Flats

Host Simon Cowell drives on a congested downtown London street and smells the unmistakable aroma of marijuana smoke. The source of the odor is a convertible Mini Cooper taxi: its rear-facing backseat passenger is smoking the drug through cotton balls.

Wending his way to a friend's apartment, Simon waltzes through the tiled foyer and relaxes on a couch watching the telly. A German cooking show appears. In the background in the kitchen on the show is a do-it-yourself rolling polished nickel shelf unit laden with bread-loaf-sized bricks of Switzerland cheese. This is odd because it is an exact replica - brick for brick - of the bread-loaf-sized cheese-brick-laden rolling polished shelf unit in the kitchen not 5 meters away from where Simon is sitting.

Hidden Message

Right now
and all around the world
every single person is at peace.
Just imagine if that statement were true
even if only for
a second;
nobody could be more careless.

How could such
a sentiment,
seemingly impossible, ever become a reality?

Could it be that in
another time or place
never before
conceived by mortal man
each being can finally achieve the
respite that he or she seeks?

This message brought to you by Bayer Aspirin!

Good Deed Doers

Phil and Anthony, two brothers from Compton, attend a local street fair and agree to look after a vendor's booth while she goes for a jog around the block.

They sell $1 bottles of Arrowhead water as well as many of her beaded earrings and necklaces laid out on a small ironing board.

Fantasy Resort

This reality show spotlights a fake tropical resort on beachfront property in Los Angeles county. White sandy beaches with palm trees, bamboo bungalows right up to the water's edge complete with Jacuzzi tubs and fireplaces greet vacationers.

Their journey begins at the airport where they are picked up by a shuttle van which takes them to an office building service elevator, then to the roof where they board a helicopter. The chopper deposits them in a clearing near a small lagoon where they walk down a pier and climb into a catamaran. Actors dressed in Polynesian accessories paddle them towards the fictitious resort compound.

Brought to you by Duraflame firelogs.

How We Roll

JTC and STV kick it in their garage with a 20-year-old female friend. JP rolls in with their project car: a lavender 2008 Scion XD. While JTC pours Bacardi liberally into a plastic tumbler, STV remarks, "Just one or two drinks this time." (meaning drinks of water)

Later, STV remarks to JP that he registered to vote at an elementary school near JP's house.

Matt, Mike & Steve's OK Journey

While attending a sales and marketing meeting at a hotel in New York City, Steve finds three Gibson guitar picks and passes them out to his two co-workers commenting on how 'lame' the whole trip has been.

At that very moment, his two coworkers suddenly morph into Mike and Matt, two of his friends from high school! Awestruck at how this could have happened, they convene at a Denny's restaurant across the street to figure things out.

Steve explains, "I remember getting into a cab and hearing the driver ask, 'Are you guys buzzin' yet?' to which I remarked, 'We're gonna DO stuff!' at which point some weird space-time continuum crap happened that you only see in the movies. That's when I remember finding the guitar picks and handing them to Kevin and Ryan, and then they transformed into you two."

"Well then," says Matt, "we'd better call up Ivan."

Driving Hazards

This week's show focuses on dangerous bridges. Steve drives a Mark I Mini across a multi-lane bridge in Scotland during a rainstorm. With rain-slicked roads and grades approaching 40 degrees, the Mini soon loses traction and slides like a hockey puck into oncoming traffic!

So You Think You Can Dance Some More

Winner of So You Think You Can Dance's 2008 season, Joshua Allen, makes a guest appearance and performs with another male dancer to country singer Craig Morgan's "Tough".

This New House

Today's project is a Jacuzzi in the basement of the Castillo home. A bare dirt hole is in the process of being dug in the corner of the dark, unfinished basement. Along one wall, we can see open ventilation pipes and ducts and hear strange echoes of sounds - like a sick wolf's cry and alien babies - carried from other parts of the house.

Host Fred Miller, whose claim-to-fame is the Hoop It Up 3-on-3 World Tour Arcade redemption game, shows us through the owner's bedroom: it contains not one but two bunkbeds and a stereo plays the Dance Dance Revolution original game soundtrack

EA Sports FIFA 2008 - Austria vs. Poland

The world's brightest video game players compete online in real-time playing Electronic Arts' FIFA 08 video game.

Stephen Riesenberger represents Austria and Adalbert Mlak plays for Poland in this red-on-white on white-on-red matchup.

Feeling Marsala

Early morning before work, Steve is awakened by the sound of a car pulling up on the street outside his 2nd story apartment bedroom window - it sounds like his Honda Civic. Looking out the window, he notices that it's a white Toyota RAV4 instead.

He rises, stopping to deliver a stuffed monkey to Juli, explaining that the reason that it smells like cigars is that he'd been keeping it inside a cigar box, "Just ask for their empties," he suggests. Then later, following her to the bathroom, he asks for the transcript of last night's presidential debate while she sits (clothed) on the closed toilet.

At work at Electronic Arts Los Angeles, Steve jokes to Robin about following Matt, saying, "It might turn into a free lunch." However, Matt relays an important mission, one that involves a terrorist plot to bomb the cafeteria, and Steve's new assignment to assassinate the bomb carrier while en route by staking out the reflecting pool.

Steve arms himself with 12 finger rockets.

Acquaintances

After discussing the gameplay, sightlines, vantage points, affordances, and potential for carnage in the Venetian gondola area of the Countries-of-the-World-themed first-person-shooter deathmatch level - using virtual reality helmets to visualize the layout and commenting on the giant animated gong complete with sound effects (and stretched 3D rigging) in the Asian area - Steve and Monica play soccer with a half-peeled Haas Avocado.

Later, while trying to locate a radiator cap at a Raley's supermarket, then waiting in line at the sushi counter, Steve runs into Mike, Ryan, and Paul (who is curiously working at the credit union inside the store) standing around a Japanese San Francisco Rush 2049 - offroad truck version arcade cabinet with HD flatscreen display complaining about the machine's inability to accept quarters.

Role Models

Ryan rolls up to the motel in his faded red pickup truck, pulling into a space in the gravel parking lot. Staci and Jen invite him into their room to watch an adult Japanese anime video under the pretense that they're getting into character for upcoming roles.

Ryan's mother confronts her tenant next door, demanding a letter of intent. On the TV set in the living room is the making of footage from a Crest toothpaste commercial. In it, an actor in a giant ape costume rampages through a miniature mock downtown skyscraper set.

Mr. Moms

While dropping off his kindergartners early one morning, Chuck runs into Frank in an empty classroom, watching a football game on an old weathered black-and-white TV set.

The Chicago Bears are up 2-0. Somehow the ancient television has a built-in digital video recorder that captures the picture, static and all.