The newest Year
January 1, 2012 2:06 AM   Subscribe

Alofa'aga mo se Tausaga Fou fiafia, manuia ma saogalemu. Ia manuia fuafuaga uma mo le tausaga fou 2012. American Samoa just changed time zones. But if you missed New Years, you still have, at the time of this writing, 50 minutes until New Years in Pago Pago.
posted by twoleftfeet (13 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
It took me a few seconds to mentally parse the headline on that first link. I bet they struggled over punctuating that, before plumping for scare quotes. I think I prefer this post's title :)
posted by iotic at 2:18 AM on January 1, 2012


Think of all the kids who will have the wrong birthdays.
posted by XMLicious at 2:24 AM on January 1, 2012


The time jump means that Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in the three-atoll United Nations dependency of Tokelau, which also shifted, will now be the first in the world to ring in the new year, rather than the last.

It's like Iowa.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:30 AM on January 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


Wrong Samoa.

American Samoa is still on the American side of the line. Western Samoa (with the capital Apia) changed, moving to the NZ side.
posted by pompomtom at 2:45 AM on January 1, 2012 [7 favorites]


Yep, what pompomtom said.
posted by unknowncommand at 2:53 AM on January 1, 2012


I really regret not making a post about Baker Island. It's an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, but it has the rare advantage of having a timezone set at UTC -12. So it would be one of the last places to welcome the New Year.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:58 AM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


At the time of this writing, you have 50 minutes left in this year. By anybody's reckoning.

Hello 2012!
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:10 AM on January 1, 2012


This is no big deal. I lost a whole weekend once.
posted by chavenet at 3:24 AM on January 1, 2012 [2 favorites]


2011 is over. Those of us who sought to postpone 2011 have admitted defeat. Some of us hung on till the last moment, retreating to Polynesian islands, but the hope of maintaining 2011 has to be relinquished. Very few of us from 2011 can deny that it is now 2012.

I, for one, welcome our new 2012 overlords. It's gonna be the best year ever!
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:06 AM on January 1, 2012


This is actually a huge problem for Jews. Or Jew, because I understand that there is precisely one Jew in Samoa, no moa. What day is Shabbat?

Believe it or not, the location of the date line has been a vexed question among Jews for a long time. Almost everyone treats it as the commonly agreed-upon International Date Line, but I understand that there are people who keep two days of Shabbat when travelling in disputed regions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:34 AM on January 1, 2012 [1 favorite]


Hanke and Henry are on to something! We wouldn't have to go through all this rigamarole if we would just adopt their emminently sensible calendar.
posted by TedW at 2:20 PM on January 1, 2012


Four of my friends celebrated New Year's for every timezone in the world this year, starting at 2am Seattle time on the 31st and ending at 4am Seattle time on the 1st. (I didn't do the whole thing, but hosted them at my place 4am-7am for Australia - we watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). It was pretty fascinating looking up all the timezones and choosing a particular city/country to mark for each of them, and the best bit was realising that there is actually a 26 hour difference between the first and last timezones, ending with the abovementioned Baker Island.
posted by jacalata at 8:18 PM on January 2, 2012


jacalata: "Four of my friends celebrated New Year's for every timezone in the world this year, starting at 2am Seattle time on the 31st and ending at 4am Seattle time on the 1st. "

That's brilliant.
posted by Mitheral at 6:20 PM on January 12, 2012


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