I used to attempt to play tennis with my brother, Jeremiah, and our friend, Archer. Those matches soon devolved into the two of them seeing how far outside the court’s fence they could return my serves. They’d probably really like to play that game on the courts of Burj al Arab . [via [via]]

It seems that the whole planet shake-up is the result of the discovery of a body of mass in this very solar system that is larger than Pluto. Rather than add a tenth planet, the Illuminati, er, the International something something Astronomers Club something something, decided to demote Pluto to be the second largest dwarf planet, rather than its previous title of smallest true planet. That could be good for Pluto in a lot of ways. I mean, its sports teams won’t have to compete against Jupiter’s or Saturn’s anymore. Everyone knows how hard it is to play teams that can draw from the population of a planet that is ten thousand times bigger than yours. Yet, at the same time, I feel kind of bad for Pluto. This gentrification of the solar system is turning into a way to kick out all the low-rent planets (Ceres, another former planet, is also now a dwarf. At least it’s not asteroid row, cuz ol’ Ceres did some time there once too). That’s never good.

I forgot to note the page where I found this link, so I apologize to whomever for that, but this was too good to pass up. Craziest. Recently my family were watching home videos of the construction of my parent’s house. My dad and others built it from a giant Lincoln Logs kit and nobody was crushed or permanently maimed, though my dad has a big chainsaw scar on his bicep from cutting a window. Anyway, one of their old friends, a T. Dawson (I think), shows up to help build the porch. The first thing my mother says is “He never scored lower than a three hundred in Scrabble.” Well, the Triple Triple gets you to that esteemed height in one play.

If you’re the sort of person who is need of aliases, or you maybe get a little thrill about registering at hotels (or websites) under false names, but you lack that essential creativity needed to furnish these new identities, my friend, you have a wealth of names right in your inbox (or your spam folder, if you’ve a good filter)! Just look at this small sample of names from my GMAIL spam folder:

Male:

• Deviation T. Mondale (somewhat puritanical, perhaps)
• Cyrus Darnell (a good, strong name)
• Franc Riddick (if you’re in the espionage game, this is a dead giveaway)
• Knavery H. Vaporized (even more puritanical)

Female:

• Catalina Bliss (how sultry!)
• Rowena Light (be a good dearie, or I’ll cast a wee spell on you)
• Mattie Riley ( you’ll need nine bairns running about ye, with a pint of whiskey ever present)
• Numbers Hester (a little Dashiell Hammett, a little Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• Noreen Pendergrast (blimey, marm, but you’re filthy rich!)