All you need is love

[austin_dern]

And a happy new year to all. As there were no outstanding natural disasters recently Channel 5 aired its planned show, namely, twenty minutes of a beach party on Sentosa Island, five of them before midnight. It was hosted by local celebrities Michelle Cheong and the always game Gurmit Singh, whom you don't recognize, but I do. Part of the festivities was a fifteen-minute firework show all along the path of the cable cars from Mount Faber through Harbourfront to Sentosa Island, reaching out over Keppel Bay. Unfortunately they kept cutting away from the fireworks to show off the singers at the organized party, who were singing one of those modern-type songs that I don't understand.

In a peculiarly horrible twist the cable cars from Sentosa Island, Harbourfront, and Mount Faber (a hill just off the island) were sources of fireworks. The twist on that is that the cable car-launched fireworks were launched by the people inside the all-glass cars (most of the cable cars are metal and plastic with reasonable windows, but a few premium ones are much more glass-lined) who were not trained fireworks showmen, but rather the couples who paid to ride in the all-glass cars, which had little tables, cloth tablecloths, and dinner plates arranged for the ride. And people paid S$999 each for the privilege of riding in all-glass cabins late at night as fireworks shoot around them, and have the chance to push buttons setting off fireworks from the tops of their own cabins.

I've got only the reasonable, respectful fears of heights, fires, and explosives, not to mention of spending large amounts of money on short-lived affairs, but just thinking about that makes my hands and feet clam up, never mind what seeing the horrifying pictures on TV does to me.

Trivia: Auguste Comte's reform ``Calendrier Positiviste'' dedicated the new thirteenth month of Final to the abstract concept of industry, and the concrete person of Marie François Xavier Bichat, the anatomist and physiologist who introduced the idea of `tissues' into biology. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, E.G. Richards.

Currently Reading: Mind Partner and 8 Other Novelets From Galaxy, Horace Gold, Editor. (I notice the interesting spelling of `novelette' there.) Cordwainder Smith, Clifford Simak, uh ... Evelyn E Smith ... uh ... R A Lafferty and Chistopher Anvil ... and names I don't recognize at all. It was 1961.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Das Beeb has a nice picture of the traditional Blowing Up of the Harbour:

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

The show only lasted 20 minutes? Very brisk. The U.S. ones have ballooned to 4 hours or so, to properly feature many more bad bands and span timezones- even with it being mostly downhill after the Times Square drop.

I can see the cool aspect of being able to launch fireworks from an amazing viewpoint.. but that is the sort of thing where I'd need an incredible reason to be in one, moreso than just the launching of fireworks.

Marriage proposal is about the only thing that comes to mind.

--Chiaroscuro, and which Cordwainer Smith story?

Custom calendars

[lexomatic.livejournal.com]

:::Auguste Comte's reform ``Calendrier Positiviste'' dedicated the new thirteenth month of Final to the abstract concept of industry, and the concrete person of Marie François Xavier Bichat

Somebody needs to write a “Calendrier Negativiste” that dedicates its months to abstract persons, concrete concepts, and plastic pals who're fun to be with. By “need” I of course mean “such a thing would be amusing if executed well,” by “well” I mean “incongruous and unexpected," and by "somebody" I mean “one of us, because who else would care?”

For extra geeky points, the months should be configured such that they're equally usable on Earth, Saturn, and beneath the ice of Europa where the natively-evolved Jamescameronoid super-turtles are barely aware of their orbit about Jupiter, let alone Sol.