02 March 2021

There is no date in history

I've posted "on this date" posts since the very earliest days of RNJ (at least after one full cycle around the sun), and I feel like they are a vital part of this blog project.  I have often returned in this blog to the theme of nostalgia, and made a few contradictory arguments about it, I think...

 As I looked back on my March 2nd posts, I found one that has now got me quite flummoxed... It's a post from March 2, 2009, and it reviews the "new" Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  It also includes a brief comments conversation, also dated in early March 2009.  As I was re-reading the post, I thought to myself, "wow, I can't believe Fallon has been hosting this show for 12 years already," and then I really pressed myself and thought that no, it simply wasn't possible that it has been that long... 6 or 7 years, maybe, but not more than 10.

[side note: I have now reached an age where these sorts of things occur to me frequently, and I think to myself things like, wait, this or that event in history (personal or writ large) cannot be as far away in time as it appears to be, and yet it usually is.  Time has gotten tricky, but this time, I felt like I must be in the right.]

joel is baffled
And, it turns out that I was -  Fallon took over the show in 2014 (specifically 17 February 2014, so I could have been writing on March 2nd of that year, but the tone of the post is as if it's happening presently, not looking back a couple weeks).  In 2009, Conan O'Brien did take over The Tonight Show, but not until June of that year (and the post is all about Fallon, not O'Brien).

So now, I am baffled, and feel like I can't trust any dates ever again, and wtf is going on?  I enjoy calendrics and synchronicities and rhyming history, but now I'm not sure of anything anymore.  

In the end, it's okay, as I'm not actually typing this post (at least this part of it) on March 2nd anymore anyway, but I did originally have the thought to post this then, so there it will be forever classified.  I hope this warns us all to not let time slip away from us any more than we can help it.  It's a funning thing about time - you can spend it or you can pass it, you can definitely waste it (see Roman Numeral J).  I am hoping "Having Enough Time" wins the inaugural Tournament of Greatness (although it would be quite the upset as a 10-Seed).  

I remember the time that Tim sang the Hootie & the Blowfish song "Time" at karaoke, and it quickly became clear that it is the worst of the Hootie songs generally available to choose as your karaoke number.

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