I didn’t stay up to watch LA on the tube, they are only an hour behind us, but I had to go to work the next day.
That really sucks that LA didn’t have more to offer. Every roll over in every time zone was just as important as the first one, IMHO.
Sheesh, sounds like our city of Colorado Springs (est. 500,000 in the county) had more to offer it’s citizens than LA.
The AdAMan club makes it’s annual trip to the top of Pikes Peak every year to shoot off fireworks. At 9:00 they do a few as a preview. At 9:45 our city set off fireworks in the center of the city, then at midnight, the AdAMan club set off 120 fireworks that could be seen from Denver to Pueblo. (approximately 100 miles north to south)
Sorry to you LA people, you’re invited to C Springs next year
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The AdAMan club (FYI) is a group of men (now allowing women) where they add one man (or woman) per year to hike to the top of Pikes Peak. I think it started about 40 years ago and is a tradition that gives our city a sense of community and history.
Perhaps L.A.'s New Year’s events sucked, but no city on the planet Earth sucked more than right here in St. Paul, Minnesota. Eager to avoid big “millennium” crowds and fuss, the powers-that-be in St. Paul elected to hold their city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations ON DECEMBER 30TH, one night early. With that kind of logic it’s easy to see why downtown St. Paul essentially “dies” after 5pm.
Okay, I just want to give props to my homie Tyler <g>. Almost all of my extended family lives in LA, and I’ve been there around, oh, 25 times, usually for a week or longer. (I’m 21 years old.) I can’t STAND the place. Probably because I’m allergic to the air.
I liked Calgary’s display best because someone got on a microphone and started yelling “We’re going to take over the world now! We’re tired of being number two! You think we’re joking, but we’re not!” Of course, the fireworks in London and Paris were nice, too.
~Kyla
“You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.”
Shame, only the local news stations covered it. I wasn’t able to go to the First Night celebration in Monterey, but I hear 40,000 people were expected at the event (the area it’s held in is not more than maybe a mile square). The Custom House Plaza was FULL of people. They also had big screens set up near the main stage so all through the night you could watch the celebrations all over the country. There were also some great bands playing, the biggest draw was a Latin music band (i forget what they were called, but last year they rocked with their rendition of La Bamba :)).
People from my school who went said the fireworks were great too. I think it was a bit shameful of the big stations to not do more coverage of those cities on the west coast who were doing shows, even if they didnt match Paris, NYC, or London.
At least LA lit up the Hollywood sign. Denver was so spooked after being unable to handle celebrations after sports victories, that the city approached this New Year’s Eve as if it were a specific threat from terrorists. No doubt it would have been more fun greet the new year in Baghdad or even Kosovo this year than in downtown Denver.
Tom, you ARE sweet man (does Debb know how lucky she is?)! Kyla, you ROCK TWICE! Ursa, if you’re saying I deserved the endless rain of crap that fell on me in LA, I’d have to say you’re entirely wrong, but no harm-no foul (you weren’t there and didn’t even know I’m a woman, after all!).
I believe I had to go through what I did in LA in order to learn some lessons about others and who to surround myself with, and about me and where I belong in the world. I do find it strangely coincidental, though, that the minute I left LA, my life went from total crap to ok to good to great to simply outstanding. I still can’t get over the fact that less than five years ago I was unemployed, sleeping on a friend’s couch, without transportation, and deeply in debt (with creditors calling several times a day). Today, I own my own home in a booming housing market, have a reasonably high-paying job (even though I don’t like it much), I’m no longer in debt (not in a bad way, anyhow), I have a small circle of great, true friends (and the love of two sweet kitties) and I’m as happy as I can ever remember being. And it keeps getting better (WHEEEE!!!). (Maybe LA was just Karma setting me up for all the goodies I’m getting now?)
Anyway, I suppose I should thank LA and all its inhabitants for sending me packing back to the Bay Area (or “Kalamazoo,” if you prefer). Thank you one and all! I’m forever in your debt!
StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.” I Spy Ty.
Sorry about the confusion, Tyler. I didn’t mean to imply that you deserved any of the misfortune you experienced here. I should have said that it had more to do with your individual circumstances than it did with greatest city on Earth (couldn’t help myself). To each his own, and I’m glad you’re happy in Kalamazoo (is that in Marin Co. or Castro Co.?)
PS- My car once broke down in SF and I didn’t get my fortune cookie after eating lunch in Chinatown. But I really can’t blame the whole town for that, can I?
Sheesh, C. Springs gives a better New Year’s Party than Denver… I was wondering why PBS decided to highlight the Neil Diamond concert before I read the headlines in the paper the next day. Seems that the city of Denver not only decided NOT to have a big public celebration, but made it into a police state. They had helicopters with floodlights highlighting the centerpoints of previous riots. Glad I stayed home!
I gotta stand behind the “LA sucks” people on this one. For those who think it is “beautiful” and has “great weather” and all that… well, go ahead and live there. I think it’s hideous and the weather is traumatic. Give me a nice lush green environment that has 4 seasons any time (and don’t bother pointing out some piss-ant corner of LA that has a little green in it… I like places like New Hampshire and Connecticut, so you ain’t gonna convince me.)
That said, she specifically said no offense to the people, and I took it as her not liking the PLACE. Why get offended? That is so lame. I hate my hometown, Tucson AZ, but I like the people. Actually it would be a decent city if it just relocated to a better climate (well, and the architecture sucks, but that goes with the area…) Why get offended that someone doesn’t like the area? Why get defensive? All you will do is reinforce that person’s negetive feelings about it so why bother? Just accept that some people like some things, other people like other things, and just COPE.
Thanks! I live in SF proper for a few years, but I needed a bit more breathin’ room, so I moved to the East Bay (southern Alameda Co.), two years ago. Not a bad place at all - close enough to the City and all that it offers, but still far enough away from the bright lights and noise - and infinitely more affordable than SF (which I realize is completely relative, since pretty much everything in the Bay Area is vastly more expensive than anywhere else). Suffice it to say, everybody should be as happy in their situation/location as I am!!! (Yeah, I’m kinda giddy today. Excuse me.)
StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.” I Spy Ty.
Who said “can’t get”? Like LA was desperate for a football team? NOT. I am a native Angeleno, I remember when we lost our two football teams years back. No one cared. People had bumper stickers that said “Just go” (in regards to the team.) And then recently, when the NFL wanted to come back, (at a hefty price to Angelenos) the reaction was “Go Team! - Go somewhere else”. You should look at the old columns and editorials in LA Times (and elsewhere) to confirm this attitude about football in LA. Most people did not care. The sun does not rise and set on football in LA, like it does in other cities. I think it has many other assets and activities to offer it’s residents. (Like, beaches, mountains, galleries, theatres, etc. etc. etc.)
I sadly had to move away from my hometown a few years ago. It will always be home, and I intend to return someday. I now live in the Midwest (where the sun does rise and set on football) and it just isn’t for me. Somedays I really hate it here, but that isn’t just the Midwest’s fault. It is a perfectly OK place. Just not for me. And I think that is how LA is - you “bond” with it, or you don’t. I am not blind to it’s faults, but I love it. It is in my blood. And if you are not “meant” to be in LA, you’ll not like it. And my advice to anyone who feels that way about it is to go - go away. Angelenos won’t be offended if you don’t want to live there, or visit, really! And, I might add, there are many areas of LA that are certainly not “hellish” - you just have to pick where to live, and what places to avoid.
Getting back to the original topic, the New Year’s celebration - I watched it all on an LA station (Satellite dish) and I thought it was fine. I think the concerns about fires is real…they just had terrible fires in Glendale and La Cañada (not too far from Hollywood) just last week. (I saw that all on the news too - my aunts live there.) Fire safety is something Angelenos do not take lightly.
Are you kidding? We love the New Year’s celebration! It doesn’t cost that much (about $7 MM), it gets us loads of good publicity, prolly makes almost all the money back in taxes on visitors ($7MM/2 MM people/8.25% sales tax = only $42 per person spent to make it all back), and it localizes most of the zanies in one place (where real NYers never go, BTW).
All in all, pretty good value.
Jesus saves… Gretzky grabs the rebound… He Scores!
I like it here and don’t much care if others don’t. I admit I do occasionally get irritated at people from other cities who have moved here, presumably of their own free will (they can’t all be in the Witness Protection Program) but who nonetheless bitch all the time about how much they hate L.A. Hey, all those freeways run both ways.
