Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Pluto: Dog or Planet - You Decide

What gives, man? There I was, just sitting there. Actually just tilting there, 17 degrees with respect to the plane of the solar system, minding my own business, checking out Neptune's back side. And I get this call from the International Astronomical Union. I thought the same thing -- who? "You've been downsized," they tell me. "You are no longer a planet."

Huh? You kidding me. I'll be the first to admit I am kinda tiny. So what if I am smaller than the Moon. And Io. And Europa. Okay, I admit it. I am smaller than Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, and Triton as well. So what? It's the motion in the Milky Way that counts, right?

And yes, I like the fermented Tang, and sometimes have an irregular orbit, weaving into Neptune, making him the ninth planet at times. Rules are made to be broken. Tell it to those heliocentrists, Copernicus.

Now my major concern is the kids. Pluto is always thinking about the kids. They're the future, you know. How are they gonna remember the planets now. The mnemonic device is just gonna go: My Very Educated Mother Just Sat Upon Nine .... "Nine what?" Timmy is gonna ask. It aint right. It doesn't make any sense.

Come on people. Throw Pluto a bone here. Write your congressmen or astronaut. Heck, write John Glenn -- he's both. Save yourself a stamp. See, Pluto is full of ideas. Just saved you 42 cents.

Save Pluto.
He's good for astronomy.
Good for the galaxy.

Monday, April 6, 2009

25 Things You Didn't Know About Me

1. Guilty pleasure: Smiting people.

2. I had another universe once that was so much better than this one. But I got really wasted one night and lost it in a game of craps. :( I'm never doing that again.

3. In my old universe, the really cool one, the dominant species was a race of hyper-intelligent beetles. It was so cool. Unfortunately, when I lost that universe, I also lost the beetles-as-master-race patent, so now I have to settle for primates.

4. I picked up this universe at a 50%-off sale. I thought I was getting a bargain. But as soon as I took it out of the box at home, I figured out why: space and time are both a bit bent in places, and most of the mass is missing. I wish I had saved the receipt.

Content stolen from:

Moses is Departing Egypt: A Facebook Haggadah