Finally the last major holiday for ’08 is done. This whole season always starts off great and by the end it’s like a freaking anvil hanging from my neck like some Jacob Marley bling. Seems like this was kind of hum-drum for a lot of folks. Not a lot of Christmas cards sent out and not a ton of merriness. At least, that’s what I gather from the people I talk to. Speaking for myself, this New Year’s Eve was about as good as they normally are. It’s not that I’m a grinch or anything, but I never bought in to getting dressed up and then plastered because it’s time to put up a new calendar. Kind of seems like one of those Hallmark Holidays that’s just an excuse for a party. The way I see it, if you want to throw a party, why wait for an officially-sanctioned excuse? [edit- ok, so maybe I was a bit of a grinch when I wrote this. It's been a long holiday.]
Not that my wife and I are party animals. We brought in the New Year with a continuous flow of appetizers, a movie, and flipping around to the countdown shows on TV. Appetizers included Spinach and cream cheese puffs (excellent), mini hamburger pizzas (awesome), dill dip and rye bread (better than it sounds), buffalo cheese sticks (fan-f’ing-tastic), and some honey apple wine (every bit as gross as it sounds…we had it laying around and thought we’d pop it open for a toast…ugh). The movie was Wanted (Great action, but the premise of the original comic book was better. A secret band of super villains is just cooler than assassins. Still…Angelina Jolie = eyes glued to screen. Very cool movie!). As for the countdown shows, did anyone see the one on Fox where Robbie Kenievil jumped over the volcano at the Mirage? The network thought they needed to keep our interest by working up all sorts of computer animations displaying worst-case scenarios for the jump. “This one shows what happens if the pyro is triggered too early” – roll down ramp, jump, catch on fire, tumble, tumble, crash, die – “This one shows if his engine fails before he gets enough speed” – roll down ramp, jump partway, crash into other ramp, tumble, tumble, pain, agony, die – My personal favorite was, “Here’s what happens if he doesn’t get enough speed and falls into the volcano” – rolls down ramp, flies a little way, lands in fake casino volcano, flails, kicks, burns, screams, flails, kicks, burns some more, flails some more, dies- Very odd. When he made the jump without a hitch, the commentator didn’t even try to hide his disappointment.
