We called it less than an hour after the news started to emerge:

HEADLINE: Talk about your lucky breaks

One day after the entire nation starts gawking at your cross-country diaper-wearing tawdry love-triangle cat-fight, Anna Nicole Smith drops dead under mysterious circumstances in Florida.

The Houston Chronicle brings word this afternoon that our hunch was correct:

HEADLINE: Astronaut’s neighbors glad to be out of spotlight

In the Houston neighborhood of astronaut Lisa Nowak, parents are now able to play catch with their kids on balmy evenings. Instead of the hum of satellite trucks, they can hear birds chirping at sunset.

Families who live near the astronaut accused of attempted murder are glad to be rid of the many news crews that swarmed onto their quiet street after Nowak’s arrest. And they say Anna Nicole Smith’s death made it happen.

“As soon as Anna Nicole Smith died, all the media left,” said Candis Silva, who lives three doors down from Nowak near NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Proving once again that old Journalism-school chestnut:

“A dead blond with big boobs beats a psycho, diaper-wearing astronaut seven days a week.”

Or something like that.