February 15, 2005

And I Will Defend With The Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow Assisted By The Orbital Mind Control Lasers

My long-time reader knows I've got this thing about Daylight Savings Time - specifically, anger that it isn't observed in most of Indiana (I've discussed this before, in April of '04 and April of '01). This puts us in our own time zone, which I call 'Indiana Stupid Time' because it makes us look like backwards-assed country fucks every time I have to explain it to somebody not in Indiana (and when I worked on the program I spent half of last year on, which required us to telecon on a near-daily basis with multiple sites spread across all four time zones, I had to explain it a lot).

And even though Governor Daniels is more actively pushing the 'adopt DST' issue than any previous governor in my memory, I'm not going to get my hopes up unless and until he actually signs a bill into law. It seems that every year, it looks like it's going to finally by God happen, then the Farm Bureau Illuminati makes a couple of phone calls and the whole thing goes down the memory hole and nobody speaks of it again... until the next year.

The local news last night had coverage of some of the debate in the General Assembly, including something I thought very curious:

Several members of the Indiana Theater Owners Association said that if the state added daylight hours, fewer people would go to the movies, and theater owners would lose money.

All the GA is debating at this time is whether or not to adopt DST. If they do, then they'll consider the question of which time zone to align with (a nontrivial issue, since Indiana is on the western edge of the Eastern time zone and on the eastern edge of the Central time zone). It seems to me the smart play for the theater owners would be to favor adopting Central Daylight Time, since that would lead to earlier sunsets year-round (if you're on the eastern edge of your time zone, your sunrises and sunsets are earlier than if you're in the middle or on the western edge). Earlier sunsets -> increased theater revenue (actually, the broadcast last night had the spokeslady for the theater owners claiming that movie patronage would drop 20% if the state added more daylight hours, which sure smells like a brown number to me).

So clearly the theater owners are working as the pawns of someone else. And by applying Tetrick's Law ("Once you play Illuminati enough, all games become Illuminati") and Carter's Corrolary ("Every weird thing you see in the world can be expressed in terms of Illuminati plays"), I have concluded this:

The Indiana Theater Owners' Association, assisted by the Farm Bureau, is attacking to control Indiana.

[Incidentally, I would be just as happy if the rest of the country abandoned DST; my beef is against constantly having to remind out-of-staters what time zone Indiana is in on any given day.]

Posted by Chris at February 15, 2005 02:04 PM

Category: Political Stupidity
Comments

Woot! Linkage!

The really funny thing is that, while the debate rages in Indiana, there is a small, slowly growing grassroots movement to get rid of DST -- by people who do not understand and or do not care why DST exists. And it is being bolstered by programmers who do not want to have to deal with quirky OS handling of time near the DST changes.

Of course, there are always those that just don't get it. Yes, that story is from here in Iowa. Not where I live, specifically, but the state anyway. I live in fear that the corn pollen or something will eventually make me understand this thinking.

Posted by: Jim of St. Grimblefig's Monastery at February 15, 2005 03:28 PM

I'll never forget coming out here the night before my interview. I had actually asked if Indiana was in the Central or Eastern time zone, and was told (correctly) that it was in the Eastern. Drove into town and was shocked to find that I had made that trip from Toledo in approximately 40 minutes. :-) I assumed that the clock in my hotel room was wrong, but quickly found all of the clocks that I saw were an hour behind. Finally asked someone why all the clocks were behind and had things explained to me.
I'm now to the point that I think everyplace is backwards and we're the only ones that are right in this whole deal. Not that I'd be upset to see us join the rest of the country (other than Arizona, right?), just please make the shift to EDT and not CDT!!

Posted by: 2!3054). at February 15, 2005 05:59 PM

Personally, I prefer to come out of a movie theater while it's still daylight (although that hasn't happened in a couple years now that I'm managing one), especially if I've gone to see a scary flick. I guess the other movie people are woried about the people who want to finish mowing their grass before heading to the multiplex.
Anyway, count me in the Eastern column; since we are already on Eastern Standard time (365 days a year) we may as well stay with it and change clocks along with everyone else....

Posted by: Susie at February 15, 2005 08:12 PM