It's been three whole days now - have you adjusted to Daylight Savings Time yet? It's a mixed bag for me, personally, as I weigh pleasantly longer evenings against a dog and baby who are having trouble getting on board with my pleas that "the farmers said go to bed now."
Love or hate it, you have to respect the concept, though. Somehow, as a nation, we've managed to all begrudgingly agree to pretend that it's an hour later than it is for eight months. We don't bother to adapt our own schedules - say, shifting our work or sleep schedules - but rather we insist that it is the world that has changed.
There's some useful precedent here and I think, despite having gotten less-than-ideal sleep last night due to the aforementioned baby's noncompliance, that perhaps we haven't gone far enough.
Let's face it: 2016 is not looking, 2 1/2 months in, to be one of our finer or more enjoyable years as a nation, We're staring down 7 1/2 more months of an exceptionally contentious presidential election. Unpredictable weather fueled by El Nino. A Summer Olympics beset by mass protest and the specter of infectious disease. A Cleveland professional sports franchise trying to win a championship. We're all going to show our asses by the end of the year, and it's not going to be pretty.
There's another way, though. We can realize that this year is just a frustrating season of NCAA Football 2003, and we can decide we're not going to play it out. [President Thomas Whitmore voice] We are going to go quietly without a fight. We are going to vanish into the night. We're going to summon the power of collective delusion, hit "sim rest of season,"toss down our controllers, and go make a Hot Pocket.
It's Wednesday, March 16th today. When you wake up tomorrow, we're all gonna just agree: it's Wednesday, November 9th. We'll need to get our stories straight, though, so here's what we're going to say happened the last eight months:
NBA BASKETBALL
The Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. We'll start off easy here. No one's questioning this. Don't lie on the first line of your resume.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
I don't care. Baltimore or Montreal or something.
THE WORLD CUP
Is there one of those this year? Feel like there were a lot of dudes in scarves around. There wasn't?
THE RIO OLYMPICS
Everyone panicked and thought they wouldn't be ready and they weren't really but it still happened, a few people ended up covered in shit but it was mostly fine and we all forgot about it two weeks later. Sounds like my dating life, right? Heyoooo. Also we all pretended we were really proud of American swimmers, even though they're all weirdo dolphin cyborgs.
YOUR SUMMER VACATION
You talked about going to Cancun, but your spouse freaked out about Zika, so you decided to just take a week off and drive down to Dollywood instead. It turned out to be the right idea all along, and you're going back next year. You're Dollywood people now.
Also, the kids threw up in the car.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Yep, there sure was one of those, wasn't there? Hoo boy! [chuckles] How about those Expos, though?
BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES
Batman v. Superman was bad. Captain America: Civil War was fine. Ghostbusters was funnier than you expected but felt a bit forced. X-Men: Apocalypse was fine. Man, there's a lot of these movies. I didn't see any of them. I finally got around to watching Mad Max on-demand, though.
WEIRD ULTIMATELY-FORGETTABLE PSEUDO-NEWS STORIES THAT CAPTURED OUR IMAGINATION FOR SEVERAL DAYS BECAUSE IT WAS BETTER THAN TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE:
- April: the millennial who wrote an open letter to his fellow Coachella attendees
- May: escaped llamas again
- June: the "socks on my head" Vine
- July: that Carnival Cruise ship that was hijacked by the cast of its onboard Cirque du Soleil knockoff show
- August: escaped llamas: in space
- September: the arrest of Ryan Nanni
OH ALSO WE'RE NINE GAMES INTO THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON SO LET'S GET DOWN TO BRASS TACKS:
- B1G: three-team race between Ohio State, Michigan State, and Michigan. Each has one loss to, respectively, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Michigan State. (Sorry, Wolverines: we need people to believe this.)
- SEC: #1 Alabama lost a game they shouldn't have to Ole Miss, who followed that up by losing to Georgia the next week, who followed that up by losing to Tennessee the next week, who followed that up by losing to Texas A&M the next week, who followed that up by losing their next game to Alabama, who is back to #1.
- PAC-12: Oregon and Stanford, probably? Hell I don't know that shit was on late.
- Big XII: announced that they're expanding to 12 teams by adding Texas Methodist and the Texas State Armadillos, which was later retracted when it was determined those schools are from Friday Night Lights and Necessary Roughness. Currently making overtures to Blue Mountain State. Baylor is undefeated, because it's not December yet.
- ACC: Mark Richt has people talking resurgence, as he's led the Hurricanes to an 8-1 record with surprising wins over Florida State, UNC and Virginia Tech. They're going to lose to UVA this weekend and finish 8-4.
- Group of 5: Houston's the favorite right now. Cincinnati's been catfishing the Big XII as Blue Mountain State for weeks. Boise State's probably good?
HEY, WHATEVER HAPPENED IN THAT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, THOUGH?
This isn't a politics blog, piss off.