Cool Things Made In Miami: Bikini.com

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Another great concept from these sun-bleached shores: Bikini.com.

Cool Things Made In Miami: DrinksTV.Com

You can toss those bar books and hand held computers that tell you how to mix a drink now that DrinksTV.com has arrived. Although Miramar isn't necessarily in Miami, it's close enough to call it one of ours. Now anyone on the planet can watch a gorgeous local barmaid (and a few not so pretty barmen) mix a drink with the recipe planted in a window next to the "TV" screen. The hardest part will be following the instructions given by the barmaids, especially when they are as babalicious as Carolina from Bricks Nightclub in downtown Miami. Talk about great PR for this community! It's already in over 300 liquor stores in 16 states where it plays continuously dispensing mixing advice and reminding everyone who sees it how lucky we are to be living here with such a stunning array of barmaids. It moved to the web when CEO John Kyle discovered that America Online had 1 million lookups for cocktail recipes a week. According to the Miami Herald, he hopes it will "do for bartenders what the Food Network did for chefs." From what we can see, with its liquor sponsors and advertising dollars rolling in from big spenders like the U.S. Army, it surely will.

MVB encourages responsible drinking and blogging.

Cool Things Made in Miami: Chopper Nation

Could Miami become the Detroit for choppers?

It will if Victor Cabanas, founder of Chopper Nation has anything to do with it. Because most choppers are hand made one-off customs requiring hundreds of hours to build, average prices hover around $60,000 and go up from there. He, like Henry Ford, realized you could open up the market to more buyers if you could reduce the price of the product. Henry Ford did it through the invention of the assembly line.

Victor Cabanas is doing it by replacing time intensive sheetmetal work-- such as pounding out gas tanks and fenders by hand-- with "stamping" those items from steel presses-- just like they do in automobile plants around the world. Henry Ford is quoted as saying, "You can have any car in any color as long as it is black." Chopper Nation will get you onto a chopper for as little as $25,000 as long as it is black-- the company's bare bones introductory model.

For those with more discretionary income, the sky is the limit. At the top of the line is a chopper pictured here that uses nitrous oxide (NOS) for an added kick Despite using interchangeable parts, paint jobs and accessories like the NOS package still make each bike a custom.

More things we like about Chopper Nation:

• They make their own distinctive frames that include a twisted downtube. Many custom bike shops-- including the Discovery Channel's famous Orange County Choppers-- buy their frames already pre-made.
• The location. If you live in south Florida, it couldn't be easier to get to their facility. It's right on the west side of I-95 at NW 108th Street.
• They will be introducing a "soft tail" design at a comparably low price.

You can read more about Chopper Nation at Crossroads Magazine.

Cool Things Made In Miami: Krinklglo

Want Fiberglas reinforced plastic (FRP) panels up to 5x20 feet that glow in the dark? There is only one place to buy them in the whole world and that's where they're made-- right here in Miami. The glow is as intense as Kryptonite. Imagine whole buildings clad in this stuff. It would be like looking at Oz at night. The company, Dimensional Plastics has been located in Hialeah since 1963 producing its patented line of custom FRP panel stained glass substitutes called Krinklglas. Although they do custom "stained glass" work to your specs, the company is primarily a manufacturer of a variety of decorative FRP panels with machining and cutting-- they can be cut and drilled like wood-- done on site by the buyer. Another product it produces, Panel Blok, is an economical and quick solution to glass block. Because it comes in different thicknesses, the thinner panels can be bent into tight and undulating curves glass block can't match. Best yet, the thicker varieties meet the tough Miami-Dade County code for hurricane panels and the thickest ones will stop bullets.

Cool Things Made in Miami: First Pneumatic Vacuum Elevator

If you want to live like the Jetsons, you've got to look to Miami to buy the first pneumatic vacuum elevator in the world. Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators LLC, located in south Miami, can put one of these futuristic babies in your home for as little as $20,000. Because it doesn't need any excavated space, it can be installed in existing homes in the stairwell. If you move, you can take it with you. Other selling points:

• Two /Three stops for residential and special commercial usage.
• 2-3 hour installation.
• No excavation, no hoist way, no costly infrastructures.
• No energy consumption during descent and low when ascending with 110 Volt, or if required 220 Volt turbines.
• Panoramic 360º visibility.
• Highest safety during power outages and freefall.
• Lowest maintenance with no lubrication required.

Installing one of these pneumatic elevators in your home has its practical reasons, of course, especially when climbing up and down stairs gets to be a little too much. But we like it because of its creative, fun solution to solving a problem and its intangible "cool" factor.

Way to go, Pneumatic Vacuum Elevators LLC!