuff... [things] like 'Fuck you and your family.'"

It sounds like Jobs has been fighting this sort of backlash his whole career, judging from this 1994 Rolling Stone interview:

"I've always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don't know why. Because they're harder. They're much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you've completely failed."

Of course, "fuck you and your family" sound less like fanboys than regretful stock speculators. That's the sort of e-note to go ballistic over.

(Updates: Added background on Apple secrecy, Rolling Stone quote.)

Slow clap for Slate V, who put together the following theoretical Google "commercial" that's ostensibly—at the least—just a concept, and at best, a successful meme. Truth be told, though, Google should consider buying it.

What isn't there to enjoy about this?

Seeing as how Apple's commercial game is already far evolved over anything Google's got—this is a spoof of Google's "search stories" campaign—at the very least, they couldn't do too terribly by culling some inspiration, here. It perfectly captures any number of universal Google experiences: shadily searching out How-To information for things pre-established How-To information shouldn't necessarily exist for, the trial-and-error process of using Google and the various misspellings the rest of the world makes with you, the whimsical nature of search results Google will "guess" for you, and finally, the widespread use of Google to search patently innocuous information, which, essentially, is what the internet (and Google) is more or less for. It's witty, it's funny, it's topical, and most important: spot-on. Might as well embrace that shit.

Considering I’ve smoked over a box of the Carlos Torano Exodus 1959 50 Years Short Churchills it was time to write the review. I meant to write it about a month ago, but the holidays and the kids bringing home colds to share forced me to cut back on how much I’ve been smoking.

The Exodus 1959 50 Years commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the Torano Family’s exodus from Cuba and is the third cigar to join the Exodus line. It is available in three sizes Robusto (5 X 50), Torpedo (5 1/2 X 52) and Short Churchill (6 X 48). The Wrapper is Brazilian Arapiraca Sun-Grown, the Binder is Honduran and the Filler is a blend of Nicaraguan tobacco from Esteli and Pueblo Nuevo.

Already a fan of Brazilian tobacco and the Exodus line it didn’t take much for me to fall in love with this full bodied, full flavored cigar. I’ve smoked all three sizes and haven’t had any issues with the construction. I’m impressed when I can go through 30+ cigars of the same blend and not have any issues. The cigar has a spicy bite that is mellowed some by the sweet dark chocolate flavor and the finish had a leather quality to it. Occasionally I picked up something that reminded me a bit of coffee with cream and sugar.

Verdict: For the past couple of months this has been my go to cigar. This is my favorite cigar of 2009. A fantastic full flavored cigar that is reasonably priced at under $7.00 in my local shop. If you find them don’t get one or two, get a box. Available at The Party Source (Call to Order 1-866-78CIGAR)

Win a Box of Alec Bradley Tempus Cigars.

• Cigar Review: Carlos Torano Exodus 1959 Double Corona
• CAO Sopranos Boss Cigar Review
• Carlos Torano Cigar Review Round Up.
• Carlos Torano Signature Collection Perfecto Cigar Review
• Camacho Diploma Cigar Review

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

DIMENSION released a new episode of HBO’s “Big Love�.

EP 4.5 Sins of the Father

Bill continues to work on his campaign as Nicki throws herself into helping out. Bill worries Coburn as he wants to take down Bill. Frank pays a visit to the reservation.

Links: HOMEPAGE – TV.com

Big.Love.S04E05.720p.HDTV.X264-DIMENSION
x264 | AC3 CBR | 1.46GB
 NTi – SiNGLE FiLE DOWNLOAD

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