Guy Fieri on vacation, I clean up my blogs

For those who were interested in following the story, The Food Network and HGTV are back on the air with Cablevision. Click here for FN's announcement. I have yet to find the details of their agreement; more on this as I come across it.

Guy Fieri in the Mags
Guy Fieri is on the cover of Smoke Magazine - whether the issue is current or from Fall 2009, it is unclear. The magazine isn't sold in any markets I frequent.

"To me, cigars are flavor. Cigars have a nice bold flavor to them," Guy says, and recalls his first introduction to cigars in college, when a girlfriend's father gave him a Macanudo from his humidor.

And Personal Branding Magazine has an interview with Guy Fieri on how he built his personal brand as a television personality on the Food Network.

"My brand is now just who I am."

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While Guy Fieri takes a well-earned vacation in Mexico this week, (burying puffer fish?) I'm doing some house cleaning and catch-up in this blog, the DinersDrive-insAndDives blog and associated Triple D map. Here's what I'm working on.

Guy's Big Bite Episodes
It was Guy's Big Bite that first drew my attention and piqued my curiosity about the man behind the food. Here and there, I've highlighted a few recipes from GBB, but recently have taken on the task of researching each one.

As I've done so, I've continued to find FoodNetwork's website unwieldy and awkward. But with the help of their online chat service professionals, I have the bulk of the research done and am creating episode pages with pictures and videos within this blog.

Click on Episode GBB to see the pages I've created so far.

When they're all done, I'll attempt to inter-link similar recipes, i.e. by kind of protein, ethnicity of dish, type of dish (egg rolls, pasta, ...) etc. Really, I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

Diners, Drive-ins and Dives Episode Blog
I've been pleased with how this episode guide has turned out - and it is a reasonably popular blog, averaging 1000 hits each day.

At the time of this writing, I still have 35 episodes where the videos need to be updated from 425-wide to 480-wide. Where possible, I'll add Facebook and Twitter links for the restaurants and include owners' names.

Triple D Map
I'm working on getting screen shots from each location's Triple D segment uploaded on the map. This morning I got through the 2008 episodes. Really, it isn't taking as long as I thought it would.

And now, each location is back-linked to its episode page. Click here to see all the Diners, Drive-ins and Dives restaurants that Guy Fieri has visited. Just use the Zoom feature to zero in on a particular state, county or city.

Oh! And one more thing: I now have a link to a list of all the restaurants Guy Fieri visited for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, sorted by state alphabetically or by zip code. Click here to check it out.

Fan Questions
I recently wrote in to Guy Fieri's publicists to have a few fan questions answered. It will take a bit more time to get those results, so watch for an upcoming post about them in a few days.

Related Posts:
Cablevision drops Food Network
The Guy Fieri brand is "the real deal"
Guy Fieri at CigarBQ
Guy Fieri - charitable works in Mexico