The SoapBoxers

Brett Favre, Brett Favre, Brett Favre.

His name seems to be the only topic of conversation in the NFL lately.

Did the Packers end up better off, or the Vikings. The pundits will argue both teams have made off with just what they wanted. The Packers had been grooming young Aaron Rodgers to take over the QB role. He was ready. Favre was getting older and was in a continual bout of wavering about retirement. After all, Rodgers does have one of the highest passer ratings in the league in his first two years as a starter.

The Vikings had assembled a much better defense. Installing key parts such as Jared Allen. They have arguably the best running back in the league and a very good offensive line. Their receivers were nothing to write home about and the quarterback play had been marginal at best.

Enter Brett Favre.

The Vikings are 7-1 this year with their only loss coming against a tough Steelers team at their house. They have shown the ability to play great defense, and move the ball both in the air and on the ground. They are arguably the top team in the entire NFC.

The Packers? They have struggled a lot due mainly to injuries at running back, and at the offensive line. They are still trying to find continuity on offense and defensively they have been good but not great.

Lost in all of this is the Vikings really wanted the Packers all along, and the Vikings were likely prepared to give up quite a bit for him . If the Packers would have pursued a trade with the Vikings at the time, I am sure they would have been able to reap the benefits that could have brought them some additional young drafted talent, an area which in comparison to the Vikings right now, they just are flat lacking … talent overall talent.

But the Green and Gold could never trade their beloved quarterback to the hated division rival. The fans would not stand for it. The uproar would be unimaginable. Brett Favre playing for the Minnesota Vikings?

Guess it is working out pretty well for the Favre guy. The Vikings in the end have gotten what they wanted all along, and the Packer fans are still pissed off that Favre is wearing a Purple #4 now. But that is where he is, and likely where he will be for at least another year.

And in the meantime, the Viking fans love their teams chances to reach a Super Bowl.

Back On April 15, we launched a Stock Market contest (click link to see insights from the participants) in which a team of Goliaths (personal finance bloggers) were matched up against a team of Davids (people who were not personal finance bloggers). At the end of August, the Dow stood at 9496.281 and had gained average 11.34 points during the course of the contest, making the Davids the favorites.

We skipped the update at the end of September.  In the two months since the  last update, the market pushed back above 10,000 before retreating to finish the end of October at 9712.73.

At the end of the day on April 14th (the 104th day of the year), the Dow was at 7920.18.

At the end of the day on October 31 (the 304th day of the year), the Dow was at 9712.73

This is a gain of 1792.55, or 8.96 points per day. If we assume that the market will contain to gain at exactly the same rate throughout the rest of the year (yes, a ridiculous assumption), the Dow will be at 10258.74 at the end of the year (+ 2338.56 from April 14).

How do our contestants stack up?

I also invited visitors to play along at home. Let’s see how they are doing.

Team David remains firmly in the lead at this point.  The rate of growth has slowed a bit, but the market is still trending upward.  With two months remaning in the year, Team Goliath still had a shot, but we would need to see a significant downturn in the market in order to give them the win.

As much of the United States rolls back off Daylight Saving Time, I am once again reminded of the absurdity of time zones.  Not just of DST, but of the entire concept of each area of the world being in a different time zone.  I wonder much productivity is lost each year as a result of people misunderstanding the time of meetings.  I’m a baseball fan who lives in the Central time zone, follows a team in the Mountain time zone, and reads about them on web sites that list game times in Eastern time.  When I am looking at my printed Rockies schedule, I need to add an hour to figure out the correct game time.  When I am looking at the schedule on ESPN.com, I need to subtract an hour.  On more than one occasion, I have gotten the game time wrong.

I am not the first person to suggest this idea, nor will I be the last.  However, I will shout it from the parapet of this magazine – stop the insanity.  Move to one single time zone.  It would be 06:00 everywhere in the world at the same time.  In some places, 06:00 would be breakfast time.  In other areas, it would be lunch time.  On the other side of the world. it would be bedtime.

There  would no , longer be confusion about time.  When someone schedules a meeting for 06:00, all of the attendees would know exactly what time the organizer intends.  There would be no more setting clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall.

So, then, what is standing in the way of this plan?  The human addiction to specific numbers dictating their lives.  People want to wake at 6, have lunch at noon, dinner at 5, and go to bed at 10.  They are resistant to having this balance upset, even those these are mere numbers.

In decades past, the differing time zones had very little impact on people’s lives.  Before the advent of the telephone, it was very rare to have any time-sensitive interactions with people in different time zones.  Even in the latter half of the twentieth century, most people only had to know what time it was in a few different time zones.

Today, however, we live in a global economy.  The readers of The Soap Boxers come from many different countries.  Not just the United States and Canada, but also Australia, New Zealand, India, England, Israel, Egypt, Malaysia and Singapore – and that’s just a sampling of readers from the past few days.  I read blogs written by bloggers in Australia, New Zealand, and China.  It would be nice if we could refer to times without forcing everyone to scramble to their favorite world time clock to figure out exactly what time is being referred to.

The comments section of this article will serve as a petition to move to a single time zone, tentatively referred to as “Kosmo Time”.  If you are in agreement with this plan, sign up below!  If I can get a majority of the world’s population to sign up, I will print off the petition (duplex, of course) and deliver it to someone who thinks they have the power to enact such a change.