WATCHING I’m kind of partial to “The Big Bang Theory,” since it’s set here in Pasadena and the character Howard is a Mars rover driver. There are some similarities, but my friends don’t make fun of me. And “Top Gear” is a BBC show that’s all about cars. It’s kind of a macho show with all these crazy challenges. But it’s not all about smashing things; it’s got very witty humor.

FOLLOWING On Twitter: Oakland Athletics pitcher Brandon McCarthy @BMcCarthy32. He has more of an intellectual understanding of the game. It’s a little bit as if a nerd was playing baseball. Also, @MarsCuriosity and almost everyone who works on Curiosity. I love all those guys. Web sites I like are Reddit, Gizmodo, the Astronomy Picture of the Day and, right now, the Curiosity site for new pictures every five minutes.

PURCHASING I bought a Bodum cold-press coffee maker, so I can keep up on Mars time. The Mars day is about 40 minutes longer than the Earth day. And so each day, my shift will move forward by 40 minutes. I also got an eye mask for sleeping during the day.

EATING Lucky landing peanuts. It’s a Jet Propulsion Lab tradition that started in the ’60s with the Ranger missions. They had a couple of failures and some guy brought in peanuts and people ate them and they had success. Since then we’ve always had lucky peanuts at all our big mission events.