I've just added the COMMENT feature to this journal page!! So comment on anything you want in here...just make sure the message is polite, intellectual and/or (mostly 'and') just plain kissing my arse...or else I'd have to track you online and hunt you down, Jay & Silent Bob-style...


UPDATE: Click here to read about Ten Surefire Ways to Tick Off Your Coworkers at your job! NOT that I should worry 'bout that right now, heheh...

Below are three pics that I found online dealing with Episode III. The one on the left, taken from a British newspaper, is of Anakin Skywalker after he is burnt from lava after the big lightsaber duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the photo to the right is of the Jedi killer General Grievous...how he is gonna look in the movie...not of his crappy animated version that fans will soon see on the Cartoon Network. The pic below these two is concept art of Darth Vader being born as the Emperor looks on. And of course, another pic showing Grievous from different angles. If you think the general doesn't look cool enough (or at all), keep in mind that there are reports that this (SPOILER... Highlight to read.) deadly leader (who is half droid / half alien) of the Separatists' droid army uses four lightsabers simultaneously in the film. Guess how.



UPDATE: Since TheForce.Net didn't provide spoiler warnings for these aweseome artwork, I'll post these drawings here... Go to TheForce.Net to view these in their original size.

Top-left pic: ILM-quality artwork of the Anakin/Obi-Wan lightsaber duel over lava
Middle-left pic: An altered shot from the SW: Insider magazine with General Grievous ready to kick some ass
Bottom-left pic: An awesome drawing of Grievous, also with his lightsabers decked out
Right pic: Presumably the teaser poster for Episode III
Last pic: A cool comic book drawing of Grievous, taken from the Official Site

HOT IMPORT NIGHTS!! I just came back from the Hot Import Nights car show at the L.A. Convention Center about half an hour ago, and needless to say...it was awesome! I finally met the lovely Jasmine Mai in person! More details on this a few days from now... The other models that I met and took pictures with was Natalie Keen (Miss HIN 2004), Francine Dee (for the third time since 2000, heheh), Christine Mendoza (for the second time since 2001), Joyce Lex, Sandy Saya (she definitely does NOT look like Yen in person!!) and Kay Sivilay...who I thought I met at Hot Import Nights in Del Mar (in February of 2000), but I was mistaken. This was the first car show Ms. Sivilay made an appearance at. The only lowpoint of the show was Cora Linn not being able to make it to HIN since she said in her Yahoo! group that she had to fly back to Texas (where she lives). But she did say she'll be at another import show next month. Good grief...I have to save up money for that show AND Asian Model Palooza (which is on March 20th)!! Assuming I go to that one... By the way, enter these models' websites at your own discretion!

And YES, I DID take pictures of cars at HIN. I took a picture of a silver Lamborghini (I loved that car since I was around 7-8 years old!) and Porsche (ditto!)...as well as a fixed-up Hummer (also silver). What's pretty interesting is that you can put new rims, a chrome exhaust, NOS gas tanks, a spoiler, a DVD player, a Playstation 2, a broadway rearview mirror AND new shock absorbers on a 2000 Acura Integra GS-R, and it STILL won't be worth as much as a Lamborghini or Porsche! Not even close...




UPDATE: This just in from batman-on-film.com: Gary Oldman, the dude who played Dracula and a Russian terrorist who punked Harrison Ford in Air Force One, plays Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins!! That's gonna be cool... And don't forget about Katie Holmes being the damsel in distress in this film... David Julyan, Chris Nolan's composer on Memento, will be doing the music for Batman Begins. The last time I saw Memento was about three years ago, so I don't remember how Julyan's music sounds like.

(Two photos of the "Humphrey" rock that was studied by the Spirit rover)

TAKE THAT, OPPORTUNITY!! This article talks about past signs of water being discovered at Spirit's landing site. JPL's on a role... Below: Opportunity shot this quick movie showing the Martian moon Deimos passing in front of the sun. Not as dramatic as the solar eclipses we have on this planet, but pretty cool anyway.




UPDATE: BLAME IT ON JANET JACKSON!!! Anyways, this CNN article talks about shock jock Howard Stern predicting the demise of his radio show as soon as next week...after the FCC slapped him with an indecency fine after he talked about anal sex and all that good stuff in a show several days ago. Of course, this is fallout from the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident last month. Good job, bizatch!

Here's the list of songs scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (near Pasadena, California) have used at the beginning of each work day for the Mars Rovers. These songs were used to wake up the NASA personnel controlling the two robots, and to describe the tasks planned for the day ahead. (By the way, a "Sol" is the scientific/geek term for a Martian day...which is slightly longer than the 24 hour days we have here on Earth.)

Songs by Beyonce, R. Kelly, REM, Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Weird Al Yankovic, Bob Marley, Motorhead, The Cure, Queen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Thalia have been used, which means not all rocket scientists are stuffy, un-cool geeks. They're crazy for using an R. Kelly song, but they're not stuffy, un-cool geeks.

SPIRIT'S playlist:

Sol 2: Good Morning, Good Morning, by the Beatles.
Sol 3: Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’, by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Sol 4: Hail to the Chief, by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (Presidential phone call.)
Sol 5: Satisfaction, by the Rolling Stones. ("I can't get no ...", Air bags not cooperating.)
Sol 6: Get Up, Stand Up, by Bob Marley. (Lift mechanism actuated.)
Sol 7: Da Da Da, by Casaca. (Brazilian song suggested by investigator from Brazil, RRGTM student that week from Brazil.)
Sol 8: Soak Up the Sun, by Sheryl Crow. (Laid-back sol.)
Sol 9: I Can See Clearly Now, by Jimmy Cliff. (Picture taking sol.)
Sol 10: Unchained, by Van Halen; Hit the Road Jack, by Buster Poindexter; Turn, Turn, Turn, by the Byrds. (Cable-cutting, backup on landing deck. start turn on deck.)
Sol 11: I Get Around, by the Beach Boys; Round and Round, by Ratt; You Spin Me ‘Round, by Thalía. (Rest of turn on landing deck.)
Sol 12: Born to be Wild, by Steppenwolf; Rawhide, by Riders in the Sky; Who Let The Dogs Out?, by the Baha Men. (Egress.)
Sol 13: Reach Out, by the Four Tops. (First robotic arm activity.)
Sol 14: You’ve Got The Magic Touch, by the Platters. (Touching robotic arm down on Mars.)
Sol 15: If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, by Sting; Roam, by The B-52’s; Good Times Roll, by The Cars. (Last engineering activities, first drive on the surface.)
Sol 16: After Midnight, by Eric Clapton; Trash Day, by Weird Al Yankovic. (Crew starts Mars day after California midnight, part of the sol dedicated to deleting contents of flash.)
Sol 17: We Will Rock You, by Queen. (First arm activities and observations on a rock.)
Sol 18: Sledgehammer, by Peter Gabriel. (Intended first [Rock Abrasion Tool] RAT sol, though ran into problems later, to put it mildly.)
Sol 19: S.O.S., by Abba. (Objective was to regain contact with Spirit after a loss of communications. We did.)
Sol 20: Baby, Talk to Me, from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. (Objective was to get Spirit to send data. She did.)
Sol 21: Satellite, by The Hooters. (A rousing lullaby for when we were trying, and succeeded, to get the rover to go to sleep.)
Sol 22: We Can Work it Out, by The Beatles. (Beginning debugging activities to get Spirit back to normal.)
Sol 23: Start Me Up, by the Rolling Stones. (Booting in crippled mode.)
Sol 24: Flash, by Queen. (Clearly a flash problem, continuing to debug.)
Sol 25: (You're The) Devil In Disguise, by Elvis Presley, and With a Little Help From My Friends, by The Beatles. (Continuing debug, got picture!)
Sol 26: I Want a New Drug, by Huey Lewis & The News. (Trying yet another recipe for getting task trace, still didn't work.)
Sol 27: Anticipation, by Carly Simon. (Seeing if the file deletes will do the trick or not. They did.)
Sol 28: On the Road Again, by Willie Nelson. ("Can't wait to get back on ...", back to normal use of the flash file system, itching to get going.)
Sol 29: Here Comes the Sun, by The Beatles. (More normal operations, Mars Express coordinated overflight.)
Sol 30: Lean On Me, performed by Club Nouveau. (Intended RAT brush sol, pressing RAT on rock, though activities did not complete.)
Sol 31: I Wanna Be Sedated, by the Ramones. (Very low activity sol to get the rover rested and ready for surgery on the following sol.)
Sol 32: Wipe Out, by The Surfaris, and We're Not Gonna Take It, by
Twisted Sister. (File system reformat.)
Sol 33: Back In the Saddle Again, by Gene Autry, and The Star Spangled Banner, performed by Beyoncé. (Back to normal operations, color flag picture on RAT.)
Sol 34: The Laundry Cycle: Pounded on a Rock, by The Bobs, and Bump N' Grind, by R. Kelly. (First RAT grinding.)
Sol 35: Up Around the Bend, by Credence Clearwater Revival. (Intended drive around lander to begin drive to crater. Didn't get anywhere though.)
Sol 36: Stuck On You, by Elvis Presley. (Drive didn't work yestersol -- we've been stuck here for weeks. Drive did work later that sol.)
Sol 37: Proud Mary, performed by Tina Turner. ("And we're rolling, rolling, rolling on the river ...", first long drive, ended up being more than 20 meters.)
Sol 38: Runnin' With the Devil, by Van Halen. (HGA [High Gain Antenna] problem that sol, no activities, song played late in the sol.)
Sol 39: Hit the Road Jack, by Buster Poindexter. (Another long drive -- yes, this is a reuse of that song.)
Sol 40: What a Wonderful World, by Louis Armstrong. (Mars, that is.)
Sol 41: Open Road Song, by Eve 6. (Driving song, though only did several inches of driving to position in front of rock.)
Sol 42: Lift Up Every Stone, by John Hiatt. (Observations of the rock "Mimi".)
Sol 43: Livin' On a Prayer, by Bon Jovi. (Many sols tend to start with our fingers crossed.)
Sol 44: Way Over Yonder, by Carole King. (Heading for that crater.)
Sol 45: Touch Me in the Morning, by Diana Ross. (Touch and go sol.)
Sol 46: Wake Up Little Susie, by The Everly Brothers. (Generic wake-up song.)
Sol 47: Dig Down Deep, by Hot Soup. (Trenching sol.)
Sol 48: Working in the Coal Mine, by Devo. (Working in the trench.)
Sol 49: Coisinha Do Pai, by Beth Carvalho. (Brazilian song played on Mars Pathfinder, played again for Carnival weekend.)
Sol 50: Samba De Marte, by Beth Carvalho. (Brazilian song written by same artist inspired by use of previous song on MPF, this one is a "Mars Samba", also for Carnival weekend. Starts off "Hello NASA!".)
Sol 51: Chariots of Fire, by Vangelis. (Appropriate for slow-motion races.)

OPPORTUNITY'S playlist:

Sol 2: So Happy Together, by the Turtles (First full sol with both rovers on Mars.)
Sol 3: The Spirit of Radio, by Rush (High Gain Antenna release.)
Sol 4: n/a
Sol 5: Stand, by REM; I'm Still Standing, by Elton John (Standup.)
Sol 6: Lookin' Out My Back Door, by Creedence Clearwater (Revival.); Release Me, by Elvis Presley (Middle wheel release); Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen (Wake up.)
Sol 7: I'm Free, by The Who (Cable Cut #3); Going Mobile, by The Who (Egress.)
Sol 8: You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (First dual surface nominal rover operation.)
Sol 9: I'm Coming Out, by Diana Ross (IDD release.)
Sol 10: Pictures of You, by The Cure (First MI image.)
Sol 11: Please Please Tell Me Know, by Depeche Mode (First MB data readout of soil.)
Sol 12: I'm Leaving Here, by Motorhead (First drive since egress.)
Sol 13: Little Honda (aka First Gear), by the Beach Boys (Jaunt away from lander.)
Sol 14: Should I Stay or Should I Go, The Clash (We went.)
Sol 15: The Flintstones Theme Song, end credits, Version 2 from 1962 (For the arrival at the "bedrock.")
Sol 16: Slip Slidin' Away, by Paul Simon (Large slips along drive up to the outcrop.)
Sol 17: Wake Me Up, by Wham (Touch and go.)
Sol 18: Running Down a Dream, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Drive along the outcrop.)
Sol 19: Here I Go Again, by Whitesnake (Repeat of sol 18 drive objective.)
Sol 20: I Like Dirt, by Red Hot Chili Peppers; The Pioneers of Mars, by Landa/Linsley (MI/MB and drive.)
Sol 21: Send Me On My Way, by Rusted Root; Desert Drive, by Tangerine Dream (Drive back to El Capitan.)
Sol 22: Invisible Touch, by Genesis (MI-MB placement.)
Sol 23: Spinning Wheel, by Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Right front trenching wheel.)
Sol 24: Trench Town Rock, by Bob Marley (Make use of the trench.)
Sol 25: Fascination, by Human League (Regarding the img return from the trench.)
Sol 26: Body Movin', by the Beastie Boys (Every rover part exercised.)
Sol 27: Touch and Go, by Emerson, Lake and Powell (Touch and go.)
Sol 28: I am a Rock, by Simon and Garfunkel (El Capitan target assessment.)
Sol 29: Riders on the Storm, by the Doors (Heavy weather at DSS-63 and DSS-14.)
Sol 30: Rock 'n Me, by Steve Miller Band (1st RAT on opportunity.)
Sol 31: Rock around the Clock, by Bill Haley and His Comets (APXS/MB.)
Sol 32: Let It Be, by the Beatles (Long MB integration -- no IDD or mobility.)

Courtesy of Space.com

GEEK UPDATE #1: Check this out, the rovers are so intelligent, they wrote Blogs about themselves! Pretty cool.


GEEK UPDATE #2: Mars ain't the only planet that's being visited by space probes this year. On July 1st, the Cassini spacecraft is expected to enter orbit around Saturn for a 4-year long mission. This photo is the second one the probe has taken of the ringed planet (from a distance of 43 million miles) during its voyage.


Photo courtesy of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

(Different photos of rocks at the landing site showing signs of past water activity... This Space.com article goes into in-depth detail about the evidence)

WATER ONCE FILLED THE LANDING SITE of the Opportunity Mars Rover. Click here for more info. NASA scientists to naysayers who criticized these missions in newspaper editorials: "F--- you!!! This CNN article sums up the discovery with its first line: Mission Accomplished. By the way, in case you're wondering why I'm so caught up with this Mars Rover business, it's because I gave a presentation on Mars in my Geology lab class at CSULB about 4 years ago, and you-know-you (see post below) said my presentation was the "best one" over all the others that were given that day. And I concluded that presentation by mentioning that these rovers were going to launch in 2003. She brought good luck to the missions.

Here I go again... Acting all craaazzay. Or obsessed. Or both!! Anyways, the pictures below are of Sandy Saya, an attractive (or should I say... sexxxay?) model of Laotian flava'. I just felt like uploading these pics since I thought she looked good in them. That...and the fact she bares a striking resemblance to Yen (especially in that last photo to the right)--so I wanted you guys to see them as to have a clue to why I keep ranting on-and-on about her after all these freakin' years. Of course, Yen doesn't have a little mole on her left cheek like Sandy does (or does she? It's been so long!!)...THAT, and Yen isn't as scandalous as she is (at least not that I know of... ). You'd have to see these pictures in their entirety to know what I'm talking about. If you can't handle 'em...don't look at the photo sets from which they came!!

Curse your feeble minds!! Anyways, I'm kinda annoyed that there's a script error on this page. Blast! I need to go to the Template section to see where the error is located...but the message that pops up on this computer doesn't say (the exact line of error was shown in the message popup on another computer I used at school last week). Oh well. You moron genius!! Sorry... I just figured out how to do that line-crossing thingamajig.

UPDATE: I found this on another Blog:

Five Womanly observations:

1. Woman are not high mantainence, they just want you to find some small way to show your appreciation that no one else would or could ever have thought of, you know, be impossibly creative.

2. Woman can't tell you what they want; that would ruin everything, you have to know what she wants...see #1.

3. The biggest turn off to a woman is a man who is just comfortable. Everything is not just fine.

4. Women are easily depressed and they are always searching for escape and want the man to provide it.

5. Second only to allowing a woman to be borded, not having a plan is the highest crime a man can commit.

What does borded mean?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It was a clean sweep for the epic film, winning a total of 11 Academy Awards and tying with fellow Best Picture epics Titanic and Ben-Hur. Of course, there were other highlights during the 76th Annual Academy Awards...among them being Charlize Theron, the fact Billy Crystal did a great and humorous job as the show's host ("I first hosted the Oscars 13 years ago...back when Bush was in office, the economy was tanking, and we just finished a war with Iraq." Hi-larious!), Jeff Black and Will Ferrell singing a song ("You're boring!") that made fun of Oscar winners whose acceptance speeches went a minute too long, and Ben Stiller wearing his outfit from his upcoming film, Starsky & Hutch. Overall, this was a pretty interesting Academy Awards ceremony--if you ignore the fact there was as much suspense in wondering who the Best Picture winner would be as watching the ending for The Passion of the Christ. Of course, I hadn't watched the show in its entirety since Gladiator (I think) and Titanic (you didn't hear me say that). I was rooting for L.A. Confidential to win that year. No I wasn't.

The Passion of the Christ. Two of my friends and I went to Downtown Disney today to watch the 7:00 PM showing of the film. So what did I think? Overall, it was intense...pretty powerful actually. On the other hand, it may have been too intense. I think there were some parts of the film where Mel Gibson just overdid it on the depiction of Jesus getting roughed up by the Romans. And it's no wonder why the Jewish community was concerned that this film was going to spark more rounds of anti-semitism. Watching certain parts of the movie, I thought to myself, "It's no wonder why Jews have been getting persecuted for the past 2,000 years. And why a million of them died in World War II." What was Mel Gibson thinking??? Anyways, the shot of Jesus rising from the dead inside the tomb was the saving grace of the film (what a surprise, heheh)...considering for the previous 2 and a half hours Jesus was covered in blood and scars and whatnot. We should ALL be glad the Roman Empire is gone. Those heathens!! Although I don't know why, in my faith, we're called Roman Catholics...

And discussing the depiction of Satan in the film: Why am I not surprised that he wears a black hood for most of the film? A la the Sith in the Star Wars films, the Ringwraiths in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Voldemort in Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, and even the mummy Imhotep in The Mummy (1999). Villains seem to be getting more stereotypical in fantasy and epic films these days...


By the way, Jim Caviezel did a commendable job playing the Messiah.