Last Saturday, I posted about Allison Schrager's proposal to reduce the 48 contiguous states of US from 4 time zones to 2. In a poll, Neatorama readers agreed that this was a dandy idea.
Kevin Depew of The Awl, however, wants us to go in the opposite direction: expand the 4 time zones into 19, each of which are 9 minutes apart:
Before you immediately agree to this obvious plan and begin changing your clocks, let me explain how it would work. Our map illustrates the new nineteen U.S. time zones. They are separated by nine minutes each, more or less. Under my plan, after you get past Chicago (Angry Time), the time zones start to become more intuitive because they subdivide horizontally rather than vertically. Driving from Montana to Arizona is like metaphorically going back in time, only literally. Because you will actually be going back in time. By nine minutes for every time zone. Also, as you can see, the new time zones will have really cool names.
Do you live in the New York City megapolis? You're still in just one time zone. But you're also separated from the hillbillies in Philadelphia and New Haven:
The New York City tri-state area pretty much has its own time zone because the people there are very, very selfish. City Time will lose a minute every day because the pace is just… whatever. People hurry around all the time, push each other to get on the subway and yell stuff at each other and there is another train right behind this one. One minute away. Look, you can actually see it! The next train is right there. It’s right there! And it’s not even crowded. Why do you have to push yourself onto this one? Wait one minute.
Do you live in Indiana? Bad news: you don't get a time zone. At all.
The zones seem kind of irregularly drawn. But there's a good reason why:
Some might point out: I'm confused. This map seems completely random, almost as if the time zones were drawn by a five year old. This confusion is understandable because the time zones were, in fact, drawn by my five-year-old daughter, so I think we can all agree that these are actually pretty good time zones for someone who is five and that the Twilight Sparkle time zone (Louisiana, of course!) is the prettiest.
I'm not complaining. In fact, now I want to move to Louisiana--at least until my native Texas adopts Fluttershy Time.
How did your area earn its time zone name? Read Mr. Depew's post to find out. It's hilarious.