The Daily Dose/December 31, 2020
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
Note from around our human experience.
Editor’s Note: We – generally – take great pleasure in providing fresh content every day, but today’s Leading Off segment is more or less a rehash of the past couple of New Year’s Eve columns.
2020 2021: On It!: As you read this the planet has been ringing in the new year for several hours already. 2021 started at 3 am Mountain Standard Time (MST) almost due south of Hawaii with festivities in Samoa, Tonga, Christmas Island and Kiribati, despite the fact these places should be east of the International Date Line and amongst the last to leave 2020.
Dry, Technical Matter: 15 minutes later the Chatham Islands celebrated and at 6 am MST New Year celebrations began in much of Australia.
Do You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More (Any) Parties: The International Date Line is an imaginary line of demarcation more or less at 180 degrees longitude, directly opposite the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude). It veers east and west though, to accommodate assorted international borders.
Dry, Technical Matter II: Kiribati changed its position vis-a-vis the International Date Line in the 1990s after it acquired territory that caused it to straddle the International Date Line. So, in accordance with international convention, it moved the dateline east so it was completely west of it, placing it in the first group of jurisdictions to make a new year.
Now You Know: The International Date Line is so jury-rigged Samoa is in the first group to ring in 2020 while American Samoa, west of the International Date Line and a mere 100 or miles to the east of Samoa, will enter 2020 exactly 24 hours later, the last inhabited place to ring in a new year.
Oh, Jesus H: Both Baker Island and Howland Island, uninhabited US possessions near the equator, are the last places to enter a new year, doing so Wednesday morning at 5 am Mountain Standard Time.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter: Due to the bastardizing of the International Date Line, it now takes 26 hours for a planet theoretically divided into 24 time zones to have everyone ring in the new year.
Please Pass The Dry, Technical Matter II: It’s already 2021 at the South Pole, too. They have 24 time zones to choose from because all of them converge at Amundson-Scott Station, but because virtually all access to the South Pole is from New Zealand, they keep New Zealand time.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow declines to go out to dinner. Today’s Diary.
I spent most of the day at the VSO tending the illusion that I would be going to that fancy French place here in town for happy hour because they have a fancy-pants burger and fries that deserves investigation…Regular readers of this crap know, however, that nothing ever comes of these PM Wednesday Dinner Dreams (PMWDD)…After eight hours at the hotel and eight more at the VSO I really just want to go home, so I stopped at the small town market and got a couple of those chicken fritters and took those home, heated them up and – in what is hardly the Upset of the Year – made a couple of sandwiches.
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On This Date
The long march to today.
In 2000 – Despite some celebrating it a year earlier, the 20th century comes to an end. During these 100 years, us humans produced staggering advances in, among other things, mass media, communications, transportation and medicine, in addition to two world wars and the first humans to walk on the moon. The world’s population increased from 1.6 billion in 1901 to roughly 6.1 billion in 2000. Samoa, formerly Western Samoa, was the last inhabited place to see the 20th century, though now they are amongst the first to ring in a new year.
In 1954 – The Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers establish a new NBA record for most combined free throw attempts in a regulation game in a 103-91 Minneapolis win. The teams combined for 127 free throw attempts and made 90 of them, a percentage of 71% and each team committed 37 fouls. The all-time NBA record is 160 attempts, by Syracuse Nationals and the Anderson Packers in a five-overtime game on November 24, 1949.
In 1966 – The Monkees are at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first of seven consecutive weeks with I’m a Believer. It was the second chart single for the group, their second of three #1 songs and their second of six Top 10 hits. Because it overlapped two chart years, it was Billboard’s fifth-biggest song of 1967 as well as its sixth biggest of the decade and the song ranked 62nd on Billboard’s 60th Anniversary Hot 100 in 2018. The song was written by Neil Diamond and a version by Smashmouth peaked at #25 on the Hot 100 in 2001.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
His assets reliably compounding, his philosophy rendering him deaf to the appeals of humanity, he plowed through any contradiction.
Henry Wiencek
Master of the Mountain
Regards Thomas Jefferson
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Cheaper than Trivia Night at the bar.
Magic Johnson is the NBA’s all-time leader in assists per game, averaging 11.2 over his career.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
How many #1 albums did the Monkees have on the Billboard 200? – Answer next time!
