Hat tips to Buzzfeed!

Schedule:
Moon landing broacast start: 4:10:30 pm EDT on July 20
Moon landing shown: 4:17:40 pm EDT
Moon landing broacast end: 4:20:15 pm EDT
Moon walk broadcast start: 10:51:27 pm EDT
First step on Moon: 10:56:15 pm EDT
Nixon speaks to the Eagle crew: approx 11:51:30 pm EDT
Moon walk broadcast end: 12:00:30 pm EDT on July 21

PS: EDT is three hours ahead of us, so it will kick off at 1:10 our time. THAT'S SOON!

PPS: DUH.

"Ice McWho?" you ask?

"ICE McDONALD," I respond.

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU.

Yes, that is a throne of ice.

(P.S. We don't have any "Love," "Dating," or "Relationship" tags, so I tagged this post "Astronomy." Because you and Trenita are in the STARS, baby!)

Hat tips to BWE!

Bar2D2 on the other hand is less cute and somehow more sinister than R2. It will get you wasted in about 10 minutes flat and maybe give you a seizure in the process. Sure it comes with a "beer elevator," but will it distract a Sith Lord while you make your escape? Probably not.

The best part is that you can build both of them at home:

R Series Droids at Astromech
Bar Series Droids at Instructables

LISTEN:

That Christmas classic is from the 1980 album A Christmas in the Stars. Says Wikipedia:

The album is notable for featuring the first professional recording of Jon Bon Jovi (credited as John Bongiovi), who sings lead vocals on the song "R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas." Jon's cousin Tony Bongiovi co-produced the album and ran the recording studio, where Jon was working sweeping floors at the time.

Know what we call that? A Christmas miracle.

OKAY FINE ONE MORE.

LISTEN:

Oh, those sweet, sweet dulcet tones. Thanks to Zac Pennington; to all a good night, etc.

I'm not sure what happens when a Quantum of Solace gets this close a "Documented Mystic Christian Quantum Physics Occurrence," but it frightens me a bit. I haven't seen the new James Bond flick, but if I do, it will be at CineMagic. I expect a quantum overload....

The past two times the Mercury editorial staff has gone to Vegas in order to get ourselves drunk and throw away all of our money, I've somehow managed to trick some of my less fortunate coworkers into going to Star Trek: The Experience with me. At Star Trek: The Experience, which is hosted deep in the dusty, long-forgotten bowels of the Las Vegas Hilton, you get to pay entirely too much money (like 50 bucks or something similarly ridiculous) to ride a so-so Star Tours-ripoff ride and look at a bunch of old Star Trek props. (People get married there, too, on a replica of the Enterprise's bridge.) But hands down the best part of Star Trek: The Experience is Quark's Restaurant and Bar, where Klingons and Andorians wander about making small talk, and where you can order bullshit novelty drinks like a "Warp Core Breach" and bullshit novelty food like a "Hamborger." If nothing else, it's a really great place to get drunk off of shitty beer with blue food coloring in it Romulan Ale.

Or, rather, it was. Since all good things must come to an end (HA!), today word comes that Star Trek: The Experience is closing its super-futuristic doors, thanks to steadily declining attendance and the fact that the Las Vegas Hilton believes that more "money could be made using the space for other purposes."

The whole story's over at Trek Movie, where the comments are better than the actual article. They range from "Frak that," to "My wife and I live here in Vegas and go to SSTE about twice a week," to:

Stupid stupid mistake! I wanted to get married there. of course i needed to find someone first. This sucks!

does the words live long and prosper mean anything?

Indeed.

On this date in 1947, not far from here in the skies surrounding Mt. Rainer, pilot Kenneth Arnold spots unidentified flying objects while on a search mission for a downed military transport plane. Here’s a synopsis of events from Wired:

As Arnold recalled, the afternoon was crystal clear, and he was cruising at an altitude of 9,200 feet. A minute or two after noting a DC-4 about 15 miles behind and to the left of him, he was startled by something bright reflecting off his plane. At first he thought he had nearly hit another aircraft but as he looked off in the direction the light had come from, he saw nine "peculiar-looking" aircraft flying rapidly in formation toward Mt. Rainier.
As these strange, tailless craft flew between his plane and Mt. Rainier and then off toward distant Mt. Adams, Arnold noted their remarkable speed -- he later calculated that they were moving at around 1,700 mph -- and said he got a pretty good look at their black silhouettes outlined against Rainier's snowy peak.

During a report to the media about his close encounter, he coined the term flying saucer.

The zaniness soon began! Here’s to over 60 years of hoaxes, grainy photographs, cover-ups, X-Files, Steven Spielberg, wing-nuts, and alien autopsies. Not sure if the truth is out there, but at least it’s entertaining and maybe even a little creepy at times.


Spermatozoa, dust on the lens, swamp gas, aluminum foil Frisbees