Pity poor Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified the celestial body as a dwarf planet. Along with being totally emasculating, the IAU's declaration meant that Pluto was stripped of its rights as a full-fledged planet, including health insurance (medical, vision, and dental), a sweet parking space, and a Platinum American Express card. Well, now Pluto is fighting back, or at least it's found a group to take up the cause: On Saturday,......

Playing tonight at the Croc is Nicole Atkins, who we know from, um, American Express ads. But she's got a silver-throated voice kinda reminiscent of Hope Sandoval and/or Patsy Cline, so we'll let that one slide. Her debut album Neptune City just came out earlier this week and she was on Letterman Tuesday. Not all her songs are quite this Roy Orbison-ly grandiose: We'll check out Nicole for sure, but we know better than to......

Who delivers the best customer service in the country? Amazon.com: According to the National Retail Federation/American Express survey gauging consumer attitudes toward retailers' customer service, which was released Thursday, Amazon topped a number of venerable retailers for best meeting consumer needs. Who came in second? Nordstrom. Seventh? REI. That's right: local companies took 3 of the top 10 spots on the survey. A nationwide survey. "Online consumers are completely changing the definition of service," said......

Protector of all things free in the Interwebs, Pied Piper of copyright freedom, Underdog of the digital era--Lawrence Lessig has a new love, and it is...Microsoft? Lessig recently wrote a short post for Wired, in which he lauds the new Borg technology in Vista called InfoCard. His assessment is that InfoCard gives you much more control over what information you share, and with whom. Lessig makes it sound like a custom personal profile, which you......