the time change and why it blows

I love daylight savings time. Love it, love it, love it. What i don't love is the time change; I think DST should remain in effect all year long. According to Wikipedia, DST is "the practice of temporarily advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less." What I'm arguing for is the elimination of the "temporary" part, and by the end of this argument, I'm betting that most of you will agree with me. Here are the reasons why the time change blows:

1) Morning sucks: This one is basically an opinion, and I realize that not everyone will agree with this assessment, least of all "morning people", but I cannot stand the early part of the morning. Whether it's light or dark outside, I don't want to wake up and go to work... period. So it doesn't make sense, to me at least, for it to be light out when I get up. This serves as a nice segue to...

2) Free time in the sunlight is better than work time in the sunlight: Even morning people would probably agree that they'd rather have light in the afternoon when they get home. Getting up early when there's no light out might be depressing, but it's nowhere near as depressing as the fact that for a few months in the winter, everyone with a 9-5 job spends EVERY SINGLE HOUR OF DAYLIGHT either getting ready for work, commuting to/from work, or being at work. I'd rather have at least an hour or so of personal sunshine time when I get home rather than getting home after dark when you can't do... well, anything. Wanna do yard work on Wednesday? Tough shit, you're waiting 'til the weekend.

3) The spirit of fairness: At times, when on Standard Time, it gets dark around 5pm. Almost everybody in this country is awake at 5pm. The lazy college student who sleeps all day is awake, the crazy people who get up at 3am haven't gone to bed yet, the night shift people are getting ready for work, and everyone in between is also awake. Doesn't it make more sense, and isn't it more equitable to the population as a whole, to have light at this hour than it does to have light at 6 or 7am when not everyone is up yet?

4) Sleep pattern disruption: It's just an hour, so it shouldn't matter, right? Plus, everyone loves "fall back" when you get that extra hour to drink at the bar before last call, right? Right??? Wrong; studies have shown that the extra hour royally throws a wrench into your sleep schedule, even if you don't realize it. For example, the time change kills people. Using data from two years of Canadian traffic accident records (I know, they're Canadian, but still), Coren (1996) found that in the days following the shift to DST in the Spring, there was an increase in traffic accident rates of about 6.6 percent, which can partially be attributed to the loss of that one hour of sleep. Granted, there was also a decrease in fatalities during "fall back" due to the extra sleep, but it was statistically insignificant at 1.5%. If you eliminate the time change, you eliminate the sleep pattern disruption, and you save lives.

5) Clocks, clocks, clocks: The average household has a lot more clocks now than it did back when the time change came about. Sure, the clocks on your cable box, phone, and your computers update themselves, but all those other ones have to be adjusted manually. You either have to take time to do them all at once (which most people don't do), or risk being late or early for something throughout the few days that it takes you to update all your clocks. Minor annoyance, sure, but tell that to the guy with the 9am court date who showed up at 10am, or more importantly, the guy who missed South Park because he turned on his TV an hour late... tragedies, people.

Regardless of which time (Daylight Savings or Standard) you prefer, I think we can all agree that the time change itself is utterly pointless.

children

it may come as a bit of a shock to some of you, but i really don't care for little kids; they annoy the crap out of me. however, i understand that parents have to take their kids with them most of the time wherever they go. this does not bother me. what does bother me is when stupid parents let their kids do WHATEVER THEY WANT when they're out in public. hey lady, you might think it's cute to let your kid repeatedly run into me when i'm on the metro minding my own business, but i don't. it pisses me off, especially in the morning. i'm not bothering you, so why don't you try not bothering me? then to top it all off, they give you a nice steaming pile of attitude when you ask them politely to control their damn children. these aren't isolated incidents either, every time tourist season rolls around, i see countless parents in and around the city letting their little terrors run wild, getting all up in other people's business in the process. newsflash, not everyone thinks your kids are cute. if you want to let them run around and scream, the national mall is a good place for that; the metro, the museums, and especially restaurants and bars are not; respect your surroundings. i dunno what's happened to parents in america, but if i acted like that in public as a child, my mom would have flipped out.

while we're on the subject, can we talk about this ridiculous notion that some uber-parents have about media censorship? i can't go one week without seeing an editorial from some stupid parent about how inappropriate the music on the radio is, how violet video games are, how scandalous television is, and how vulgar movies are. here's an idea: try doing some actual parenting, and stop expecting the government to do it for you, lazy ass. if you don't like the music, change the station. if you don't like the video game violence, maybe actually read up on the game before you buy it for your kids. if you don't like the shows on tv, use the v-chip that's included with every cable box. if you don't like the movies, don't go. self-important parents don't have the right to dictate what we can and can't watch. it's a free country, stop trying to ruin it for everyone else who's over the age of 18.

also, parents: don't bring your kids to the bar. period. the next time some jackass tells me to stop cursing at 1:30am in a FREAKING BAR because his kids are there, i'm seriously going to kill him. it's a bar, idiot. it's no place for a child, and you should know what kind of behavior takes place there. the 40 other bar patrons shouldn't have to censor themselves because you're an irresponsible parent. shouldn't your kid be in bed by then anyway?

Americans? Lazy? NO WAY!

This might be a bit of a rambler, but here goes.

I was walking from the metro to my office in Crystal City when I overheard a curious statement. I passed a family of three about two minutes into my ten minute walk. They were obviously tourists, as they were pulling copious amounts of wheelie bags, and they were probably members of the upper-middle class, judging by their clothing and choice of luggage. Anyway, this lady turns to her husband and irritably says "I thought you said our hotel was on the metro."

Wait. Pause. Digest that for a minute. These people have walked for a mere TWO minutes, and they're already complaining that they've walked too far? Are we really so lazy in this country that we can't handle walking TWO minutes to reach our destinations? I've walked for longer than that to get through the damn Wal-Mart parking lot. If you ask me, a hotel two minutes from the metro station would be pretty darn convenient.

We Americans like to make excuses to justify our laziness, my favorite being "people are inherently lazy." I take issue with this statement: people are not inherently lazy; we Americans are inherently lazy. People in general are inherently efficient. There is a huge difference between the two, and it's essential that we recognize it. Both Americans and Europeans will seek out the fastest, easiest way to reach our destinations; this is efficiency, not laziness. Where laziness comes in is when we bitch, whine, and moan about it. My experience with other countries is fairly limited, having only traveled to the UK, Hungary, and Canada. However, very seldomly do you hear those people complain and moan about having to walk somewhere. They know that they have to walk to get somewhere, they accept it, they don't complain, and they go about their business.

We Americans also like to quickly refute this belief, stereotype, or whatever you want to call it. "We're not lazy," we tell our European and Canadian friends. Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want to tell yourself. All I know is that we have the highest obesity rate in the world, our average weight increased by over 10 pounds from 1994 to 1999, and we log more vehicle miles per capita than any other country.

As a culture, we are lazy. We are probably the laziest country in the world. Those who know me will be quick to point out that I'm being hypocritical. Don't try to pull that, because while I might a pretty lazy person, I'll be the first one to admit it. I'm not saying that we should be ashamed of our laziness, but we do need to accept it, because accepting that we have a problem is the first step towards fixing it.

Do yourself a favor and walk to the corner store instead of drive. Put a treadmill in your living room and jog while you're watching your damn reality shows. Take the dog for an extra-long walk. Do something to become more active before our entire nation turns into a bunch of sloths. And for the love of God, don't bitch when you have to walk two minutes to get somewhere... all you're doing is proving their point.

Look before you sit

Never understood the concept of having to put the toilet seat down when you're in a house populated by women... is it really that hard to, i dunno, look before you sit?! Women always use the standby excuse of "what if I fall in, OMG, my butt will get wet, what if I get stuck, whatever shall I do?" I have a foolproof remedy that can help all women (or men, for that matter) with this problem. I call it "LOOK BEFORE YOU F--KING SIT!!"

Personally, I always try to look before I sit somewhere, whether that be a seat at a restaurant, a seat in a movie theater, a metro seat, a car seat, my own couch, or yes, even the damn toilet. You know why I do this? So I don't sit on something unexpected. When I sit on a couch, I expect a nice plushy seat... sitting on something else, such as a toy, a remote control, a piece of cake, something sharp, or anything else that's unexpected throws a wrench into my "sitting activity". Likewise, sitting on a toilet and not having the seat there would probably end badly. Therefore, I ascribe to a simple mantra: LOOK BEFORE YOU SIT.

Everyone look before you sit... it makes the world a better place.

Michael Jackson

Can we stop? Please? This story just will not die, will it? Has nothing else happened this week that's worthy of long segments on CNN? I was eating at a McDonalds last night, and they had CNN on; during my ENTIRE meal (about 20 minutes or so... was waiting out a rainstorm), they had Michael Jackson stories on... mind you, this is almost a week since his death. Lay this damn story to rest, already, please.

Can you tell me what else happened this past week? Can you? Probably not, because of the media's sudden undying love of Jackson. Here's a snippit: Coleman gave up in Minnesota, 7 kids were shot in Detroit, the Washington Metrorail system crashed and killed 9 people, Obama's trying to push through a 1 trillion dollar healthcare plan, election unrest in Iran reached new heights, and Sotomayor's decision in the New Haven case was reversed by the Supreme Court. ALL of these things are more important than the death of Michael Jackson.

How many of you had any respect for him 2 weeks ago when he was living? Most of us, media included, thought he was a weirdo who liked to sleep with other kids in his bed. He turned into a freak, and he had been one since the early 90's. All of a sudden he dies, and everyone sheds tears? This is to say nothing about how his family feels... they lost a loved one, and all they're doing is a bunch of goddamn interviews. You think they want that shit? Let these people grieve in peace.

I understand that's he is quite possibly one of the greatest entertainers who has ever lived, and his death was frontpage material... last week. Let's move on already; there are more pressing matters that we should be concerned about in this country.

Urinal technology

I am sick and tired of urinals with excessive splatter effect. Guys know what I'm talking about... those crappy urinals that are either hung on the wall at the wrong height or manufactured with the wrong porcelain curvature to the point where no matter where your stream hits, you still get splattered with your own piss.

It's getting out of hand, folks. Seriously, why can't they manufacture toilets that don't make it look like a raincloud pelted my crotchal region? According to Wikipedia, the urinal was patented in the United States in the year 1866... that's over 140 years ago. Why haven't we mastered this "technology" already?

Get your shit together, Kohler. Men everywhere are counting on you.

welcome to the blog

Welcome, everyone. This blog is mainly going to serve as a space for me to vent about things that piss me off in a (hopefully) moderately entertaining way. I'll tackle numerous issues, including but not limited to: current events, politics, sports, and anything else that crosses my mind.

Happy Monday, fuckers.