Battling the oppression of the Eastern time zone


May 16, 2000

It's a shame that those of us who don't live in the Eastern time zone are treated as second-class citizens. And I think it's time that we do something about it.

Living on the West Coast, I have never seen an episode of "Saturday Night Live" that was... well, live. I have to translate all the starting times of the baseball games listed in the sports section of This Fine Newspaper from Eastern time to Pacific time. And all of my friends in New York can call me and spoil the surprise when my favorite shows have cliffhangers, because the shows are on three hours earlier there.

These are all examples of how eastern time zone oppresses those of us located elsewhere.

The final straw came the other night, when I was watching one of the 61 hour-long television newsmagazines currently aired during prime time. The final story involved some court case, and at the end, the chipper newsperson came on and said that two of the people involved in the case would be online for an Internet chat immediately following the show.

My immediate response was to rush into my bedroom, turn on my computer, and check to see how my fantasy league baseball team was doing. Anyway, if I had been lacking a life, and if I didn't have something important to do such as checking on my fantasy league team, I could have also hopped on the Internet and participated in this online chat with the people from the newsmagazine story.

But wait--I couldn't have. After the chipper newsperson talked about the chat, she then added: "For viewers on the West Coast, they can read a recap of the chat on our Web site."

In other words, the chat was only live in the East, and those of us in the West were relegated to perusing the dumb-ass questions asked by people living east of the Mississippi, three hours earlier.

I had seen enough. I wasn't going to stand for the oppression anymore.

It doesn't seem right that the entire country runs on Eastern time. Yeah, I know Wall Street is in New York, so that explains why all the financial crap runs on Eastern time. But on the West Coast, we have Hollywood, a good chunk of the sports teams, Erik Estrada and Jack Nicholson. This must count for something when it comes to time, no?

I wondered what to do. The only thing I thought of doing was writing my congressman. But that letter would have sounded absolutely stupid.

Dear Jim Gibbons: I am writing to complain that I have to subtract three hours from all the Major League Baseball game times in the Sparks Tribune, because the Trib's sports department is too lazy to convert the times to Pacific time. I want the opportunity to hear someone on "Saturday Night Live" say a cuss word outloud like they do in the East, because all the bad words are edited out by the time the show is re-broadcast three hours later here. Please forget about Social Security reform and the Elian Gonzales controversy, because this is more important. Well, at least it is more important than the Elian Gonzales controversy. Heck, anything, including pooper-scooper laws, are more important than the Elian Gonzales controversy. Sincerely, Jimmy Boegle

This wouldn't have worked, and the only other thing I could think of to do was to move back East. But that seemed highly unnecessary.

I propose that all of us on the West Coast fight back against this tyranny by demanding that we get access to lame Internet chats and a separate live broadcast of "Saturday Night Live." And don't think of writing your congressman; he spends most of his time back East anyway, and would probably be absolutely no help.

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On a completely unrelated note, I would like to make one comment to all of you out there who may ever find themselves conducting a wedding: TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES. I recently attended a wedding where the minister--not some moron in the audience, but the minister conducting the ceremony--had his cell phone ring in the middle of the proceedings. To top things off, he apparently had problems getting the dang phone to turn off, so his phone went off two more times before all was said and done.

It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen. And I hope to never, ever see it again.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan who thinks Erik Estrada should be on more television shows these days. His (Jimmy's, not Erik Estrada's) column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.

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