Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do

You know, I completely forgot about this until dancinastrophys reminded me today....

En route to Caribou last year, I noticed planets along the highway on the way up. They'd been painted and positioned, to scale, along a length of US Highway 1. It's the Maine Solar System Model, the world's largest to-scale 3d solar system model in the world¹ -- 1:93,000,000 scale. A few moons (Luna, Io, Callisto and Charon among others) also make the cut. Pluto's since been retired, but it did get to hang out at the adults' table for a while.

The sun is 50 feet across, Earth 5.5 inches, Jupiter 61.4 inches -- Earth is one mile away from the sun, Pluto (pre-demotion, of course) was one inch across and 40 miles away from Sol.

¹Redundant much? Feh. But as we all know, Earth is the largest planet in the world.

Gratuitous icon retirement post

This icon was borne of trepidation after watching the first episode of House and fearing that FOX would Firefly it into oblivion without giving it the chance it needed to catch its footing. Obviously the show survived and prospered, and I think tonight it finally just...failed. I remember thinking "Ah, Breckin Meyer, so this will be the worst episode of House ever," and "This will only be watchable if he gets punched in the face every five minutes." Sadly, came up ten punches short, but oh God I've never hated an episode of this show before.

( Why I'm seriously considering not watching anymore.... )