Well, looks like the IAU astronomers *did* hate last week’s 12-planet proposal, since they’ve decided instead on a definition that calls eight of the things out there “planets,” three others “dwarf planets” (which is an odd term to use if they want those to be distinct from “planets”), and I guess Charon just winds up being Pluto the Dwarf’s moon. Oh well… “promotion” for Ceres, “demotion” for Pluto, and they’re all out there orbiting the Sun like nothing’s changed anyway.

(So… My Very Expensive Machine Just Scooped Up Neptune?)

Two new bonuses today (here and here) on two requested topics at once – What happened to the guys from Rumormonger Idol, and what’s their equivalent of So You Think You Can Dance?

Thanks for voting!

It’s interesting the direction the “what is a planet” discussion has gone in… After all the recent talk of possibly ‘demoting’ Pluto (not that it makes much difference to Pluto what we call it!) they instead propose a definition that not only keeps Pluto a planet, but makes Charon one too, adds Xena (or whatever they’re going to call it) and makes Ceres a planet again!

I like the new definition – a planet’s round under its own gravitation, and orbits a star and not another planet. Even the bit that gets Charon in and not the Moon makes sense to me, since the point Pluto and Charon are orbiting is outside Pluto, but the Earth/Moon barycenter’s inside the Earth. Of course, I’m sure lots of people are going to hate the new definition – they’ll propose arbitrary size limits to kick Pluto out or keep Pluto in but kick Ceres and Charon back out, they’ll complain there are going to be ‘too many’ planets, etc. But then I don’t think any definition is ever going to make everybody happy!

The real question is: What’s the new mnemonic for the planetary order going to be? The one I remember is My Very Expensive Machine Just Smashed Up Near Pluto… So maybe with a little modification… My Very Expensive Mini Cooper Just Smashed Up Near Pluto’s Cousin Xena/UB313/whatever? That could work!

(There… now we *have* to keep Ceres!)

I know we’re more than a third of the way through the month, and I haven’t said anything here, so I figured it was time to fix that! Things have been busy lately, with work and/or life in general cutting down a bit on available comic time, so the comic time I have had has been spent just on getting the daily comics (and Z7 3 times a week) done.

But I have found time to do three new sprite bonus strips, which are up today – in the first one, Floyd is unhappy with Prentis. In the second, Floyd is also unhappy with Linton! In the third, Prentis tries to think of a way to fix this… or at least the first part of it! Thank You to everyone who’s already voted for Station V3 this month, keeping it in the Top 100 on the lists even without a new bonus! I’m going to try to get to some bonus requests soon, so if you have any, you can post them here.

There are three new voting bonuses up today: An alternate version of today’s strip, a sprite strip in which the rumormongers discuss Prentis and the shapeshifters, and another sprite strip in which Floyd is back on the station with the worst part of the shapeshifter situation coming up. Thank You to everyone who’s been voting!

And here’s another look at the Station V3 Frappr map: