VOLTRON GOT SERVED... "Hey- Who's laughing now, biatch? Huh? Huh?"

MARIO IN VICE CITY... One of my friends told me about this Youtube clip showing Mario and Luigi taking a wrong turn into a city from the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Pretty hilarious. Yoshi also shows up at the end. Won't tell you what happens to him, though. Beware of Raccoon City, haha.

"CHRIS PAUL FOR MVP..." Imagine Kobe Bryant's response if those signs said that instead, haha. Anyways, if the Lakers beat the Sacramento Kings at STAPLES Center tonight, Kobe's two little girls just might get their wish (what with L.A. officially clinching the No. 1 playoff spot in the Western Conference if they defeat the Kings). Of course, there are also the countless number of MVP votes that need to be submitted to the NBA league office in New York by Thursday afternoon. Vanessa Bryant sure is hot...dark eyeliner and all.

UPDATE (10:13 PM PST): Take out the Laker flags...for those of you who live in the City of Angels. L.A. defeated the Kings, 124-101 tonight, finishing the season 57-25 and officially securing homecourt advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs . Kobe better get presented with the Podoloff Cup come the Western Conference Finals, in late May.


Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

STREET KINGS... I saw the film yesterday, and it was about as good as I expected (which isn’t a criticism). Keanu Reeves didn’t stop bullets in midair by raising a hand, but his character did kick ass as much as Neo did in The Matrix flicks (oh, and Constantine). Forrest Whitaker gave an animated performance as the head of an LAPD special detectives unit, and it was amusing to hear Hugh Laurie (who plays the title character in the hit FOX TV show House) cuss in this movie. Performance-wise, he wasn’t as sarcastic in Street Kings as he is on House, but Laurie still made the kind of snide remarks that his small-screen character is known for. The twist at the end was unexpected, though I already knew that (SPOILERS ahead) Reeves was gonna shoot Whitaker’s character (End SPOILERS)...since one of my co-workers told me the ending last week. We conducted test screenings for Street Kings several times at my work. Its original title was The Night Watchman. Yea, Street Kings sounds better.


FOX Searchlight

TF2 Fan Art... Thanks to the Transformers Live Action Movie Blog for posting these awesome drawings made by fans of characters they want to see in the sequel, which has been confirmed to be one of many films that will be shot in Philadelphia this summer. Hmm- Looks like Transformers 2 will be incomplete if it doesn't show Sam and Mikaela sharing a cheesesteak together.

ABOVE: This image marks the path traveled by the Phoenix spacecraft as of 12:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time, on April 11, 2008. It has flown a distance of 374 million miles since launch...at a speed of 46,016 miles per hour. Click here to view the official webpage showing where Phoenix is in space.

PHOENIX Update...

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(Official Press Release)

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA engineers have adjusted the flight path of the Phoenix Mars Lander, setting the spacecraft on course for its May 25 landing on the Red Planet.

"This is our first trajectory maneuver targeting a specific location in the northern polar region of Mars," said Brian Portock, chief of the Phoenix navigation team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The mission's two prior trajectory maneuvers, made last August and October, adjusted the flight path of Phoenix to intersect with Mars.

NASA has conditionally approved a landing site in a broad, flat valley informally called "Green Valley." A final decision will be made after NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes additional images of the area this month.

The orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera has taken more than three dozen images of the area. Analysis of those images prompted the Phoenix team to shift the center of the landing target 13 kilometers (8 miles) southeastward, away from slightly rockier patches to the northwest. Navigators used that new center for planning today's maneuver.

The landing area is an ellipse about 62 miles by about 12 miles (100 kilometers by 20 kilometers). Researchers have mapped more than five million rocks in and around that ellipse, each big enough to end the mission if hit by the spacecraft during landing. Knowing where to avoid the rockier areas, the team has selected a scientifically exciting target that also offers the best chances for the spacecraft to set itself down safely onto the Martian surface.

"Our landing area has the largest concentration of ice on Mars outside of the polar caps. If you want to search for a habitable zone in the arctic permafrost, then this is the place to go," said Peter Smith, principal investigator for the mission, at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Phoenix will dig to an ice-rich layer expected to lie within arm's reach of the surface. It will analyze the water and soil for evidence about climate cycles and investigate whether the environment there has been favorable for microbial life.

"We have never before had so much information about a Mars site prior to landing," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. Arvidson is chairman of the Phoenix landing-site working group and has worked on Mars landings since the first successful Viking landers in 1976.

"The environmental risks at landing -- rocks and slopes -- represent the most significant threat to a successful mission. There's always a chance that we'll roll snake eyes, but we have identified an area that is very flat and relatively free of large boulders," said JPL's David Spencer, Phoenix deputy project manager and co-chair of the landing site working group.

Today's trajectory adjustment began by pivoting Phoenix 145 degrees to orient and then fire spacecraft thrusters for about 35 seconds, then pivoting Phoenix back to point its main antenna toward Earth. The mission has three more planned opportunities for maneuvers before May 25 to further refine the trajectory for a safe landing at the desired location.

In the final seven minutes of its flight on May 25, Phoenix must perform a challenging series of actions to safely decelerate from nearly 21,000 kilometers per hour (13,000 mph). The spacecraft will release a parachute and then use pulse thrusters at approximately 914 meters (3,000 feet) from the surface to slow to about 8 kilometers per hour (5 mph) and land on three legs.

"Landing on Mars is extremely challenging. In fact, not since the 1970s have we had a successful powered landing on this unforgiving planet. There's no guarantee of success, but we are doing everything we can to mitigate the risks," said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions are provided by the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; the Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.


PHOENIX Blog Entries Archive:

May 8, 2007
July 28, 2007
August 3, 2007
August 4, 2007
August 8, 2007
October 25, 2007

Just thought I’d share these awesome pics of a Lamborghini Reventon going up against a British Tornado fighter jet. That is all.

IF JUNE 2 CAN’T COME SOON ENOUGH... Much as how Barricade (or the prop cars that portray him) was reportedly seen in Culver City recently, more photos have turned up on the Net showing additional Transformers vehicles being moved around Southern California. This time it’s Optimus Prime on the 405 Freeway (which would take you towards Culver City), and Ratchet and Ironhide on Lankershim Boulevard (located in North Hollywood, which you can also get to via the 405).


SuperHeroHype.com

There are reports that Transformers 2 will film in Sedona, Arizona (along with Philadelphia, and um, Egypt?), and IESB.Net has posted a possible cast breakdown for the sequel. Oh, and the CONSTRUCTICONS are rumored to make an appearance in the movie!! Woohoo! Of course, keep in mind Michael Bay said that he’s gonna leak fake info on TF2 to throw the fanbase off during production (of course, he's still in pre-production). Oh well. Start of filming for next year's blockbuster is still on track for June 2.


Fan art courtesy of Rise Studio

TODAYShow.com

THE ‘TEST TUBE TWINS’ TURN 25. Just thought I’d write a quick Blog about this (click here for a news article)...since the sister, Heather Tilton, looks like the Caucasian twin—no pun intended—of Sue (you would have to see more pics of her to notice the resemblance). Wow. Am I thinking about her that much? Hi Sue. In case you’re weirded out if you ever read this, sorry ‘bout that.



New York Daily News

NASA TV

THAT'S NO X-WING... The European Space Agency’s newest spacecraft, Jules Verne, successfully came within 36 feet of the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday...paving the way for its inaugural docking with the orbiting complex on Thursday. Jules Verne (officially called the Automated Transfer Vehicle, or ATV) joins the space shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz and Progress capsules as the newest member of the fleet that is the lifeline for the ISS. Europe plans to launch at least 4 more ATV’s over the coming years, with Japan next in line to send its own supply ship, the H-II Transfer Vehicle, to the station by 2009.


JAXA

By the way, I was trying to come up with a good quote from the original Star Wars movie to use as the yellow tagline above. "We’re caught in its tractor beam" was considered, and so was "Ship approaching, ATV-class." Though technically, that second line was adapted from The Empire Strikes Back. Haha.




NASA TV