The Slice: You could use Pole-Man, Gone-Zog-Uh or Airway Depths

I don’t know how many others do this.

But slightly altered Inland Northwest place names can make decent computer passwords. The more obscure, the better.

Well, just so long as you can still remember it.

•Earth Day is Wednesday: So let’s go ahead with The Slice’s annual ranking of the planets.

1) Earth: Still has the best little kids and grandparents. 2) Venus: No one there thinks blowing up squirrels is endlessly hilarious. 3) Mars: The pro basketball season is already finished there. 4) Jupiter: Don’t have to watch those “We love the environment” commercials from oil companies. 5) Saturn: No Donut Parade. 6) Neptune: You want to talk winter? 7) Mercury: You can’t make fun of golf without immediately bursting into flames. 8) Pluto: Support for it maintaining planetary status may have peaked. 9) Uranus: Roads are worse than here.

•What kind of nightclub bouncer would Slice reader Mack Stanhope be: “Bribeable,” he said.

•Marmot Lodge update: So there is some interest in a casual gathering sometime this summer. We’ll see.

This would be open to both charter members and newcomers.

Several readers suggested we hold it at “The lake” or “The park.”

If you don’t get those allusions, you must not have read Tuesday’s column. That’s a mistake, because you never know when you will be tested on this material.

•Still waiting: For someone to step forward with a definitive explanation for the names Nine Mile, Five Mile, et cetera. Yes, I’ve heard plenty of reasonable theories. One of them is apt to be correct. Still, it would be nice to hear from someone able to cite an irrefutable source.

Yes, I could track this down myself. But I’m kept pretty busy with off-the-cuff gasbagging. And what’s the point of having thousands of smart, good-looking readers if they can’t do a little of the heavy lifting now and then?

•They got most of them: But North Idaho’s Brenda Green reported that her preschool children failed to find two Easter eggs last weekend. The eggs are the plastic kind, though, so Green figures they’ll keep.

•Speaking of backyard discoveries: I found a Wiffle ball that must belong to the boy next door. I threw it back over the tall, wooden fence. And I wondered if he made that crowd-goes-wild sound when he hit it out of his yard.

Must have been a walk-off game-winner since he didn’t even come over to collect it, which he is always welcome to do.

Summer won’t be long now.

•Today’s Slice question: What was your most memorable gardening injury?