BURN NOTICE... Just thought I’d post an entry giving props to this awesome TV show, which airs Thursday nights on the USA Network with reruns being shown Wednesday nights on My13 (here in SoCal). Burn Notice is about a former spy named Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan), who abruptly loses his job with the U.S. government and has to make ends meet by using his Special Ops skills assisting hapless civilians in the city of Miami. He’s not alone in helping out innocent folks and fighting the bad guys in nice Florida sunshine, however... Westen is assisted by his hot but trigger-happy ex-girlfriend Fiona (played by Gabrielle Anwar), his close friend / FBI snitch Sam (played by none other than Bruce Campbell of The Evil Dead and Spider-Man movie-cameos fame) and Westen’s chain-smoking mom Madeline (played by Sharon Gless).

There are several reasons why Burn Notice is awesome: 1.) Michael Westen not only kicks ass, but he’s also like MacGyver...building cool contraptions like a cell phone-hacking device made out of a plastic cup and metal hangers (you’d have to watch the episode this was shown in to see how plausible it is), and giving good combat and spying advice whenever he is about to confront a new villain. (Plus— Have any of you ever heard of a ‘water saw’ before? Neither did I. Didn’t know about this cool tool till I watched a recent episode of this show.) 2.) It’s interesting to follow Westen’s quest of tracking down the government folks who suddenly fired him and erased his job history (also known as a burn notice...surprise, surprise). I’m not gonna elaborate, but I can also relate to how he tries to make a living by taking any job he can to make some cash after being "dumped" in Miami following his blacklisting. And 3.) I like how the show is set in Miami. I love Florida, and if it weren’t for the dang hurricanes, I’d totally move there.

Two syndicated episodes of Burn Notice airs on My13 (channel 13) at 8 PM and 9 PM tonight...while the show originally broadcasts at 9 PM on the USA Network tomorrow. Check it out. And no, I wasn’t paid to blog this. Though like Michael Westen, I’ll take the work.

SO LAST WEEK, I discovered online that Minka Kelly broke up with the New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter. Niiice. I haven’t read Web news as awesome as this and totally irrelevant to me (unless I win the Mega Millions jackpot and move to um...whichever state Ms. Kelly lives in. I'll leave it at that before this entry starts to bite me in the arse) since I heard that Megan Fox was briefly single around two years ago. Of course, gals like Ms. Kelly don’t stay single for long. As long as she doesn’t go back to John Mayer or Captain America, a.k.a. The First Avenger (RE: Chris Evans), it’s all good.


Jason Merritt – © 2011 Getty Images

Two Light-Years... That’s how far the Hello From Earth message has traveled since being transmitted from a giant NASA antenna in Australia to the exoplanet Gliese 581d exactly two years ago today. As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Sunday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across 12 trillion miles (19 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of two light-years. The signal, despite traveling 186,000 miles per second (or 671 million miles per hour, or um, 1 billion kilometers per hour), will still take 18 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Hope all of you are having a nice weekend.

IMAGE OF THE DAY... Hurricane Irene (which is now 510 miles in diameter) is seen traveling up the U.S. East Coast in this photo taken by the NOAA / NASA GOES-13 satellite orbiting thousands of miles above the Earth. This picture was snapped at 7:45 AM, Pacific Daylight Time today.

NOAA / NASA GOES Project

10 YEARS AGO TODAY... Just thought I'd pay my respect to R&B singer Aaliyah, who along with 8 other people lost her life in a plane crash on August 25, 2001. Rest In Peace to all those who perished.


Courtesy of Aaliyah2001.com

NASA / Jim Grossmann

GRAIL IS ONE STEP CLOSER TO LAUNCH... The twin GRAIL spacecraft were recently enclosed by the payload fairing of the Delta II rocket that will launch them to the Moon about 2 weeks from now. The payload fairing enclosure was originally scheduled to take place tomorrow, but the looming threat of Hurricane Irene forced technicians at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to move the encapsulation up by a day. Liftoff is still scheduled for the morning of September 8.


NASA / Jim Grossmann

DARTH SIDIOUS GETS A JOB... This YouTube clip is more than 5-years-old, but oh well. "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational invisible doggy fence."

Damn evil Sith Lords.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES... Go to my Film Notes section to check out more pics of the Batwing from next July’s summer blockbuster movie. The photos come courtesy of MovieWeb.

NASA / Jim Grossmann

THE LRO IS ABOUT TO GET MORE COMPANY... I'm referring to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course. Also with LRO, NASA's twin ARTEMIS spacecraft are in lunar orbit...while China's Chang'e 2 spacecraft just completed its primary mission at the Moon, and is now heading for the so-called Lagrange point on the far side of the Earth from the Sun.

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NASA's GRAIL Moon Twins are Joined to Their Booster (Press Release)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's lunar-bound GRAIL twins were mated to their Delta II launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 17 at 8:45 a.m. EDT (5:45 a.m. PDT) today. The 15-mile (25-kilometer) trip from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Fla., is the last move for GRAIL before it begins its journey to the moon. NASA's dynamic duo will orbit the moon to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and to advance understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon.

"We are about to finish one chapter in the GRAIL story and open another," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL's principal investigator, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "Let me assure you this one is a real page-turner. GRAIL will rewrite the book on the formation of the moon and the beginning of us."

Now that the GRAIL spacecraft are atop their rocket, a final flurry of checks and tests can begin to confirm that all is go for launch. The final series of checks begins tomorrow, Aug. 19, with an on-pad functional test. The test is designed to confirm that the spacecraft is healthy after the fueling and transport operations. Next week, among all the upcoming final tests, reviews and closeout operations leading up to liftoff, the GRAIL team will install the launch vehicle fairing around the spacecraft.

GRAIL's launch period opens Sept. 8 and extends through Oct. 19. On each day, there are two separate instantaneous launch opportunities separated in time by approximately 39 minutes. On Sept. 8, the first launch opportunity is at 8:37 a.m. EDT (5:37 a.m. PDT). The second launch opportunity is 9:16 a.m. EDT (6:16 a.m. PDT).

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the GRAIL mission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, is home to the mission's principal investigator, Maria Zuber. The GRAIL mission is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA / Kim Shiflett

© FOX

MASTERCHEF... It’s too bad that Suzy Singh got eliminated from last night’s quarterfinal episode— I would’ve definitely attended an autograph signing by her (assuming there was one in SoCal) the same way I went to Anaheim last year to meet MasterChef’s Season 1 winner, Whitney Miller. But just like Ms. Miller, Singh was called the "pastry girl" (Miller was called the "pastry princess") during this season...which was probably one of the reasons why she didn’t advance to the finale today. (That, and the lemon meringue pie she baked during yesterday’s pressure test had issues.) Seems like Chef Gordon Ramsay and Co. were unwilling to hand the Masterchef title to yet another lovely contestant who was primarily good at making desserts. Don't get me wrong... I like desserts.

On the plus side, there’s still Jennifer Behm...who won the Miss Delaware USA competition back in 2000. Though I’m gonna echo Singh’s opinion and say that it will be Adrien Nieto who wins MasterChef today. Handing the title to Christian Collins would be a pretty big mistake...for those of you who’ve been watching this season like I have. Carry on.

UPDATE (10:00 PM, PDT): Woohoo— Jennifer Behm won the title of MasterChef tonight. When does she begin autograph signings in SoCal?