Does anybody really know what time it is?

We had the audacity to wish one of our somewhat analy retentive friends "happy new decade" and were snappily "enlightened", as if we were simple oafs, to the theory that "technically" we were one year premature in our greeting. So, if anyone really wants to get "technical" about it...

To those that subscribe to the often stated "technicality" that the first decade of this century does not end until December 31st of 2010, we relent to a slight degree that in some slightly obtuse circles that on the surface that they may be considered as somewhat correct. However, we also point out that the majority of the world subscribes to the old accepted sensible logical x0 through x9 years (in the current example, the ten years from 2000 thru 2009) as comprising the start and end of what is generally referred to as a logical decade.

Granted, "technically" the year 1 B.C. was initially documented as being followed by the year 1 Anno Dommini, not zero A.D., which pseudo-validates the aforementioned presumed "technical" decade-encompassing scenario.

But as long as we are going to get "technical", ponder that the year that was adopted as the start of our current calendar by scholar Dionysius Exiguus (way up into the 6th century A.D.?), was simply the wrong starting year (they didn't have the internet or email way back then and just made up a lot of stuff, and they drank a lot of wine back then too). If we know anything about the birth date of that guy Jesus Christ with whom the whole BC/AD thing is associated, it was, according to the gospels (whoever they were), during the reign of King Herod – whom had "technically" already been dead for five years in what was delineated as 1 A.D., so that's out the window, "technically". Cutting to the chase, modern experts pinpoint what is designated incorrectly as 7 B.C., or thereabouts, as Jesus’ birth year – which is said to mean, albeit confusingly, that the current date is off by some five years (why not off by 7?) when suffixing years with the BC and AD tags. By other measures and opinions, taking into consideration the lunar and solar errors in the various adaptions of the various renditions of calendars along with the adjustments and corrections that they have been exposed to over the millennia, the next decade does not officially "technically" start until 7 April 2011. Also, we wonder how much wine they had consumed when they omitted the years that Jesus lived from having occurred - B.C. stands for "before Christ which implies before he existed, and A.D. stands for "after death", so the calendar jumps from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. with no accounting for the obvious omission of the years in between, "technically".

So, do the "technically" astute people want to be "technical" and say that the end of 2009 is not the end of the decade? Do they want to hear all the news reports and articles about the past decade tied to the time frame of 7 April 2001 to 7 April 2011, slightly after April Fools day of 2011, in the spring time when you have better things to do, or now in the dead of winter when you are holed up in your cabin by the fireplace with time to reflect on the past?

Or, can we just be reasonable and logical and simply say that the end of 1999 ended the twentieth century ("technically" 2000 did), as well as the last pseudo-decade of that century, and that the end of 2009 closed out the first pseudo-decade of this century. Don't we have enough real concerns and problems to deal with without delving into argumentative analy retentive technicalities when we are simply trying to look back on a logical period of time? Relax, go with the flow, let's all just get along, maybe cut down on your aggressive mood altering medications... Unless of course someone wants to pretend that they are "technically" really smart for knowing that "technically" '09 may not "technically" be the end of the "technical" decade and that we is stupid for not consistently espousing that circumspect factoid-ish tidbit of irrelevant and even incorrect misinformation... "Cum own mannn!"