SEAN PAUL IS NOT COOL... When one of your songs is used in a fast food milk shake commercial where a guy is humping a cow, then you must really suck.

...

That is all. (And yes, I've been meaning to post this ever since that stupid Carl's Jr. commercial first aired. Actually, I've been meaning to post this after I first heard that lame ass song. You suck Sean Paul.)


What a friggin' turd.

The end of DAY 5... Well, after 21 weeks of rushing home after work to make sure I wouldn’t miss even that "Due to some graphic violence, viewer discretion is advised" disclaimer before the show (and Prison Break at 8PM), it’s finally over. Till next January, that is. Man, what a season that was! The question remains... Will Day 6 open up with Jack Bauer managing to find a way to escape that cargo freighter before it reaches China? Or did FOX amp up the budget and allow production to actually shoot some episodes in China or some other Asian country (to show Bauer escaping from a Chinese prison)? Or will the opening episodes simply be shot on studio sets or in some location in SoCal...like Chinatown in downtown L.A. or something (hmmm, I wonder which options are more likely)? Whatever the case, can’t wait for the 6th longest day to come. Especially considering those three conspirators whom President Logan was in cahoots with during this season are still at large... Yep, 24 rules. But now I’m finally available to work on Monday nights now. Woohoo!! No wait— That doesn’t seem very exciting...

UPDATE (May 25): There is a brief snippet on Wikipedia.Org about Jack Bauer escaping from the Chinese freighter before Season 6 begins. This sequence might be shown in the Season 6 prequel on the Season 5 DVD, which should come out later this year. Hmm— I guess FOX didn't want to spend more on filming in Asia, afterall... Haha.

UPDATE #2 (May 28): KCAL Rules!! This is Channel 9 in Los Angeles, and it airs 24 in syndication on Saturday nights (or should I say, Sunday mornings) at 12AM and the same episode again at 11PM Sunday nights. Not that I'm home Saturday nights or Sunday mornings, ahem. But anyways... Being that KCAL is barely on Season 2 right now, I guess that means by the time Season 4 airs later this year, it'll run through January when Season 6 begins. So it's still 24 every weekend throughout the rest of the year! Assuming I did my math right (which I didn't), haha. Anyways... Carry on.



And of course, tonight is the season finale for House. And despite the fact I have no intention whatsoever of watching the season finale for American Idol, I hope Katharine McPhee wins. Why, you ask? Because Taylor Hicks is a—Well, look at his last name and you’ll know what I was gonna say, and McPhee is sooo friggin’ hot. Even hotter than Kelly Clarkson. But Kelly Clarkson is also bangin’. In more ways than one. ‘Kay, I’ll stop sounding perverted now. Go Katharine!



EDIT (May 23): On a different topic, I hope the Dallas Mavericks whup the Phoenix Suns' ass and make it to the NBA Finals. Um, uhhh... Go Nowitzki!

EDIT #2 (May 25): So a Hick(s) is the new American Idol and friggin' Phoenix is playin' like they're gonna be the next NBA champions. What a great evening last night (*sarcasm*). Not that I watched Idol...nor saw Boris Diaw make the game winning basket with 0.5 seconds left against Dirk Diggler and company. Turd.

EDIT #3 (May 25): Looks like I still won't be available to work Monday nights, afterall. Hell's Kitchen returns to FOX for a second season on June 12th. I like that show. Gordon Ramsay is an a-hole. That's why he rocks.

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE... Last Tuesday, Cinescape.com posted a link to a website that had a cool video clip of Optimus Prime transforming from truck into Autobot mode. This was just an early CGI test for Transformers: The Movie, but needless to say, the CGI looked awesome! I just might be looking forward to this film when it comes out next year. But one question remains: Will the Dinobots be in it?? Just kidding. Click here to view the Quicktime clip.




EDIT: I heard that this video clip is most likely fan-made, but whatever... It still rocks!

HERE WE GO AGAIN... After a 9-month stay inside the hangar where it was undergoing maintenance following its last flight in July of ’05, Space Shuttle Discovery is once again headed for a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Here’s hoping that it does launch by July 19 (Its first launch window opens up on July 1 and ends eighteen days later. The next two launch windows are in August and mid-December, respectively.), paving the way for construction to resume at the International Space Station later this year. Yep. Later.



UPDATE: 8 hours and 4.2 miles later...

THE ORIGINAL THEATRICAL VERSION OF THE STAR WARS TRILOGY TO BE RELEASED ON DVD??? BAH!! So contrary to George Lucas’ assertion that he’s sorry that fans "fell in love with a half-made film (alluding to Episode IV: A New Hope)", he’s planning to release the 1977, ’80, and ’83 versions of the first three Star Wars films out on the digital format this September 12. Nooo! Why did he have to give in to the purists??? Now the question is... Do I support the Lucas critics' claim that die-hard Star Wars fans will buy anything that the Dude From Modesto conjures up and puts out in stores, or do I draw the line and let my potential copy of the upcoming DVDs collect dust on a Best Buy shelf? Considering the fact I like the Special Editions (except for that new, lame-ass music number in Jabba’s Palace in Return of the Jedi), I think I’ll decline on buying the new DVDs. What’s even worse is that both the 2004 versions and the original versions of the films will be included in the new set, making me spend $50 on the previous package for nothing. Arg! Screw the purists!! ALL HAIL GREEDO SHOOTING FIRST!!!

Click here to read up on this sad, sad news. If you're not a purist.

WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT, STEVE NASH AND CO. ARE GONNA GET THEIR ASSES HANDED TO THEM BY THE SAN ANTONIO SPURS. Sure, the Lakers choked big time after that awesome game by Kobe last week (reminds me of the New York Yankees choking against the Boston Red Sox in 2004, unfortunately)...but guess what? Nobody expected the Lakers to reach the playoffs this year, let alone take the Suns to a Game 7. And the "Hallway Series" with the Clippers will have to wait for another year. But much like the Portland Trailblazers and Sacramento Kings before them (and don’t forget the Mavericks), Phoenix is inevitably gonna be yet another great regular season team to end up watching the NBA Finals at home. I guarantee it. C’mon Robert Horry, win that 7th championship ring...

But if you want me to say at least one more bad thing about the Lakers...it’s that they need to get rid of the NBA’s Most Tradeable Player (to hell with the MVP award). Who is this season’s MTP, you ask? You guessed it: Kwame Brown. Assuming the announcement of the sexual assault charge against him prior to Game 5 was what distracted the Lakers and contributed to them losing that game, then you really need to get rid of that guy. God, he pisses me off!! The difference between Kwame’s assault charge and Kobe’s assault charge is that with Kobe you have a very good player obviously doing a very crappy thing. With Kwame you have a very crappy player doing a very crappy thing. Which person are you willing to forgive? Why- The guy wearing No. 8/soon-to-be-No. 24, of course. And Kwame can’t even make freakin’ layups!! Arg... When the Lakers let go of players after this season (so long, Devean George), hopefully KB will be one of them. No... Not that KB. The one who hasn’t won any championships yet. Or ever.



UPDATE (May 16): Correction... WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT, STEVE NASH AND CO. ARE GONNA GET THEIR ASSES HANDED TO THEM BY THE DALLAS MAVERICKS. Dirk Nowitzki and Co. currently lead the defending NBA champs, 3-1, in the semifinals. Word.

UPDATE #2 (June 3): Good job, Mavs. Word.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III... Despite the fact I have to see the first one again to get the story, and I didn’t watch the second one directed by John Woo, can’t wait till M:I:3 comes out this Friday! I currently work at Paramount Pictures, which financed the film (and where Tom Cruise’s production company is located), so I’ll be able to watch it for free at the lot next weekend. Paramount-produced films are generally screened all 3 days at the lot on opening weekend, but I should be able to watch it on Friday after work. Below are screenshots from the film. Bring on the 2006 summer movie season!







UPDATE (May 6): I watched M:I:3 twice at Paramount Studios yesterday (there were two employee screenings, one at 6:30 PM and the other 9 PM), and I would have to say it was a really good film. Fun too, obviously. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one sadistic, badass dude (damn you, Capote!!), I feel bad for Felicity, Ving Rhames and Laurence Fishburne are hilarious, and Maggie Q and Michelle Monaghan (who plays Tom Cruise’s wife in the film) are hot. And of course, Cruise and J. J. Abrams rule. I’m probably not gonna watch it again at a regular theater, since paying for a ticket would defeat the purpose of watching it for free at the studio where it was produced (haha), but I’ll definitely buy it when the DVD comes out! Hope I don’t get in trouble for mentioning this, but I’ve been to the office where the DVD package is currently being designed. M:I:3 is gonna be released on High-Def!! Woohoo!!

...

No wait, does my DVD player even play HD DVD?? Uhhh...

A NON-SPACE / MOVIE RELATED BLOG... But an actual journal entry!! So anyways, if you’ve been visiting this page since I first started it in October of 2000 (Mr. Burns from The Simpsons: “Not bloody likely.”), you’d notice that I constantly mentioned a girl I called Denise—not her real name, of course—whom I met in college at Cal State Long Beach in Fall of ‘00. Well... Being that I thought about her constantly (and still do...which is the point of this new blog), I tried to dispose or put anything away that reminded me of her. I also tried not to look at her profile on MySpace...despite the fact she’s on my buddy list [deleting her from my list would definitely not be a good idea...since I’d eventually regret not being a part of (at least) the online aspect of her circle]. I was successful in trying not to stare at a photo of her for maybe, like, 5 months...but temptation gave in a few weeks ago and now I’m back reading up on her in her profile and seeing what kind of new, gorgeous pictures she has up. She hasn’t updated her MySpace profile for a couple of months, but her friends did, and it sure does make my day (I’m being sarcastic. It drives me insaaane.) when I see her wearing all these sexy outfits in these different photos. She never dressed that way (i.e. show that much skin) when we had a class together in college, which is disheartening because it obviously meant that there was no one for her to impress while she was at school. Which is opposite of me...since I tried to dress and look as nice as possible to make an impression on her...despite the fact we had a class together only once a week.

So here I am, back to Square One... Trying to think about how I could get her out of my mind again. There was one new photo I saw of some dude putting an arm around her, but I don’t really know if he’s just a close friend or the boyfriend I said not-so-nice things about in this entry. I would think that seeing these photos of her, especially ones where other guys are lucky enough to stand right next to her in pictures when I haven’t seen her in person for like, um, 4 years [I had a really good chance of seeing her again early this month...when I attended a Vietnamese culture show (Denise is Vietnamese) at Cal State Long Beach. One of my co-workers who is also a CSULB alumnus directed the show.] would finally get me to shun any thought of her because of the anger, but it doesn’t. 5 months or 6 months, or even a year... It would only be inevitable that I see what’s going on in her life again in the future. Which basically means I’m in as much a no-win situation not thinking about her as I am thinking about her. ‘Cause life sure does feel empty when you try not to think about someone who you were very, very fond about for many years. And still are.

EDIT: Lakers: 99, Suns: 98... HELLL YEA!!! Kobe vs. Nash: Who's the MVP now, biatches???

ABOVE: The green line marks the path traveled by the New Horizons spacecraft as of
8:00 PM, Pacific Standard Time, on April 12, 2006. It is 64,884,826 miles from Earth.
Click here to view the official webpage showing where New Horizons is in space.

NEW HORIZONS Final Update (For Now)... As of right now, the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft is flying past Mars’ orbit...being at a current distance of 65 million miles from Earth and speeding its way towards an encounter with Jupiter on February 28 of next year. All but one of Horizons’ seven instruments have now been checked out and will begin making observations within a few months [two instruments, the Student Dust Counter (built by the University of Colorado) and the Solar Wind At Pluto (SWAP) device, have already made "first light" observations]. The final instrument to be checked out, the LORRI (LOng Range Reconnaissance Imager) camera, will not open its lens cover and be tested till later this Fall...since the instrument is extremely sensitive to light, and mission engineers don’t wanna risk damaging it if the camera was accidentally pointed at the Sun. In terms of the Jupiter flyby in 2007, the planned observation list for the giant planet will be finalized by October, 2006. New Horizons has already made three trajectory correction maneuvers (TCMs) to fine-tune its flight path to Jupiter and Pluto...two thruster burns on January 28 and 30, respectively, and the third one on March 9.



In terms of mementos that New Horizons is carrying onboard during its journey out of the solar system, it bears a canister holding the ashes of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh (shown above), a piece of material from the experimental SpaceShipOne vehicle and a Florida coin commemmorating the U.S. space program (both shown below).



Unless events warrant it, I probably won’t talk about New Horizons again till the few months leading up to the Jupiter flyby. See ya!



NEW HORIZONS Blog Entries Archive:

September 26, 2005
December 19, 2005
January 7, 2006
January 17, 2006
January 19, 2006
April 12, 2006

UPDATE: Today also marks the 25th anniversary of the very first space shuttle launch. Hail Columbia!

INSIDE MAN... I watched the new Spike Lee film today, and needless to say, it was more entertaining than He Got Game or Summer of Sam...which, in case you’re wondering, are the only other flicks by the New York Knicks-loving filmmaker that I saw. Haha. I’ll get around to watching Malcolm X or Jungle Fever someday. Not really. Anyways, back to Inside Man... Maybe the reason why I actually watched the film was because I always think people who wear hoods look cool (which is why I think Jedis and Sith Lords—mostly Sith Lords—are the coolest characters in the Star Wars franchise). Or the fact that there’s something interesting about characters whose faces are masked for much of the whole movie (which is why I watched V for Vendetta...other than for Natalie Portman. I like how she’s shaved... Really shaved... Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talking about her bald scalp). Of course, the reason why this journal entry is completely incoherent is because I can’t say anything about the film without ruining the story for those of you haven’t seen the movie yet. YET. If you’re wondering why Clive Owen holds that bank under seige, watch the film now. NOW.

I’ll stop annoying you with this entry now.

EDIT: Can't wait till The Sentinel comes out. The upcoming film stars Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Basinger...and is about a Secret Service agent who is accused of plotting to assassinate the U.S. President. In a very surprising move, Kiefer Sutherland plays another special agent who is tasked with finding the real would-be assassin...which makes this role a lot different from Kiefer's role as Jack Bauer in 24. No wait...