StaticEclipse.com

SAN DIEGO -- Chad Ochocinco wants to fight Shawne
Merriman. Merriman says that if anything happens between
the two star players Sunday, it will be just like his nickname:
Lights Out. Ochocinco, the unpredictable Cincinnati Bengals
wide receiver, went off about the Chargers' outside linebacker
during a conference call with San Diego reporters Wednesday.
The Chargers (10-3) will play host to the Bengals (9-4) on Sunday  in a meeting of division leaders, with the winner
securing a playoff spot.

Ochocinco and Merriman ran some smack against each other
during a Twitter exchange earlier this year. They apparently have
a history going back to 2006 when Ochocinco, then known as
Chad Johnson, mockingly did Merriman's spasmodic "Lights Out"
sack dance after scoring against San Diego in a game at
Cincinnati.

Ochocinco went off when asked if their Twitter exchange was in fun.

"I will beat Shawne's head in, right now," he said. "It's not even fun.
This is not in fun. This is personal. Bring it on. It is what it is. I think he
might be one of the only people I don't really get along with. I want to
fight. I'm not sure how to get the fight on without him suing me."

How did this happen? "I don't know," Ochocinco said. "You just have
somebody that, like, you have the itch, you just want to fight? That's
what it's come to. I just want to fight."

"I'm not going to really explain the seriousness of it or where it's at
or how serious it is because we're a few days away from Sunday,"
Merriman said.

What kind of fight would it be? "It would be a joke, man," Merriman
said. "It's like a little kid, you hold out your hand and you hold their
head, and they swing, you know, and they can't do anything. It's one
of those things."

= I am looking forward to the 9th anniversary of StaticEclipse.com
in January. I can hardly believe it. Thanks to everybody who has
visited the site(s). Stay tuned in 2010 for more updates. Peace.

= Well, since I prematurely wrote off the Chargers' season (and
wrote a few harsh things about the coach and management), the
team has gone on a winning streak. The Boltz have won 8 in a row
since the first Bronco matchup and are now 10-3 (with a 2 game
cushion in the AFC West). I am glad to see them in a good position
for a playoff run, but I personally won't be satisfied until they finally
push through all of the franchise's past failures and win a Super Bowl
ring. Let's go, Boltz! Keep the pressure turned up!

= Check out the new MAPS page. It has the Earth Clock, along with
still shots of the upcoming animated maps of Earth, Solar System,
Local Star Group (including Alpha Centauri A/B) and Milky Way
Galaxy.

= New Static Eclipse merchandise will be available for purchase in
2010. Stay tuned.

= Check out some pics of Mr. Multimedia USA on the Mr. Multimedia
USA Pics page (link on main menu bar).

= I just got back to Vegas after visiting Florida for a week. I was able
to go to the Kennedy Space Center. It was one of the best days in
my life. I saw the launch pads for the shuttles (and Ares rocket),
the Saturn rockets that sent astronauts to the Moon, modules of
the ISS (International Space Station) and went on a Space Shuttle
Simulator ride. It was awesome. I would like to visit the Johnson
Space Center in Houston, Texas someday, too. Peace.

= Also look for more updates to StaticEclipse.com in 2010.

= Stay tuned for more projects coming in 2010. Not all of my
interests are space-based, even though I am highly interested in
moving forward on that front. I'm also interested in comedy,
action-adventure, fantasy and other genres.

= The Steelers beat the Broncos tonight to put the Chargers one
game back in the AFC West. Much like last year, I wrote off the
Boltz too early. They have a chance to climb back into the race
with a matchup at Denver in two weeks. Next week, the Chargers
host the Eagles, who are coming off a home loss to the Cowboys.
I'll try to refrain from prematurely writing off the Boltz in the future.

= The Chargers pull out the W in New York on a last second TD pass
from Philip Rivers to Vincent Jackson, 21-20. The Lakers beat the
Hornets 104-88. 

= TGIF, baby! Full slate of college and pro football this weekend,
not to mention NBA action. Chargers travel to New York to take
on the Giants on Sunday afternoon. Hope everybody is having
a good one. Peace.

= The Chargers have beaten the Chiefs and Raiders to move to
4-3 (two games behind the Broncos).

= The Lakers held off the Clippers on Tuesday night for the first
win of the season. The Lake Show plays again Friday night.
Let's go, Lakers! One game at a time...

= You can check out the visuals for the upcoming UNIVERSE
Teaser Trailer on this site and MySpace (/universemax). Peace.

= I've made some design updates on this site and
AlphaCentauriCentral.com. Hope you enjoy. Peace.

= Stay tuned for a first look at the new film UNIVERSE and the website
launch. Peace.

= Kobe is a great player, but I'll never forget his shenanigans a couple
of summers ago. I don't care how many championships or points.

= The Los Angeles Lakers season officially starts on Oct. 27 against
the Clippers. I'm looking forward to it. Peace.

= The Denver Broncos beat the San Diego Chargers 34-23 on MNF,
marking the unofficial end of the season. It's really time to start
making changes in the organization, starting with the coach and the
GM who hired him (and fired the old coach). The defense is terrible,
the run game is horrible and the special teams unit is marginal. Los
Angeles is looking like a good destination for the team because San
Diego doesn't have the money to keep them. They could barely sell
out a MNF game against an undefeated division rival. Ok, enough of
this. I thought it couldn't get any worse than last year... I was wrong.
It's time to officially start basketball season. Peace.

= Stay tuned for the UNIVERSE Official Teaser Trailer.

= Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can get back to
rooting for the team and gearing up for the Lakers 09-10 season.
The Lake Show is going for that back-to-back, baby!

= I think it's time for the Chargers to stop messing around the hire
a new GM and coach. Let's do a quick review about the current
GM: A.J. Smith. After 2006, when the Chargers went 14-2, he
decided to fire the coach and hire... Norv Turner! Then, he decided
to let FB Lorenzo Neal and RB Michael Turner go (and LT hasn't
been the same since). Then, this past year, he drafts LB Larry
English when he could have taken USC LB Rey Maualuga (who
would have been a perfect fit for SD). Not to mention that Junior
Seau is STILL playing for the Patriots. On top of all that, he's a
generally gruff a-hole who thinks he's better at evaluating
talent than he really is. Just last week, he goes to the media and
blasts the team for being soft. Merriman rightly stuck up for the
team, but I'm sure Smith will use that as a reason to let Merriman
go after this year (which should be the last bonehead move the
Spanos family lets him do).

= The Chargers have a huge game coming up on MNF next week
against the undefeated Broncos. It will determine the rest of the
season. Hope the Boltz are figuring it out this week.

= Yankees take on the Angels in the ALCS and the Dodgers will
battle the Phillies in the NLCS. Still hoping for an Angels-Dodgers
World Series. Let's go, L.A.!

= Yankees win 4-3 in extra innings to take a 2-0 series lead against
the Twins. Angels up 4-1 in the top of the 8th vs. the Red Sox. Angels
up 1-0 in series. Dodgers up 2-0 against the Cardinals. Rockies tied
with the Phillies 1-1 in the series.

= The MLB Playoffs are underway. I'm hoping for an Angels-Dodgers
World Series.

= The Lake Show open the 09-10 preseason tonight against the
Warriors. Should be interesting to see how Ron Artest fits into the
triangle.

= You can now view the Official Teaser for ALPHA CENTAURI on this
site, AlphaCentauriCentral.com, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace.

= The Official Trailer for ALPHA CENTAURI is uploaded and processing
on YouTube, AlphaCentauriCentral.com and this site. Stay tuned.
Peace.

= Mr. Multimedia USA is getting unlimited multimedia (movies,
television, internet sites, e-books, e-magazines, pics and video
games) programming pumped into his cerebral cortex through 4 USB
cords.

= Static Eclipse has been organized in a forward-moving manner
so that any negative energy will be be used and transformed into
positive. Sorry, charlies.

= I think it's pretty funny when people think I'm trying to be the
next 2Pac (albeit the non-black version) or something just
because I have a pic with Suge Knight (which wasn't planned, just
so happened to be at the same club on the same night). Nice.

= The NBA opens training camp next week. We'll see if the
09-10 version of the Lake Show is ready for the repeat.

= Check out the new still for the upcoming UNIVERSE
trailer.

= You can connect with Mr. Multimedia on MySpace, Facebook,
Twitter and YouTube. Of course, StaticEclipse.com continues
to be the home of Mr. Multimedia USA's official blog. Peace.

= Michael Jordan officially got inducted into the NBA Hall of
Fame tonight. His speech was entertaining and, at times,
revealing about Jordan's thoughts, views and drives over
his life. Whatever you want to say (or think) about the off-
court person, the on-court persona was magnetic and
always captivated NBA crowds. His aerial acrobatics will be
shown on highlight films for years to come. His marketing
prowess is something that is still emulated by pro athletes
in every sport. I remember growing up watching the
Bulls' games and championship runs. Arguably the
greatest player in NBA history.

= Note: In regards to the ethical quandry posed by the
Merriman-Tequila case, I in no way, defend what he did (or
maybe did, or whatever) nor will I ever know exactly what
happened because I wasn't there. I will look at it in terms
of legal proceedings, and as of now, the San Diego DA has
determined that the case be closed.

= The Chargers' 2009 regular season is poised to begin on
Monday Night Football vs. the Oakland Raiders at McAfee
Stadium. The Boltz are coming off a mediocre 8-8 season
where they had to stage an amazing late season comeback
to capture the division from the Denver Broncos. The game
will mark the return of LB Shawne "Lights Out" Merriman
who has spent the past week dealing with serious charges
from Tila Tequila. The San Diego District Attorney has decided
not to file criminal charges against Merriman due to
"insufficient evidence." QB Philip Rivers enters the season
as one of the NFL's elite quarterbacks (team record 34 TD
passes in 2008). RB LaDainian Tomlinson tries to bounce back
from consecutive injury riddled seasons and attempt to
reclaim the NFL's 'best running back' moniker from 2006.
TE Antonio Gates is feeling healthy, as is DE Jamal "The Wall"
Williams. Rookie RT Louis Vazquez moves into the starting
lineup, as does veteran LB Kevin Burnett. RB Darren Sproles
was tagged as the team's "franchise player" and will figure
heavily in the running, passing and return games. Overall,
if the Chargers play up to their considerable potential, it
should be a 1-0 start and a easy victory at Oakland. If the
defense struggles to stop the pass and run, the Raiders
do have the offensive potential to pose problems for the
Boltz. Either way, it will be an exciting MNF start for the
new season. Let's go, Boltz!

= NEWSFLASH!!!

Astronomers Seek New Home Closer to Home

The nearest Earth out there in space? It might be right next door,
galactically speaking.  Two teams of astronomers, one from the United
States and one from Europe, are in a race to find a planet orbiting our
near neighbors Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, twin stars that
appear from Earth as a single point of light.

"I'm betting that there are planets like Earth or Mars or Venus around
either or both of those stars, and the only question is whether we'll be
able to detect them," said Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San
Francisco State University. Backed with U.S. government funding, she
is using a telescope in Chile to assemble 100,000 observations of the
Centauri system.

If the astronomers succeed in detecting a planet there, it will be a
scientific bombshell -- and it will raise the question of how we might
someday send a probe to get a closer look. Alpha Centauri A and B
may be our nearest sunlike neighbors (a third, smaller star in the
Centauri system, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, is a hair closer to
the Earth), but it's still a long haul from here.

The problem with interstellar spaceflight is the "interstellar" part. We
happen to live in a universe that is strikingly vacuous. The Centauri
system is nearly 26 trillion miles away.  That's roughly 280,000 times
the distance of the Earth from the sun. It's so distant that a beam of
light traveling at 186,000 miles per second needs more than four
years to cross the interstellar void. If you looked at Alpha Centauri
tonight (it's overhead in the Southern Hemisphere), you'd be seeing
light emitted right around the time of the second inauguration of
George W. Bush.

To frame it another way: The venerable robotic probe Voyager I,
which has traveled farther from Earth than any man-made
spacecraft, is racing away at nearly 11 miles per second and has
already traveled 10 billion miles. It would need on the order of
80,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri were it traveling in that
direction.

Conventional chemical rockets are useless for interstellar flight
because the ratio of the weight of the fuel to the size of the
payload rises exponentially (at some point, you'd need a fuel tank
the size of the entire universe). Cutting-edge, nuclear-electric
propulsion systems can improve velocity by a factor of 10, but that
still doesn't make an interstellar trip plausible. And NASA has
stopped funding its most speculative propulsion programs.

Marc Millis, a NASA engineer and propulsion physicist who ran one
of the defunct projects (and says he is speaking for himself and
not for the space agency), has started a nonprofit organization, the
Tau Zero Foundation, in his spare time, hoping to attract attention to
research on interstellar flight.

"You need physics breakthroughs," Millis said. "Or undiscovered physics."

= NEWSFLASH!!!

Alpha Centauri Should Harbor Detectable, Earth-like Planets

ScienceDaily — A rocky planet similar to Earth may be
orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors and could be detected
using existing techniques, according to a new study led by
astronomers at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The closest stars to our Sun are in the three-star system called
Alpha Centauri, a popular destination for interstellar travel in works of
science fiction. UCSC graduate student Javiera Guedes used
computer simulations of planet formation to show that terrestrial
planets are likely to have formed around the star Alpha Centauri B
and to be orbiting in the "habitable zone" where liquid water can exist
on the planet's surface. The researchers then showed that such
planets could be observed using a dedicated telescope.

"If they exist, we can observe them," said Guedes, who is the first
author of a paper describing the new findings. The paper has been
accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal.

Coauthor Gregory Laughlin, professor of astronomy and
astrophysics at UCSC, said a number of factors converge to make
Alpha Centauri B an excellent candidate for finding terrestrial
planets. The Doppler detection method, which has revealed the
majority of the 228 known extrasolar planets, measures shifts in the
light from a star to detect the tiny wobble induced by the gravitational
tug of an orbiting planet. Factors that favor the use of this technique
for Alpha Centauri B include the brightness of the star and its position
in the sky, which gives it a long period of observability each year
from the Southern Hemisphere, Laughlin said.

Detecting small, rocky planets the size of Earth is challenging,
however, because they induce a relatively small wobble in their host
stars. According to Laughlin, five years of observations using a
dedicated telescope would be needed to detect an Earth-like planet
around Alpha Centauri B.

Coauthor Debra Fischer of San Francisco State University is
leading an observational program to intensively monitor
Alpha Centauri A and B using the 1.5-meter telescope at the Cerro
Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The researchers hope to
detect real planets similar to the ones that emerged in the computer
simulations.