Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Use a Shoe, not a Ball, on New Year's Day
Addendum 2009 January 1. I just found out that Key West greets the New Year by dropping a shoe. Watch out when you are in Key West. It's the place where the other shoe drops. A ruby red (as in Oz) high-heel shoe or pump drops from somewhere up high and lands on the ground, with a cross-dresser in it. This may be a tradition in Key West, but for 2008, by dropping a shoe, Key West got thing right. Maybe the TV stations should broadcast next year's New Year from Key West instead of New York*.
Now 2008 has come to an end, and the new year 2009 is less than 4 hours away as I type this. At 12:00 midnight minus 1 minute, the ball in New York City will slowly begin to drop, and when it hits the bottom, it will light "2009" and the new year will begin. Why does it have to be a ball every year? Why not something else? If it is to be something else, what should it be?
The year 2008 was full of things that we knew were coming but chose to ignore. Among these were high gasoline and oil prices, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the bailout of several other financial firms, the trouble with US automakers, the Tibetian revolts, the great Chinese earthquake, millions of foreclosures on houses, the end of the Bush administration, and even really weird phenomena such as glaciers melting and reforming, Al Franken winning a Senate seat by 48 votes, Sarah Palin, and Rod Blagojevich, the last of which tried to auction off another Senate seat.
There is an expression for these types of events (other than "chickens coming home to roost", which was said by a renown minister this year), namely "waiting for the other shoe to drop". In September and October, with the financial crisis, there were so many shoes dropping that the weather forecast should have read, "Cloudy with a 100% chance of shoes, with an accumulation of over 8 inches of shoes expected".
Therefore, in honor of all these other shoes that have dropped this year, I suggest that when the New Year's comes, that a shoe drop on Times Square instead of a ball. Have a huge super-lit up Nike on the top of that pole and let that shoe drop slowly until the new year comes and finally, we can put 2008 to rest.
Happy New Year!
Now 2008 has come to an end, and the new year 2009 is less than 4 hours away as I type this. At 12:00 midnight minus 1 minute, the ball in New York City will slowly begin to drop, and when it hits the bottom, it will light "2009" and the new year will begin. Why does it have to be a ball every year? Why not something else? If it is to be something else, what should it be?
The year 2008 was full of things that we knew were coming but chose to ignore. Among these were high gasoline and oil prices, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the bailout of several other financial firms, the trouble with US automakers, the Tibetian revolts, the great Chinese earthquake, millions of foreclosures on houses, the end of the Bush administration, and even really weird phenomena such as glaciers melting and reforming, Al Franken winning a Senate seat by 48 votes, Sarah Palin, and Rod Blagojevich, the last of which tried to auction off another Senate seat.
There is an expression for these types of events (other than "chickens coming home to roost", which was said by a renown minister this year), namely "waiting for the other shoe to drop". In September and October, with the financial crisis, there were so many shoes dropping that the weather forecast should have read, "Cloudy with a 100% chance of shoes, with an accumulation of over 8 inches of shoes expected".
Therefore, in honor of all these other shoes that have dropped this year, I suggest that when the New Year's comes, that a shoe drop on Times Square instead of a ball. Have a huge super-lit up Nike on the top of that pole and let that shoe drop slowly until the new year comes and finally, we can put 2008 to rest.
Happy New Year!
