bar-time (was Re: [MUD-Dev] The MLI Project)

[Mike Sellers]

At 08:24 AM 2/25/98 PST8PDT, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
>... I've heard it
>described by a guy I knew in the military as 'living on bar time', which
>refers to the timekeeping practices of bars in California -- they set the
>clocks ten minutes fast, so they have time to clear off the drinks from
>tables by the legal deadline (I think it's like 2 or 3 AM, not sure), which
>means that people in bars actually experience a given clock time ten
>minutes before it occurs. (It's surprising how many people think the
>television station is actually running ten minutes slow because it has
>never occurred to them that the bar might be running fast.)

Almost-OT: the only other reference I've heard to bar-time is in the book
"Expiration Date" by Tim Powers.  Perhaps not as great as his others, but
still a solid, intriguing weaving of fact and fiction.  Might well make a
great noir-ish modern-day MUD setting.  


--

Mike Sellers   Chief Alchemist -- Online Alchemy   mike at online-alchemy.com

"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others 
may despise it, is the invention of good games.  And it cannot be done 
by men out of touch with their instinctive values."  - Carl Jung