Q: Is former astronaut Lisa Nowak living the hundreds of miles High Life?

A: You can call Lisa Nowak a lot of things — crazy; a diaper-clad homicidal astronaut; a disgrace to NASA — but you CANNOT call her drunk in space. Or so says the man paid to lie on her behalf.

• EXCLUSIVE: Lisa Nowak Not Drunk in Space, Lawyer Says [ABC News]

Congratulations, ABC News, for boldly going where no other news network had cared to go before, or ever should have.

ABC News: What was you [sic] reaction when you first heard the reports of drunken astronauts in space? [Hmmm, me wonder if this exclusive interview was conducted by special correspondent Cookie Monster. -- ed.]

Attorney Don Lykkebak: Well, what bothered me about the reports is simply this: All of the news stories that I saw and even the one on ABC News linked my client Lisa Nowak with the reports of the astronauts flying impaired in space. What bothers me about that linkage is it's totally untrue. ... It's unfair and inaccurate as to Lisa Nowak.

To be fair to the previous news stories, I don't think they specifically accused Nowak of being drunk in space. I think it was more along the lines of, "Having already been disgraced by crazy diaper-clad homicidal astronaut Lisa Nowak, NASA is now drunk and crying alone on the moon."

BACKSTORY: Houston, We Have a Drinking Problem

Q: And is it not thus the perfect metaphor for life?

Ash-tronauts: That's one giant leap for man, one small step for mankind.

A: The late James Doohan, who portrayed Scotty on Star Trek, today had his ashes blasted into space, temporarily, by Houston-based Space Services Inc.

REUTERS: "The company charges $495 to send a portion of a person's ashes into suborbital space... Capsules containing the ashes are retrieved, mounted on plaques and given back to relatives."

Huh. That seems like an awful lot of energy and effort to devote to a journey that, by the end, takes you nowhere.

Q: Why is the grass always greener on the other Earth?

A: Did you hear about how global warming is, like, solved? No, it wasn't the announcement of the Spinal Tap benefit reunion. It was the recent discovery of an AWESOME NEW PLANET!

They're calling it Second Earth. So pack those bags, baby! We're MOVIN' ON UP — TO THE GLIESE SIDE!!!

AP: Potential Habitable Planet Found

For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."

The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, Gliese 581, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.

Wow, that sounds a lot like my high school. There were quite a few kids smaller and dimmer than me, but they were all way, way cooler.

But hang on, they expect us to believe that some "red dwarf" is cooler than our precious, precious sun?


I mean, a "red dwarf" sounds like he plays a lot of D&D and makes constant snickering references to the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, am I right?

Well, turns out I'm not right. I called some of my friends at NASA this morning, and the evidence they just sent me is pretty conclusive: Our sun is, comparatively, a total nerd. Click to enlarge:


My NASA friends also revealed the reason the grass is always greener on Second Earth: Despite being smaller and dimmer, Second Sun is so totally cool that it gets other, smarter stars to do its photosynthesis for it, while it makes out with its hot girlfriend, a varsity volleyball player, in the woods behind school. Wow, that is one cool dude.

I don't know about you, but I'm DONE with the Milky Way.

The Velvet Underground
Who Loves the Sun
Loaded, 1970

It's a galaxy full of losers, and I'm pulling out of here to win!!!

Q: Didn't they always say there was no surf in Cleveland, USA?

A: Damn you, Euclid Beach Band, for your dirty lies.


The New York Times today has an expose on the Cleveland surf community: Yes, You Can Surf in Cleveland.

“Cleveland surfers have a reputation for being gritty and hard-core,” said Ryan Gerard, owner of Third Coast Surf Shop in New Buffalo, Mich. “They just don’t care what other people think about them.”

Occasionally there are days when the waves are good and the sunset falls into Lake Erie like a red fire and the Cleveland surfers bob silently in the water, alone in the city. And they laugh at their good fortune.

“Nobody surfs here to get noticed,” Scott Ditzenberger said. “We surf here because we love it.”

Speaking of not getting noticed, I've never heard of a Cleveland surf community. Wait, is the Times still running stories by Jayson Blair?

While I'm running photos from the Times, check out this sweet shot of the Discovery launch in Cape Canaveral yesterday:


As per always, click to enlarge.