May 6, 2005
"ONE LESS STATE FOR YOU TO VISIT" (via H. Koenig):
The time zones, they may be a-changin' (TREVOR MAXWELL, Portland Press Herald)
Changing Maine's clocks from Eastern time to Atlantic time would be welcome in Sheila McFarlane's home in Houlton, where the sun wakes people early and, in the winter, vanishes long before the dinner hour.But the idea isn't so popular at the Navy Yard Bar and Billiards in Kittery.
"That would be ridiculous," said the owner, Joe Sugden. Someone getting out of work in New Hampshire would lose an hour just driving across the bridge.
Maine lawmakers, having bounced the idea around for years, said Wednesday that voters should decide.
Members of the State and Local Government Committee unanimously endorsed a bill that, if approved by voters, would put Maine on Atlantic time along with Canada's Maritime Provinces.
America ends at Portsmouth anyway. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 6, 2005 12:00 AM
"America ends at Portsmouth anyway."
It shouldn't. It should continue on to Labrador.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 6, 2005 10:14 AMLooks like the time zone rule and the living room rule are eventually going to become redundant.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 6, 2005 12:00 PMWe really should just have one time zone based on Central Time for the contiguous 48 states.
Posted by: bart at May 6, 2005 12:13 PMBy the way, it's good to see you Yanks finally admit you only won with the help of foreign mercenaries.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 6, 2005 12:19 PMHmmm. Robert is still itching to march north while Orrin is breaking up the lower 48.
I love this place.
Posted by: Peter B at May 6, 2005 12:41 PMWell, if New Hampsire would join Maine in this minor attempt at secession, it will have the side effect of making most of North America off limits to him. But as compensation, he'd get to visit Halifax and Charlottetown.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 6, 2005 3:28 PMThis idea is certainly stupid enough to find a congenial home in the Maine Legislature, and since the Pine Tree State seems determined to continue turning itself into a bureaucratized economic basket case like the Maritimes, it makes a certain perverse sense.
Posted by: Axel Kassel at May 6, 2005 4:24 PMPortsmouth? Never heard of it.
Posted by: jefferson park at May 6, 2005 5:15 PMA small town with a couple of good seafood restaurants on the way to Maine.
Posted by: bart at May 6, 2005 6:44 PMJust about everyplace in New England has great seafood. Clam chowder, lobster, crab, fish, etc.
Nebraska produces excellent beef, but that item can be shipped anywhere and still retain its flavor while seafood is more problematic. An old high school teacher of mine told me that any New England dining establishment would be embarrassed to pass off as "seafood" the stuff we serve at Red Lobster in this part of the country.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 6, 2005 7:20 PMIt's funny how things vary from place to place.
I managed to find a pizza place in Jacksonville where the sauce was good, the cheese was good, the pepperoni was good but the crust was terrible. It has to do with the water. Wisconsin has pork products that laugh at anything I can get in the Eastern Time Zone. Florida has excellent shrimp but lousy lobster. Prices for chicken, beef and pork are higher in Florida than in NJ, which I found quite surprising.
They are trying to foist off Australian beef on us in our local supermarkets. It's cheaper than American but when I bought a shell steak from them a couple of months ago, it was so tough that I had to push my head and chin together like Curly Howard in order to chew it. And it also had a weird flavor.
Posted by: bart at May 6, 2005 7:41 PMSure it wasn't kangaroo? There was a case back in the mid 1980s where that's what "Australian beef" really was. Montana beef producers used that one for years.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 6, 2005 9:49 PMRaoul,
When I bought it I joked about that with the meat manager and she told me that I'd be hopping around after I ate it, that it wasn't very good.
Posted by: bart at May 7, 2005 10:19 AM