Time Lapse

This is a couple days late, but who cares. It's that magical time of year when I'm forced against my will to get up at 4:30 AM and pretend it's 5:30 AM.

Daylight Savings Time. How I loathe it.

Why the hell do we still do this to ourselves? Ask five different people, and you'll get five completely different answers. "It's so farmers will have more time to... milk crops or plant cows or something!" "It started in WWI, or maybe WWIII, as a way to save electricity somehow!" "It's so kids won't have to go to school in the dark. Or maybe so they don't come home in the dark, I dunno." "Ben Franklin invented it when he wasn't screwing French whores!" Nobody knows!

For the first thirty seven years of my life I lived in a part of the country that didn't recognize DST. We were on the same time all year round, and it was wonderful. The ground didn't crack open and swallow the city whole, we were never visited by seven plagues and dogs and cats didn't begin living together. We happily went about our business while the rest of the country used more power, crashed their cars into one another and hanged themselves. The only minor downside of not recognizing DST is that our TV shows started at 7PM in the spring, and 8PM in the fall.

If only that were the case where I live now.

I'm sorely tempted to just completely ignore DST, and just go on with my life as usual. In fact I wish we'd ALL simply ignore it. Sure, we'll all be an hour late six months out of the year, but so what? What's the government going to do about it? They can't stop us. Let the lawmakers go ahead and pretend it's 4:30 AM, while we all get another precious hour of sleep. 

They can't stop us. There're too many of us. If we all stick together and ignore it, eventually they'll have to stop it. They can't punish us all. What are they gonna do, take away our health insurance? Oh, wait...

It's Change All The Damn Clocks In Your House Day Again!

Welcome to Change All The Damn Clocks In Your House Day, Spring 2016 edition! Jesus, didn't we just do this back in November?

Blog posts will be light today, as I'm spending the day at home resetting all the clocks in the house. I think I've changed them all in the kitchen and living room, and hope to start on the bedroom later tonight, after I rest for a few hours.

Regular readers of my blog already know how much I loathe Daylight Savings Time. Every year I threaten to just leave my clocks, watches, TV and phone alone and let the rest of the world deal with me being an hour early half the year.

I swear to Thor, right now if the bloated, talking, be-wigged, rotten Jack-O-Lantern that is Donald Trump promised to abolish Daylight Savings Time, I'd vote for him in a second! That's how much I hate it.

Heh. Rotten Jack-O-Lantern.

Happy Change All The Damn Clocks In Your House Day!

I probably won't have time to post much here today, as I'm spending the day resetting the clocks in my house. I finally finished up in the kitchen, bathroom and the living room, and decided to take a brief rest. I'm almost in the home stretch!

Crap. I just remembered all my watches and the clock in the car. It's gonna be midnight before I get to bed! Actually I should say it'll be 1 am, but I'll be pretending it's midnight.

Faithful readers of my blog know my feelings toward Daylight Savings Time, so I won't dredge up the matter again.

I will say though that it seems like by now we ought to have clocks that reset themselves. Right now I've got a goddamned miniature computer in my pocket, but we can't invent a clock that moves its hand backwards by an inch twice a year?

I'm thiiiiis close to leaving my clocks on the same time year round and informing everyone they'll just have to deal with me being an hour early eight months out of the year.

Stamp Out Daylight Savings Time!

Once again it's that magical time of year when I'm forced against my will to get up at 4:30 AM and pretend it's 5:30 AM.

Daylight Savings Time. How I loathe it.

I'll bet if you asked any of our current lawmakers why we still adhere to this outdated and abhorrent custom, not a one of them would be able to offer a logical explanation. Most would probably say it has something to do with farmers and giving them more time to plant crops. It does not. 

DST was originated by the Germans in 1916 as a way to save fuel during WWI. Yes, that's right. We all lost an hour of our lives today due to a decision made by our former enemies over a hundred years ago. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Most people believe DST saves energy by giving us an extra hour of light at night. It does no such thing, and studies have shown energy usage actually goes up a percentage or two during DST. It's also dangerous, as auto wrecks and suicides rise the week after it's implemented.

For decades I lived in a part of the country that didn't recognize DST. We were on the same time all year round, and guess what? The city wasn't razed to the ground. We were never visited by seven plagues. Dogs and cats didn't begin living together. We happily went about our business while the rest of the country used more power, crashed their cars into one another and hanged themselves. The only minor downside of not recognizing DST is that our TV shows started at 7PM in the spring, and 8PM in the fall.

It's way past time we stopped this antiquated and ridiculous tradition. I urge everyone to relentlessly pester their lawmakers to repeal this idiotic piece of legislation, until they throw up their hands in defeat and cede to our wishes. 

Even better, let's all just ignore DST Let the government do whatever they want with their clocks, and we'll all just keep ours on the same time year round. Sure, we'll all be an hour late for work eight months out of the year, but that's a small price to pay to keep our internal clocks regulated.

Tie-yi-yi-yime Ain't On My Side

So this morning I had to force myself to crawl out of bed at 5 freakin' a.m. and pretend it was 6. Thanks, Daylight Savings Time! You're the greatest!

Why do we keep allowing this to happen? Why do we let the government turn us all into jet-lagged zombies for a week or so every March? How did this godforsaken practice get started in the first place?

Most credit DST to America's favorite bespectacled founding father Benjamin Franklin, who wrote a letter in 1784 saying that if we all got up with the sun we'd use fewer candles at night. There's two things wrong with that idea: A. Candles and B. He wrote this treatise as a joke while flirting with the ladies in Paris.

The idea didn't even gain acceptance in Franklin's time. It wasn't until World War I (and later WWII) that the practice finally caught on as a way to conserve coal. Yeah, coal. Like back when you had to shovel hunks of coal into the stove in the middle of your living room and huddle around it to keep from freezing to death in your own home. That's patriotic and all, but... I'm pretty sure those wars ended several years ago (Spoiler alert! We won!). We could probably go ahead and stop using those two conflicts as an excuse.

Some say we need to continue DST because of the energy savings as supposedly the earlier we get up in the morning, the less electricity we'll use for lighting in the evening. However, recent studies have shown that the amount of electricity saved by DST is about 1%. That's nowhere near enough to make it worth plunging your face in a sink full of ice water in an effort to try and wake yourself after getting up an hour earlier.

So much for the so-called benefits of DST. Are there any downsides other than falling asleep at your desk the first week after the time change? There are indeed. Studies show that traffic accidents spike the Monday after the DST switch, as motorists try to catch a few winks behind the wheel. I have no problem believing this, as I saw 2, count 'em two wrecks this morning within a couple miles of one another.

I'm tempted to just say "screw all y'all" and leave my clocks alone, functioning on my own personal time. Besides dulling my senses for a week, I've got a lot of clocks in my house and I've got better things to do than spend a couple hours changing them. Sure I'll be an hour late to work every day until November but that's a small price to pay for my freedom from chronal oppression. Descendit cum tempore!

Come To The Dark Side

 5:10 pm in the afternoon and it's already pitch black outside.

Thanks, Daylight Savings Time! You're the greatest!