By now, no doubt, Ms. Sarah P&T is passed out enjoying a well-earned sleep in a tangle of healthy young limbs. A hero to all us bawdy old ladies! And yet, I shall celebrate the demise of this godsforsaken year with nothing naughtier than televised fireworks, good chocolate, and the Spousal Unit… that’s as much excitement as I have the stamina for…
Here’s to a better and happier 2017 for all of us!
.
SiubhanDuinne
My wishes are the same! Happy, safe, peaceful, prosperous, and healthy wishes for every Juicer, even the trolls. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Happy New Year, Juicers.
mdblanche
Should auld acquaintance be forgot…
Alain the site fixer
Happy new year to all, and now time for bed. Regards to AL and all FPers and commenters. It’s been great seeing so many new folks recently. That bodes well for this ragtag community of ne’er do-wells. G’night all.
Mary G
Happy New Year, EST Juicers. It’s only 9:10 here.
sloan
Congratulations for escaping 2016 all you E.S.T. people!
3 hours to go for us here on the left coast.
Here’s to 2017!!!
https://youtu.be/-OO9LloDSJo
Emma
Our local firework maniacs have chosen boomers this year. It sounds like a movie naval battle around here.
ETA: Feliz 2017!
rikyrah
Happy New Year to everyone at Balloon Juice ???????
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
This year is already better than last year, if only because there’s no chance of Donald Trump getting elected president. True, he’ll be taking office this year, but that isn’t 2017’s fault, and, well, at this point, I’ll take what I can get.
ThresherK (tablet)
Happy New Year to my fellow Juicers, sent from the Liberal Elite Coast (UTC -5hrs).
Phylllis
Happy New Year, y’all. This place helps keep me out of the slough of despond, and I appreciate it immensely.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Someone’s been shooting them off around here since 5 PM or so. The dogs have been okay through most of it. It basically sounds like a 7 plus hour, nonstop gunfight.
ETA: Kind of reminds me of when I’d go and work off of COP Cahill with our Military Training Team and the Georgian Battalion.
Eric NNY
Here’s hoping for an eminently happy and prosperous New Year for all.
Bruuuuce
Happy New Year, Juicers! May we all have the joy and health that 2016 steadfastly denied most of us.
Another Scott
Thanks AL for all you do here, and elsewhere. You’re helping to make the world a better place.
HNY to all the rest of the FPers and the Peanut Gallery! It’s going to be a tough slog, but we have a great cause to fight for, and we’ll be able to look back in a few years time and smile with satisfaction over the positive difference we made. Stay strong, eyes on the prize, and keep fighting.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
I still have 48 minutes, but I also have a bottle of good red and one of the local PBS stations is showing the Memphis Soul In Performance at the White House show.
ETA: Happy Year to those of you who have already arrived. Is it better in the future?
Felonius Monk
Happy New Year to All. May your 2017 be filled with good health and happiness.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Iggy and Muppet are fine with fireworks and noises in general, but someone was firing a gun close enough to our house that they thought someone was knocking on the front door. Much unhinged barking ensued.
Lots of shooting tonight. Seems the rednecks can afford a lot more bullets lately. Thanks, Obama.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: “Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day…”
So far, it seems pretty much the same.
One plus, I don’t write checks any more, so I don’t have that weeks-long problem of writing the wrong year any more!
HNY, OO.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: I have never understood celebratory gunfire. Those bullets have to come down somewhere
chopper
i’m waiting a bit to make sure 2016 is truly dead.
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: Zombie 2016 would be a bad thing.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman:
First Night died several years ago. It’s devolved into this. Everything is at Copley Square, BPL, Old South Church, and a short 7pm Parade to the Public Garden. Fireworks over Copley.
I took WarriorGirl from 2009 through 2013. Then they lost their sponsors (Fidelity moved to NC, Mugar sold Star to Ahold? or someone), and the thing fell apart.
All afternoon (12-6) used to have the “Family Fun at the Hynes” with back to back bands, dancers, puppet shows, steel drummers, the Chinese association crafts, yadda, yadda, yadda. WG’s introduction to theatre was First Night puppet shows of Rumpelstiltskin and A Christmas Carol.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
mdblanche
@chopper: It’s finally been driven away from the East Coast and is on its last legs in the Midwest, but it’s going to be several more hours before it’s fully finished off.
FlyingToaster
@Emma: Yeah, the traditional “Shelling of Newton” began just before 10. And something VERY VERY LOUD went boom! at midnight. It seems to have stopped.
lol chikinburd
@chopper: I will follow its casket / On a grey afternoon.
The last fuck-offs from me went to Lake Michigan and that part of northwest Indiana that stays in Central Time, for foiling my plan to drive east as fast as I could to escape this fuck year that much earlier.
danielx
Sounded like lots of small unit actions out there, but it’s died down considerable….Happy New Year’s to us all and may it be better than last year, unlikely though that may seem at the moment. Hey, it could happen…..
In the meantime, this sounds about right for News Years night………
Mnemosyne
A couple more hours* to go here on the Left Coast. I’ll let all y’all know if we fall off into the ocean at 11:59 PST or something.
Still watching “The Great Holiday Baking Show.” Apparently they flew the entire American cast over to the UK to shoot on the exact same locations because Mary Barry decided she was too old to relocate to the US for the show.
* Yes, I’m on my second drink. Why do you ask?
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: That used to happen fairly often.
JGabriel
I’d be a lot more eager to say good-bye to the year of hell, loss, frustration, disappointment, and crushing despair that was 2016 if I didn’t think 2017 is going to be worse.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know about falling off in the ocean, but my phone tells me the grapevine is closed due to snow.
Bruuuuce
@efgoldman: That’s a very good thing to hear. May she bring you naches all the days of your life.
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: But the horrors are likely to be new and different. So we have that going for us. Which is nice.
hovercraft
Happy New Year juicers. We survived 2016 !! Yay !! :-)
Now for 2017, lets do our best* to have a better 2017 ;-)
* I know it’ll be tough, but hey, you never know ;-0
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Yep. But the LAPD and LA County Sheriff did huge PSA campaigns for several years and it’s a much smaller problem than it used to be.
Another Scott
So, what else is going to break when Cole and/or Alain update the Copyright notice?
Hehehe. :-/
Night all.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who wonders why that stuff isn’t updated automatically…)
JGabriel
@Omnes Omnibus:
Heh. And a Happy New Year to you too, Omnes.
Omnes Omnibus
Happy New Year CST!
BillinGlendaleCA
@JGabriel: Just think of it as a legal disclaimer.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman:
So you have a radio voice?
The Dangerman
Ohio State Football needs to send Mariah Carey a shitload of roses; the worst performance of the night no longer can be the Buckeyes (though it’s damned close). Mariah, oh my ….
tpherald
Well, that year sucked
Waldo
I don’t have cable any longer, so I watched the only New Year’s show I could get — a lame one featuring Snoop Dog and a white rapper I mistakenly thought was named Pickle (actually Pitbull). It made me miss Dick Clark. Sad.
danielx
Rock and roll gospel….it’s still there if you look.
Heaven don’t call me home
Georgia will, Georgia will
I’m on my six string, soapbox, flat top
I’m dressed to kill, dressed to kill
Send me down, Carolina by the 405
Don’t shed a tear for me, son, I’ll be fine
When I’m dead and gone, Heaven call me home
Damn sure Georgia will
JGabriel
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m thinking of incoming President Grift as more of an immaculate deception.
mike in dc
Watching Jimi Hendrix at Atlanta Pop in 1970. There is still transcendence in this world. Visualize triumph over adversity. Happy New Year.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I sound like Pinto from Animal House. I did alt-rock college radio. Late in the evening. No money changed hands.
Omnes Omnibus
@mike in dc: Talk about a man with huge hands.
tpherald
Did you see Trump tonight claim that he knows a LOT about hacking? Funny dude … Almost makes GWB look smart by comparison
Cckids
Happy New Year to you all. May 2017 be a better year.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: I’ve heard you have the “radio look”.
Suzanne
37 minutes to go. Trying not to throw up (feeling nauseous from meds). Also just want it to be over.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman:
But they still sponsored through 2012. 2013 they didn’t. You could still get the buttons there, but no sponsorship.
The old sponsors (I started going around ’89) IIRC included Fidelity, BayBank, Star, Gilette, and Bank of Boston. First BayBank and BoB merged to form BankBoston, then Gilette was bought/moved, then BankBoston was bought by Fleet and then Bank of America (who exited stage hellish). Star hung on even through the “Shaws” era, then quit. Finally Fidelity either moved or decided that sponsoring anything in Boston was beneath them. The Biotech firms have the money, but they don’t sponsor anything. Not even Little League teams.
I used to go to some of those (RESQ one year). Handel & Hayden always had Old South Church. The Transportation Building used to have bands playing back-to-back from 7:30 until 11:45. There were bundled-up storytellers on gallery stoops on Newbury, and towers on Boylston would open their lobbies to ethnic concerts (the first year I took WarriorGirl, there was an amazing gamelan at 500 Boylston).
Fidelity has moved a LOT of their offices out; the offices I used to contract with are in Charlotte.
It looks like Mugar is out from the Pops show now too; he’s 77 so I can’t blame him. Nobody has stepped up, and I can’t imagine that anyone will.
mdblanche
Not really getting into the Twilight Zone marathon this year. It’s less entertaining when it feels like you live there now.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Gee, you’re old. :P
BillinGlendaleCA
If it’s clear tomorrow, it might be a great day to get pictures of our local mountains.
Mnemosyne
Watched several episodes of “The Great Holiday Baking Show.” Now switching to “Drunk History.”
Disco Night at Comiskey Park, anyone?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Now you sound like my dad.
Kristine
Happy New Year to all. May it prove more satisfactory than 2016.
Welcomed 2017 with an ep of SHERLOCK. If we could sic him and Mycroft on Trump, it would all be over in 5 minutes and we could get with the more mundane challenges of dealing with Pence and Ryan.
ruemara
I hate this year already and it hasn’t arrived yet. Painful attempt at enjoying my friend’s son’s b’day party. Couldn’t deal with going to the club and sitting there being alone in a crowd again and tried another local place and gave up. I hate the whole thing and wish it were over. It’s never going to end. I think I’m just going to drink and run some dungeons.
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m drinking tea and the wife is talking to her SIL(who still seems to be coherent), I think about the kid(I heard Jinsun in there) and her ex-bf(I heard some none to flattering words about males). The conversation is in Korean, so I only pick up bits and pieces.
Yarrow
Happy New Year! I think people were shooting off guns in my neighborhood but it could have been loud fireworks. It was hard to tell. Someone was (illegally) sending up flare style fireworks very close by. I hope no one’s house caught on fire. So far no firetrucks, so I think it’s okay.
SFBayAreaGal
Watched a Sherlock Holmes movie “The Abominable Bride” and the remake “The Jungle Book.” I throughly enjoyed both of them.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: I dunno WHY every kid from the Hill in Belmont is a WATB. I just don’t. Even the special snowflakes from Swellesley aren’t as consistently annoying as kids off of Belmont Hill. It’s like they live in effing Weston…
Yarrow
@BillinGlendaleCA: Is this the same person who had poor table manners? Your intuition about him must have been correct.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: The SIL doesn’t really speak English, so the conversation is in Korean.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My mom grew up in a house where her grandparents spoke German to one another. She can still understand a decent amount of German. Can’t speak a word of it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: Yup, that’s the one. I told my wife about those incidents and she was mortified.
Yarrow
@BillinGlendaleCA: Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s the ex.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yarrow: Very much so, it was much worse than those incidents. He seems to be a bit of a controlling narcissist(and cheap to boot).
ETA: The kid was in school and he was working, made her pay for everything.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
One of my friends growing up was Indian and she and her mother would bicker back and forth in front of me in two different languages, my friend in English and her mom in Hindi. It was pretty funny to me.
Yarrow
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well good riddance to bad rubbish. She can start the new year off fresh.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: And that still isn’t the Hill. I know several families from off-Trapelo, some go to WG’s school. And even with gentrification, nobody downhill has that “more precious than thou” attitude. Uphill folks certainly don’t eat lunch at Moozy’s (the former Brigham’s at Trapelo & Belmont).
One of her classmates moved out of Belmont; the parents said, “we wanted to move, and we didn’t want to deal with our neighbors any more”.
sloan
One hour to go!
So how’s 2017 so far for the rest of you?
Yarrow
@sloan: Dark.
sloan
@Yarrow: Give it time.
James Powell
Sittin’ here by myself watching 20 feet from Stardom- really with three dogs, but they aren’t watching. Sauvignon blanc, prosciutto, various cheeses (I am, after all, a wine & cheese liberal). These women sing so damn good I wanna cry.
mdblanche
Dear Baby 2017,
I can’t say I’m going to miss the other guy, but I’ve also been warned not to trust you either. Please try not to take it personally; we’re all a little on edge after, you know, dealing with the other guy. So I was thinking, maybe a show of good faith on your part could help us get off on the right foot. You know, show me you’re not the ogre they say you’re going to be. The other guy has left plenty of possible areas for improvement in politics, culture, personal life, etc. Surely there has to be something you can do with at least one of those. I await your reply.
Mnemosyne
So, who’s still awake? G has conked out with 33 minutes to go.
Aleta
@efgoldman: So what happened at WGBH that took away the morning classical, wasn’t it after only one successor to RJL?
(Why couldn’t the am birdsong stay forever?)
CaseyL
Just got home from a lovely house party – left before midnight because I’m tired and also because I didn’t feel like driving post-midnight when other drivers are more likely to be drunk. Though I have to say, there’s been very little traffic tonight, all of it well-behaved.
2016: Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
2017: Please be less shitty than we expect.
Happy New Years, fellow BJers! May we all have a good year!
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I’m up. We let Spawn the Younger stay up, too. It is still going to be hard for her to sleep, with all the fireworks still being set off. We just read “Ada Twist, Scientist”. A nice way to kick off 2017.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: We’re waiting for the shrimp to cool here.
Suzanne
Next weekend, we are going to see a piano competition, and Mr. Suzanne bought me symphony tickets for Christmas. I also have made it clear that I am going to the Tom Petty tour. So 2017 will be musical.
Mnemosyne
Still watching “Drunk History.” We’re at the Buster Keaton/Charlie Chaplin episode.
Brachiator
Well, I’ll be starting off the New Year with a bad cold. Hot tea and soup instead of champagne and sparklers (if I could drink alcohol). The good thing is that I haven’t had the energy to watch the news or New Years Eve programs, so I am enjoying the quiet.
Wishing everyone the best for the New Year.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: Isn’t Ada a computer language?
(Also my mother’s first name.)
Mnemosyne
Also, my brother in law is talking about coming out for a visit in February and now we’re wondering if this new man will be coming out with him. They’re still all over Facebook together, but we’ll see if they survive tomorrow’s hangovers.
Suzanne
@BillinGlendaleCA: The character is named after Ada Lovelace. It is third in the series, after “Iggy Peck, Architect” and “Rosie Revere, Engineer”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne: I always liked the Linda Lovelace story.
Aleta
I got the flu yesterday and worse today. I hope the pain part is over now. Had to give up on going out to hear some music, see some friends. The roads turned slippery here so maybe just as well. But it felt like giving up on something important.
Redshift
Happy New Year, everyone! I’m home from seeing Duran Duran at the new MGM cas1no on Maryland. The show was good (though kind of short), with good exhortation near midnight from Simon that if 2017 is going to be better than 2016, it is up to us to make it so. We looked around the cas1no afterward, and I was unimpressed (but I usually find cas1nos boring.)
BillinGlendaleCA
Happy New Year, you snarling jackals.
Eljai
Happy New Year everyone! I stayed up past my bedtime.
seaboogie
Fireworks in my new ‘hood happening now (some really LOUD ones), and I took my sweet old Tibetan singing bowl outside to add my voice, and wishes for the new year…
something fabulous
Happy New Year from the west coast all you VPoSJ of BJ! Just ringing in the new year with my cats and some vodka and popcorn. Ordered my new calendar– may we all have reason to fill the days with some happiness and joy! onward (ulp) to 2017!
opiejeanne
The fireworks are continuing here outside Seattle while the gunfire is tapering off, and that old coot that is firing something that sounds like a cannon has stopped. We don’t know who that guy is.
It’s been snowing since 7pm but the ground is still too warm for it to stick. There’s a thin layer on our porch roof and a flower pot on the steps has about 3 inches.
James Powell
Happy New Year, West Coast Juicers! I know I’m late, but this neighborhood does fireworks and I had to calm the dogs down, reassure them that the world was not coming to an end, even if it sounded that way,
Mnemosyne
We can hear the fireworks at Universal Studios — Happy New Year!
Mnemosyne
@something fabulous:
Hooray! You survived 2016! We were a little worried. ?
opiejeanne
Whoever suggested Casablanca, I thank you for that. It was a great movie for tonight.
(I did gripe about Ilsa’s ruffled, patterned blouse; she had quite an extensive and chic wardrobe for someone on the run across Europe, but that one blouse is the one she shouldn’t have packed. I knew when I saw it that Edith Head had nothing to do with the costuming.)
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
A guy down the street played the Star Spangled Banner on his guitar to ring in the new year. It was choppy and he didn’t get all of it right, but it was nonetheless good to hear.
Happy new year to all.
Mnemosyne
@opiejeanne:
Maybe she bought it after she arrived? Casablanca was pretty cosmopolitan.
EBT
Goddamn finally 2016 is dead. If it was physical I would shit on the grave.
RealityBites
Dozed off for a while. Heard loud crunching noise in the kitchen. Gigantic possum eating the cat food. Happy new year possum and everyone!
ruemara
seriously. we can pass on this year too and head straight to 2030.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: *Snicker* That blouse was hideous.
James Powell
@Mnemosyne:
One of the best scenes in the film is when she is shopping for scarves.
Mnemosyne
@opiejeanne:
That’s one of my favorite exchanges in The Shop Around the Corner: “Well, if you want to look like a pony in the circus, then go ahead!”
opiejeanne
@James Powell: That looked like a tablecloth
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: Ha! For some reason I’ve never seen that, nor the more recent version “You’ve Got Mail”. I have been meaning to watch it.
EBT
@RealityBites: Wherever you are, it’s way too cold for that poor little opossum.
Mnemosyne
@opiejeanne:
You would approve of the costumes. Not only did they buy Margaret Sullavan’s dresses off the rack, they re-tailored them so they didn’t quite fit right to make her more plausible as a Budapest shopgirl.
opiejeanne
So, my new year is mapped out for a few days: Tuesday my wisdom teeth come out. For Saturday my daughter got us tickets to A Prairie Home Companion, unaware that Garrison is gone, and with him the heart of the show. Maybe watching it half-drugged will be an improvement.
We haven’t listened as faithfully as we used to in the past 6 years but caught it when we were driving back from California, before Christmas.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: In a way, that’s hilarious.
When I was doing costuming in the SF area I had some interesting conversations with clients. My favorite was a woman who was unclear on the difference between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.
Mnemosyne
The cat keep staring at us and yawning, so it’s time for bed. Good night, jackals! I appreciate all of you, even the ones I don’t like. ?
ET
I saw that 2016 had one last person to take, William Christopher the actor who played Father Mulch.
J R in WV
@efgoldman:
Listening to Navajo Nation radio, driving at night in AZ, it’s pretty interesting. Mostly in Navajo, but there are whole large concepts of American life there is no vocabulary for in Navajo. Used cars and trucks, commercial services.
Then one year we were up in Navajo Nation when a famous hero Code Talker Medal of Honor winner died – the Navajo culture has no funerals, and no mentions of the deceased, they don’t believe in it, it is forbidden. But the American culture demanded that this fallen hero be paid the respect he earned for his service.
The radio talkers were switching back and forth from Navajo to English like the famous cat on a hot tin roof. It was a little sad, the contrasts made so obvious, and of course many younger Navajo don’t have the same beliefs, many are actually converted christians, sadly. I love the Navajo Nation, it’s American, yet not quite. Beautiful country, fine people. The tribe itself is quite progressive in a traditional way, working hard for their people.
But hearing the funeral plans for the code talker on Navajo Nation radio was really otherworldly.