February 29, 2016

SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 5 comments

Enjoy the extra day today. Enjoy every day, as life is short.

How short is it?

This is the third and final time that Leap Day will fall on a Monday in my lifetime. Unless I live to be 90. Leap Day only falls on the same day of the week every 28 years. This only works sequentially in the current period of recorded time because 2000 was a leap year whereas other century years such as 1900 were not leap years (because they were not divisible by 400).

The current Leap Day cyclical period began in 1904 with the day falling on a Monday as it does today, and will proceed uninterrupted until 2100.

2000 was the first centurial leap year since 1600. If Scalia was around he'd say: "Don't like it? Tough. Go talk to the Vatican".

If my Southern Methodist father was around, he'd ask my mother and me: "Who keeps letting you Catholics make things so complicated?"

If members of the Warren Commission were around, they'd say: "This is too transparent and logical".

My wife is right. I should have watched the Oscars last night to take my mind away from the torment of the arcane. I'm just trying to figure out how many more Leap Day calendar cycles will elapse before Bobby Bonilla gets his final paycheck from the Mets.

And that's the actuarial truth.

posted by beaverboard at 04:29 PM on February 29, 2016

*slow clap

posted by tahoemoj at 01:36 AM on March 01, 2016

Love it!

posted by billsaysthis at 10:29 AM on March 01, 2016

I don't know if I was supposed to read that in Paul Harvey's voice, but I sure as hell did it anyways.

posted by Ufez Jones at 11:43 AM on March 01, 2016

This only works sequentially in the current period of recorded time because 2000 was a leap year whereas other century years such as 1900 were not leap years (because they were not divisible by 400).

True story: When I was working on the Y2K issue for my old company, we were looking to contract out some of the coding grunt work. We were taking contract offers, and one of the competing companies sent us a 3 year calendar (1999, 2000, 2001) with their name on it as part of their offer. When my boss had the various offer packages on her desk to go through, I grabbed the calendar and flipped through it. In February 2000, there was NOT a 29th day. I did a double-take, and pointed it out to my boss. She paused for a second, grabbed the offer package from that company, and immediately tossed it into the garbage without looking at the offer.

posted by grum@work at 01:20 PM on March 01, 2016

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