Eric is going to have to be on his best behavior this week because he'll be representing HLN and "News To Me" at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas!

His updates direct from the floor of this massive convention will start airing on HLN Thursday afternoon!

If you are into tiny phones, huge TV's, super thin screens, ultra fast computers or football in your living room in 3D, we'll have you covered. Seriously, if you can charge it, watch it, ride it, program it, listen to it, play with it, talk on it or become the envy of all your gadget loving geek friends by owning it, it's at CES.

Is there a gadget you've heard about that you want Eric to give you a first hand look at? Leave him a comment right here and we'll seek out the object of your electronic desire!

He also needs advice on how to play baccarat... apparently he's seen James Bond play and thinks it will up his street cred. Personally I think he should stick to "the slots" but hey... it's his per-diem and he can lose it any way he wants!

We'll see you from Las Vegas starting Thursday at 1pm on HLN... and keep checking in right here on the blog all this week for behind the scenes pictures and updates from the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show!

All of us who work on "News To Me" are pretty pumped about this weekend's show!  Producers Mike and Teague have been putting in serious hours creating what we think will be really compelling TV.  It's a story we have been "teasing" for over a month now and one that we have been working on for several months: The great Georgia Bigfoot Hoax.  No need to get into the background of the hoax here... we'll do that this weekend on "News To Me," but if you are a skeptic, suspicious, paranoid, wearing a tin-foil hat or someone who makes fun of those kind of people you will really dig the first two blocks of the show.

Interestingly enough, seems like the whole "News To Me" crew has memories associated with Sasquatch.  Do we believe?  Not necessarily, but buried deep in our grey matter we all have something that clicked when we started working on this story...

Eric Lanford:
In a previous life, as host of a different TV show, I actually went HUNTING for Bigfoot.

Coordinating Producer Michael Kane:
When I was an “Indian Guide” – that was a youth group in the ‘70s for losers who were too wimpy to make it as a Boy Scout – we went on a hike up to the top Atlanta’s Stone Mountain, the largest exposed slab of granite on Earth.

The trail to the top is pocked with large holes and craters. One of the older boys pulled me aside to warn me that some of those craters were actually Bigfoot tracks. I believed him, swallowed hard and soldiered up the mountain in a cold sweat. The mountain still haunts my dreams.

Producer/Editor Teague Kennedy:
Round about 1994 I was driving down a dirt road just after dark in search of a campsite in a woodsy area in central Florida. I had seen no people or cars since entering the forest perhaps 15 minutes earlier, when up in the distance I saw in my headlights what looked to be a naked man running through the woods. Needless to say we didn't pitch tent in the area. True story.

Associate Producer Charles Gilbert:
When I was 14, my friends and I thought we saw Bigfoot’s print in some dirt behind a house in our neighborhood. The footprint was huge. Then we looked closer. We noticed that it wasn’t Bigfoot’s print. It was mine. I am 6’ tall and I wear a size 15 shoe. Damn I felt dumb.

Corey the intern:
I got scared by watching "Harry and the Hendersons" when I was a little kid. Seriously, Bigfoot has never really interested me. I'm more fascinated by UFO pictures experts can't explain.

Associate Producer Grayson Thagard:
My Grandpa Red used to take me and my little brother out on his air boat into the Florida Everglades. "The glades" was a creepy place at dusk when the shadows got long, especially for a 7 year old. As we skimmed along the shallow water Grandpa saw something out of the corner of his eye and all of a sudden he shut down the giant fan pushing the air boat. In the absence of that roar we clearly heard what can only be described as a moan coming from the thick vegetation about 20 yards away. Grandpa told us in a whisper, that it was the sound of a Skunk ape, the "Bigfoot" of the swamp. It was a typical sweltering Florida July but I clearly remember hearing the sound again and suddenly being ice cold. That was my last trip to the Everglades.

Associate Producer Aaron Rustom:
When I was about 10 or 11, my best friend’s dad took us out to their cabin in East Texas so we could go fishing. As we got closer to the cabin, my friend’s dad started telling us about the “Alabama-Coushatta” tribe, who were native to the area, and the creature who lurked among them… a creature named "Sasquatch." He also told us we would be okay, if we kept "stink bait" in our pockets. Stink bait is used on trot-lines to catch catfish. And as the name implies, it stinks! It stinks so bad that even Bigfoot is repulsed by the odor. That whole weekend, every noise, every crackle, every time the trees blew, we rubbed more stink bait on us.

The funny thing is… there actually have been Bigfoot "sightings" in that area!

Ok, so those are OUR Bigfoot memories... do you have a bigfoot / ufo / ghost / unexplained mystery / story? Tell us! It IS Halloween after all!

In the meantime, sleep tight... we'll see you tomorrow at 9:30pm Eastern and Pacific on Headline News!

iReporters play a huge part in this weekend's show! Thanks for cranking up those cams and letting us hear what you thought of the Vice Presidential debate, and for taking us along for the ride as you went searching for gas in the Southeast United States! The links to those full iReports and the rest of the stories you saw on "News To Me" this weekend are below.

Clearly you have opinions, clearly you have cameras, and clearly you want your voice heard! So your challenge this weekend: speak up and let us hear what you thought of "News To Me!" You are already sitting in front of your webcam... why not fire it up and review the show? There's a special "News To Me" iReport link below. Click it and let your inner critic come out!

Meanwhile, the raw footage from and direct links to everything on this weekend's show are right here keep reading »

We're always on the lookout for people making a difference or even just people just making something unique online. Here's a few we have had up on our monitors for the past few days... they MAY end up on a future episode of "News To Me:"

Merry-go-wrong:
News To Me cameraman/editor/writer/producer Teague stumbled on this clip during his daily YouTube rounds. What do you get when you combine a playground merry-go-round, bored teenagers, and a motorcycle? Certain pain.

Hurricane Harmony:
No one is happy that Ike hit, but one man tried to take inspiration from the storm... check out Herbert Midgley and his musical iReport: Ike in East Texas. Our favorite line: "The wind is blowin, the rain is raining, and I'm out here rocking and rollin!"

Adorable puppy head tilt:
Don't you love it when dogs tilt their heads when they hear something they're not familiar with? So darn cute! We'll here's a guy who wrote a whole song for a puppy named Willy that inspires some extreme head tilts. Stay with it till the end, Willy's got skills.

Angry kangaroo:
Honestly, this man in marsupial's clothing is more than just angry, he's kind of a jerk! Blame "News To Me" producer Charles for putting this one on your radar.

Black Cab Sessions:
Our new "News To Me" sucker... I mean intern Corey, found a site called black cab sessions where you can watch acoustic tunes performed by the original artists in the back of a black taxi. Why a taxi? Not sure, but it's cool.

If you have a site we should be surfing let us know!!! Don't forget that we're looking for you to be our location scout AND to give us your 4 word review of last weekend's show!

Time for you to chime in... have you ever heard of Second Life? Have you ever been IN Second Life? Is it a cool model for a future cyber-utopia or is it just where dorks with a crummy real life "go" to hang out?

Personally I think it's pretty fascinating... there's an economy, people own property, run businesses, have relationships...

That pic above was "taken" at a meeting held on Tuesdays at 5pm Eastern Time – 2pm Second Life time – at the CNN iReport Hub in Second Life. CNN and iReport.com have had a Second Life presence for some time now... we even have citizen journalists IN Second Life who blog and submit iReports about what goes on there.

I'd like "News To Me" to go to Second Life... not full time, just for a segment. I even had special "News To Me" avatar t-shirts made up just in case we do... keep reading to see what they look like

So far we have been lucky enough to shoot 53 shows for our hit CNN Headline News show "News To Me"… and isn’t it amazing that we are able to keep it real, or fresh every week? I like to think it is because of me…. but really it is you. Yes, you reading this while chugging down that half-caf-tall… what I mean is, thanks for watching the show and sending in your mostly positive comments… they have been helpful and inspired some great stories for the show. Keep em’ coming.

Ok, enough about you…I want to make the rest of this post mine, ok? All about me…because when we are out shooting amongst you all, I have collected many questions and comments that I would like to respond to…so lets call this, “Questions From You.”

1. Why are you bald? Keep reading for the answer and more questions...

It's that time again! Here's another opportunity for you to show off just how witty, clever, snide... you know, how much of a wiseacre you are! Click on "ADD A COMMENT" below and leave us your caption for the above picture in the comments for this post and you MAY see your witticism on "News To Me."

Where did we find this picture? Read the rest of this entry...