Marking a Quarter Century Since the 2001 NBA Championship...

On this day 25 years ago, Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers won their second straight NBA title in the Kobe-Shaquille O'Neal era. They went 15-1 in the playoffs that spring...sweeping the Portland Trailblazers, Sacramento Kings and San Antonio Spurs before defeating the Philadelphia 76ers in five games during the NBA Finals.

That was an awesome postseason! We'll see what the Lakers do this summer in their attempt to become the kings of the West again. And then going on to win their 18th NBA championship in franchise history.

On This Day in 1996: Cool Things Happened in High School...

Richard T. Par

Just thought I'd point out that today marks 30 years since I had my final exam that concluded 10th grade at my alma mater, Bishop Amat Memorial High School! The test that I took on June 13, 1996 was for my English II class...which I had for 7th period.

So why was this date memorable, you ask? Because of a girl I had a crush on, of course! I won't divulge her (full) name here, but she was the prettiest Filipina in my class—and probably in all of Amat, truthfully—and I was fortunate enough to have managed to be on speaking terms with her for much of sophomore year.

We hugged after the English II exam ended (she was also in my homeroom and 3rd period World History class, respectively), and that was the last time I saw her for almost the next two years. (She ended up transferring to another high school for 11th and 12th grade, but showed up at a birthday party of one Amat classmate in February of '98, and the graduation party of another classmate four months later.) This hug was so big that my brother's friends (they all graduated from Amat two weeks before) found out about it afterwards...and expressed awe at my lucky moment.

That's how significant it was that I was on good terms with Des during the 1995-'96 school year!

Up Next: The Los Angeles Summer Olympics!

Earlier today, the closing ceremony was held for the Milano Cortina Games at the historic Verona Arena in Italy. This event capped off two weeks of sporting competitions that saw Team USA win a total of 33 medals—12 of them gold, and 8 of those 12 gold medals being won by women! Among these women were stellar figure skater Alysa Liu and veteran alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who earned Olympic gold in women's slalom...her first since she won the giant slalom at the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018.

Other Team USA heroes that emerged from the 2026 Games were Alysa Liu's fellow figure skaters Amber Glenn, Ilia Malinin, Madsion Chock, Evan Bates, Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea; alpine skier Breezy Johnson; freestyle skiers Elizabeth Lemley, Alex Ferreira, Connor Curran, Kaila Kuhn and Christopher Lillis; speed skater Jordan Stolz and monobob pilot Elana Meyers Taylor. And to top things off, the members of the men and women's hockey teams who both bested Canada in their respective gold medal games to take home the hardware. In the case of the men's hockey team, today's win was America's first victory since the "Miracle on Ice" team defeated the Soviets at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.

With the 2026 Games now in the books, all eyes turn to the LA28 Olympics in Southern California! The Los Angeles Summer Games will actually have events (the majority of them soccer matches) that take place in Northern California as well as other states like Oklahoma, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Missouri. But the main events such as track and field, gymnastics, swimming, basketball, baseball and flag football will occur in downtown Los Angeles and Los Angeles County, respectively.

The closest competitions to where I reside, in Pomona, will be held in the city of Industry (for mountain biking) and the Pomona Fairgrounds (for cricket)! For personal reasons, I don't wanna think too far ahead (even though 2028 is only two years away), but I'm excited about the prospect of attending Olympic events only 4 to 10 miles from where I live. Hope you guys had a nice weekend!

On This Day in 2000: My Geology 104 Lab Exam Is Held in College...

Richard T. Par

Just thought I'd commemorate the fact that today marks 25 years since I took my Geology 104 lab exam at Cal State Long Beach. Today was a turning point in how I would view my remaining years in college after I spent one last class with Yenny (who I called 'Denise' in my Blog for how many years after that); giving her a Christmas card and us exchanging e-mail addresses that would lead to 2001 being one of the most painful years of my life.

Anyways, click on this Blog Entry to read what I originally posted about this day a quarter century ago. Have a nice Saturday!

My SoCal Sports Wall of Fame, Updated!

Even though the Los Angeles Times was one day late in publishing coverage for Game 7 of the World Series in its newspaper (just like what happened last year), that didn't stop me from adhering to a tradition started in mid-2000 (when Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant won their first NBA title with the Lakers) and displaying today's Dodgers-celebrating printed edition on my wall at home!

Yesterday, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning to buy the L.A. Times paper—at a 7-Eleven over 15 miles from my house. The donut shop that I went to last year no longer carries the L.A. Times (only a Chinese newspaper that costs $1.00 per copy), and another 7-Eleven that I was planning to buy the commemorative edition from didn't have the paper delivered yet...supposedly (7-Eleven clerks are giving me the impression that they don't tell the truth). There were, I think, four copies of today's L.A. Times left at the 7-Eleven I eventually went to.

And in case you're wondering— no, I didn't go to today's championship parade in downtown Los Angeles. This is the second straight Dodgers celebration that I couldn't attend because I had a doctor's appointment in the late afternoon. I definitely intend on going to the parade if they manage to three-peat next year!

Go Dodger Blue.

THE DODGERS ARE BACK 2 BACK CHAMPIONS!

Over a year after they beat the New York Yankees in five games to win their second World Series championship since 2020, the Los Angeles Dodgers were once again at the top of the baseball world when they defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4, in a thrilling Game 7 tonight!

The Dodgers' victory is the first time in 25 years since a Major League Baseball team won back-to-back titles...the last time being when the Yankees were able to three-peat from 1998 to 2000. This is also the first time since 2009 that an MLB team reached the Fall Classic in two consecutive years—with the Philadelphia Phillies winning against the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 but losing to the Yankees the following year. The Dodgers are also the first team to clinch back-to-back World Series championships on the road since the Cincinnati Reds pulled off the feat in 1975 and '76, respectively!

In regards to team stats, Mookie Betts now has four rings...from the 2018, 2020, 2024 and this year's World Series, respectively. Clayton Kershaw enters retirement as a 3-time World Series champion, while Shohei Ohtani went from winning zero titles during his six years with the Anaheim—err, Los Angeles Angels to securing two championships in his first two seasons in the City of Angels. And last but not least, Yoshinobu Yamamoto—who was given a $325 million contract to play with the Dodgers (and earned it by pitching two complete games this postseason, and was able to secure L.A.'s victory in the last three innings of Game 7)—is the 2025 World Series Most Valuable Player!

(Yamamoto is the second Japanese-born baseball player, behind the Yankees' designated hitter Hideki Matsui in 2009, to become a World Series MVP.)

The Dodgers' championship parade will take place in downtown Los Angeles this Monday. Assuming that Mark Walter (who officially owns the Los Angeles Lakers as well) and Co. keep dishin' out the money to get topnotch talent (like pitchers Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow...who both played on the Rays when they lost to the Dodgers in 2020) to play at Chavez Ravine, then Dodgers fans can expect more celebrations in the years to come.

Go Dodger Blue!

Marking a Quarter Century Since This Blog Was Founded...

So yesterday marked 25 years since I established this Blog for my Parman's Page website!

I was in the first semester of my third year in college—at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB)—when this online journal was established. And to be more specific, I was using a computer at CSULB's North Campus Library when I posted this very first, very insightful Blog entry.

If there was something that I could've done differently with this Blog, it would've been to post images directly to Blogger itself...not using Photobucket. Photobucket was initially free to use 25 years ago; now I have to dish out over $85 a year to keep the 9,100+ images that I uploaded to that site.

I would return to my old entries and re-post their images using Google—which now owns Blogger—so I can end my Photobucket subscription, but we're talking about 20 years worth of Blog posts (I started using Google for image upload instead back in early 2020) that I would need to go through to make the changes. That's not gonna happen.

Anyways. Last January marked 25 years since I created my Parman's Page website itself! Carry on.

On This Day in 2005: My Life Got Sidetracked by Pluto...

NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

So today marks 20 years since I found out online that I could've placed my name on a compact disc that flew on NASA's New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto and beyond.

Unfortunately, I missed the deadline by two weeks (the last day to submit was September 12, 2005, I believe)...which obviously led to immense disappointment that caused me to compensate for this missed opportunity by being on the lookout for the next online "Send Your Name into Space" campaign by NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) or a commercial entity over the next two decades.

It was in the years after New Horizons turned me back into a full-fledged space geek that I got to put my moniker or some other type of mark on such spacecraft as Dawn, the Phoenix Mars lander, JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Kepler space telescope, JAXA's Akatsuki Venus orbiter, JAXA's IKAROS solar sail, The Planetary Society's LightSail 2, JAXA's Hayabusa2 asteroid orbiter, OSIRIS-REx, the Curiosity Mars rover, the Perseverance Mars rover, the InSight Mars lander, the MAVEN Mars orbiter, the Parker Solar Probe, JAXA and the European Space Agency's Mercury-bound BepiColombo probe, the Jupiter-bound Europa Clipper, Intuitive Machine's Odysseus lunar lander, Lunar Outpost's MAPP Moon rover, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander and such space shuttle missions as STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135 respectively. Also, my name flew on Orion's Exploration Flight Test-1 mission in 2014, and Artemis 1 in 2022!

But yea, I can literally have my name on a hundred spacecraft scattered around our Solar System, and they still won't make up for the fact that I could've had a virtual presence on a future interstellar probe like New Horizons. Don't get me wrong though— I'm so grateful that NASA and Co. gave the general public the opportunity to be a part of all those exciting missions listed above. Another New Horizons-type spacecraft, Trident, was so close to becoming a reality in 2021...but it ultimately lost out to two Venus missions, VERITAS and DAVINCI.

An interstellar probe that's literally called the Interstellar Probe was in contention in last year's 2024 Heliophysics Decadal Survey, but the National Academy of Sciences ultimately overlooked this daring project for two missions that are nowhere near as inspiring as what the Interstellar Probe would've been.

So yea— The wait continues for another potential interstellar explorer to be greenlit for development...preferably by NASA. Until then, you can fly your name to the Moon via NASA's Artemis 2 mission! This crewed flight to the Moon (the first since Apollo 17 in 1972) is set to launch no later than April of next year. That is all.


NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Southwest Research Institute / Serge Brunier / Marc Postman / Dan Durda

On This Day in 2015: Workin' as an Extra on THE BIG BANG THEORY!

So it was 10 years ago today that I went to the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank to work as an extra on my favorite TV sitcom, The Big Bang Theory!

It was surreal to walk into Stage 25 and see the set for the Pasadena apartment where Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Penny (Kaley Cuoco), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyer), Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch) and Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) gathered to eat Chinese food and talk all things sex, science, Star Trek and Star Wars for several seasons.

In the fourth Season 9 episode shown above (titled "The 2003 Appoximation"), Raj's girlfriend Emily Sweeney (Laura Spencer) and Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman) join the gang as Howard and Raj—both standing off-screen—sing Hammer & Whip (Thor and Dr. Jones) in Stuart's comic book shop. Amy wasn't in this scene, but you can spot me wearing eyeglasses and a black sweater (and sporting a shaved head) while standing directly behind those rows of comic books and the couch where Sheldon, Penny and Leonard are sitting!

This production shoot was a 2-day call where the Thor and Dr. Jones scene was pre-recorded on Day 1, and the rest of the episode was filmed in front of a live studio audience on Day 2. I worked on a Season 10 episode of The Big Bang Theory as well...but I'll blog about it on its 10-year anniversary in 2026!

You can watch Howard and Raj sing Thor and Dr. Jones in the clip below:

Trump Continues to Double Down on his Stupidity...

So earlier today, this screenshot of a Truth Social post made by Donald Trump was shared online...showing that the fascist pedophile is ready to deploy U.S. military soldiers and ICE agents to the city of Chicago.

Not only is Trump apparently resigned to the fact that he'll never win a Nobel Peace Prize—not with him invading a third American city with American troops in three months—but he's trying so, so very hard to distract folks from the other fact that he raped underage girls with his dead buddy Jeffrey Epstein.

Nice try, Trump. The only way you'll make people forget that you're a child sex predator is by employing that memory-erasing gizmo Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones used in the Men in Black movies. Since those memory-erasing gizmos (called 'neuralyzers') don't exist, just like Marjorie Taylor Greene's Jewish Space Lasers, you'll have to make do with the fact that history will always remember you as the twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon who canoodled with foreign dictators like Kim Jong Un and now-deceased pedophiles who conducted sex-trafficking operations on a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

MAGA!

Flying at Light Speed for 192 Months Now...

Sixteen 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 in the summer of 2009.

As of 7 PM California time tonight (12 PM Sydney time on Thursday, August 28), the radio signal containing 25,878 goodwill text messages—including one by me—will have ventured across approximately 94 trillion miles (151 trillion kilometers) of deep space...which, as stated at the very start of this Blog entry, equals a distance of sixteen 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 about 4 years to reach the Gliese 581 star system. Carry on!

I'm Gettin' Flashbacks of my First Year in College...

So I just found out tonight that AOL will discontinue its dial-up internet service next month...on September 30.

Hmm. I had no idea that AOL's dial-up service for 56k modems (or even AOL itself) was even still around!

Back during my first year at Cal State Long Beach, I used EarthLink to go online when I was at home during the weekend. I only used AOL (via the free CDs that constantly showed up in my mailbox) when that company's Web service was temporarily down. I dormed in college during the 1998-'99 school year.

AOL's latest decision comes almost 8 years after the company discontinued its AOL Instant Messenger service—which I also used throughout my college years.

Another end of an era... Carry on.

On This Day in 2005: My First Skydive!

Today marks 20 years since I went skydiving for the very first time! The jump took place at Skydive San Diego from an altitude of 13,000 feet...which was also the same altitude when I leaped out of another aircraft above Skydive Perris nine months later. I went on to skydive three more times—in 2013 with the HALO jump in Tennessee (at an altitude of 29,190 feet), in 2014 at Skydive Elsinore for my 35th birthday (at an altitude of 12,500 feet) and in 2018 at GoJump Oceanside for birthday #39 (once again at an altitude of 13,000 feet).

Will I go skydiving again, you ask? Hm. If my finances weren't dogshit right now, yes!

On This Day in 2015: Remembering New Horizons' Historic Flyby of Pluto and its Moons...

NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

So it was 10 years ago today that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft became the first-ever robotic probe to explore the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons (Charon, Nix, Styx, Kerberos and Hydra) up-close. Even though Pluto has been a dwarf planet since the summer of 2006...when the International Astronomical Union demoted the former ninth planet from the Sun, this flyby completes NASA's robotic investigation of all the classical worlds (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) in our Solar System. Dozens of other objects have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt region beyond Pluto since then, but the 2015 encounter marked a major milestone in planetary exploration.

New Horizons is now destined to become the third functioning spacecraft to reach interstellar space—behind Voyager 1 and 2. Of course, saying that New Horizons will still be functional when it leaves the heliosphere may be a bit optimistic, as Trump lackey Russ Vought wants New Horizons to be one of the dozens of space missions that gets decommissioned under the White House's crappy budget for fiscal year (FY) 2026. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives reject the attempt by Vought to impose his PROJECT 2025 nonsense to NASA's venerable planetary science program.

We'll see what happens when the FY 2026 budget supposedly becomes enacted on October 1st. Stay tuned.

A CD carrying the names of 430,000 people is onboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it literally heads to the stars...

I missed the deadline to submit my own name (as well as those of my family members and friends) in September 2005. 😭 pic.twitter.com/bAoZ23VBbw

— Rich Par (@AstroPnoy) July 14, 2025

IDIOCRACY Has Become a Documentary in the Trump Era...

So yesterday, the image above was shared online days after it was announced that an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) match will take place at the White House's South Lawn on July 4, 2026... America's 250th birthday.

The reason why this event is such a farce has to do with the fact that Donald Trump is close friends with UFC CEO Dana White. And just like what Trump did when he promoted Tesla near the South Lawn about four months ago (back when he and Elon Musk were still buddies), the Felon-in-Chief is using his undeserved residency at the White House to prop up wealthy donors like White and Musk.

Considering the fact that Trump has populated his cabinet with clowns like former FOX News host Pete Hegseth (who's now the Signal Chat-loving Secretary of Defense), FOX News host Judge Jeanine Pirro (the wine-soaked U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia), FOX News contributor and Russian puppet Tulsi Gabbard (the Director of National Intelligence), World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon (the U.S. Secretary of Education) and dog-killing cosplayer Kristi Noem (the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Secretary, who didn't know what 'habeas corpus' was), it's no wonder why folks are comparing this country's current political climate to that of Idiocracy.

If you've never heard of Idiocracy before, it's a 2006 movie (which was test-screened by a marketing company I used to work at back in November 2004) starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph and Terry Crews that is a dystopian satire tackling such issues as commercialism (epitomized by the Trump/Musk photo directly below) and anti-intellectualism—the latter of which has been prevalent among the MAGA faithful since 2016. Idiocracy has become increasingly relevant as Trump continues to make a mockery of American democracy and causing his supporters to be more mistrusting of science; believing that geo-engineering is responsible for extreme weather (like the one that caused the tragic floods currently plaguing Texas) and not climate change itself.

Another movie that defines Trump is 2000's Gladiator. Much like Emperor Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix), Trump is a sad and insecure would-be tyrant who's apparently using the spectacle of arena combat to hide the fact that he is an incompetent leader catering to the dregs of society to attain popularity. And this will increasingly become the case as Trump gets more desperate for adulation after doing such destructive things to the American people as signing that One, Big, Bullshit Bill into law two days ago.

Presumably, this nightmare will be over by early 2029—unless Trump succeeds in getting a MAGA successor voted into the Oval Office in late '28, or worse (F**k you, Andy Ogles). It will be a very, very long time before the U.S. begins some kind of healing from the wounds that the convicted felon has been inflicting upon the American Experiment since the summer of 2015...when Trump began his chaotic run for the presidency. Carry on.

The West Is the Best in the NBA Once Again...

Yesterday, the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Indiana Pacers, 103-91, in a thrilling but predictable Game 7 of the NBA Finals. I call it predictable because it was no longer a question mark as to who was gonna become the 2025 NBA Champion after the Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton left the game due to an Achilles injury in the first quarter.

The Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy unsurprisingly went to the Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander...over a month after he was crowned the 2024-'25 regular season MVP as well. This is the first time in 25 years where the league's regular season MVP winner went on to emerging victorious in the championship round. Shaquille O'Neal won the 1999-'00 regular season MVP before he and the Lakers proceeded to besting the Pacers in the 2000 NBA Finals.

Speaking of the Lakers, Alex Caruso won his second NBA championship last night. His first title was with Los Angeles when it defeated the Miami Heat in the 2020 NBA Finals. While naysayers assert that that championship didn't count (which it does) because it took place inside the Disney World 'bubble' in Orlando during the COVID-19 pandemic, they can't say the same thing about Caruso's second ring.

We'll see how the rest of the NBA reacts to the Thunder becoming the new king of the league. 2-time champion Kevin Durant will be traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Houston Rockets; now let's see how other teams—including the Lakers with their new owner—respond to OKC.

If the chart below is any indication, L.A. fans will have to wait till 2030 for the Lakers to bring the bling back to the City of Angels. (Also: Screw the 1960s!) And did someone place an actual curse on the Eastern Conference so that the West could win this postseason? Happy Monday.

Congrats, SGA! The last time a regular season MVP won the #NBAFinals was in 2000...when Shaq led the Lakers to a championship over the Pacers. pic.twitter.com/K99UYyWSck

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) June 23, 2025

CONGRATS ALEX CARUSO ❤️

THE BALD MAMBA IS NOW A 2X CHAMP 🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/kE1itxXwr1

— LakeShowYo (@LakeShowYo) June 23, 2025

Remembering the Mamba's 1st NBA Championship (Oh, and the Lakers Have a New Owner Now)...

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

On this day 25 years ago, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Glen Rice, Robert Horry and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers played a high-powered Game 6 against the Indiana Pacers to win the NBA championship, 116-111, at STAPLES Center. Not only was this the Mamba and Big Diesel's first NBA title, it was also the 12th championship in Lakers franchise history and the 1st title for the team in 12 years...the last trophy-clinching victory being against the Detroit Pistons in the 1988 NBA Finals.

And in case you haven't heard yet, the Lakers will now be owned by the same folks who own the Los Angeles Dodgers! Yesterday, Mark Walter—the principal owner of the Dodgers and the CEO of diversified holding company TWG Global—acquired the Lakers from the family of the late Jerry Buss in a deal that's worth $10 billion. Jeanie Buss, Dr. Buss' daughter, will remain the Lakers' governor for the foreseeable future.

While the Lakers won't have the luxury to offer a $700 million deferred contract for 10 years to an NBA free agent like what the Dodgers did with Shohei Ohtani (due to the NBA's stringent salary cap aprons), the Lake Show will have the financial resources to hire more personnel for its front office that will allow the team to do a better job vetting players who'll improve the Lakers' chances of becoming a championship contender once more. Luka Doncic is onboard with the new ownership (as shown in the tweet below); now let's wait and see what LeBron James has to say about this.

Happy Juneteenth!

The Lakers are an amazing organization. I’m looking forward to meeting Mark and excited about the future. I am also grateful to Jeanie and the Buss family for welcoming me to LA, and I’m happy that Jeanie will continue to be involved. I look forward to working with both of them…

— Luka Doncic (@luka7doncic) June 19, 2025

What the Buss family bought the Lakers compared to what they're selling them for is WILD 😳 pic.twitter.com/w4nlPeLjAP

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) June 18, 2025

NEWS: Jeanie Buss and the Buss family are selling their controlling stake of the Lakers to Dodgers owner Mark Walter at a $10 billion valuation.

It's the highest sale ever for an NBA team and the most expensive franchise deal in U.S. sports history. pic.twitter.com/cbxSocquFd

— Boardroom (@boardroom) June 18, 2025

Remembering the Mamba's 5th and Final NBA Championship...

Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

On this day 15 years ago, Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers played a low-scoring but epic Game 7 against the Boston Celtics to win the NBA championship, 83-79, at STAPLES Center. Exactly two years after they were humiliated by their arch-nemesis in Game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals at TD Banknorth Garden arena, the Lakers exacted revenge in a fitting end to their 3-year championship run that also included a win over the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals.

This was the Lakers' 16th franchise title before LeBron James and Anthony Davis gave the Lake Show its 17th NBA championship in October 2020.

A Quarter Century Ago: The Lakers Clinched Their Spot in the 2000 NBA Finals...

Getty Images

25 years ago today, the Lakers made an epic comeback against the Portland Trail Blazers after Los Angeles was down by 15 points in the 4th quarter. In a run that included the famous alley oop from Kobe Bryant to Shaquille O'Neal that resulted in a decisive dunk (see tweet below), the Lakers finally put an end to three straight disappointing postseasons that included two defeats by the Utah Jazz (in 1997 and a sweep in '98), and a sweep by the San Antonio Spurs in 1999. And this run to the championship took place during the Lake Show's first NBA season at their new home, the STAPLES Center.

All I can say is, this was a classic game! Though I'll admit, I was so infuriated by the Lakers losing badly coming out of the 3rd quarter, that I pondered about becoming a Raptors fan had L.A. lost Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals. Don't forget— Air Canada himself, Vince Carter, was still playing in Toronto at the time. Happy Hump Day!

This was before the Lakers went on to beating Indiana in that team's first appearance in the #NBAFinals. Godspeed, Pacers. 🥸 https://t.co/EyZKFmnLjQ

— Richard Par (@RichTPar) June 4, 2025

A Japanese Solar Sail That Launched in 2010 Has Officially Ended Its Mission...

JAXA

End of 15-Year Operation of the Small Scale Solar Powered Sail Demonstration Satellite, IKAROS (News Release)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will complete operations for the Small Scale Solar Powered Sail Demonstration Satellite, IKAROS (the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) and end the spacecraft's search operations on May 15, 2025. After this date, JAXA will no longer track IKAROS and all operations will end.

IKAROS was launched on May 21, 2010, together with the Venus Climate Orbiter, Akatsuki. IKAROS became the first in the world to successfully demonstrate a solar sail and solar power sail. By December 2011, after achieving all mission goals, the propellant was close to depletion and attitude control was difficult.

IKAROS began to repeatedly enter and exit from hibernation mode (shutdown state).

In order to continue receiving radio signals from IKAROS after the spacecraft woke from hibernation, it was necessary to accurately predict the orbit and attitude movement of the solar sail during the hibernation mode. By searching for IKAROS after waking from hibernation, the validity of this motion model was able to be verified and the accuracy improved. Radio waves were successfully received from IKAROS until the fourth wake-up, but after the spacecraft entered hibernation for the fifth time in May 2015, no radio waves from IKAROS have been detected.

It has been determined that there is only an extremely small possibility of receiving radio signals from IKAROS in the future, and so it has been decided to end operations.

The development, launch and operation of IKAROS was made possible thanks to the support and cooperation of the many participating organizations, and the encouragement from around the world. We are deeply grateful.

Thank you very much.

The achievements of IKAROS will be inherited by a number of upcoming missions. In the area of solar sails, the development of the Powered Innovative Earth-orbiter with Reorientable Inclined Sail (PIERIS) is underway, which aims to demonstrate integrated attitude-orbit control of an ultra-small solar sail. Attitude control using solar pressure torque is currently being carried out or planned for the Extended Mission of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, the next-generation of small body sample return missions, and other explorations in space.

For solar power sails, thin-film solar cell paddles are being developed for application to outer planetary explorers with the OPENS program, as well as other missions.

Although the operation of IKAROS has ended, our mission through the inherited results of the IKAROS spacecraft, is by no means at an end. We believe that the best way to return the support we have received is the continued development of solar sails and solar power sails. We want to thank everyone once again, and we look forward to your support in the future.

Source: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

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JAXA


JAXA / The Planetary Society (U.S.)