Important news for my fellow Western Samoa-lovers!
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
As the rest of you may not know, Western Samoa's time zone has historically been GMT - 11:00 hours. The tiny island nation is thus a godsend to every writer who is struggling frantically to complete her fic by the deadline of midnight "somewhere".
WELL. At the end of 29 December 2011, Western Samoa (now more commonly called Samoa. Who knew?) jumped forward by one day. How? It magically omitted 30 December from the local calendar by repositioning itself to the west of the International Date Line. This was done to help Samoa boost its economy, which relies on doing business with Australia and New Zealand. (Up until now, Samoa was 21 hours behind Sydney, but the change means they are now 3 hours ahead, i.e. GMT + 13:00 hours.)
That's the bad news! Now for the good news.
American Samoa (located some 77 miles away) is still GMT - 11:00 hours. OK, American Samoa doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but frankly let's be grateful there's still a country left standing in that time zone that we can point to when struggling to get our fics done "on time". It's not yet midnight in American Samoa! shall be our new clarion call of last resort.
In short:
- Western Samoa: no longer good.
- American Samoa: still good.
So, Happy New Year to everyone! Including those of you in the assorted Samoas. Even if you haven't started celebrating quite yet <333
As the rest of you may not know, Western Samoa's time zone has historically been GMT - 11:00 hours. The tiny island nation is thus a godsend to every writer who is struggling frantically to complete her fic by the deadline of midnight "somewhere".
WELL. At the end of 29 December 2011, Western Samoa (now more commonly called Samoa. Who knew?) jumped forward by one day. How? It magically omitted 30 December from the local calendar by repositioning itself to the west of the International Date Line. This was done to help Samoa boost its economy, which relies on doing business with Australia and New Zealand. (Up until now, Samoa was 21 hours behind Sydney, but the change means they are now 3 hours ahead, i.e. GMT + 13:00 hours.)
That's the bad news! Now for the good news.
American Samoa (located some 77 miles away) is still GMT - 11:00 hours. OK, American Samoa doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but frankly let's be grateful there's still a country left standing in that time zone that we can point to when struggling to get our fics done "on time". It's not yet midnight in American Samoa! shall be our new clarion call of last resort.
In short:
- Western Samoa: no longer good.
- American Samoa: still good.
So, Happy New Year to everyone! Including those of you in the assorted Samoas. Even if you haven't started celebrating quite yet <333