After 10 days and over 2,000 miles my family and I are safely back in Los Angeles, courtesy of our long-term Chevrolet Tahoe. There is essentially nothing to report on the "problem" side of the equation. The navigation system was annoying me, and the driver's mirror is loose, but you can read the details in the long-term update.

I love doing the Los Angeles-to-Denver drive, and try to do it at least once a year. It's a great reminder of how big this country is, and how not everything revolves around the two Coasts and the people who live there (a concept most residents of the Coasts can't honestly grasp). Talk to people in St. George or Grand Junction and they likely haven't ever heard of David Beckham (and don't care about him -- or his wife -- even if they have).

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If the new, free blog tool doesn't peak your interest, how about the opportunity to praise, or pummel, your local dealer? Could this be the coolest tool we've launched yet? I certainly love the idea of making dealers -- good and bad -- accountable for their actions.

Like too many things in life, I feel pretty powerless when a dealer screws up (which usually involves somehow screwing me). We've been working on this one for a while, but now it's live and ready for primetime. You can review and rate your car dealer in either the sales or service area -- or both. The process is simple. Find the dealer you want to rate (I just use the drop down menu for make, plus my local zip code, but you can search by city and state too). Once you find the dealer you write a title, put in a short review with pros and cons, and then rate a couple specific areas.

Quick and easy, I've already rated a couple dealers. And with our long-term fleet you know we have plenty of opportunities to test these guys out. Hopefully it will save some folks from the potential stress and strife of bad dealer visits while simultaneously rewarding the guys who get it right.

In case any of you missed it, we started a new feature on CarSpace last week that lets any member have a free blog of their very own. When Sylvia first told me about this I thought it was great. Then I went and looked at the features and some of the blogs people have already started, and I got a little nervous. Between the cool page designs, embedded video links and excellent commentary I suddenly realized that all she did was create a bunch of new competition for Karl on Cars! How am I supposed to be excited about that?

I guess my spirit of "Maximum Voice through the Internet" has to ultimately win out, and I like the idea of providing anyone with creative skills and an interesting story to tell a place to tell it. You guys should browse through the blogs that have already sprung up over there and let me know if you find any that really impress you. Why? So I can steal their ideas, of course! Leave your comments below or email me the links you like at karloncars@edmunds.com.

Okay, the suggestions are in and the winner is clear, though not surprising. The favorite car commecial, according to you guys, is the Rube-Goldberg inspired Australian Honda commerical, "The Cog." I remember when the link to this commercial first made the rounds in everybody's inbox, and it is an undeniably impressive series of events. I also like the solid directorial work that effectively captures the entire sequence. But here's my question, how much of this was real and how much was computer annimated/enhanced? I think I read somewhere it was all "real." Either way, here's the link:

 http://youtube.com/watch?v=OFTduBCb7Eo

However, my favorite car commercial of all time remains the Ridley Scott classic for the Nissan 300ZX. The commercial as a whole is pretty cool, but I love the end, where the 300ZX creates a sonic boom and flashes by and then...after a noticeable pause...when you think the commercial is done, the jet finally flies by.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w21qQFJ5rTU

Others sent in by readers include:

Alright guys, I've finally set up a specific email for people to send in their random thoughts, insightful observations or useless time-wasting links (definitely don't skimp on the latter). I've gotten an increasing amount of excellent information from readers who either email my direct account or know me well enough to call. In fact, tomorrow's Talk Back Tuesday is totally inspired by excellent reader feedback on a certain topic near-and-dear to my heart (hint: it's near and dear to Chicken Little's heart, too).

So, instead of making folks jump through hoops to send me this stuff, I've set up the email karloncars@edmunds.com to make it easy. I plan on throwing out various topics/questions each week where I'll want not just comments, but also links to stories/photos/vidoes as a response.

For instance, this week's Reader Feeder is: What is the best car commercial of all time? I have my vote already in place, and I've found it on YouTube. I'll put my link in the follow-up post to this topic, but I don't want to influence anyone's opinion. So send me not just your thoughts on this topic, but also the link(s) to your pick(s), and I'll do a round up at the end of this week that includes my pick.