Tivo for the calendar
Tivo, the innovation that permits one to time-shift television shows to a more appropriate moment when you have the time to watch them, has, for me, come to the calendar.

My new work schedule, from 2:30 PM until 11:00 PM with days off on Tuesday and Wednesday, means that my calendar has been time-shifted, and I am out of phase with the rest of the world. I work on your weekends and I'm off in the midst of your work week. I go into work in the midst of your mid-afternoon workday, and I come home as you are catching up on the late night news programs.

This second-shift existence has its rewards as well as its drawbacks. One reward is that travel to and from work is unimpaired by the traffic that most of you must deal with when going to and from work. I don't miss traffic jams a bit. Another is that I have most of my day to accomplish things here at home before I must leave for work.

One of the drawbacks is that the time for socializing with others is minimal. Few people care to do anything in the evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday, because those days are smack in the middle of their work week, despite the fact that they are my weekend days. Fortunately for me, "nothing from nothing leaves nothing." I didn't have a heavy social life anyway, so I really haven't missed getting together with others too much.

The other drawback that I've noticed is that my TV watching has suffered. The prime time shows all occur while I am at work, so this past week I called Comcast, my cable provider, and added the DVR (digital video recording) capability to my system. And I've now eliminated the problem of missing my favorite TV programs. As any of you who know me are aware, I am a very big fan of Braves' baseball. When possible I watch all the games that are televised, which in recent years has been upwards of 85 to 95 percent of all their games. With this new capability, I'll be able to record the games and then watch them at my convenience. My only remaining problem with that is avoiding knowing the score before I get a chance to watch the game.

Living on the other side of the clock from the rest of the world isn't really a problem for me. But it does underscore how different everybody's world is from that of his fellow inhabitants of the planet. We all live in different worlds together, I guess. It's amazing that we understand each other at all.
- posted by Perry @ 11:58 AM