Hello, 2010

It's the New Year and I've a question to ask of it.

2010, are you gonna suck? Because if you are, I'd rather just keep living 2009. Actually, I'd rather keep living 1987, but at least the San Diego Chargers are a good team now. Anyway, please don't suck... I'm gonna be too busy to deal with too much adversity. Leave that shit to 2006, if you don't mind. Thanks in advance!

Let's see... resolutions for 2010... quit smoking, get published (not counting the three pieces in January, since those were commissioned and sold in 2009), and... no, that's about it. Same as every year.

Calendar Musings

Why do seven calendar months have 31 days, but February only has 28? Why not cut a day each from July and August and give February an equal shake? Sure, the knuckle trick won't work anymore, but we're long past honoring Roman Caesars.

Besides, those two bastard Romans are the reasons that September, October, November, and December aren't the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the year, as their prefixes clearly imply. So how about that? Let's ditch July and August completely and go back to ten months in a year! Five months with 36 days and five with 37! No? Too much?

How come the calendar year isn't tied in to the solstices and the equinoxes (is that the plural of equinox?)? Why not make the winter solstice fall on January 1 and the summer solstice fall on July 1? Is it too much to ask for civilization to have some logic?

Can we please, PLEASE get rid of Daylight Savings Time?

There's a lot of hubbub concerning when the new decade starts. Some claim that today is the first day of the new decade; others claim that January 1, 2011 is the first day of the new decade. Well, to be technical, every January 1st is the first day of a new decade, depending on how you're counting your years... but, for the sake of argument: if you're counting cardinal decades, then 2011 is the correct starting year (and is the first year of the 202nd decade). If you're talking about the colloquially accepted "2010s," then, duh, of course it's 2010.

The same thing goes for centuries. The 21st century didn't start until January 1, 2001. But, again, the "2000s" started in... you can figure it out. Millennia  follow the same rule set.

Anyway, Happy New Year. Hope it becomes a Happy Old Year.

NYC DST

So I went to New York City last Friday. And so I came back Sunday night. So I had a blast. A fun, if abbreviated time. And thanks to the timing I realized one thing: daylight savings time needs to go away.

But first, a brief spiel about New York.

I had a strange flight there, that's for sure. I flew from Reno-Tahoe to Sea-Tac first, which is a little odd. At Sea-Tac, I ran into a friend from the Army that I hadn't seen nor heard from since 2003, which was a little odd. And then flew a little over five hours to Kennedy. Even though I began my journey at 5 AM, Pacific Standard Time, I didn't arrive at my hotel in Times Square until nearly midnight, Eastern Standard Time.

That's right, my hotel in Times Square. The W at Times Square to be more specific. Those of you who know will probably be supremely jealous. Those of you who don't... eh, who cares what you think?

There I was greeted by my enemy and friend, Lisa, who looked marvelous in all of the New York glamour, and then I basically went to sleep. Long day, after all.

Saturday was spent roaming around Manhattan, primarily Times Square, but Saturday night was the icing on the cake: kick-ass seats to Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic. Those of you who know... eh, why finish this sentence?

And then, the sour milk to the wine. My departure time from Kennedy was a tad early, to say the least, and I had to catch the airport shuttle at roughly 4:45 AM, Eastern DAYLIGHT Time... which, in reality, was 3:45 Eastern Standard Time. Which meant about three hours of sleep, probably less. Anyway, my damn cell phone didn't switch with the time, so my alarm was useless. In fact, had the service not called Lisa's phone, neither one of us would have made it to the airport.

So, I packed in a matter of seconds, stole all of the Bliss hair and skin-care products out of the bathroom, and hauled ass down to the shuttle.

And yes, I made my flight. My six-hour, cross-country, under-the-jet-stream, boring-ass flight... to Seattle. Yet another weird layover. Whatever, I made it safely, so who cares?

But the point of this pointless blog: DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME has to GO.

We're in the communications age, we're approaching another technological revolutionary age, we don't need daylight to function. People are becoming more and more used to operating on 24-hour clocks... FUCK DST!

Studies show barely a 1% savings in energy consumption, and other factors are less than significant as well. It's retarded, it screws people up, mother nature doesn't do it, why the fuck should we?

And it came close to screwing up my New York trip.

GET RID OF IT!

I'm done now.