What's This Button Do?

So i'm on Mike's PC at the moment to accomplish a few goals.

1. To keep me busy.
2. To update the halloweeny counters.
3. Did I mention I was bored?
4. To keep me from chewing off my fingernails until he gets back from lunch with Frannie so I can see my Wall Street Journal Article.

Anyway, and i'm looking at the sidebar - cuz the boy is running RC1 full time now - and I'm seeing a countdown and I can't figure out what it's for. 1 day, 23 hours, 17 minutes and 20, no 21 seconds...

Hey, is that a count-up? Now i'm very perplexed.

Oh well. Apparently you can't make sense out of them all.