Re-run Sunday: Let's make Daylight Savings Time weekly

Here's one from exactly one year ago. I remain surprised some of these ideas have yet to be implemented. Read it, please, and see if you don't agree that these ideas could lead to mass improvement all across America.

Occupy Wall Street? Heck, Occupy This Blog!

I love this turn back the clock thing so much, I wish we could do it once a week. The cool thing about is in 20 years, we’d only be about 18 years older.

Yes, Daylight Savings Time slows aging. But only by one hour.

If we did it once a week or maybe one minute per hour, we could live to be 175 years old.

I see many benefits. Gas prices would rise more slowly. Happy Hour would be Happy 61 Minutes (and generous bar owners would feel obliged to round up). And the timeless game of baseball would seem endless.

Well, that baseball part would remain unchanged to those who underappreciate its nuance.

We’ve never used “Time Out” as a disciplinary tactic. I guess it works for some, but it’s too early to discern the long-term effects.

For instance, when this generation of misbehaving children grows up and starts attending college and professional sports, will they depart the arenas and en masse head for a quiet corner whenever a referee whistles, “Time Out!”

Again with baseball, it used to be popular for teams to have “Turn Back the Clock Day,” when teams would dress in bygone uniforms and sell things like soda and popcorn for a buck and a quarter.

It was great fun and we thought it would be wonderful if the whole city complied. So if you had a “Turn Back the Clock Day” to say 1929, beer citywide would be a nickel and commuters would have to find horses to ride to work.

I guess I’d like to turn back the clock to the 1950s when it seemed like it must have been a really great time to be a white male who liked to drink. That would have worked for me better than say if I were a black male who liked to vote.

So I’m pretty comfortable with our times. Despite all our many upheavals and daily doom in the headlines, I’m optimistic about the future. I’m just not in that big of a hurry to have it come rushing up on us so quickly.

The exception, of course, being the year 2020 when my enduring insistence that 2020 will be a great year for visionaries is likely to finally gain marketing traction.

A friend of mine once said time is man’s worst invention. It’s very profound. As I’m becoming more conspiracy minded the older I get, I must conclude the concept of time was conceived by the guy who’d invented the first clock but couldn’t find a use for it.

So, voila, time! Now, if you have one fussbucket with a time piece then everyone needs one.

I say to hell with time. Let’s all just show up whenever we feel like it. And bring a book.

I have three watches I adore: one from my late grandfather; an Elvis one from my good buddy Quinn: and a really snazzy one generously gifted to me from a Las Vegas resort for work that didn’t warrant the bauble. They gave one to Val, too.

It was the oddest thing. We were there on an assignment for a now-defunct magazine. The magazines I’ve worked for that can now be described as now-defunct are too numerous to name.

But we were on a fancy lake cruise outside of town and our host presented us with two boxes from an elegant jeweler. Inside were these fabulous watches.

I said, no, we couldn’t. It wouldn’t be ethical.

As I was saying this, I was admiring the watch was on my wrist and thinking, “It’s a tad too snug, but I saw a jeweler in the casino. I’ll bet he’ll size it for free.”

I was correct.

Ethical considerations be damned, there was no way I was leaving Las Vegas without that watch. It’s magnificent.

To this day, Val still thinks some husky guy is going to show up at our door and tell us we need to kill Vinny or he’s taking back the watches.

I know this much: Val will kill Vinny. She loves that watch. Me, too.

But one of these days I’m thinking of making all three timepieces obsolete.

I’m thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex for my left wrist.

It’ll be waterproof, impressive in refined company, and will make even the wafer thin models look clunky by comparison.

I’ll do it one of these days, I swear.

I just need to find the time.

Make Daylight Savings Time weekly

I love this turn back the clock thing so much, I wish we could do it once a week. The cool thing about this is in 20 years, we’d only be about 18 years older.

Yes, Daylight Savings Time slows aging. But only by one hour.

If we did it once a week or maybe one minute per hour, we could live to be 175 years old.

I see many benefits. Gas prices would rise more slowly. Happy Hour would be Happy 61 Minutes (and generous bar owners would feel obliged to round up). And the timeless game of baseball would seem endless.

Well, that baseball part would remain unchanged to those who underappreciate its nuance.

We’ve never used “Time Out” as a disciplinary tactic. I guess it works for some, but it’s too early to discern the long-term effects.

For instance, when this generation of misbehaving children grows up and starts attending college and professional sports, will they depart the arenas and en masse head for a quiet corner whenever a referee whistles, “Time Out!”

Again with baseball, it used to be popular for teams to have “Turn Back the Clock Day,” when teams would dress in bygone uniforms and sell things like soda and popcorn for a buck and a quarter.

It was great fun and we thought it would be wonderful if the whole city complied. So if you had a “Turn Back the Clock Day” to say 1929, beer citywide would be a nickel and commuters would have to find horses to ride to work.

I guess I’d like to turn back the clock to the 1950s when it seemed like it must have been a really great time to be a white male who liked to drink. That would have worked for me better than say if I were a black male who liked to vote.

So I’m pretty comfortable with our times. Despite all our many upheavals and daily doom in the headlines, I’m optimistic about the future. I’m just not in that big of a hurry to have it come rushing up on us so quickly.

The exception, of course, being the year 2020 when my enduring insistence that 2020 will be a great year for visionaries is likely to finally gain marketing traction.

A friend of mine once said time is man’s worst invention. It’s very profound. As I’m becoming more conspiracy minded the older I get, I must conclude the concept of time was conceived by the guy who’d invented the first clock but couldn’t find a use for it.

So, voila, time! Now, if you have one fussbucket with a time piece then everyone needs one.

I say to hell with time. Let’s all just show up whenever we feel like it. And bring a book.

I have three watches I adore: one from my late grandfather; an Elvis one from my good buddy Quinn: and a really snazzy one generously gifted to me from a Las Vegas resort for work that didn’t warrant the bauble. They gave one to Val, too.

It was the oddest thing. We were there on an assignment for a now-defunct magazine. The magazines I’ve worked for that can now be described as now-defunct are too numerous to name.

But we were on a fancy lake cruise outside of town and our host presented us with two boxes from an elegant jeweler. Inside were these fabulous watches.

I said, no, we couldn’t. It wouldn’t be ethical.

As I was saying this, I was admiring the watch was on my wrist and thinking, “It’s a tad too snug, but I saw a jeweler in the casino. I’ll bet he’ll size it for free.”

I was correct.

Ethical considerations be damned, there was no way I was leaving Las Vegas without that watch. It’s magnificent.

To this day, Val still thinks some husky guy is going to show up at our door and tell us we need to kill Vinny or he’s taking back the watches.

I know this much: Val will kill Vinny. She loves that watch. Me, too.

But one of these days I’m thinking of making all three timepieces obsolete.

I’m thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex for my left wrist.

It’ll be waterproof, impressive in refined company, and will make even the wafer thin models look clunky by comparison.

I’ll do it one of these days, I swear.

I just need to find the time.

My 25 top tweets

This morning I posted my 250th tweet since signing up on January 8. Know what that means?

I now have more than enough to go back and rerun posts that people forgot seconds after they read them months ago.

That news will be of microscopic consequence to the 46 people who follow my tweets like this: “How do people from Wyoming, our most geographically square state, ever manage to think outside the box?” (Jan. 12).

I like to think my followers lapsed into a collective stupor when I challenged them with that profundity, but I doubt any one of them will recognize the retread.

Twitter is a splendid training ground for anyone who aspires to write for fortune cookies.

I’ve always considered it a farm team for my blog posts. Sometimes a single 140-character tweet will inspire an entire 750-word post.

That’s what happened with this one from January 18: “I have about the same interest in learning speed reading as I do in learning speed sex.”

If I haven’t forgotten it next Easter, like I did this past Easter, I plan to write something based on this little nugget: “If chickens ever start laying Cadbury eggs I'm becoming a chicken farmer.”

Whimsical, yet true! Cadbury eggs are delicious.

Admittedly, 46 followers shows what an appalling waste of time Twitter is for unknown deadbeats like me. Still, 46 is more than will fit around the bar where I refresh myself and test drive many of the lines that wind up as tweets.

Some twitizens stick to one field, say, baseball or gardening. Me, I’m all over the map.

I’ve been political: “Can we all agree that calling something ‘gubernatorial’ is demeaning to any high office that isn't contested in elementary school?” (June 2)

I’ve been biological: “Molar, bicuspid and uvula are words of mouth.” (May 18)

I’ve been historical: “Grace Slick is a direct descendant of Mayflower pilgrims and the first person to say the word "motherf****r" on live TV in 1969.” (May 2)

I’ve been topical: “Imagine, right now some woman's trying to fix her friend up saying, "He's charming! He's funny! He can dance!" And the guy is Larry King.” (May 18)

I’ve been grammatical: “People are going overboard with exclamation points! It's punctuation’s whoopee cushion!! And I don't like it!!! Not one little bit!!!!” (April 5)

I’ve been philosophical: “The only time bitch, bitch, bitch is ever any good is if you're running a dog grooming business and you need a fast buck.” (April 16)

And I’ve been wonder-ful: “I wonder if life is really like those two or three hours we all have to kill while the hotel gets our room ready for the 3 o'clock check in.” (June 23)

“1984 author George Orwell (1903-50) had two little sisters. I wonder if the gals complained that Orwell was a tyrannical big brother.” (June 20)

“I wonder if God has a spam filter to screen out some of my sillier prayers like when I'm standing over a difficult par putt.” (June 9)

“I wonder if the adult film industry is resentful that a guy named Andy Roddick isn’t a porn star.” (May 2)

It seems like every fifth tweet or so is wondering about something. I can only hope all that wondering adds up to something collectively wonderful.

I think what I’ll do in the next week or so is ruthlessly delete dozens of weaker tweets in an effort to keep the homepage as spare and honed as possible.

Afterall, brevity is the soul of twitter.

Here are 25 of my favorites:


“People who refuse straws do not suck.” (January 18)

“I'd like to see each World Cup match end in a nil-nil tie and then witness Nelson Mandela draw the winner's name out of a hat.” (June 12)


“How can champion water skiers practice? Dry runs for them are impossible.” (June 3)

“Larry King at 76 interviewing Mick Jagger at 67 makes Mick seem 35 and Larry seem 98.” (May 18)


“Only solution to Gulf crisis is to teach fish to eat and enjoy crude oil. Can't be harder than teaching 4 yr old to do same w/ vegetables.” (May 18)


“It's a mystery why anyone would opt for Oreos over Double Stuffed Oreos. It'd be like choosing to watch a skit featuring The Two Stooges.” (May 16)


“I think this gulf catastrophe would be working out differently if Jed Clampett was still involved in the oil industry.” (May 5)


“We could eliminate both obesity and starvation in one fell swoop if everyone, everywhere would agree to eat just two meals a day.” (May 3)

“After latest 17-3 drubbing, ESPN says "the Milwaukee Brewers own the Pirates." It's gotta be better than being owned by Bob Nutting.” (April 27)


“Chefs with rashes are the best at cooking from scratch.” (April 20)


“Time bomb makes no sense. It should be timed bomb. A time bomb might have its advantages and could delay aging.” (April 14)


“Should know better but when I'm alone in a room with what is described as a magic marker, I still try and use it to turn chairs into gold.” (March 29)


“Just started reading Grisham's ‘Innocent Man.’ So far, it's nothing at all like Billy Joel's "Innocent Man." (March 25)


“In ‘Wizard of Oz,’ the role of ‘Toto’ was played by a dog named "Toto." Coincidence or just really expert casting? (March 24)

“Just learned Ernie Borgnine is 92. Know what that means? Pretty soon we're going to need an Ernie Borgten.” (March 11)


“If I were a heroic crime fighter, I'd love to have Super Vision. But as a regular guy, I hate any supervision. Can't stand it.” (March 6)


“The tragedy at SeaWorld is bound to give killer whales a really bad name.” (February 25)


“Angry enough about forecast of heavy new snows to consider storming the Weather Channel, but realize that would be redundant.” (February 24)


“One day soon cell phones will be used to cure the cancers they cause.” (February 17)


“People say 'the mind boggles' like it's a rarity. Most minds do more boggling than they do thinking.” (February 17)


“If someone who feasts on human flesh is a cannibal, should some who eats just a wee bit be called a cannibbler?” (February 4)


“Stuck listening to Radio Disney. Nobody should be allowed to make any music until they're mature enough to have to shave something.” (January 30)


“I'm thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex for my left wrist.” (January 26)

“I like to think eager and optimistic agents in crime labs pass the time singing, ‘Some Day My Prints Will Come!’ (January 26)


“During all my typing commotion, my left thumb never even hits the space bar. When it comes to typing, my left thumb never lifts a finger.” (January 25)


“A single splash of water killed the Wicked Witch of the West. Logical conclusion: Not only was she evil, she also reeked.” (January 23)

Time on my hands & everywhere else

I’m thinking of getting a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex on my left wrist. It would appear jewel-encrusted, waterproof and would make even the stylish wafer thin ones look clunky by comparison.

I think a really nice timepiece is a great way to impress strangers, and I don’t have the otherwise means to do so without deception.

Plus, I have so many clocks and time-telling devices in my life that I no longer have any idea what time it really is.

Right now, the clock on my laptop says its 10:36 a.m., but if I raise my eyes slightly to the digital display on my stereo (now playing Sgt. Pepper by The Beatles) it says it’s 10:28 a.m.

Perhaps it’s fitting that my futuristic MacBook Pro is vaulting ahead in time while my Bose Soundwave plays “When I’m 64,” a 42-year-old ditty about the pending intrusions of the doddering ages (and did you catch how that last sentence shows what a materialistic brand name-dropping dandy I’ve become?).

I have three watches ranging from cheap to middle-class spiffy. With my car clock, cell phone, several scattered clocks throughout the home and the notoriously corrupt homewrecker in my favorite tavern and it would seem I’m a man with all the time in the world.

Yet, I can’t seem to find the time to precisely synchronize the dozen or so I rely on for essentials like picking up the kid at the bus stop or being on time for the weekly golf match.

“I’m sitting on my watch, so I can be on time.”

That’s a Bob Dylan joke from his 2001 song, “Bye & Bye.”

Is that posture the solution?

I’m always either late or early. Never right on time.

I’m either hurrying to get someplace or just sitting stationary killing time, a once favorite pastime of mine. That was before I read how Henry David Thoreau wondered if it was possible to kill time without injuring eternity. It brain barnicled the instant I read it and still nags at me whenever I have time on my hands.

Thoreau’s philosophical petard makes my possession of so many scattered and disagreeable time keepers seem like a crime against humanity.

I feel driven to always be doing something productive. No longer do I kill time.

Now time’s killing me.

Exchanging my unwieldy array of Babelonian time pieces in exchange for a time tattoo of a really nice watch would change all that.

It’d be a practical fashion statement, people would appreciate the eccentricity of it, and it would have the nifty benefit of relieving the pressure to always be punctual.

I’m sure I’m not alone. We’re all so stressed by constant nano-second reminders that time is running out.

Could fancy wrist tattoos ease some of our pressing worries? Is it an idea that will eventually sweep the country?

Only time will tell.