Time zone bitterness

/ bensbitterblog
This constitution guarantees me the right to neglect my lawn and leave my corroded car in my front yard.

This constitution guarantees me the right to neglect my lawn and leave my corroded car in my front yard.

As an esteemed (that is another word for bitter right?) member of this society of Americans, by way of being born, I have the right of free speech.  The Bills of the Right Constitutions tells me so.   You bitter believe that I am going to full advantage of this and abuse it to the best of my blogabilities.  There are other priveleges that I have earned not at all like owning a small wedge sized piece of property where I can completely ruin my lawn with my special kind of neglect, and leave a rusted out car on my front lawn.  I also have the ability to annoy neighbors by making sounds just a few decible levels above what they think of as comfortable, but just below them calling the cops or them coming over and cutting my house down slowly with a chainsaw.  Oh, and the right to put things just that overhang on their property that irritate them so much that they will allow their dogs to bark all night until just before I wake up.

The real reason for the East Coast/West Coast rap battles of the 90's. (There is no rivalry now.)

The real reason for the East Coast/West Coast rap battles of the 90’s.  (There is no rivalry now.)

Americans unite about things like speech and property, but the one thing they can’t unite on is a time zone.  For goodness sake, we can’t agree to all be in the east time zone?  says everyone in the east time zone.  As a rap historian, I can tell you that the east/west coast rap rivalry of the 90’s (which we know doesn’t exist at all now) was started because they couldn’t agree on when the live Dancing with the Stars should air.  Even though it is taped by the West Coast rappers in California, the East Coast rappers wanted to watch at 8 pm.   So the West Coast rappers who are filming the show are forced to watch the show on their big screen TV’s in their cars on the way home in traffic gridlock.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to not get a speeding ticket when you are watching a live show in your car?

Do you know how hard it was to install this thing in my car? I don't know either, but I'm sure the guy that did would say it was hard.

Do you know how hard it was to install this thing in my car? I don’t know either, but I’m sure the guy that did would say it was hard. That’s what she said.

It’s not bad enough that there is an East/West time battle.  There are also two time zones in the middle.  Someone was bitter enough to invented the Central and Mountain time zones. Because of the central time zone we have those annoying “The season finale of Revenge 8/7 central.”  And as far as I know, television doesn’t exist in the mountain time zone, because no ever says the time for them.   Television should be “8 eastern/7 central/6 mountain/5 Pacific.”

I’m always really bitter when I get to work for every reason ever, but one of the worst things is knowing that when I first get here at 6 am, the bitter east coast people have already made it to their first break at 9, when I make it to my first break at nine they are already having lunch and they are sitting in bitter traffic fuming, while I am trying to wake from my afternoon nap break.  If I hear one more story about how people are counting the seconds before they have to go home, while I am counting the hours, I am going to throw my time zone portal at them and make them go back to the past 3 hours every day at 5 pm.   Besides, their stories lack any sort of character development, the plot is a little too lacking, and the dialogue seems a little stilted.

Tell me more about how you are going home while it is 2 oclock for the day. Just step in this lovely 3 hours before portal while you tell me about it.

Tell me more about how you are going home while it is 2 oclock for the day. Just step in this lovely 3 hours before portal while you tell me about it.

That is just in the United States.  Don’t anyone dare live anywhere else in the world.  My parents (hope you don’t read my blog) are in Mongolia.  Don’t even get me started on guessing what day or time zone they live in.  Their favorite thing to do is miscalculate the time zone difference and call me at 2 oclock in morning and make me think there is an emergency (they have old people hips that might get thrown) and say, “We were just at lunch and wanted to call and let you know that it was really good.  We had Mongolian food again today!” and then say, “Just wanted to check up on you.  So what time is it there?  Did we wake you and the kids up?  Ulan Bator out!”  At least they don’t ask about the Dancing with the Stars finale, cause I don’t know yet. Call someone in South Carolina for that.

On a Ben’s Bitter Blog programming note, there are only precious few hours left to get the Awareness out for Bitterness.  Keep posting those bitter blogs and complaining to your co-workers bitterly and making up buttons and bumper stickers to put on your car (buttons for the car, bumper stickers to put on your shirt).  Just remember that it ends at midnight (or 3 am eastern and uh 2 central and mountain at 6 pm and Mongolia ended like three days ago…).

Arrrghhhh, I give up.  It ends…uh later sometime or never.

Ben really confused about time zones

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70 thoughts on “Time zone bitterness”

  1. When I lived on the East Coast, I used to feel sorry for those folks in California that still had the whole day to get through. Then I moved to the West Coast and I feel so happy that I still have a whole day ahead of me.
    Life is better on the West coast! 🙂

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  3. An SC shout out? Whoop. Whoop!

    You cleverly inject ‘bitter’ a lot but reading “you bitter believe” it made me laugh.

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    • Yeah, that sounds like such a great idea. I will go ahead and just move right now. Burn my house down, abandon my family and dreams, and move there and live on someone’s roof, just so I can watch tv earlier.

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        • We call it “The Home of the Rat” and avoid it like the plague. You should build Bitterland here, for all the disenfranchised Floridians subjected to tourists and Disney ideals.

          “Happily ever after” my ass. GAG

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        • I stole my saying from what they should call Disney. The bitterest place on earth. I even went there in December and we did all 4 Disney’s and the two Universal’s and I wrote a post about each one. It was a momumental undertaking, but worth it to expose each one.

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        • They are doing these 24 hour days now too. KILL ME. Who would want to be in Disney for 24 hours straight? Who? In the summer? … it’s hell.

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  8. I’m bitter because I just had to rush to Valparaiso for a hearing, only to discover that Valparaiso is in some time-impaired corner of Indiana that doesn’t see Daylight Savings Time like the rest of the state. Couldn’t figure out if we were an hour early or an hour late or right on damn time. Time should be easier!

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  9. I called my friend who lives in New Zealand and woke him up. I had apparently miscalculated and he was very sleepy when he answered the phone (and a bit irritated). I never called him again because I felt so bad! Anywho. Looking forward to falling “back” come Fall. Getting up this early is against my religion. For realz. LOL

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  10. Time zones — crazy when you fly internationally too. Or really just travel from Utah to Nevada. Ugh. Almost missed a flight one time due to the one hour difference. Let’s have a world time. (Daylight savings time is one of my *very* bitter issues).

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  13. Regarding phones: I used to get calls in the middle of the night a lot. If you don’t want to catapult out of a good sleep at 2am because of an inconsiderate caller, get a machine with an answerphone and put it into another room. Turn down the ringer and throw a blanket over it before you go to sleep so you don’t have to be awakened in the middle of the night. Here’s a greeting you can use: “Hello. You’ve reached Ben’s phone. He’s either sleeping because it’s the middle of the night or he can’t hear the phone. Please leave your name, number and the time you called and he will get back at you when its convenient.”

    Then, call them when it’s 2am where they’re living.

    Or…your could turn the smart(ass) phone on silent mode before going to sleep. 🙂

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    • We use the old fashioned “land lines” and we have like 5 cordless ones so that we have multiple ways of being bitter about late night calls. We want to be able to know that we missed out on some emergency.

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      • I have to admit, you work very hard at being bitter. It is impressive. The key to a good bitter is to be adamant about complaining yet refuse to do anything about it. I am the first to commend perseverance.

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        • That is one of my definitions of bitter. Another one is getting this close to achieving your dream but not getting it. For instance I was that close to getting up off the couch and purchasing a lottery ticket and being only 5 numbers off and now I’m bitter that I didn’t win.

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  14. Added bitterness: a Texan and a Coloradan who live on the East Coast and want to watch their hometown sports teams, only to find that game times are calibrated to the West Coast by basically every. Goddamn. Network. Nothing pisses us off like games that don’t start until 9:30 or 10 on the East Coast. I salute you and join you in time zone bitterness!

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    • I wish all the stations gave you a choice on what time zone you watched you TV so you could get it all taken care of then leave or wait until later if you wanted. Thanks for the bitter salute!

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  16. The good news (according to Charles M. Schultz) is that you don’t have to “worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” The bad news, however, if you’re bitter (and believe me, I can relate), is that there’s no point in hoping tomorrow won’t ever come. It already has!!!

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  17. Ben, you can come to Singapore where there is only 1 timezone and 1 kind of weather. I always get confused when i am calling my US colleagues and i dont know the timezone or when they say central time or eastern time… WTF…

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      • Sounds like you need bark-activated sounds (like roaring lions or dinosaur roars) so that when you’re out of town the neighbors can wonder where the monsters are lurking. Once their driven so insane they break into your house to stop the pain, you have the arrested for breaking and entering.

        However, if you moved into the neighborhood knowing the people next door had barking dogs and rusting cars, you have no right telling them to change.

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        • Just like a dog to pick the one bitter human to move next to that hates when he barks at night.. Didn’t you know that dogs are God’s way of teaching us unconditional love. They target bitter people and try to make them nice. Doesn’t that make you so bitter you want to spit bile?

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        • Cat on the other hand are there to make us bitter. The only cat I like is that grumpy cat meme because he is so much like me. However he is getting famous and making doucats and I’m toiling in bitter obscurity.

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  20. Want some more wood for your bitter fire? I used to work in NYC for an LA-based firm and my supervisor was in LA. So, I didn’t have to show up for work until around 11 am, because she would never be looking for me before then, and I could peace out of there at 6 pm because I had put in a “full day” on my coast.

    Just give up and move to the right side of the country already. All the cool kids are doing it.

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  21. I live in a country with only one time zone, no daylight savings, and when you’re having lunch I’m already off to bed. Thought I’d make it worse. You’re welcome.

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  22. I’m bitter because right now it’s 9:27 AM and I would like to drink beer, but that’s frowned upon both at work and at 9:27 AM generally. I’m even more bitterer knowing that it’s 12 o’clock somewhere in this world and people are drinking beer while I’m not because of the work and 9:27 AM thing.

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