Hollywood

If all goes as planned, sometime this morning a spacecraft will blast off from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and ride a fiery plume of contrails upward through the pre-dawn darkness to begin a two-week journey to the International Space Station and back. But the flight won't be just another NASA resupply mission. Instead, the Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX for short - will be the first commercially owned and operated vehicle ever to rendezvous with the station's orbiting astronauts.

Hollywood Casino offers multiple entertainment options, like slots, table games, live racing and simulcasting, as well a gift shop and museum. This destination is owned and operated by Penn National Gaming, Inc., which one of the largest gaming companies in the nation. Casino hours: 24 hours a day. Games to play: Live table games include blackjack, craps, roulette, card games and baccarat, along with a 16-table poker room. The casino has 2,450 slots, including reel, video slot and video poker machines.

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

Just 10 minutes from Harpers Ferry, this destination offers gambling and thoroughbred racing, as well as dining, shopping outlets and live entertainment. Casino hours: 24 hours a day. Games to play: Table games include: Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Mini-Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, Let It Ride, Three Card Poker, Four Card Poker, Big Six Wheel, Texas Hold 'Em and 30 poker tables. Slots: The Hollywood Casino has 4,000 machines and, coming soon, Breakfast at Tiffany's video slots.

Tom opens calling it the "hardest fought season ever. " I'm not sure about that, but I will say that this is one with a lot of strong competitors, few loathsome personalities, and a satisfying final three. It starts with the pro dancers (the "real" pro dancers, not just the troupe) dancing to a song I would probably know if I were 20 years younger, but I'm not and the only 16-year-old in this house is a cat. At the end of the song, we get the pros walking the floor with their celebrity partners.

I just want to write. Ultimately, I just want my efforts to stand or fall on their own merits. A recent story in The Hollywood Reporter entitled "TV executives admit in taped interviews that Hollywood pushes a liberal agenda," reminded me all over again how difficult it has been to meet that simple and fair standard. I am in fact a former Republican who now labels myself an independent conservative. Beyond that, I've been a fairly successful author and novelist and have sold tens of thousands of books.

A few months removed from his popular appearances in those amazing Old Spice commercials, Ravens linebacker and action hero Ray Lewis is at it again. This time, Lewis has teamed up with Saints quarterback Drew Brees for a Pepsi Maxx commercial in the form of a two-minute movie trailer for a fictional movie entitled "The Bottle Attacks!" Well, at least I think it's fictional. I really wish it wasn't, though. While blowing up Saturn for Old Spice , Lewis showed America his sense of humor and that he doesn't take himself too seriously.

Hollywood is once again working itself into a lather about prejudice within its ranks. First it was movie star Mel Gibson, claiming that Jews are behind all the wars in history - a comment that, among other reactions, led actor Rob Schneider to declare he would never work with Mr. Gibson. Now it's comedian Michael Richards, who has infuriated the industry by hurling the hated "N-word" at a couple of black hecklers during his stand-up routine at a Los Angeles comedy club. I find all of this outrage a bit ironic, because Hollywood itself is unequaled when it comes to spreading prejudice.

LOS ANGELES -- Heidi Fleiss, an angry young woman who authorities say became a millionaire madam, goes to court today -- and Hollywood is holding its breath.From big-time executives in the film industry to marquee-name actors and businessmen, attention will be riveted on the courtroom with fear that Ms. Fleiss will reveal the steamy contents of her black book.Ms. Fleiss, 27, is to be arraigned on five felony counts of pandering and cocaine possession. If convicted, she faces up to 11 years in jail.

Hollywood is a land built on illusion, so maybe it shouldn't surprise anyone that the film industry painted a record-breaking economic picture this summer - or that the portrait may not be as pretty as it first appears. For the season that concluded Labor Day weekend, ticket sales were up 11 percent over last year, to $4.15 billion. That total set an all-time record, besting the previous best summer - 2004's $3.86 billion - by 8 percent. For the first time, Hollywood films earned more than $4 billion in domestic box-office revenue.

Maryland's first casino, Hollywood Casino Perryville opened in September 2010 and is operated by Penn National Gaming. Games to play: Hollywood Casino boasts 1,500 slot machines. In keeping with the Hollywood theme, there are "Sex and the City" branded slots as well as some named after "I Love Lucy. " There are also electronic blackjack and roulette arcades on the building's fringes. Entertainment: Enjoy music, cocktails and snacks at the Epic Lounge. Also featuring regular appearances by DJs and live music performers.

It will soon be hard to miss the Hollywood Casino Perryville when driving along Interstate 95. The Cecil County casino Friday erected a massive 175-foot sign on its property that will be visible from the highway. The casino's marketing director Marc DeLeo said the sign will make the facility more visible and attract more customers. Some 82,000 cars drive pass the casino's exit off the interstate, DeLeo said. The Perryville commissioners approved the sign late last year after some debate about its aesthetics and other issues.

Growing up in Annapolis, Tim and Trevor White were hardly inseparable. Each brother had his own set of friends and pursued his own interests: Trevor discovered a passion for film early on, while Tim seemed more adrift. But recently, a shared commitment to cinema has brought the pair closer than ever, as they work toward the release of their first full-length movie. "Jamesy Boy," shot in and around Baltimore over a five-week period that ended this month, stars Mary-Louise Parker, Ving Rhames and James Woods.

The city is looking for someone to operate the Hollywood Diner. The comptroller's office has issued a formal request for a new operator of the property, made famous as a filming location for the Barry Levinson film "Diner. " Late last year, the city terminated its lease with the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development, the nonprofit organization that ran the diner since 1991. The youth center vacated the diner last December but an operating partner was allowed to remain open until March 31. Funded entirely by private donations and opened to great fanfare in 1984 as the Kids' Diner, the restaurant was originally run by the city schools and the mayor's office as a job-training program for youths.

Being on TV is nothing new for Baltimore. Think of the recent political dramas like "Game Change" and "VEEP" or earlier crime shows like "Homicide" and"The Wire. " But what's going on within a five-acre area of production offices and massive warehouses turned soundstages in Joppa is a new game altogether. The makers of the $100 million Netflix political thriller "House of Cards" are virtually building their own Washington in Harford County. There, the vaulted interiors of the Capitol, much of the West Wing of the White House and even a cramped Adams-Morgan apartment are taking shape.

After weeks of partisan sniping, the public finally gets to judge HBO's Sarah Palin docudrama "Game Change" for itself this weekend. But the campaign for more politics as TV drama has only begun. Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing" notwithstanding, prime-time television has never gone as far into the deep end of the political pool as it is about to do this year. At least four Washington-centric shows are in the works or set to premiere, including Maryland-based "VEEP" and "House of Cards.

LONDON -- It probably wasn't the best move in transatlantic relations when their troops set fire to the White House on a summer's day back in 1814, but the British perhaps have good reason for pondering why, when they go to the movies these days, they still seem to be getting stuck for it 186 years later. When it comes to war, it is said, truth is the first casualty. When it comes to movies about wars, truth also gets a pretty good smacking about at the hands of Hollywood. This, in turn, has spawned another truth -- that the so-called "special relationship" between Britain and America, rarely as cordial as our politicians would have us believe, is getting another good kick in the ribs in an unseemly squabble over cinematic riches versus righteous indignation.

Like some modern-day cave man, Jason Lems adjusts his sunglasses and motions toward Hollywood's Vasquez Rocks -- twisted, angry stone formations that have been the Santa Clarita Valley's loneliest landmarks for 20 million years."

Last week, Baltimore City announced it will soon begin searching for a new operator of the Hollywood Diner. Its current incarnation, the Red Springs Cafe, will close at the end of March, according to city officials. Here's a look back at the diner's history in Baltimore: 1981 - Location scouting begins for the MGM production “Diner,” which is to be filmed in and around Baltimore. The Hilltop Diner, the northwest Baltimore hangout that inspired Barry Levinson's screenplay, has by now devolved into a liquor store, unrecognizable as its former self.

After a brief hiatus, the Hollywood Diner is back in business — but the city has other plans for the downtown eatery. Baltimore City, which owns the property, has terminated its lease with the Chesapeake Center for Youth Development, the nonprofit organization that has run the diner since 1991. In April, the comptroller's office will issue a request for proposals for a new operator of the property, made famous as a filming location for the Barry Levinson film "Diner. " "It is our goal to obtain an experienced restaurant operator that will provide quality, reasonably priced hot and cold food to the downtown patron," city Comptroller Joan M. Pratt said.