You were just dying for an excuse to recycle that image from last year, weren’t you?

I’m going to be attending a party hosted by a longtime Chicago actor. So if there is anybody there I’ve trashed in a review, that could make for an interesting start to the year!

We will be hanging out in our backyard tiki bar as usual, watching football, listening to music, eating chicken wings and black-eyed peas, drinking artillery punch and assorted other cocktails and making sure none of the fireworks the local yahoos ignite set our house ablaze. Same old thing, in other words. What are YOU doing?

I’ll be acting as designated driver yet again and I’ll be feeling jealous of all the people at the party who’ll be getting high and drunk.  Sigh.  But at least I won’t wake up tomorrow with a hangover that has a personality of its own.

You were just dying for an excuse to recycle that image from last year, weren’t you?

You know me too well. Yeah, I’ve got a pretty busy day ahead of me and I’m still sick, so there won’t be any new photoshop fun today.

I’ll be home working tonight. Too many amateurs out on the street, and I can watch the river fireworks right from my desk. 

If the blog looks slow, I’ll throw something on the front page. I doubt we’ll ever top last year’s craziness, but we have to keep trying if we want to keep those Weblog Awards coming!

We can use this as the open thread?

We’re heading off to a friend’s house for dinner but will be home early - we’re not fond of the aforementioned amateurs on the road either.

I’m getting dragged to a neighborhood get together. Utterly not in the mood.

Too bad Polly’s working today. New Year’s Eve calls for a Blingee graphic.

I’ve always heard Martin was a faux-drunk, sucking on iced tea while merely pretending to be plastered. I find that offensive on many levels.

God I miss the good old days when you could smoke and drink and whore around and you didn’t wind up being front page news or have to worry about someone splashing your face everywhere.

Me and the spouse will be in hiding, as per usual. The drill is he makes a really wonderful meal. (He’s a great cook.) We have a little sparkling wine or Champagne and toast to our good fortune and the new year. Then we go upstairs to watch a movie or two—while the kid has a friend or two over and they watch a movie or two and play games and giggle downstairs. Then tomorrow we have pancakes and lounge around in our PJs and watch the hockey game at Fenway.

Possibly O/T—Maybe I should put this in the Food Forum.

Has anyone else ever boiled Sudafed on the stovetop to make “Party Powder”? I’m not sure I’m doing this right, and my kitchen smells like a pulp & paper mill ever since I poured in the solvent. Plus, I’m not real sure when to add the DuraFlame Starter Brick.

If I go out tonight, I’ll go to the netroots party in Adams Morgan.  I know Jason Rosenberg will be there, and it would be interesting to get his take on the FDL situation (though he may just “no comment” on that). I’m also curious if he pays attention to the attention he gets at Corrente.

It’s also really yucky out, and I just got bioshock for the mac.

When you become old and decrepit like me, you appreciate living on the West Coast.  The ball drops in Times Square at 9 pm and then to bed.

I’ve always heard Martin was a faux-drunk, sucking on iced tea while merely pretending to be plastered. I find that offensive on many levels.

New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay in Scotland; I have no idea why. Up to the mid-20th-century, Hogmanay took precedence over Christmas in Scotland, unlike England. Living in a village, we can bring in the New Year without needing to use a car, which is great.

Tonight, it’s really cold, clear and still, here on the W. coast of Scotland, with a massive full blue moon. We’re going to friends for dinner, then we’ll all go to another friend’s house for pre-midnight drinks, then up the hill to our neighbour Jim’s for fireworks at ‘The Bells’, complete with teenage bagpipe player. At midnight, the boats on the River Clyde hoot their horns and you can see fireworks from people’s gardens all along the river. Then the Hogmanay Ball at the village hall ends at 1 a.m. and houses open up for after-parties, with ball-goers in dresses and kilts, and non-ball-goers in whatever, wandering from house to house until no longer able to move. (Two years ago, YAFB and I went to the ball with our friend Kitty and her beau; Kit and I staggered home around 5 a.m. to find our mates sitting at either end of the couch, snoring their heads off…)

Tomorrow morning, after a few hours sleep, a shower and a coffee, we’ll go to our neighbour John’s open house for post-Hogmanay hangover cure of eggs, sausage, bacon-type breakfast washed down with Buck’s Fizz (orange juice and Cava), the object being to top the previous year’s number of empty Cava bottles thrown on to the lawn. YAFB is currently frosting his famous coffee walnut cake, which has been specially requested by John. In the afternoon, we go to a bonfire on the beach, with potatoes roasted in the fire and more sausages, and mulled wine/hot cocoa with brandy/whatever drink you have left over from last night, or cranberry juice with fizzy water for the sensible. And because the weather’s still and calm, we hope to float New Year lanterns on to the river at dusk, then stagger home to watch the very last episode of Doctor Who at 6:45 p.m.!

In England, January 1 is a public holiday; in Scotland, January 1 AND 2 are public holidays, with good reason!

Hope you all have a good night, whatever you do!

Ms YAFB,

Thanks for that. I’ve gone to my share of Hogmanay parties, but in DC and Boston, not in Scotland.  Your description makes me want to try that out, though.

I did spend a New Year’s Eve in Ghent, BE.  There, NYE really is an all night affair. I remember getting back to my hotel room around 7:30 in the morning.

Yep, that’s true.  I read Dino (great bio) and he really wasn’t much of a drinker.

LOL, my apologies to Mr. Martin then!

Ms YAFB - I’m exhausted just reading about all that.  Hope everyone has a great evening whatever you do and be safe!

Goodness, Scotland sounds wonderful. Why did my genes ever leave that place?

It does sound delightful.  I’ll be right over.

Strange, I have long lamented that my grandfather’s birthplace (Wick, way-the-hell-north-Scotland) doesn’t give me the right of return.