Is it just me or is there something hot about a girl with an accent? Forget the stereotypes about Brits and their horrendous teeth and eardrum shattering Cockney accents because Emily Blunt is one fine English muffin.

The 27-year-old, Golden Globe winning actress hails from Roehampton, England. Although definitely not lacking in the looks department, she was an unlikely contender for any kind of acting or performance glory as she suffered from a nasty stuttering problem as a child. Good news for her (and all of us) she worked her way through it and eventually beat the speech condition. To this day, Blunt spends her free time advocating for sufferers of stuttering disabilities.

Many of you will recognize Emily from her role in The Wolf Man but she’s also starred in: Dan in Real Life, The Devil Wears Prada and The Young Victoria among other films. 2010 has proven to be her most successful year yet, as she will be seen in 6 films this year.

Blunt is currently engaged to actor John Krasinski, from The Office.

There has been mass advancement in tobacco prevention amongst activists, from government programs and grants, social media pages, to creatively manufactured media campaigns buuuuuut…the Internet hasn’t played a huge role in tobacco prevention until the early 2000’s.

A recent study showed that though tobacco content only makes up less than 1% of social media content, half of that content was PRO-tobacco. Do the math; this means in that in the cyberwar for tobacco longevity, we’re neck and neck.

The exposure of pro-tobacco content can be detrimental to the mass progress made in the past 2 decades. Think about it! We are always on the net, surfing Facebook, Twitter and even that ghost town we call Myspace. Pro-tobacco messages are underhanded no matter where they are, cyberspace included.  We need to start seeing mass net campaign targeting these online parasites. Tobacco is dying and will hang on to anything and everything for sustenance.

Wow. When they say that making it in Hollywood is mostly luck, they aren’t kidding. Granted, good looks and superb acting skills don’t hurt your chances but for Sam Worthington, things went from decent to incredible with a single casting.

You’ll all recognize Sam from his lead role in the smash hit, Avatar (he played Jake Sulley). What you may not know, however, is that Sam has been acting professionally since 2000. The Australian actor has starred in a number of films since his start but none of them have been big screen hits until 2009. When Sam landed a role in Terminator: Salvation, alongside Christian Bale, his whole career changed. He suddenly became a hot commodity and ended up landing the lead role in Avatar later that same year.

Things only seem to be looking brighter and brighter for Sam, as he will be starring in 6 films in 2010, including the role of Perseus in the guaranteed-to-be-a-hit, Clash of the Titans.

I suppose it was only a matter of time. Sly marketing has been the surprisingly spry crutch of the tobacco industry for decades despite a general knowing better. People get smarter – nay, more EDUCATED – but big tobacco also wises up as the sand trickles down the glass and they learn to combat new evidence with new marketing. The fact that not only do people still smoke but new smokers light up everyday suggests that big tobacco is actually doing a pretty good job when it comes to moving some cancer sticks.

In recent years, compounding legislative blows have been landed on a bloody and battered industry and although on the ropes, big tobacco just won’t throw that towel. Nearly every city, state, ordinance, township, county, peninsula and treehouse have restrictions on where and when you can smoke and big tobacco has suffered tremendously. By taking the convenience out of the act, more people decided against taking it up. That is, until the E-cig came along.

Electronic cigarettes are a relatively new invention but already as easy to find as a Starbucks. Thanks to the use of water vapor in place of smoke, the E-cig callously goes where no cig has gone in a few years: indoors. The marketing ‘geniuses’ with big tobacco missed the boat on that concept, though. While they invested in smokefree tobacco strips, sticks and snus, the makers of the finest American products (Hong Kong) invented the E-cig.

Ruyan Group, out of Hong Kong, made the very first E-cig in 2005. Not long after, Philip Morris came a-knockin’. However, nobody outside of the two companies found out until earlier this year. Back in June, Ruyan’s stock soared to a 35% increase when it was announced that they had begun negotiations for work with an independent third party. Days later, that third party was confirmed to be Philip Morris. Although only speculation, the general theory on the negotiations is that Philip Morris is attempting either a total buyout or an exclusive partnership for their own E-cig. Either way, Philip Morris will have international ties and the world will learn the truth very soon, as Ruyan’s public trading was suspended on November 2nd due to the pending announcement of a ‘price sensitive matter.’

Whether you want to chew, spit, smoke, suck or inhale, Philip Morris will soon be able to market to both indoor and outdoor tobacco users; we took the convenience away and they gave it right back. Our move.

There’s a lot of good-looking ladies that make their way into the movie biz thanks to a boost from a successful modeling career and Lily Cole is a fine example of a golden combination of striking beauty, brains and burgeoning acting talent.

Lily, who hails from England, got her start as a model – which one look at her would probably suggest to you. She has had spreads in many big-name magazines with a couple of the more notable ones being Vogue and Playboy.

As an actress, Lily is new to the game but is already off to a running start. She landed the lead female role in what ended up being Heath ledger’s final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The film was high profile enough before Ledger’s untimely passing but after the fact, interest n the film grew even more. This was (of course) due to the fact that it is Ledger’s final film but also due to the fact that several actors volunteered to finish the scenes Ledger himself didn’t finish: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell – quite an impressive cast.

She may be young, and new to the scene but with a high profile, breakout role and incredible looks, you’ll be seeing plenty more of Lily Cole, who is already slated to appear in three more films this year.

In the last few years, Vegas has had a few venues that fans cant count on to host the biggest names in rock. Although some may be shinier, bigger and louder, there has been one venue that has always remained consistent, The Joint. Located at the young and hip Hard Rock Hotel, the original Joint was closed and a newer, bigger Joint has opened.

It’s opening show featured Las Vegas’ own The Killers on April 17th of this year, and the days following hosted some pretty amazing performers such as Avenged Sevenfold with Atreyu and even the legendary Paul McCartney. They even signed their very first house musician, legendary Carlos Santana.

The renovations triggered new beginnings without taking away the things that made the original Joint what it was. To begin, its capacity doubled, yet it still holds its “intimate” nature and every seat is a good one; no nose-bleed section here. Not to mention their higher level areas and their seven VIP Luxury Suites for those who want rock in style. The Joint is Las Vegas’ newest concert hall twith all the perks of maintaining a legendary past, something that concert-goers as well as rock stars will soon not forget; smoke free and sexy, The Joint.

Branding is important. If you’re going to sell something, whether it be a product or a service, the establishment of a brand identity is key. Endless research, testing and evaluation goes into the longevity of a good brand but what do you if all of the sudden, you’re not allowed to brand the way that has made you a success.

Simple. You redo it overnight.

In June 2009, the U.S. Senate worked with the FDA to regulate the way that big tobacco packages their products. The hubbub was mostly about tobacco’s use of certain words that could be misconstrued by consumers as suggesting that one particular type of cigarette may actually have healthful benefits. The types of words in question were “mild,” “light,” “low tar,” and things of that nature. The FDA agreed with the Senate, and gave big tobacco until June 2010 to revamp the way they brand their products.

Although still months away, many tobacco companies have already solidified their new packaging and will begin rolling out the new looks to stores soon. Never being the type to miss an opportunity, big tobacco (across the board) completely revamped their look. Since wording became the biggest issue with the FDA, big tobacco – being the sly dogs that they are, decided to change the game entirely.

No longer will wording play a role for cigarette branding but rather, color. Check out some examples of new cigarette packaging as compared to their look a few years prior:

These are the exact same products. However, in lieu of using words like “mild,” or “light,” most companies have opted to simplify the product and assign each a color. For example, Salem switched from “Lights,” to “Gold Box,” and from “Ultra Lights,” to Silver Box.”

Pall Mall switched from “Lights,” to simply “Blue,” and from “Full Flavor,” to “Red.”

It’s all the same stuff as before, except now users wont associate the product with a word but rather, a color. The frightening part about the switch is that it simplifies the process of familiarizing the brand identity to a potential user. No longer will an aspiring smoker have to read the box and consider what “low tar” could possibly mean. Now, they can just look at that Plexiglass case of cancer and point out which pretty color catches their eye.

In-store cigarette cases will soon be just as colorful and intriguing as point-of-purchase candy displays and we all know who those candy displays market to…

Well, well, well, look at you now, Veronica Mars. Kristen Bell has come a long way since she first got her feet wet in the acting game. She started with an uncredited role in Polish Wedding but these days, she’s quickly becoming one of the hottest and most sought after actresses in Hollywood.

We all know and love Bell from her lead role as Veronica Mars from 2004 to 2007. Switching from TV to the big screen is a tough transition that not too many actors are able to successfully pull off, let alone maintain. She proved that she has what it takes when she too on the titular role of Sarah Marshall in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The blonde beauty captivated audiences and left drooling mouths craving more. Lucky for all of us, that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Kristen Bell is slated to appear in three films in 2010 – so far. The first of which, When In Rome, opens this month. Keep an eye out for this young, gorgeous actress who’s sure to steal your heart and tons of camera time.

It always strikes me as odd just how far people are willing to go in order to smoke. On one hand, I fully understand that the addiction to nicotine is absolutely crippling and most smokers aren’t strong enough to resist it but on the other hand, I want to just say “really??!!?”

Thanks to a technicality in VA legislation, certain bars in Northern Virginia are exempt from the recent smoking ban – sort of. If a bar has a completely walled off and separate room for smokers with its own ventilation system that is not connected to the non-smoking area in any way, then said bar may be permitted to allow smoking inside. Is it just me, or does this seem like quite a stretch in the name of catering to smokers?

Sure, smokers are people too and they deserve the right to frequent any restaurant or bar they want, they just don’t have the right to expose others to harmful chemicals via smoke. For bar owners, this presents an opportunity to be among the very few bars that can offer indoor smoking but at what expense? I mean, do smokers really bring in THAT MUCH more money where bar owners can afford to add an extra room and a separate (sustained) ventilation system? Not to mention adding staff who are specifically allocated to the smoking section. In short, most bars will not be able to justify spending extra just for people to smoke indoors. For those few bars that happen to already have the required separations, it’s just a matter of time before legislation is reworded to tackle that issue.