If you're feeling good about the market, you're not alone. Take my hand as we go over some of this week's more uplifting headlines.

1. No time off for satellite radio's biggest star
Howard Stern may be on a two-week break between Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) contracts, but that doesn't mean Sirius is simply playing stale reruns. The History of Howard Stern: Act IV kicked off Monday, featuring a historical perspective loaded with celebrity interviews.

The two-week special offers some new commentary, but it's ultimately a clever way to prepackage existing content. It's also a good way for Stern fans on monthly plans to keep from canceling their subscriptions during the two-week lull.

Now that Stern is on board for another five years, Sirius may as well flaunt it.

2. It's not a race, it's a mara-Tron

IMAX (Nasdaq: IMAX) is picking up steam as a studio darling. The opening weekend for Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Tron: Legacy leaned on IMAX screenings to ring up 24% of its domestic ticket sales.

IMAX screens typically account for 8% to 12% of a film's box office take. This time around, $10.45 million of the film's $44 million domestic ticket sales came from just 234 IMAX theaters. It's a huge percentage when stacked against the thousands of screens showing the movie.

3. Tech giants go wild
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is taking a shot at Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), offering a 20% discount for enterprise customers trading in high-end Ethernet switches from Cisco for HP switches.

Rival-targeted discounts aren't an entirely new practice, but HP and Cisco weren't even competitors a few years ago when each tech behemoth stuck to its knitting. However, Cisco began selling servers. HP acquired networking gear specialist 3Com.

We're apparently talking about billions in existing Cisco hardware that is due for replacing, so HP's timing is sharp. Companies are starting to crack open their IT spending as the economy turns the corner. Sure, 3Com never had the enterprise panache of Cisco. There's a reason why 3Com agreed to HP's exit strategy through last year's buyout. However, a Cisco-targeted price cut by HP may be just the ticket to get some penny-pinching companies to go for the switch switch.

4. Apple's self-fulfilling prophecy
Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) had no problem letting everyone know when it sold a million iPads in its first month on the market earlier this year. Now it's letting everybody know that it's close to selling a million Apple TV units.

This isn't your typical Apple move. The class of Cupertino usually cranks out these press releases when a round target is shrinking in the rearview mirror. However, given the negative sentiment brewing over rival platforms, Apple may as well let the world know that Apple TV isn't a dud.

Issuing the release Tuesday -- just four days before Christmas -- is sheer genius. Apple is creating buzz to sway any fence-straddling consumers that were leery of Apple TV. In other words, a press release forecasting that it will sell its millionth device later this week may very well be the catalyst to make it happen.

5. Reed 'em and weep
Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings has had enough of the bearish sentiment swirling around his growing media empire. He decided to courteously lash out at one of the cynics currently shorting shares of the flick flicker.

Whitney Tilson -- the savvy market guru who has been a Fool.com content contributor in the past -- wrote a scathing piece on SeekingAlpha.com to justify his short position. Hastings decided to kindly counter Tilson's argument, point by point.

Tackling everything from Tilson's market saturation to recent CFO departure to free cash flow conversion concerns, Hastings argued his case for Tilson to cover his short position.

Normally one would argue that a CEO has better things to do than to take on any of its bears. However, Netflix has been facing a backlash on both its model and valuation since hitting new all-time highs earlier this month. Striking at one by covering all facets of the popular bearish shots is huge -- and smart.