Tires me out.

I know it's not like this in every state, but in New York you have to get your automobile inspected once a year. It's not a big deal, and I think it isn't a bad idea. People are often not aware that they may have problems that may be more expensive down the line -- or even dangerous. Plus, my car's inspection generally coincides with its need for an oil change. 

Of course, if the Oil Change light comes on before that, I do what anyone would do -- put in a quart and reset the idiot light. I ain't got time for all that blinkin' and flashin'.

As usual, my car passed inspection -- or would have, but for the rear tires. Those showed signs of serious wear. The mechanic passed me anyway, but said I should get them replaced. Since he didn't have to give me the Passed Inspection Sticker but did, I was now honor-bound to seek out new tires. 

How old were the tires, anyway? I couldn't quite remember. But I realized I had a way of knowing. The last time I got new tires, only a couple of months had passed before I was run off the road by a total idiot and ran into a spoon, which ruined my new front tire. Sure enough, I blogged about it at the time. I was surprised that all that had happened seven and a half years ago. My memory of changing out the tire for the spare and discovering the spoon wedged deep in the old one will be fresh forever. 

Rich guys have people to change their
spoon-wrecked tires. 

That was the weekend of the Supermoon, and it seemed to be bringing me Supercrap Luck. Can you believe it's been that long already? November 2016 seems like some mythical land, a happy place where no one had ever heard disgusting words like "COVID-19" and "Antifa" and "Soros D.A." A place, however, where twisted metal spoons might lie around in gutters, waiting to leap out on unsuspecting tires and burst them like a grape tomato on an archery target. 

On the whole, I think I got off lucky with just a couple of new tires on this inspection. Any engine problem would likely cost more. The thing is, as a freelancer, I have a habit of looking at any expense in terms of a bad assignment I completed to get the dough. "I spent countless hours on that stupid job, and now I have to blow the whole check on tires?" (Yes, Fred, that's how adulthood works.)

As for the spoon that busted my tire in 2016, I still have it. Sometimes you want to have visual aids when you tell a story that loopy.

If you get caught between the moon and...

Took the dog out for a last run on Wednesday night and saw something I had never seen before. It genuinely surprised me. 

Let me preface this by reminding everyone that I grew up in the friendly confines of the five boroughs, and between the frequent rainy weather and the fog off the ocean and the light pollution and the pollution pollution it was often hard to see anything in the night sky. So astronomy never had much pull for me. The teacher would get excited about an upcoming eclipse, and the students would be like -- You think my parents are going to let me stand on the sidewalk at 3:46 a.m. to watch this? So only the dedicated far-out space nuts went in for serious astronomical stuff. 

But what I saw last Wednesday made me smile, and if you saw it too, maybe it did the same. 

At first I noticed the brightness -- full moon, fast-moving scrim of patchy clouds above. Very nice. Then I saw a little dot very close to the moon, less than a quarter inch from it by my vantage point. I knew that was odd, since starlight is not bright enough to be seen that close to the moon (right? Remember, knows nothing). Then I noticed that the dot was red, and realized it was Mars. 

That's right -- we were about to have a lunar eclipse, or more properly an occultation, of the planet Mars. While Izzy was fussing around looking for a place to go, I was looking at what seemed like a neck-and-neck footrace. With the clouds flying fast, it looked like the moon and Mars were racing hard against each other. But no, they were on a collision course. 

I read later that Mars was exceptionally bright, at its closest point to Earth in the year, and the so-called Cold Moon of December was definitely brilliant. I'd never seen this before, and the next one isn't until January 2025, and probably won't be this great a light show. 

Unfortunately, the cell phone camera speed isn't fast enough to get good pictures of celestial stuff. 

Here in the Northeast, the race went on until after my sack time. Apparently there was a pretty bad collision, because I hear that as of today there's no life on the moon or Mars. (har har) 

In the morning, the sky was clear and the two celestial bodies had gone their separate ways. Now there was about half an inch between them and growing. Well, without sounding paganistic, I'd like to hope that maybe with the moon blocking us from the god of war for a few hours, we could get a little extra peace on Earth this Christmastime. 

That's what passed for exciting around here on Wednesday, and I have to say, it's not bad. You can read about these things, but it's always more fun to see them for yourself. And if you stumble upon them by accident, it's pure serendipity. 

Where have I been?

Nothing political again today; I just can't stand it. 

Actually I had a busy week, and not just snoring slumping sitting at my desk. I was on the move, getting things done, seeing and being seen, and so on. 

So where have I been?

Walmart, for one, and the garden section is whole-hog Christmas now, featuring that damned snow homunculus, Olaf. God, I hate him and the whole Frozen franchise.  

My cart at Walmart was probably the only Halloweenish thing I saw, thanks to some wag who used a shelf label on my cart:

Must be the anti-Buffalo Bill.

The less-convenient-but-superior local supermarket has not hit its Christmas stride yet. Not that you could guess from the seasonal aisle:

The difference is, rather than any holiday-themed music, they were playing the Greatest Boomer Hits That Annoy Fred. Everything I've heard to death and never bothered to buy, like "Band on the Run." And you know what bugs me about the Yardbirds' "For Your Love"? The backup vocals are awful. They sound like they're singing with a sock stuck in their windpipe. "for yar lahvb"

"Did they play 'Imagine'?" my wife asked when I was kvetching later. 

"I said Hits That Annoy Fred, not Hits That Make Fred Burst Into the Manager's Office and Rip Out the Muzak Machine." 

In the pet store, I could buy a stuffed Santa ass sticking out of a stuffed chimney for the dogs to chew on.

No thanks. Would last about twenty seconds here. 

In another town in the county, a man named Gus Krauss started a camera shop and studio in 1907, and it seems to still be operating today, although said to be closed at the moment, possibly due to Chinese Death Virus. 

Gus left us in 1977, but the shop continued with new owners. Good to see a small business survive so long. 

On that note, the place I go to get my hair cut seems to have been killed off by the COVID, although the signs in the window say they "hope to return soon." Meanwhile, it looks like my wife will be cutting my hair again, unless she wants me to do it myself. Yes, it's blackmail and I don't care. 

Finally, here's a misty moon for you. The nice kind of moon, not the naughty kind. 

Keep on shining, wherever you are.

Peak 2020?

Well, here we are. Halloween at last. The horrors of the year are all concentrated on Halloween. 

But no! It's not just Halloween! There's a full moon tonight as well. 

Decorations showing witches and black cats aside, this is not very common. The next full moon on Halloween will occur in 2039. 

But wait! It's also a blue moon, meaning the second full moon this October. This also is not that common; the next blue moon will be August 2023. So all those things that happen once in a blue moon are on the way. 

But it's also the Hunter's Moon, because the last full moon was the Harvest Moon. It's also called the Blood Moon, because it's time to kill all the creatures fattening up for winter. And maybe, since it's on Halloween, humans too. Sounding more threatening yet?

But wait! There's more! It's a full moon on Halloween on a Saturday! How often does that happen? Not often -- I am told the next one is scheduled for 2172. Don't make plans. 

But wait! Again! We also have a mini-moon circling the Earth, which we picked up some time during this annus horribilis of 2020. They call it 2020 SO, as in "2020 I am SO sick of you." No doubt it will act as a force multiplier for whatever other bad juju is in the air. 

AND we're pushing the clocks back tonight as Daylight Savings ends, meaning whatever happens tonight, we'll get an extra hour of it. 

AND we have the Biggest Election EVAH in a couple of days that could mean the END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT. 

AND WE STILL HAVE CHINESE DEATH VIRUS AND STUPID RIOTERS HAUNTING OUR STREETS.

So, I think I'm going back to bed. See you in November. 

Voices from the sky.

"Mother Earth is angry," the Speaker of the House declared last month. Well, that's a very interesting proposition. I'm impressed that Ms. Pelosi is able to receive intimate messages of emotional content from the Earth Spirit Gaia. Interestingly, it does not seem that Mother Earth had very much to say about wildfires and hurricanes and tornadoes and whatnot before Mr. Trump became president of these United States, but perhaps Mother was holding her tongue, trying not to interfere, as a good mother often does.

Be that as it may, I -- like Ms. Pelosi -- am an expert in interpreting messages from nature. In fact, I have some small renown in being able to get such messages from my observation of the sky. Here are some photos from recent weeks and the messages that are being sent from Mother Nature, courtesy of my interpretive powers.

"Everything is on fire. This year sucks."

"Lex Luthor is attempting to turn the sun red to deprive Superman of his powers. Alert Batman."

"Shoppy Mart has swordfish steaks on sale, $8.99 a pound."

"Your finances are a mess. Consider moonlighting. How about Lyft?"

"Your fly is open."

"Cannot predict now."

Moon the moon.

Mooooon TOOOOIIILET!
For one-sixth gravity
I'm using you to pee
Today
Oh, flush potty
Don't be naughty
However I'm goin'
I'm goin' your way

According to the site Tech Crunch, NASA is looking for your help -- yes, you! sitting on the toilet looking at your phone! -- to design a better Moon Toilet: "Specifically, the competition seeks 'innovative designs for fully capable, low-mass toilets that can be used both in space and on the Moon.'" It seems "the agency wants to open this up to outside academics, researchers, designers and engineers because they’re hoping that fresh perspective from outside the aerospace industry can help them see potential solutions that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred to people used to working in the field." They're offering a prize of $35,000 for winning designs.

Well, I think that's just great. A lot of people do their best thinking on the can, and what better place to think about toilet designs? You have to admit that there's been a lot of innovation in the form over the last hundred years, probably due to people thinking hard on one end while giving it their all on the other. The low-flow toilet, for example, is a lot better now than when they were first mandated in 1992. Why? Because the smart minds connected to the smart hinds made a better product. (Still not as good as the old seven-gallon flushers, but there's no substitute for kinetic warfare on some things.)

So here's your chance to make 35 big ones to help our future astronauts drop some big ones of their own on our nearest celestial neighbor.

Meanwhile, if you'd like some inspiration, let Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti give you the grand tour of the ISS can. It's actually pretty interesting and a little gross.

Moon men.

I'm not sure what to say about the Apollo 11 mission that put men on the moon for the first time fifty years ago today. So many have said so much that we've run out of intelligent or even reasonable things to say, and major media outlets are resorting to the stupid and offensive.

I take second place to no one in my admiration of the astronauts. I think they were brilliant and maybe a little crazy. You look at the size of the three-stage rocket in comparison to anything man-made you know, and someone tells you, "Okay, Neil, we're going to put you in the top of that thirty-six story thing and blast this bastard out of the atmosphere. You'll go about 239,000 miles as the crow flies, as far as all the planets in the solar system shoved together. That is, if you don't blow up, and if all the right parts fall off when they're supposed to and none of the wrong parts falls off at all. Then we're going to plop you on the moon in a little vehicle, and then we're going to get you back off the moon, and after a little rendezvous with the bigger vehicle, you'll all come back, another 239,000 miles, then a fiery death plummet into the ocean."

"Sure."

"You and Buzz will hit the moon surface while Mike stays up top."

"Sounds good."

"None of this seems crazy, does it?"

"When do we go?"

Now, I'm not saying that the conversation went like that -- they probably used a lot of smartypants mathematics -- but I think when you got it to its essence, that's where it was.

And it was glorious.

If I'd been a grown-up watching these guys, and could grasp the scale of the mission, I'd have probably thought they were crazy. When I was a kid at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and I saw the cockpits on World War II airplanes, I thought those guys were crazy. If everybody was like me, we'd have never gotten off the ground.

Oh, I have my moments, but when it comes to heights, find another pigeon. I know plenty of guys who made it through jump school; I would have washed out for sure. Literally -- rather than evacuate the airplane I'd more likely have evacuated my innards. I can be brave about a lot of things, but I literally cannot make myself do things like that.

Or get on top of a gigantic rocket and blast off the planet.

Fortunately, it's never come up at work.

So you'll never hear any bad words about astronauts from me. Amazing bunch of folks.

The moon, however, is another matter. As we've examined before on this blog, the moon is a publicity hound that likes making trouble for me. I hope Neil and Buzz gave it a good kick in the moon pants while they were up there.

Snow sky.

Before I went on my anti-winter, anti-ice screed last week I mentioned that winter in the north does have some peculiar qualities that make it quite fascinating. These are things I have come to admire more since we started collecting dogs, since my previous opinion of the outdoors was as "a place to be between being indoors" and "the locale of interminable chores." You wind up spending a lot more time outside with dogs.

One of the things I've always been in awe of is the snow sky -- when it's snowing, or about to be, the sky is overall lit up in white, almost bright as day. It's a cool sort of brightness, unlike sunshine, and since it seems to come from everywhere, shadows are not pronounced.

I was not able to get a good picture during our last snowstorm...

You can get some idea of the scene early the next morning, but the sun was coming up:

I used to think it was diffused moonlight, but apparently it's the same whether there's a full moon or no moon. Apparently it is an effect of skyglow, a term I had not previously heard. Skyglow sounds like a photon-powered superheroine from the seventies, or Twilight fan fiction, or possibly a roller disco, or maybe the worst James Bond movie ever.

Here's Dr. Wikipedia on the subject:

Skyglow (or sky glow) is the diffuse luminance of the night sky, apart from discrete light sources such as the Moon and visible individual stars. It is a commonly noticed aspect of light pollution.... Skyglow is significantly amplified by the presence of snow, and within and near urban areas when clouds are present. In remote areas snow brightens the sky, but clouds make the sky darker.

This would seem to indicate that the snow sky I describe was unknown before electrification. Funny that I seldom noted it while living in the city, but here in the burbs, where there's a lot less public light, I see it often. Also, dogs.

However, the snow sky may be less related to electrification of cities than the above article would make us think. Sky & Telescope, a publication about astronomy, notes:

Even a completely unpolluted sky is surprisingly bright, illuminating the ground enough for you to walk quite confidently through an open field. More than 90% of natural skyglow comes from three sources: the zodiacal light, upper-atmosphere airglow, and starlight.

And:

Fresh snow increases skyglow several-fold. You can even see this effect during broad daylight. Although the air is often very clear right after a storm, the sky is visibly whiter than usual because of all the sunlight reflected back into the sky. Artificial skyglow at night decreases rapidly as snow is cleared out of parking lots and from underneath streetlights, and then continues to decline more slowly as the snow becomes dirty.

It's a pretty wild effect anyway. I find when I'm outside at night and it's snowing and the sky is white with a mellow glow, it's almost cozy. It is cold and wet by definition, but there's a blanket above as well as a blanket below. It is something I would miss about winter if I ever smarten up and move south.

PilGRIM II.

In the homestretch for Thanksgiving! Had to hit the store on Monday, and the celery-hoarding pigs were out in force. Hope you don't need to stop for just one more thing--you might not make it out! 

One thing I noted on Monday night was that the moon is filling out nicely -- should be full soon. In fact, it will be full Thanksgiving night--12:39 a.m. Friday morning Plymouth Rock Time, to be precise. Shortly after midnight. 

This inspired the sequel to the video game I designed a couple of years ago: PilGRIM, a Thanksgiving-themed XBox game for kids who like violence but don't like football. Here's the box for the new one:

WHAT HORROR LURKS IN THE NIGHT? SOME CREATURE THAT EATS HUMANS?

GOBBLE GOBBLE.

Whatever you do on Thanksgiving, we at the blog wish you a lovely and thankful one. If you live somewhere outside America and don't celebrate Thanksgiving, well, have a nice Thursday, and don't forget that there is always something for which to be grateful. We don't need roast turkey and yams and cranberry sauce and pie to be grateful.

But it does help. Especially the pie.

Full moon and empty pockets.

How could I have lost?

My wealth plan had very clear steps, which I followed closely, and yet somehow I was not successful. 

1) Wait until lottery goes over a billion dollars.

2) Play winning numbers.

3) Cash out billion.

Very clear, very orderly, just like those books that promise 10 Steps to Real Estate Wealth, and yet I failed. 

The only thing I can think of is that the full moon screwed me over. 

But the full moon is actually tonight, the closest such to Halloween this year. That's why it's so spoooooky.

You know, when I was a kid I remember seeing so much Halloween art that featured a full moon that I somehow got the idea that the moon was always full on Halloween, perhaps on the last day of every month.

And, gigantic.

But of course that is not the case. Maybe that's why we don't see witches flying around on brooms. Too many dark nights. Crashes. You never see a witch with a parachute, or even a helmet. So a full moon would be lucky for witches, but bad luck for non-witches.

Although the news says that there was one winner of the Mega Millions, in South Carolina. They tell me that they get the same moon down there that we do. So unless that person is a witch, the moon didn't make him or her unlucky. Maybe you just need the right moon.

Hey, wait a second... the actual full moon is tonight... Powerball tonight is up to $620 million...  💡

Start the car! We're headin' for the convenience store!

Far over the horizon.

This Friday's a full moon, which is nice.

Anyway, in looking into the solar probe for my article last Sunday, I got to thinking about this insane information about our other big sky friend, Mr. Moonlight:

Holy Toledo!

I'd seen that factoid on Cracked and heard that it came from Reddit, but despite that it actually turns out to be true. No wonder it took three days at, well, astronomical speed to get our astronauts to the moon. It's not like driving to the shore for vacation. Although it must be said that the traffic is better.

Our moon is ridiculously far away, 238,900 miles, and yet so strong. We sometimes think it looks huge, especially at Halloween.

Here the moon is orbiting Earth at a height of seventy miles.

But looking at the real moon in the real sky, one might think it's what, maybe a tenth the size of earth? Actually the moon is more than a quarter of the size of our planet. It's bigger than Pluto, which might be one of the reasons for Pluto's demotion to dwarf planet.

So I have to ask: Why is this moon thing hanging around us? And so far away? And yet it still pulls the tides. Its dark side shows the impacts of some meteors we would prefer to have struck there rather than here. Life on earth may not have emerged without the moon, which is one reason we may be very much more alone in the universe than we think. Not every planet is lucky enough to have such a cool accessory. We're lucky it showed up one day, however weirdly it happened.

So if this all isn't moon-mind-blowing enough for you, let me hit you with this factoid about Michael Collins you may not have heard. It's not original to me, but it ought to be shared widely.

Collins was, among other things, the astronaut who stayed behind on the command module of Apollo 11 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon. Not sure if there was a short straw involved, but it doesn't seem so. In addition to being the only NASA astronaut to inspire a Jethro Tull song, Collins took this famous picture from the command module of Apollo 11:

As Rare Historical Photos put it, inside this frame is everybody on Earth who ever lived -- except Michael Collins.

He may not have been the first man on the moon, but that is an amazing claim to fame.

Forty-nine years ago our three guys had just come back from the first manned landing on the moon. Sometimes it seems more incredible with the passing of time.

Eclipse: PR stunt.

The more I think about it, the more I understand that today's so-called "solar eclipse" is nothing but a public relations stunt. Yeah, you heard me. Who by? Who else? By the same people who brought you green cheese: the moon.

You got it -- I'm willing to take on Big Satellite here.

The moon has been trying to get attention for some time now. Remember last year's Supermoon? That turned out to be a big bust -- nothing but trouble. I was willing to cut the moon some slack at the time, but now I am more cynical. Now that I see the moon is just out for what it can get, that it only thinks of its own interest, I am convinced it caused all kinds of trouble on that fateful day and will probably get up to more lunar high jinks today.

Already the stupidity is starting. Price gouging for eclipse-related travel is an actual thing. Fake eclipse glasses may wind up causing permanent vision damage to the poor fools who bought them. And speaking of fools, there's the mom who wanted the eclipse moved so it wouldn't conflict with school, and the professor complaining in print that the path of the main eclipse zone has willfully followed non-black areas of the country. The Eclipse Is Racist!

Clearly, the moon is making us even dumber than usual. It is part of its plan.

And seriously, does the moon even need publicity? IMDb has more than 200 productions with the word "Moon" in the title. AllMusic lists over 1,000 songs with "Moon" in the title, and over 1,000 albums. Even the US Patent and Trademark Office lists 4,861 trademarks with "Moon" in it somewhere. If anything, the moon is suffering from overexposure.

I, for one, am not buying into this. I'm going to protest this eclipse nonsense. I'm going to totally ignore this desperate cry for attention. I understand our moon is lonely, all by himself up there (unlike Jupiter's greedy cache of 69 moons), but is that our fault? The moon was formed when something punched our planet -- it was an act of galactic violence. We didn't invite it. We're the victim here. And despite that we went through a lot of trouble to go visit, and even left some neat presents. Well, we'll see if we'll bother with that again anytime soon.

So you may be watching the skies today, but count me out of the hoopla. I'll just be enjoying the shade.

Eclipse no.

We're a week out from the big event, the first total solar eclipse to sweep the United States since 1918.

And I could be more excited.

But I won't be.

There are two things going on that make me less than mad with eclipse-related glee:

Map: Up here in New York, we're going to see relatively little moon-mobbing action. It'll be about a 0.75 magnitude eclipse, which will look like someone took a bite out of a solar Scooter Pie. Time has a neat feature showing what the eclipse will look like in your zip code, which from here is: not much. It wouldn't likely suffice to keep King Arthur from burning Hank Morgan at the stake.

Weather: I've heard that, as a rule of thumb, you should deduct 10% accuracy for every day out of a forecast -- so, for example, for the fifth day of your weatherman's five-day forecast, assume he only has a 50% chance of nailing it. That said, as of today, our forecast for Monday, August 21, calls for possible thunderstorms, and being that this is the coolest, wettest summer in New York I can recall, I think it's probably on the nose.

What I'm really looking forward to is the next U.S. total solar eclipse, and we won't have to wait 99 years for it. It's going to fall on April 8, 2024, and this one will be flying right over the northeast. It won't appear directly over my house, but it would be a short drive to where it will.

Of course it's also going to be New York in April, which means:

Supermoon or Superjerk?

Yesterday we had the Supermoon, as you may have heard, "the brightest moon in almost 70 years," when the moon was full and at its closest point to Earth simultaneously. We won't see one like this again until November 25, 2034.

Hooray! Supermoon!

BUT!

As the Old Farmer's Almanac notes, there's a lot of luck lore connected to the moon--including this one:

"It is unlucky to have a full Moon on Sunday."

CRAP!

So a SUPER full moon on Sunday must be SUPER bad luck,

It would explain my weird day yesterday. There appeared to be some unusual misfortune. Not just arguable bad luck, like the wicked Cowboys beating the Steelers in a squeaker; after all, I am willing to admit that Cowboys fans, believe it or not, are just as human as normal people, and the same moon was shining on them.

No, I'm talking about the guy who swung a left turn out in front of me on a two-lane 55 mph road while a tailgater was forcing me to keep up to the limit. This was to be a crash, no question, and if he had someone in his passenger seat that person was not going to be saved by an airbag. Somehow I had the presence of mind to shoot onto the shoulder, where I could safely grind to a halt on the gravel and detritus there. The tailgater continued on his merry way behind the guy who'd almost nailed me.

It was a little alarming, but I was unharmed, so, no harm no foul. I ran my mission of mercy and came back home. Later I went out again, and when I had to brake at a stop sign I heard that lovely flap flap flap of a tire that has said Farewell, Cruel World. And my helpful idiot light flashed and dinged Lo Tire.

By the time I got to a parking lot and opened the door, I could hear the tire going HISSSS like in a cartoon. The rear driver's side tire had picked up a little passenger:

That is a freaking metal SPOON. I'm certain it was for some strange, devilish reason along the highway, because to jam that pointy end into my tire would have taken enormous force, like coming to a rapid stop from 55 mph.

This is why James Bond's Aston Martin stops pursuers by shooting spoons out of its rear.

I got where I was going, but before I went home I put on the spare. When I got home, I turned on a light and the bulb blew, then the big dog started to throw up in the hall.

JUST CUT IT OUT, SUPERMOON.

All of this got me thinking about clever story I read ages ago in Asimov's, "Blued Moon" by Connie Willis. I hope she will forgive me for giving away the story's conceit, but here it is (spoiler alert!): when pollution (IIRC) causes an atmospheric change that makes the moon appear blue, all kinds of rare events begin happening to everyone on Earth---everything that happens once in a blue moon.

Could the Supermoon have caused things to happen to me that were superlame?

Maybe. OR maybe Supermoon protected me! After all, the blown lightbulb may have prevented a short; the dog may have puked up something that would have made him sicker if he'd digested it. Of course, the idiot who almost caused a horrible accident did not succeed in doing so by dint of my braking ability, so even if I have to suck up the cost of a new tire, it's a lot better than having to start up car payments again.

So perhaps the events were weird, but any change in luck granted by Moonie may have been good, not bad. I think I'll choose to look at it that way.

Thanks, Supermoon. See you in 18 years,

Full moon tonight.

Joe was known to be combative, and proud of his new flashlight. 

Jupiter is a big fat pig.

People often say that the world is a lot more complicated than it was when they were children. Frankly, I no longer believe that. A little dose of history shows that things are always complicated, but that when you---or anyone, I'm not just picking on you---were a child, you did not know your butt from a hole in the ground. The proper distinction of butt from hole in the ground was your big conundrum, and once solved it seemed like you had this life thing licked.

Then you learned more and more, and life started to look a wee bit tougher.

That aside, one thing that has gotten more complicated is astronomy. For example: When I was a wee tot it was not too hard to know every moon in the solar system. We had one. Mars had two. Mercury and Venus were late getting up and missed the sale. Jupiter, the Big Bubba of the planets, had an astonishing twelve. Twelve moons! The upkeep had to be ridiculous. Some of them (like Ganymede) would have been planets on their own if Daddy would let them leave the farm, but no.

But it was not too hard to get to know them, to memorize them for the quiz on Friday.

Io, Europa, Ganymede, Calysto, Amalthea, Himalia, Elara, Pasiphae, Sinope, Lysithea, Carme, and Ananke.

Then they found Leda and Themisto. Okay, fourteen, but still not too complicated. And yet unsettling. How much further was this thing going to go?

Come to find out that there are now 67 confirmed moons around that big fat bastard! What the hell, Jupe! You greedy solar system slob! No wonder Venus and Mercury got hosed. You took 'em all!

The sad part is that they stopped giving them proper names a while ago. Like no one cared. After they had so many they stopped being special. "Behold the majesty of...uh, S/2003 J 2."

And don't get me started on the whole Pluto thing.

Trust me when I say life is not more complicated than it was when you were a kid. There's just more information and it's more readily available. The big questions are still big. The tough questions are still tough. But the trivia is an avalanche.