Seriously: American Standard Time

This idea keeps getting better and better: America needs one national time zone.

I've shown the hours of daylight would be acceptable:

National Time of UTC-6 on December 1st
New York: 6am - 3:30pm
Chicago: 7am - 4:20pm
LA: 8:40am - 6:45pm

National Time of UTC-5 on June 1st
New York: 4:30am - 7:20pm
Chicago: 5:30am - 8:20pm
LA: 7:43am - 10pm


And now I've found a precedent: China! They used to span 5 time zones, and now they whole country is unified under one time. Think about all the benefits. Plus, I think this chart will clear everything up.

NBA Playoffs: Round One Finally Over

After two weeks of first round action, it's finally over. And there's really no good reason that the first round has to be best of 7--and I know T-Mac would agree with me, but more on him later.

The East is pretty boring, 3 sweeps and a Toronto-New Jersey matchup that sounds better on paper than it actually was. Looking forward it's going to be Pistons (in 5)-Cavs (in 6) and I think Detroit will easily advance to the Finals.

In the West, the Warriors are the story. That was an incredible series and really shakes things up. In a normal circumstance, the winner of the Jazz-Rockets series wouldn't have much to look forward to (getting swept by the Mavs) but now who's going to be the favorite in the Warriors-Jazz series? My gut says the Warriors and I think they'll win in 6 or less.

But the real after effect is that the NBA Championship is going to be decided in the conference semifinals: Spurs vs Suns. Make no mistake, this series determines the title. I bet it's going 7, and my money's on the Spurs, even though I'd prefer for the Suns to advance.

Oh yeah, Deron Williams has gotten further than Tracy-McGrady and Yao Ming (and Stephon Marbury, btw) in the playoffs. For the second time T-Mac has lost a first-round series after having won 3 games. He's had 9 years in the league, and he's now 0-6 in the playoffs.

Afternoon Scene: The Stereo

It's hard to find stuff on bands that broke up before the YouTube era. Here's a song from The Stereo, a great band out of Minneapolis. The video is a fan creation, but it's better than nothing.

"Three Hundred"

Pirate Master

The premise sounds amazing, people dressed as pirates finding hidden treasure, and one of them is Christian Okoye. SIGN ME UP!

But after watching the trailer, it's clear that is just a Survivor-ripoff from the same jagoff that created Survivor in the first place. Surprising to no one, there are 16 people, divided into two camps, and they vote out people each week. And it's in the caribbean. And there's a smarmy host that will ask stupid questions. Survivor already had a season that was pirate-themed. Burnett isn't even trying anymore:




Sure I'll tune it to watch the Nigerian Nightmare, but it doesn't sound nearly as cool as it could have been.



(story broken by Fanhouse/Deadspin)

Afternoon Scene: Jimmy Eat World

A few thoughts on Jimmy Eat World, from Mesa, Arizona. It was hard to find actual videos, and when they were, they weren't their best songs. So that's why I'm going with mostly live performances and one instance of just the song. Also, their 2001 album was called Bleed American, which is an awesome name, but after 9/11 they changed it to be self-titled. Lame.

Also, the success of their song "The Middle" brings up a point related to online social sites, like Reddit, that rank stories based on collective up and down votes. The problem is that things that are very interesting to some people, might be unappealing to others. The stories that rise to the top are the ones that appeal to everyone, even if they aren't that great. Well, the analogy comes up sometimes in music, where the song that a band gets known for because it appeals to a lot of people, isn't their best work, or even is among their worst.

Anyways, he's a block of rock times five, spanning three albums, from JEW:

"Table for Glasses" (live)

"Bleed American"

"For Me This Is Heaven" (live from a warehouse in 1998)

"Sweetness" (live from Australia)

"Night Drive" (no video)

Chicago Out My Window

(click to zoom, where you can save as wallpaper)

Timely Questions

1. Why don't we have Daylight Savings year-round? 

2. What would happen if the continental U.S. had only one time zone, instead of four? 

QUESTION #1 Using rough data for Greenwich, England, here's what daylight would look like:

WITHOUT DST:
Winter 8am - 4pm
Summer 4am - 8pm 

WITH DST:
Winter 9am - 5pm
Summer 5am - 9pm 

In italics, is the current system, no DST in the winter, DST in the summer. In summer it makes sense because losing the hour of daylight from 4am to 5pm is small potatoes, compared to gaining a valuable hour of daylight from 8pm to 9pm. In the winter though, would we rather have daylight from 8am to 9am, when people are driving to work, or from 4pm to 5pm, when people are driving home?

 
I'd say it's a toss up, but personally, I don't think it's worth the switch off of DST, just to move it up. That would in effect make the East Coast UTC-4 all year, and Central UTC-5...etc. 

QUESTION #2 Are time zones worth it? 

Let's look at the possibilities for the new American Standard Time (AST). 

Here's the best case scenario:

National Time of UTC-6 on December 1st
New York: 6am - 3:30pm
Chicago: 7am - 4:20pm
LA: 8:40am - 6:45pm

National Time of UTC-5 on June 1st
New York: 4:30am - 7:20pm
Chicago: 5:30am - 8:20pm
LA: 7:43am - 10pm 

Here's the deal with time zones: sunrises and sunsets are local events. But other events: sports, TV shows, everything else really, is happening at the same instant, no matter where you are. Does it makes sense to say that a basketball game is tipping off at 7:15 in New York, and only 6:15 in Chicago? No. It's not worth it for the business confusion, flight times, and everything else. Ironically, this was the best case scenario for summer and winter nationally, and this happens to be central time with daylight savings. So Chicago won't have to do anything different. I think we could either get rid of Daylight Saving Time or get rid of American time zones, but not both.

Afternoon Scene: My Chemical Romance

Three videos off their concept album, The Black Parade. My Chemical Romance from New Jersey.

"Welcome to the Black Parade"

"I Don' t Love You"

"Famous Last Words"

When You Want Entourage Quotes, I'll Give You Entourage Quotes

Is that something you might be interested in?

Home Shopping Screw-ups

Afternoon Scene: Motion City Soundtrack

Triple threat from Motion City Soundtrack from Minneapolis. New album drops July 17th.

"The Future Freaks Me Out"

"Everything Is Alright"

"Lgfuad"

All Eyes on Big D

At this point, the only series the matters, in the Warriors-Mavericks. The Mavericks are 8.5 point favorites on their home floor. And if they can get it back to Dallas for a game 7, they would have the momentum and home court and should win there. So the Warriors aren't home safe yet, but the only player on the floor that looks like an MVP candidate, is the one banking in 50 footers at the buzzer:


Plus, and I think I'm breaking an exclusive here: The real reason the Warriors are winning: PLAYOFF BEARDS! Baron vs Dirk is no contest. All I'm saying is that if Dirk really wanted to win in the playoffs, he would grow a better beard. Too little, too late.

(taken from Monday's game)

Update: Deadspin later published their own playoff beard story, but without a Baron/Dirk photo comparisom. For the record my story was published at 10:36 am, judging from Deadspin comments, their story was published at 10:51 am CST.

Smooth Hands

Luther Head: 3
Deron and Dee: 2

Considering Augustine has only played 7 minutes in the NBA, it's fair to say that the Utah-Houston series features all the NBA talent from the '05 Fighting Illini.

Utah again had the lead going into the 4th quarter in Houston, but couldn't hold on. The fact is, 84% of teams who win game 5, after being tied 2-2, go on to win the series. And Home Court has held, and Houston has the advantage there too.

But who am I rooting for?
Well, Luther may be good, but he doesn't have the smoothest hands:

Have you heard the one...

I've heard people making fun of people who order a cheeseburger, fries and then a Diet Coke. (In fact I just heard it brought up on the radio this morning) Cause that's so funny, because it's pointless, right?

Well, a large Coke is usually 32 oz., and that's 400 calories. Plus, let's say you get a little refill for the road, so it's an even 500. You go out to fast food once a week ( a very conservative estimate for some people.) So 500 extra calories a week x 52 weeks a year = 26,000 extra calories a year just on Coke.

Is that a lot? Well, 3,500 calories is a pound on your body. So that's 7.5 pounds a year, just in switching from Coke to Diet Coke, once a week at fast food.

America isn't going to cut out fast food overnight, so if you're going to get a burger and fries, you had better get the Diet Coke, and let other people laugh their head off.

Rick Reilly on Rooting for the Yankees

"It's like hoping Bill Gates wins the lotto, it's like rooting for Brad Pitt to get laid."