Thursday, March 08, 2007

We’re Springing Forward Already?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe it’s spring yet and the calendar says that we should forward our clocks one hour this coming Saturday night. Did I miss a memo or something? We should have at least a month more of premature darkness. I don’t mind Daylight Savings Time at all, it’s just that it’s a little early this year. Was a law passed or something?

For about a month now I’ve been reading about how the early DST will wreak havoc with many of our electronic devices. The warnings don’t pose the dire threat that the Y2K concern did, but I’m leaving nothing to chance and plan on sleeping with the family Saturday night in our abandoned Y2K shelter that I only recently abandoned. In fact, I just got back from the store where I stocked up on SPAM, powdered milk, water, cans of soup, etc. You know, just the essentials – like Twinkies. I also rigged up the satellite connection so I can watch the NASCAR race Sunday morning…assuming there is one. I figure that if the space/time continuum has been ruined by our altering of time, I’ll be safe in my bunker. As Y2K proved, the bunker can sustain us for at least 6…years.

If we survive Saturday night, there is a good side and a bad side to this early clock turning. Let’s focus on the good first. Instead of the usual week or so that you can milk being late for work and blaming it on your clocks not springing forward, now you get about five weeks! There are the four weeks because the change came early and the normal one-week grace period after the change. That’s certainly a positive, don’t you think. It also provides us with an extra month of still getting home while the sun is out. Getting home at six at night when it’s pitch black outside always makes the workday seem much longer than it actually is. Of course, sitting in a cubicle does the same thing, but I think I’ve pretty well documented that in my posts over the last 9 months. I definitely plan on taking advantage of having all of this extra daylight when I get home. It may not seem like a big deal, but I’ll enjoy the simple things like playing catch with Lucy and Ethel, using the old charcoal BBQ, walking the dog and whacking the ground with a shovel in my three-year mission to rid my yard of gophers. Yes my friends, a sun-ripened evening is a fine, fine time.

Enough of the bliss brought on by the early Daylight Savings Time, there is the downside that I feel I should caution you about. Experts believe that many of our simpler time keeping devices will not be able to cope with the early time change. Some of these devices are VCRs, DVD players and TiVo. TiVo? Well great! Now how am I going to record my 25 season pass programs like Barney Miller reruns and Rachael Ray’s seven different Food Network series? I guess I can just record the show before and after the one I want and extend the before and after recording time for each? That should about cover it, although I can see myself fast forwarding or rewinding through a lot of stuff I didn’t intend on recording. Well now that I think about it, that’s not convenient at all!

Since Daylight Savings Time was started earlier and extended longer, it will forever change one of childhood’s favorite holidays. No, I’m not talking about Columbus Day, I mean Halloween. Daylight Savings will now end the first weekend of November instead of the last weekend in October. I guess that means gone forever are the spooky nights and eerie darkness where the poorly lit streets are overrun with ghouls, ghosts, goblins and Barney the dinosaur. It’ll be like someone turned on the lights in the Haunted House or Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Disneyland (well actually, that might be pretty cool). We will save money on flashlight batteries and little votive candles for our pumpkins though. Oh yeah, I suppose it’s safer for kids out on the streets that night too. Whatever…

So, there you have it. I hope I have prepared your for our early Daylight Savings Time conversion. If everything goes well Saturday night, you can expect me at work around 10:30 Monday morning. If it doesn’t, feel free to swing by ‘the bunker.” I’ll make sure we have enough SPAM on the grill and plenty of reruns of Gilligan’s Island loaded into the clock-less Betamax VCR. If that doesn’t work, I guess we can always perform skits…

15 comments:

Odat said...

I forgot about this! thanks for reminding me....I may have to move into your bunker...I don't have one :-( But I'll pass on the spam and the twinkies...
Peace

Abigail S said...

I so much prefer moving clocks back than forwards. Losing one precious hour of sleep is pure torture!

captain corky said...

I'm pretty pissed off about Day Light Savings Time this year. It's cutting into my vacation time!

thethinker said...

THIS Saturday?! But it's always in April.

notfearingchange said...

SPAM?! you're printing out your useless emails??? Oh that spam!
;-)...well at least grab a few reciepes off of gmail for that!

Jocelyn said...

Wow, you pointed out all sorts of facets of this change that hadn't occurred to me...like the Halloween thing.

I used to live in Austin, MN (aka Spamtown). Seriously, you could hear the pigs squealing for mercy on butchering day. Yikes.

CS said...

I;m glad I read this, becuae somehow this news escaped me entirely, and I hadn't noticed it in the calendar. Man, I just got used to writing 2006, I'm not ready to change time. I better stock up on canned goods and duct tape.

mist1 said...

I am going to stockpile liquor just like I did for Y2K.

AtriaBooks said...

Did Puxatony Phil decide to make Daylight Saving Time early this year?

Save me some SPAM. I'm coming over. I'm scared!

you'dneverguess said...

I'm very tempted to make this the year I finally put my foot down and say no to DST. I HATE it! I've always hated it. What I REALLY hate are the people who say, with a straight face, things like, "Well it will be light longer now that DST is here." Maybe I'm a bit of a neurotic, but NO! DST has no effect on the length of light, the rotation of the earth or the seasons. There's more light for longer because the earth's rotation is changing and it's becoming FREAKIN' summer! DST only changes what the time is when this is happening.
Sorry, I hate DST.

*~*Cece*~* said...

DST never use to effect me. Now? Sheesh I'm totally effected by the loss of an hour. I must be getting old. Dammit, did I just type that?

Lee said...

I'm on my way over to share your bunker. Don't worry, I'm bringin Tang and vodka.

And if I never hear E.V.O.O. again, it will be too soon.

Jo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jo said...

Michael, if you've got some Twinkies in your Y2K shelter from 1999, they'll still be good! Save me one.... just in case.

Josie

Anonymous said...

I'm not ready! I'm not ready!

10 bucks says I forget to change the clocks anyway.