The High Life

Hello World, And so here we find ourselves, a week after the confounded switch-over back to what is laughingly referred to as "Standard" Time (which nowadays has been squeezed into a tiny 16-week sliver down in the deep dark recesses of the year) and already, many of our clocks and other devices have been reset to actual real time, and not still on the inaptly named Daylight Saving Time. (Frankly, the only way I find this cockamamie nonsense saves any time is that my roaring red rover, the Aveo, has a dashboard clock that stays on Standard Time year-round [that ill-mannered snickering from our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery is that they know it's only because I can't figure out how to change the time on the clock in the car] so once we reach this point in November, the car is already the right time, and I have nothing more to do, thank you very much.) Luckily for electronic devices - like computers, phones, and DVRs - that are programmed to change to the right time all by themselves, and save the rest of us all that trouble. I stand by my contention that centuries from now, people are going to look back on this period in amazement that we put ourselves through this infernal nuisance twice every year, until we finally came to our senses (one hopes!) and picked one time that we could all agree on, and just left it at that. After all, everybody all over the world despises the confusion and inconvenience of the dastardly DST, including plants, livestock, and wildlife, so that pretty much covers just about everything, I dare say. Not so fast! We get the following tidbit from Bill, via an online newsletter that he subscribes to, weighing in on the very subject in question: ===================================== Let's look at the sport of golf as one example. It's impossible for me to even squeeze in 9 holes before daylight savings [sic] time hits. But after the change I can easily get 9 in - maybe more if I skip out of the office a little early. I read that DST is worth about $200 to $400 million to the golf industry alone. How about shopping? It turns out they did studies and found that people spend more during daylight. Maybe that's why the most active lobby for DST is the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of retailers. ====================================== Bill goes on to say, "I can't remember reading/hearing about the daylight shopping thing, but I certainly would never have thought of the golf interaction. So much for getting the business sector on board the Ban Daylight Saving Time bandwagon. Oh well." Honestly, for as unpopular as it is, I'm surprised that nobody has started the Anti-DST Party (their slogan: "We Have Standards") with that as their platform. Sign me up! In other seasonal news, many of us were surprised to see the Houston Astros win their first World Series in franchise history, since the club was first established in 1962, and possibly all the sweeter for being 55 years in the making, I shouldn't wonder. Of course, the fabled Dodgers founded in Brooklyn all the way back in 1883 are old hands at the World Series, with 19 appearances, and winning the trophy 5 times, so there's always tomorrow for them. Out on the turf, the injury-plagued Giants are staring down the tubes as a 1-7 lost season washes away, while the plucky Jets continue to play better than their 4-5 record would indicate. On the other hand, a cursory glance at the standings would show that this season appears to be more of a struggle for even the usual powerhouse teams, with middling records in all divisions - except for the improbable Philadelphia Eagles, running away with it at 8-1 already. On the boards, the 5-7 Nets actually trail the surprisingly revitalized Knicks in the standings, where the unlikely Kristaps Porzingas has brought them to a respectable 6-5 after taking charge of the offense in Carmelo Anthony's absence. On the slipperier side of things, the Rangers are trying their best to stay relevant at 9-7, including a 6-game winning streak that the fans can hope is a harbinger of better things to come. After all, this is all we have, until those three most beautiful words in the English language: "Pitchers and Catchers," on February 13, 2018. Count me in! Speaking of sports, you could have knocked me right over when I was looking at the TV listings in our local newspaper, and found the long-established Broadway Blueshirts, the storied New York Rangers of lore and legend, supposedly playing something called the Las Vegas Golden Knights, of all things. (???) Surely this would be one of those promotional events with souvenir jerseys, where some of the Rangers bench players face off against a pick-up group of sturdy police officers and firemen, all in the name of some worthy charity. Once again, not so fast! It seems that the Las Vegas Golden Knights are actually a professional ice hockey team, oddly enough, that seems to have appeared out of nowhere (as opposed to an existing franchise that relocated to a different city) for this season in the NHL. In fact, they won their first 3 games out of the chute (a record for an expansion team) and are currently in second place in their division with an impressive 10-5 record to claim as their own. Originally there were 2 teams slated to be accepted for expansion this season, the Golden Knights and a resurrection of the defunct Quebec Nordiques, but so far, only Las Vegas has completed the approval process. Unfortunately, this leaves the league in a sort of lopsided arrangement with an uneven distribution of 31 teams across 4 conferences, 3 of which have 8 teams, and the poor forlorn Western conference with only 7, alas. I have no idea how they're going to make this work mathematically with the schedule, and the playoffs will no doubt present their own arithmetic challenges on top of it all, I would think. Of course, with The New Math nowadays, I suppose that anything is possible, so I'm sure we're all glad to welcome the Golden Knights with open arms, and the heck with the numerologists. Alright, everybody, let's break out those slide rules! Meanwhile at work, in the so-called office area at the top of the garage, there was a motley assortment of ramshackle furniture and business equipment cast-offs of every description, including the old derelict executive chair behind the desk. It was threadbare and tottering, with casters on the bottom like supermarket carts, so that it never rolled in the direction that you wanted it to go, but veered off at any tangential angle that appealed to it. Finally age caught up to it, and it collapsed in resignation, and even the construction company management despaired of renovating it - which I realized when I came in to work one day and found it had been unceremoniously relegated to the Dumpster in the parking lot. Then there appeared a brand new model in a fancy box from Staples, and after it was assembled (and very professionally, I might add) it turned out to be rather nice and comfy, as well as a giant improvement over the previous version. But it didn't take long to notice that the seat is higher than it was on the old one, with the significant disadvantage that the whole chair rolls backwards while I'm trying to sit down in it, and I don't mind saying, thanks ever so much not. As a result, I find that I basically have to throw myself backwards into it, while holding onto the arms, just to sit down, and it goes without saying that this maneuver gets really old, really quickly, especially by the end of the day. A related corollary to this situation is that once I'm seated, my feet can't reach the floor, so I'm left with the option of maneuvering the chair around by grabbing onto the nearby furniture, and pushing or pulling myself in the direction I want to go. It occurred to me later that the result of all this is making me feel like Edith Ann from the old "Laugh-In" show (for all of you youngsters out there, ask your grandparents about that) and only need the pigtails and freckles to pull it all together. Although, frankly, it occurs to me that stilts might be a better idea all around, and as Edith Ann always said, " ... and that's the truth!" Elle