Thursday, February 03, 2005

28 Days Later

Okay, sorry everyone, but this whole 28-days-in-February-thing is stupid and weird, and I think everyone just accepts it because it's just the way it is.

But hey…that doesn’t mean it’s the way it has to be.

Here’s my proposal, acknowledging my bias towards Halloween, my birthday, and monosyllabic months beginning with M:

January: 31 days
Feburary: 30 days (+2)
March: 31 days
April: 30 days
May: 31 days
June: 30 days
July: 30 days (-1)
August: 30 days (-1)
September: 30 days
October: 31 days
November: 30 days
December: 31 days

...for a grand total of 365 days in a year. Whaddya think?

Actually, I don’t care what you think, ‘cause I know this is a great idea. Look how nice and even all the months are!

But here’s the best part: Every Leap Year, we still add an extra day, but not onto February anymore (fuck February). Instead, we add it onto December. And what does that mean? ...SUPER NEW YEAR’S!!! Once every four years, on the eve of December 32nd (yes, 32nd!) we super-rage like we only get to super-rage once every four years.

How does one go about implementing this?

9 comments:

Jeff said...

At first, I thought you were just alternating 31 and 30, which would have been easy to understand and awesome (though I guess it wouldn't have added up to 365).

But then I actually read the whole thing. I dunno, man. I'm not a huge summer fan, but most people are, and I don't think they'd take kindly to having all their summer months shortened. Just beware the backlash from summer lovers, that's all I'm gonna say.


Also... I find it bizarre that there was ever a time when we were still figuring out the month system. January and February used to be at opposite ends of the year? RIDICULOUS!!

It's a good thing we're perfect in every way now.

christopher said...

Well, the head-on alternating thing was something I considered, but I didn't want to screw around with Halloween or Super New Years.

If you hate my plan, just say so.

Ass.

Geoffrey said...

Oh my Jesus Christ.

I just wrote a feature for that other website we have that includes THIS EXACT PROBLEM. I wrote this TWO DAYS AGO. Weird.

Also, I completely disagree with Principe's set-up. Either lump all the 31's together or alternate until you run out of 31-day months. But I like December 32nd.

christopher said...

Okay fine. I admit that the lump-method would be the easiest to remember. And I guess it make the most sense to have the 31's be at year's end, like:

January - July: 30 days
August - December: 31 days

I guess I'd be fine with this. So long as I could move my birthday from January 31st to December 32nd. That'd make Super New Years even more fantastic.

miss.marni said...

oh, chris!
Then you'd be one of those people who only ages every four years!
and you'd have a comic operetta written about you!

it's all such a good idea!

~marni

Anonymous said...

coincidence: there's a huge article in the American Chemical Society newsletter about this very topic this week. Apparently a lot of people stole Chris's idea years ago.
Here's one of them:
http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/calendar.html
All the months have 30 or 31 days, and the dates fall on the same days of the week every year. Every so often, an extra week gets thrown in.
from an interview:
"Newton Week," as Henry calls the mini-month, would occur in 2009, 2015, 2020, and 2026, for example. Henry says, "If I had my way, everyone would get Newton Week off as a paid vacation and could spend the time doing physics, or other activities of their choice."

Riiiiight. Super New Year is better.
SD

Anonymous said...

Wow. That same-day-every-year calendar is bizarre. I don't really like the idea of a Sunday-every-year Christmas... part of the fun seems to be the changing of the weekdays/dates every year. I can see how it would be nice though to be able to plan ahead -- like Thanksgiving. It's good to know that every year, you'll get a Thursday/Friday off. What do you do when Christmas is on Monday? Go to work Tuesday? Or not? Hrm.

I think that as much accounting trouble as the new calendar would save (no more calendar printing, dealing with software to do stupid date/weekday calculations) I think the "Newton weeks" would be accounting nightmares. (For paychecks, taxes, any kind of forms, etc.)

Calendars. They are weird.

- kathy

Anonymous said...

my biggest gripe with February is that "ru" in the middle. what are you supposed to do with that?

Feb-roo?-ary

now say it in the middle of a sentence when you're trying to impress someone with your well-spokenness...


"sorry, we're probably gonna give the job to someone who isn't so freakin' pretentious, shithead"

Anonymous said...

that's what we were talking about, right? February?