give it a giggle instead of a sigh

My man Joe plays Happy Ways Meteorological autumn is almost here, and yet we always have warmth. Warmth comes in the arms of loved ones; in the rays of the big star crossing our sky; and in the comedic bath we enjoy from that great pacifier....the boob tube. A couple of you were happy to note to me that Wednesday night is hick night with Green Acres and the Beverly Hillbillies featured over on MeTV. NOTED! ....On Thursday night we have the new comedy Sullivan & Son which seemed to get out of the gate a little rough but is quickly finding it's stride over on TBS. STEPPED UP! ....But the biggest news boob tube wise is actually youtubeboobtube-wise because to view this show you'll have to try a feat of prestidigitation. You see Doctor Who premiere's Saturday night September 1 at 8 pm London time (which is about 2 pm CST). You can't see the show in the states; however some of our Brit Buds post the episodes Saturday night on youtube and it is (or was) possible to view the episode if you were fast enough before the powers-that-be took down the clips. So there you go. BOLD!

Calling it.... The Milkshake Ocean® Done!

Went out early this morning long before dawn and in the sparklingly beautiful dark sky scoped out banded Jupiter and it's four biggest moons. Personally your humble blogger can't wait for the day we go for that baby, esp the moon Europa. Five miles of ice covering a methane ocean 50 miles deep. FIFTY MILES DEEP! Think about that a sec. Listen, I'm naming that ocean right now and you know what it is going to be called so don't even try to claim-jump me. Hey, what do you suppose is down deep in there in the depths of a 50-mile deep ocean??? I mean how big are those europan tuna gonna get?.... Also this morn time was taken in the pre-dawn coolness to check the Milkshake transmitter and all was spiffy. So here is some fresh news.... This is Curiosity Rover up on Mars beginning to revv up and roll and snapping a shot of Mount Sharp (which it is going to climb eventually). Hmmmm, just wondering if the Chicago Blackhawks NHL star winger Patrick Sharp gave his a-ok to use his name on Mars? If there is a problem NASA, I'd be happy to swap my name for his. I'm right here for ya JPL, if you need a name.... While we're talking space an RIP and proud salute to Neil Armstrong who passed away! Anyone else heading out to see The Fixx later tonight as they headline at Skokie's Backlot Bash? Remember when MTV played music? And videos were so random. Here's that video everyone is going nuts about the last 48 hours. Watch Curiosity whip on down to the surface of Mars. Hey did anyone else besides me get a little dizzy as it pitches and yawls toward those craters below?....Whoa!....whoa....whoa I said....steady down....aaaaaaaaaaaaaand....dust up!

Being Disintegrated Makes me very Angry!

ANOTHER UPDATE 8/22 Since the Curiosity rover is driving on mars, let's celebrate....with this! UPDATE 8/19: it's the 35th anniversary of Voyager 2 going to space I added an epic Bugs vs martin martian. Saturday Morning Cartoons....one can't help thinking that the immortal writer G.B. Shaw foresaw what it was all going to become when he said: "What is life but a series of inspired follies?" Let Friz and Chuck, Mel and Carl, Tex and Bob, Leon and Robert, and a cast of thousands take you along for the big wild ride into giddy, follyfull happiness. "Overture, Curtains, Lights, This Is It, We'll Hit The Heights....And oh what heights we'll hit, on with the show, This Is It!" ....

Toonweekend

Only the tip of the cartoonberg offered here....but we're kicking off a weekend of toonopia. They'll be more to come--in just a few hours--as we'll have some Saturday morning old school cartoon pleasure, complete with music, music, music. Wake up with the Milkshake blog and 'Looney-Tune-in' early to blog over a bowl of cereal. Scooby-dooby-doo! Photo of Ray, Chelveston and Cuddly Dudley. Great way to start the mornings. Maaaaaaan he could crank out the cartoons, baby! Ray knew what we liked. Prayers were sent to the gods that he would pull the little note marked 'bugs' off his shirt before seven hours of living hell, uh, that is, catholic school started! Personal Milkshake blog insider stuff: this blogger used to swim in Ray's pool. Chelveston was his pet and swam in the pool too! No kidding. Nice clean cute little duck. Felix. Gigantor.

....hey mister did you happen to see....pictures of lillie

When my young ears first sucked this tune into my head back in those mod 70s, everything about the sound and the group was rad. Hard rock! They were what FM was all about! Remember? Well re-discovery via youtube! Given a new jolt of love, it has been played along on fender, in total bliss, til fingers turned red and went numb. It's slipped in here tonight for that reason and because this wonderful tune is never played on the radio by anyone anymore. The next time it gets played in the airwaves will be the first time since....well....don't even know when. So here ya go. It is accompanied by a photo of the song's subject, and also a pic of the great Gary Cooper flick The Westerner, of which part of the plot revolves around the good guy staying alive long enough to introduce the bad guy to the song's girl. She's Lille Langtry. But you already knew that by now didn't you?

Hit me again sugar rush.....ohhhh yeah!

Saturday night....sugar....speaks for itself doesn't it? Hey, we've upped our blogger world quite a bit this summer. About 100 of you get a Milkshake fix daily. What brings you? The Music? The Science? The complete Nonsense? Well thanks. Enjoy the sugar rush of musical choices below. For added sugar buzz....play them all at once really REALLY loudly and very late. Hahahahahaha. Should make the doggies in your neighborhood howl! (That's always fun.)

(I should be) Riding On That Train To San Antone---

This wasn't supposed to be a blogging night. Some quiet time was scheduled. But then rock n roll news flashed across the teletype here at the massive Milkshake Blog news bunker and the 'social media news machines' went into spasms so I had to check-in. ...............And Yes............. ........It is true.................. ..............You've maybe already caught wind................ ...............THE MONKEES............... are going to perform 12 shows later this year in honor of their fallen little monk Davy. Here is the tour promo art with published dates straight off their monkees.net website. They start in Cali Nov 8., move thru the midwest, incl a stop in Chicago Nov. 16, and end in NYC Dec 2. On their website, there is a note from Mike explaining that he will join Peter and Mickey along with their back-up band for this tour. I'm sure that over on WLS FM 94.7 'the dickster' aka my favorite DJ legend, Dick Biondi, the wild I-tralian, (on from 11 pm-2am cst) will mention it tonight on his radio show. Give him a listen. I've posted one of the Monkees great 60s tunes called 'What Am I Doing Hangin Round?' I like how Mickey is screwing around in the background of the song waving bye-bye. He's funny. Here's some random trivia in case you like random trivia. Did you know the Monkees outsold both The Beatles and The Stones combined in, I think, 1965? Also, when the Monkees toured, they used a left-handed guitarist to open for them who was little-known but was totally off-the-wall incredible and getting his big break. His name?....I'm not kidding about this kids....Jimi Hendrix! Yeah! I know! Shut up, right? Go look it up.

what time?

BANG.....POP.......SNAP.........and the livin' is easy. The BANG is for Big Bang Theory starting on Sept. 27th. Mark your calendar. The POP is for The Who which has announced it has added another date: Nov 30th. Mark your calendar. The SNAP is for Mars rover Curiosity snapping it's first color photo from Mars yesterday, shown below. The 'livin' is easy' tune comes courtesy of big Bill Evans and his magical piano playing of the eternal tune 'Summertime'. Hey, random observation in this clip....notice right at the start, several rows back....is that a Stephen Hawking impersonator or the real thing, back in 1960s London??? Oh well. Listen, Rinse Repeat. Timeless: Bill Evans bent over the piano keys in his own world.

There's New Life On Mars, It's the Size Of a big Sedan, and it's name is Curiosity

Hello Mount Sharp! My name is Curiosity. I come from Earth. Glad to meet you. I just arrived. So....how's the weather? Where are the hot babes? Can I get a beverage.... The JPL control room (and about five million viewers, myself included) erupted in cheers and tears of joy at 12:35 cst as Curiosity did it! And immediately the super rover beamed back Martian images. Humans just advanced again. We have stepped boldly into the cosmos whether we realize it or not. History is rewritten just now. Thanks dreamers. Thanks adventurers. Y'all have a nice morning.

See you on the other side

A current view inside the JPL Curiosity mission control room with the science experts via Ustream access. "Thank you mission team," said the voice just now over the com, "Curiosity in fantastic shape...see you on the other side." Awesome to the maxx! Go Curiosity Go.

Blogging live C'mon and Shout Out to Curiosity

Good evening! I'm live here on the Milkshake Blog tonight watching the various media outlets and also the craziness on twitter and on Ustream. I'd roughly guess there is a few million people on these many outlets right now. The multi-broadcast from NASA/JPL is rolling too and there are watch parties as well. The big one in Chicago is at the Adler Planetarium. Pasadena, Cali is the epicenter for all of it of course. If you are a night owl check-in and give Curiosity a shout out on the blog using the comments button below. You can just hit 'anonymous'. Also say hi on twitter at trb4320. I'll be around til the big moment arrives for Curiosity. I'll blog again later. Meanwhile....I don't mean to upset NASA but....I discovered that Abbott and Costello already went to Mars more than 60 years ago....and found giant dogs....and hot chicks....shhhh, don't tell them, it'll be a buzzkill....

Quiet Night Quiet Star

If you haven't already been, go here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm later today around 5 pm cst to get the latest NASA/JPL live news all about Curiosity; then later tonight starting around 10:30 pm cst stay up til touchdown about 12:15 am for the Mars landing commentary. Last night was tweet-tastic except it was jammed and jammin over on https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/with_replies. I'm sure it'll be cookin tonight too as well. One really fun moment was when physicist and cool dude Neil Tyson (I have his book so I'm, by osmosis, halfway cool) was tweeting with Curiosity scientists live. Very hip in a nerdy neato way. Extra-funny-coincidentally-cool--he just happened to have a cameo on a Big Bang Theory rerun episode just a little while earlier on TBS. I invited a few JPL scientists to the Milkshake and also Neil. Looks like a good crowd swept the blog last night and today. Thanks for the texts too. My twitter is trb4320 in case you are looking for me over there. This morning there was a Q&A on JPL with a Mars Curiosity team scientific panel and I posed a question from the Milkshake Blog on whether there was a video camera taking descent film of the landing tonight. (I already know they have a cam taking descent stills.) But the line of questions was so long I got tired of waiting for mine to be answered and had to go eat lunch. So I don't know if it was answered or not. Oh well. (I was hungry for gosh sakes!) As the countdown to Curiosity's big moment far up above us rolls closer I decided to lay something nice n calm n cool from a person who's described as an angel come to earth, a talent that comes along maybe every thousand years or so, if ever. Here's Stan doing Corcovado. Chill back. Let Stan wash you clean. Dream about the night, the stars, and what it would be like to be flying with Curiosity down to Mars' surface tonight!

wich-yer-baa-sef

Amidst all the hot news in the world (Olympics, politics and of course 24 hours to Curiosity landing on Mars....) the Milkshake has it's own fish to fry. We try to hone our sense to suit the fine tastes of you bloggers out there who require a specialized mix of music/science/pop/culture/fun/nonsense/and esoteric bolderdash. Was that well-said? Here are two tidbits of note for a Saturday night; along with a musical softie for your lighthearted evening's listening, courtesy of the Hues Corporation (any band with 'corporation' in its name is gonna be awesome, you know it is). One) The Voyager 1 spacecraft, noted today by NASA, has shown signs that it may be finally leaving the "bow shock" area of our solar system and beginning it's foray out into interstellar space. As of about a week ago, sensors on the ship showed datum that represented it has left a certain region and entered a distinctly different region. In other words a boundary has been breached out there. JPL scientists are noncommital so far to declare officially but I hold no such reluctance. Let me be the first on the planet to say outloud we have reached interstellar space. Humanity Has Left The Building! (That's all I got so far. My script writers are out on the town tonight.) Two) Are you much for these reality shows? There are tons of them. I sorta like the sniping gang on storage wars and the way they all try not to get "out yupped" n all that but I really grin at Lizard Lick. It's over on truTV on Sundays and late Monday night. Ride along with Ronny and Bobby and watch the fun. The goofy, goofy fun. The only thing that ties Lizard Lick, Voyager 1, the Hues Corporation's bouncy song and the Milkshake blog together even remotely (very) is we do try to 'Rock the Boat' a little bit with our stylings. Ouch! That's a stretch. I know! Ok, Major stretch. Not even a segue really. But just give me this one tonight, okay guys? After all, it's Saturday night and I'm padding a little until tomorrow when it's Curiositys big night. BTW--you can go on twitter (twitter.com/marscuriosity) and get ongoing messages about the spaceship's happenings right up to the landing. I'm on twitter now and staying on 24-7 checking in occasionally watching the updates til the lander touches down Monday morn around 12:30 am. Last thing I want to ask........well I'd like to know where, you got the notion....so I'd like to know where, you got the notion....to....rock the boat.....

True Grit Gonna Smack Mars, It'll be 'Sweet'

The social media explosion promoting the upcoming Curiosity Rover landing on Mars late Sunday night/wee hours Monday morn was amazing today. NASA rocked it hard. Were you among the million who caught the frenzy? It was waaaay cool. I loved the blunt question: "why do this? Why go to Mars?" And the equally blunt, ballsy, John Wayne-esque answer....."BECAUSE WE CAN! (Muthafucka!)" okay, okay, I added the expletive, but that's what everyone felt strongly underlying in the answer, because the room split with laughter with the way the scientist replied quickly, definitively--fiery! Then she added; "why not go. We need to go. We have the ability. Let's do it. Let's send this big baby up there. We've got to go. We've got to find out how far we can push ourselves. It's in our nature to find out. It's in our nature to explore. We are bound for the stars. What are we waiting for?!" Jesus Christ! I almost made a phone call in to JPL to her on the spot and screamed RIGHT ON BABY! So in 48 hours big, bad Curiosity does tricks that defy circus performers in order to wheel and deal thru the very light air and touch down on the martian surface. Awesome! I felt that we needed to reach back into the deep of the early 70s for some power rock magic from the rock god innovators The Sweet and turn them loose with a little gem called Set Me Free. It's one of my favorites. Crank this puppy to eleven and throw your hook-em horn fingers into the air and salute Curiosity as it hurtles its massive ass toward history up on red Mars.