Pluto is no longer a planet. Of course, this move was hailed by scientists, astronomers, and elementary school book publishers who must now recant all of the “My very extravagant mother just spent Uncle Ned’s pay” mnemonics. I’m sure someone will come up with a particularly offensive one soon.

This is the astronomical equivalent of the English Premier League, and Pluto has just been demoted to the newly formed Second Division with Ceres and some other rocks that just happened to be pulled into orbit around this particular sun. In reality, does this affect anyone? I mean, are there Plutonian experts that are now getting cut off from grants and not allowed to come to planetary conferences? In other words, is this news?

Oh, and on the Jon Benet killer thing. I told you so. That psycho child molester got better treatment on the jet to the US than the American consulate in Thailand. Of course he wants to be here. And now his family wants to sell his story. Why don't we just fucking kill every single one of them?

Pokerwise, I’m taking a chunk of money from Neteller, previously held for whoring purposes, to buy XM-satellite radio for the family. This serves a number of purposes: it shows wifey that poker winnings can pay for cool stuff, I like the programming (NFL, NHL), and it lets me upgrade our home sound system. A good friend of ours has XM and we loved some of the stations. Sirius is too dependent on Stern to be a long-term option, and the sports programming is better on XM. The Giants are on KNBR, a 50,000 watt station that you can pretty much get anywhere west of the Rockies, so I wasn’t too concerned about getting their broadcasts via a satellite radio service.

Anyway, wifey is suitably impressed, both with my largesse and the poker profit. So it looks like we won’t have any more ugliness around my poker time. I’m planning a wireless speaker set-up, allowing the music to be heard anywhere in the house. I’m shopping around the Internet to find the best set-up based on range, quality, and cost. I’ll probably try to keep the expense reasonable (<$1K total), so I’ll still have some Neteller cash available. You never know when a nice 100% bonus for SnGs might come up!

p.s. Another profitable night in SnGs. I swear to God, if Party ever gets HORSE, I’m not gonna play anything but those tables. Hell, those people haven’t even figured out NLHE yet, imagine what a fish tank it will be for HORSE!