The Mars Exploration Rover A is on its way to Mars! It successfully launched yesterday, which makes it more successful than most Mars missions to date. It's really an exciting mission and I'll be watching it very closely. Add to that the fact that it launched on my favorite expendable launch vehicle (Delta II with all nine solids!!). Very cool. It's a shame that the on-board launch camera got iced-up during fueling and it was covered in distracting water droplets up until the mach barrier. Also, they put the camera on stage one, which means that after MECO it was basically worthless. I understand that MER-B will have the camera on stage two, which is a much better arrangement - no cryogenics to foul the view and you get to see S1 separation.
Speaking of space, my NASA application is all set to go. I'm just waiting on my college transcripts to arrive before I send it off. The deadline is the end of this month. Wish me luck!
This past weekend I helped put on the New Mexico Orienteer's first meet ever! Finally, there is orienteering out here. I've been missing it ever since I left Boston and could no longer participate in CSU and NEOC meets. Here's the results, somehow I seem to have won the longest of the courses.
I recently bought a 4-pack of DVDs - the "Jack Ryan Collection," which is all of the movies based on Tom Clancy novels. They are the same version of the DVD you would get if you bought them separately, though they are all marked as "Special Collector's Edition." This is odd, considering that they are the only edition available in Region 1. The Sum of All Fears has good special features, including an excellent commentary featuring the director and Tom Clancy himself discussing the diversions of the movie from the book and reality. The Hunt for Red October has a single commentary track, but other than that all four movies just have a single theatrical trailer and a really lame studio fluff piece attempting to sell me the movie I just bought. I get annoyed when studio's put "Special Collector's Edition" on a DVD and then give it little to nothing in the way of interesting additional content. Patriot Games; Clear and Present Danger - not a single commentary by anyone? Nothing but a lame set of interviews about how wonderful the film is? Weak. Why can't the Criterion Collection do every movie?
Speaking of DVD's, I have over time managed to upgrade my original Brazil DVD to the Criterion Collection edition, and I made my copy of Tron obsolete by buying the 20th Anniversary Edition. I found a copy of Black Hawk Down for $6 used at Blockbuster, so I bought that. Now I want to get the 3-disc special edition of that. And Nina's parents sent us a copy of The Matrix, which I already have. Sometime after this year, they will undoubtably release a box set of all three Matrix films which I will certainly buy. This leaves me with two copies of The Matrix, one each of Brazil, Tron, and Black Hawk Down that I don't need anymore. Any of my loyal readers interested in these?
PS - does anyone read this crap?
