Hallelujah! Rather than turn our clocks back in October this year -- inducing soul-crushing, early darkness on otherwise lovely fall evenings -- we'll be waiting until the first Sunday in November. I'm already lamenting the earlier sunsets of August, the encroaching night a reminder of the winter to come.

To my great irritation, there was a column in yesterday's NY Times by someone who has a problem with extending Daylight Savings time:

Congress has an amazing new scheme to cut crime, automobile fatalities and energy consumption. There is one hitch. We have to stay in bed until sunrise during the first week of November - lights out, televisions and radios off and please stay away from that coffee maker.

Get up after the sun rises? Well, I never!

Of course, doing so might interfere with breakfast, school attendance, morning workouts and jobs. That's because during that week, the sun won't rise until 7:30 a.m. at the earliest.

On behalf of all the beleaguered non-morning people out there who must suffer the ungodly noise-making of their early-bird, busybody neighbors, I say tough cookies, you morning-centric wanker. Having the sun rise at 7:30 a.m. is far more reasonable than having it set at 5:30 p.m., which is just sad. Late winter sunrises are nature's way of telling us to sleep in.