9 p.m.

• Awww, they found a long-lost relative of the triceratops. I'm such a ceratopsian mark it's not even funny. And who's the perv that drew this? (Note the babies toward the bottom left.)

A new dinosaur species was a plant-eater with yard-long horns over its eyebrows, suggesting an evolutionary middle step between older dinosaurs with even larger horns and the small-horned creatures that followed, experts said.

 

The dinosaur's horns, thick as a human arm, are like those of triceratops, which came 10 million years later. However, this animal belonged to a subfamily that usually had bony nubbins a few inches long above their eyes.

 

Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, published the discovery in this month's Journal of Paleontology. He dug up the fossil six years ago in southern Alberta, Canada, while a graduate student for the University of Calgary.

 

"Unquestionably, it's an important find," said Peter Dodson, a University of Pennsylvania paleontologist. "It was sort of the grandfather or great-uncle of the really diverse horned dinosaurs that came after it."

 

Ryan named the new dinosaur Albertaceratops nesmoi, after the region and Cecil Nesmo, a rancher near Manyberries, Alberta, who has helped fossil hunters.

 

The creature was about 20 feet long and lived 78 million years ago.

 

The oldest known horned dinosaur in North America is called Zuniceratops. It lived 12 million years before Ryan's find, and also had large horns.

 

That makes the newly found creature an intermediate between older forms with large horns and later small-horned relatives, said State of Utah paleontologist Jim Kirkland, who with Douglas Wolfe identified Zuniceratops in New Mexico in 1998. He predicted then that something like Ryan's find would turn up.

 

"Lo and behold, evolutionary theory actually works," he said.

• And speaking of dinosaurs, anybody remember these?

Alrighty then.

3 p.m.

• Just saw the finale of that White Rapper show. Although I thought John Brown was better, I knew that other guy was going to win the final contest. You don’t step on stage at a club and bust some raps about fuel dependency and the Middle East. I laughed when the judges said the same thing. I love it when a person wins money on a reality show. It’s funny to see them think that winning $100,000 actually winning $100,000. Uh, buddy, you need to let Uncle Sam, the biggest pimp of them all, get his cut, too. I can’t wait to see how much is left over for this kid’s music career after he takes care of his parents and pays for his sister’s schooling.

• Well, I knew this time would be coming, and I was right. As mentioned previously at this place, I’m trying to pay off quite a mountain of credit card debt that the better half brought upon herself. A little less than a year ago I pretty much took over all the household finances and got ready to deal with the $20k in credit card bills that she brought onto herself over the years. By the end of this month I see three-quarters of this debt getting paid off. One problem I feared by taking over the finances was that after awhile Mrs. kkk would start spending money on unnecessary items. And I was right.

I mentioned a little while ago that she got me a recliner for our anniversary (despite the fact our anniversary isn’t until June). When I asked her how she was paying for this she said that she was paying it off with the $40 weekly stipend she gets for spending on whatever she wants. Fair enough. But over the last few days she has started buying other stupid shit, and last night I asked her where the money was coming from for these purchases. That didn’t go over well. Too bad. She countered by sleeping on the guest bed last night. I guess that is supposed to show me the error of my ways: I had to make do with sleeping by myself on a queen-sized bed rather than only half of the bed (and that’s not counting whenever the cats hop up with us and stake out their own territory). Gee, I hope she’s still not mad later tonight.