Daylight Savings Time

Sounds like one of the many banks springing up these days. "Come bank with us! We're open as long as the sun is up! Special interest rates apply on equinoxes and solstices!" Anyway, as a Jew, Daylight Savings Time actually has a practical effect on my daily life. I now need to daven mincha before I leave from work. I have no time to prepare for Shabbat on Fridays, so I need to be ready by Thursday night. But here's the rub; we will inevitably stay up late Friday night schmoozing, hocking around, making a few l'chaims, etc. However, since Shabbat ends early too, we don't even get the option of a lengthy afternoon nap. This is not an issue during the summer because dinner ends so late that we're up late anyway, but at least we can do something fun on Shabbat afternoon AND take a nap. So even though dinner will end by like 7:30 on Friday night, I'm sure I'll still be up at midnight. Sounds pretty foolish, but let's make fun of our less-enlightened non-mosaic faithful. They have this fascination with night-time. I don't mean darkness, I mean the specific hours between roughly 10:45 pm and 3:00 am. Honestly, who goes out on a Saturday night before 10:30? It just doesn't happen. I promise you it'll be just as dark at 11:00 on Saturday night as it was at 7:00. But no one's gonna think to himself "well, it's dark outside, but it's only 7:15...screw it, I'm getting hammered." Another words, I could easily come back from synagogue on Saturday night at 5:45, play basketball for two hours, watch two movies and then go out. Isn't that ridiculous? Why don't people go out as soon as it gets dark? That way, you can party or drink or cry, or whatever it is you do for entertainment on a Saturday night and still get a full night's sleep and be up at a reasonable hour. As Simmons would say, everyone could use his or her own vice-president of common sense.