2007 is off to a rip roaring start.

Yours truly on TV.
Yesterday, at oh dark thirty, I flew to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to be a guest on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. The show aired on Thursday January 4 at 10 p.m. EST. After talking to Donny, it was back to Scottsdale for a quick staff meeting and my weekly LifeOnLine.com podcast.

In case you missed "The Big Idea" interview.
To see my interview with Donny Deutsch please click here.

A big donation for the kids.
During our staff meeting we decided to start the New Year right with a donation of $100,000 to the Phoenix Children's Hospital to help out with their 2007 fundraiser. Of all the causes we contribute to — and the list is growing — I'm always happiest to help out when kids are involved. For that matter it seems that no better cause comes in front of us than the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

Filming our 3rd Super Bowl commercial.
I'm writing this quickly because now I'm off to Los Angeles where I will meet Candice Michelle, our original Go Daddy Girl, and many others to shoot what I hope to be our final Super Bowl commercial for 2007. What 'others' you may ask? Well, to start with, IndyCar star Danica Patrick. And then there are my buddies, Paul Sr., Paul Jr., and Mikey — you may know them better as The Teutuls from American Chopper. Finally, Valerie Thompson will also be there — Valerie competes in the All Harley Drag Racing Association and finished 6th nationally in 2006. She races a Harley Davidson V-Rod Destroyer and currently holds the Bonneville Salt Flats World Land Speed Record (145.647 MPH!) in the American Motorcycle Association. Quite a line-up, don't you think? This will make the third commercial we've put to film for this year's Super Bowl.

It's going to be tough again this year.
As I've said many times before: Go Daddy has acquired a bit of a reputation during the past two Super Bowls. And network censors still remain skittish from the Janet Jackson halftime fiasco on CBS three Super Bowls ago. So filming ads to air during the game is one thing. Getting them approved is quite another.

Strike one!
So far we've submitted only one commercial to the CBS Standards and Practices group for review. That commercial was rejected in its entirety. In a nutshell it was rejected because CBS thought Candice Michelle was too steamy. Personally I don't think Candice did or exposed anything you wouldn't see at the local mall on any given afternoon — or more to the point during any of the network's normal programming — but that's just my opinion. The CBS S&P group obviously didn't agree.

We've got our fingers crossed.
Using that commercial as a guideline, we took a completely different tack on the second commercial — which has already been produced — and will be submitting that to CBS in the next day or so. I'm hopeful it will be approved.

I'm not playing games — honest.
Last year I was accused of submitting ads to the network that I knew would be rejected, so I could garner free publicity. While it did take us 14 attempts to get an ad approved for last year's Big Game, that wasn't the case last year — and it isn't the case this year.

Here's the proof.
To demonstrate that we are not purposely submitting ads to be rejected, we will not make the rejects available until such time as we have approved ads in hand. Or until it seems there is little hope in getting one approved.

Until next time.