FAMILY GUY... If you guys watched last Sunday’s episode, you’ll recall that major subplot about how Brian Griffin was trying to earn Quagmire’s respect after finding out that the womanizing airline pilot hated Brian’s guts. Towards the end of that episode, we get that nice little moment at the end of the show where Quagmire, who’s having dinner at a restaurant courtesy of Brian, goes off and lists every single fault that the dog has, and why Quagmire despises Peter Griffin’s "best friend" so much. Anyways, the gist of this journal entry is NOT about this scene...but what led to it during the episode.

Earlier in Sunday’s episode, Quagmire thinks that he’s going on a date with Cheryl Tiegs, a girl who he knew from a long time ago. Quagmire got a letter that was supposedly from Cheryl...not knowing that it was in fact sent by Brian to trick Quagmire into having dinner with him. Quagmire enters a limo that arrives outside his house, and is surprised to see Brian waiting in the car instead of Tiegs. Quagmire then goes off on a rant to Brian about how this girl "was the one who got away", and the reason why Quagmire had flings with so many women was to make up for Cheryl’s absence, and how he felt "lost" once she disappeared from his life. What I’m about to talk about next is an OLD-ASS topic involving a girl I knew from 9 years ago, and how this Family Guy episode started making me think of her...again...

For those of you who have been visiting my Blog since its inception in October of 2000 (Anyone? Anyone?), you’ll remember how I kept talking about a girl I nicknamed Denise (her real name is Duyen) in my entries. She was in my Geology lab class during the Fall 2000 semester at Long Beach State, and the last time I saw Duyen in person was in 2002...on campus during the Spring semester. If you want a recap of the things I said about Duyen, go to this journal entry...which provides a link to every single post (I think) that I made about her (though I’ve just ended up providing links to those entries in this particular Blog, anyway). 2001, as you would tell, was the peak period of my um, ramblings about her.


The reason why that scene on Family Guy struck a nerve with me was that I too felt like I was losing something as I watched Duyen walk away after we headed to our cars following the completion of our Geology final exam. From that point on, every single day I was on campus I would look around to see if "Yenny" was strolling nearby. Even though she graduated from Long Beach State in 2003, that didn’t stop me from continuing to look around for Yenny through my final semester at LBSU...which was Spring semester in 2004. I had a chance to see Duyen in person one last time at my graduation, but needless to say, that opportunity was lost. (Duyen was on campus, but I was unable to look for her since well...click on that last link to know why.)

Before I met Duyen in Fall of 2000, I was pretty much carefree about a lot of things. Nonchalant about life if you well, hahaha. After our final day as classmates though, it felt like I was missing something...as Duyen and I got along pretty well during the semester, and I felt like something great could’ve happened if I made the right moves or said the right things to her (or least ask Yenny if she already had a boyfriend before I started growing strong feelings for her. TOO LATE!). Nope, I was obviously wrong.

To this day, I still go to Duyen’s MySpace page to see what she’s up to (hmm, I probably shouldn’t have said that here). But she hasn’t updated her profile since April of this year, and that’s probably because she only goes on Facebook...which she updates often. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that (too)...since Duyen didn’t add me as a friend on Facebook (Yes, I did send her an 'Add' request). That could possibly be due to the fact I talked smack about her boyfriend in an entry after I found out his name...and Duyen DOES know about this journal page (since I did tell her about my website long ago), and read some of the things I typed about her back in 2000-‘01. Of course, she probably read my little diatribe about her BF on MySpace too (at least she added me as a friend on that site)...since I also posted that last entry on my profile there as well, haha.

Anyways, this Blog is TOO LONG. The gist of this entry: Last Sunday’s Family Guy episode revealed that Quagmire is a womanizer because he feels lost over a girl he cared about a long time ago, and slept with other chicks to take his mind off of her. For me, the reason why I went to so many import shows over the years was to meet beautiful car show models that would take my mind off of Duyen, albeit briefly. No wait— I never mentioned that import thing in this entry. Oh well. I doubt most of you even reached this point on my Blog to realize how incoherent it’s becoming. Later.

IT'S NOT even Thanksgiving Day yet and radio station KOST 103.5 FM (here in Southern California) is already playing Christmas music. Obviously, this is to get people into the holiday—a.k.a. shopping—mood. Capitalist pigs.

THE BIG BANG THEORY... I like this show...not only because it’s pretty hilarious (Jim Parsons, who plays child prodigy/theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper, is a crack-up), but also because it occasionally makes references to actual NASA projects. In one Season 2 episode, Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) was the one responsible for getting a Mars rover trapped in sand (which is what really happened to NASA’s Spirit rover last April. As of this entry, it’s still stuck in soft soil on the Red Planet). And in another Season 2 episode, he was responsible for a poorly-designed toilet installed onboard the International Space Station (ISS). That episode even used somewhat up-to-date footage of the ISS (from the shuttle flyaround in last March's STS-119 mission) at the end of the show. This is the only scripted program I know that somewhat puts our space program in the prime time limelight on U.S. television. It doesn't hurt that the lead actress (Kaley Cuoco, who plays Penny) is pretty hot as well.


The Big Bang Theory airs on CBS at 9:30 PM, on Monday nights.

2012... So I saw the film after work yesterday, and it was entertaining—in the typical Roland-Emmerich-blows-up-national-landmarks-and-other-things kinda way. If you’re expecting a sci-fi film that is as thought-provoking as say, District 9, then you’re watching the wrong film. If you’re expecting a standard Hollywood blockbuster with lots of great visual effects and (extremely) ridiculous action sequences, then this is the movie for you.



I can’t recall any memorable scenes from The Day After Tomorrow, but I will point out that 2012 had a lot more emotional moments in it than Independence Day did (don’t get me started on Godzilla). But unlike 2012, Independence Day (or ID4) had a lot more scenes that made the crowd gasp and cheer...at least at the screening I went to back in July of ‘96. Of course, back then the shots of the White House and other (American) landmarks getting destroyed by giant alien ships in ID4 were fairly new...and the scenes showing F/A-18 Hornet jets engaging in aerial battle with small alien fighters (a la Star Wars, DUH) were awesome. What 2012 has going for it are repetitive shots of airplanes trying to lift off of runways that were breaking apart below them...and a kick-ass scene of Yellowstone National Park going BOOM as the supervolcano beneath it (yes, this volcano is REAL) erupts.



I’d say more about the movie, but I don’t feel like it. I’ll point out one more thing though: I find it interesting and fortunate (ahem, sarcasm) that the computers onboard Air Force One could show real-time images of what’s going on beneath the Earth’s crust, as well as what was happening to the planet's magnetic field as s**t was hittin' the fan across the globe. I guess these comps were modified by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey at the White House's request between 2009 and 2012...the time period during which the movie takes place.


That is all.

CONTRARY to what the TV commercials tell you, Twilight is NOT a saga...but a multi-film Abercrombie & Fitch (or Gap for that matter, haha) ad. You wanna watch a REAL saga? Check out those science fantasy films about that Galaxy far, far away that George Lucas made between 1977 and 2005. Yes, I also included the prequels.

INTERESTING... According to this pic, the Batwing actually exists. Though it's not officially the Batwing...so don't call it that. Just being facetious. I found this image on a message board.

ASSASSIN’S CREED... I’ve never played the Playstation 3 video game before, but the three webisodes below are pretty cool. Known as Assassin's Creed: Lineage, they serve as prequels to Assassin’s Creed II...which comes out in electronic stores tomorrow. It’s a nice touch that the game’s maker Ubisoft made the videos (whose stories take place in Italy during the Renaissance) authentic by casting Italian actors in ‘em. You probably think that this was such an obvious comment, but if Hollywood made these webisodes, Giovanni Auditore (the Assassin) would most likely be played by Channing Tatum. Or Robert Pattinson for that matter. Hollywood blows.

DAWN Update...

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Dawn Enters Asteroid Belt -- For Good (Press Release - From November 13)

ASTEROID BELT -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft re-entered our solar system's asteroid belt today, Nov. 13, and this time it will stay there.

Dawn first entered the belt [whose lower boundary may be defined as the greatest distance Mars gets from the sun (249,230,000 kilometers, or 154,864,000 miles)] in June 2008. It remained within the belt for 40 days before its carefully planned orbital path brought it below the asteroid belt's lower boundary.

This time around, Dawn's flight path will remain above this hypothetical lower boundary for the rest of the mission and for the foreseeable future - Dawn will become the first human-made object to take up permanent residence in the asteroid belt.

The mission of the 1,098-kilogram (2,421-pound) Dawn spacecraft is to reconnoiter Vesta and Ceres, the asteroid belt's two most massive inhabitants -- the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. The goal of this eight-year, 4.9-billion-kilometer (3-billion-mile) mission is to answer basic questions about the formation of planets in our solar system. NASA's unmanned Dawn spacecraft will be the first ever to orbit two planetary bodies on a single voyage. Dawn is 619 days away from arrival at its first celestial objective, asteroid Vesta.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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YOU KNOW that water on the Moon is pretty big news when Google updates the logo on its webpage to commemorate it. Of course, the "Google doodle" tends to be changed a lot depending on special occasions and the honoring of random historical people...according to this article. Since the Moon doodle will eventually be changed, here’s a screenshot of it:

BORROWING A LINE from Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) in the hilarious film, Dumb & Dumber: "That’s greeaaat— We found water on the Moon!!"

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NASA'S LCROSS IMPACTS CONFIRM WATER IN LUNAR CRATER (Press Release)

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- Preliminary data from NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater. The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon.

The LCROSS spacecraft and a companion rocket stage made twin impacts in the Cabeus crater Oct. 9 that created a plume of material from the bottom of a crater that has not seen sunlight in billions of years. The plume traveled at a high angle beyond the rim of Cabeus and into sunlight, while an additional curtain of debris was ejected more laterally.

"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by extension, the solar system," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding."

Scientists long have speculated about the source of significant quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question with the discovery of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected. If the water that was formed or deposited is billions of years old, these polar cold traps could hold
a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.

Since the impacts, the LCROSS science team has been analyzing the huge amount of data the spacecraft collected. The team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the most definitive information about the presence of water. A spectrometer helps identify the composition of materials by examining light they emit or absorb.

"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."

The team took the known near-infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the impact spectra the LCROSS near infrared spectrometer collected.

"We were able to match the spectra from LCROSS data only when we inserted the spectra for water," Colaprete said. "No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."

Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl, one product from the break-up of water by sunlight. When atoms and molecules are excited, they release energy at specific wavelengths that can be detected by the spectrometers. A similar process is used in neon signs. When electrified, a specific gas will produce a distinct color. Just after impact, the LCROSS ultraviolet visible spectrometer detected hydroxyl signatures that are consistent with a water vapor cloud in sunlight.

Data from the other LCROSS instruments are being analyzed for additional clues about the state and distribution of the material at the impact site. The LCROSS science team and colleagues are poring over the data to understand the entire impact event, from flash to crater. The goal is to understand the distribution of all materials within the soil at the impact site.

"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," Colaprete said. "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."

LCROSS was launched June 18 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. Moving at a speed of more than 1.5 miles per second, the spent upper stage of its launch vehicle hit the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. PDT Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m.

LRO observed the impact and continues to pass over the site to give the LCROSS team additional insight into the mechanics of the impact and its resulting craters. The LCROSS science team is working closely with scientists from LRO and other observatories that viewed the impact to analyze and understand the full scope of the LCROSS data.

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