Sunday, March 08, 2009

#9 Least Exciting Liveblogging Event


Liveblogging the change to Daylight-Saving Time.

This year, thousands of bloggers -- looking for fresh targets now that the GOP has effectively devolved to into a small tribe of cave-dwelling, pre-sapient poo flingers -- will presumably be documenting the lead-up to, climax, denouement and refectory period following that moment each year when a wrathful God punishes the Earth for, uh, gays and/or Darwin by wrathishly hurtling the sun One Hour Closer to the top of your head!

I myself will be cowering under my kitchen table and praying with all the fervor of a Vestal "virgin" who is two weeks late to Apollo -- the Deloitte/Archer Daniels Midland deity of Mt. Olympus into whose conglomerating care various ancients (after sacking a bunch of smaller, less-well-connected gods) very efficiently outsourced the duties of, among other things, "midge driver-awayer", "mouse catcher", various agricultural interests, archery, grasshoppers, colonization, wombs and sunlight -- for a safe and non-smite-intensive transition.

YBuzz! has a less interesting, more "facty" explanation here:

Spring Ahead, Whether You Want To Or Not
by Mike Krumboltz

March 6, 2009 12:04:11 PM

We have good news and we have bad news. The good news: Your sunny days are about to get longer. The bad: You're gonna get less sleep this weekend. Daylight- saving time is back and folks are eager to know when to switch their clocks, as well as why they have to.

When does daylight-saving time start this year?
First off, the answer is Sunday, March 8 at 2:00 a.m. According to a military website, the change always occurs on the second Sunday in March (it used to be in April). Over the past week, searches on "when is daylight savings time 2009" have soared 1,658%. Related queries on "daylight savings time 2009" and "spring ahead" also posted big gains in the Search box.

Why do we have daylight-saving time?
Some folks believe it helps us save energy. With longer daylight hours, there's less of a need for folks to turn on the lights. Sounds like small potatoes, but collectively, the use of less energy is a big deal. In recent years, other studies have contradicted the claims that more daylight = less energy consumed. Still, for now, it looks like daylight-saving time is here to stay. Oh, and by the way, it's "daylight-saving," not "daylight-savings."



So don’t forget to set your clocks ahead.

And would it kill you to sacrifice one. little bay laurel plant?

2 comments:

momo said...

Some people observe Easter, others observe Daylight Saving time. Must have our rituals. I always manage to set all my clocks to a slightly different time, to keep my brain agile.

Anonymous said...

thanks! i had no idea it was this weekend.

in fact, if you hadn't told me, it would probably be another month before i discovered i was out of synch with the rest of my time zone.