for the past few days people (mostly older ones) have been telling me to remember to eat my black-eyed peas on new year's day. i don't know how far outside out of the southern u.s. this tradition goes (my grandparents in rhode island considered black-eyed peas nothing more than cattle feed - cowpeas) but one is supposed consume b-e peas on new year's day for luck. i think one pea = one day of luck. it seems to be important to a number of people that i do this. apparently i'm a person in desperate need of luck. anybody have a tradition - personal, family, regional, national (like maybe it's good luck in australia to molest a wallaby on new year's eve) - on the new year? aside from get drunk, sing auld lang syne, and pass out.

In the midwest here there seem to be two different traditions, for two different lifestyles. Of course, they are both boring. One tradition is to get drunk, get dumped and run your car into the support poles of some overpass (particularly in the west bottoms). The other is to stay home and play board games by candlelight. I go for the second one. I am not much of a drunk. The only things I do are insist on sex and then forget it, and get a bad case of diarhea. Drunk just not my thing :) Maybe some of the local idiots go cowtipping. Who knows.

the only new years superstition i ever grew up with was that what you do on new years day is what you will be doing for the rest of the year. so if i spend tuesday drinking beer and pouring cereal into a jar, then i should expect to characterize 2002 in 2022 as the year i drank beer and poured cereal into a jar. i've never gotten over how disappointing it was to have to work the night of 12-31-1999. everyone in the company thought the world was going to end, so I had to sit here on this exact spot and make sure all my Perl scripts survived the white heat of Y2K. To the delight of everyone involved, we found that Perl scripts which generate dates were saying that it was the year 100. That was such a blockbuster apocalyptic thing to have experienced that I can not imagine being anywhere else except sitting here at a computer screen at that moment. it was that great. I really wanted to be on the Square that night. Not because I have a fetish for having my individuality blotted out by masses of drunk people pouring beer into their pants at the stroke of midnight, but because Times Square 2000 was one of those lifelong ideas I grew up with and which people I knew sprinkled into their conversations like it was something every person wanted. Going as far back as the 3rd grade we asked each other "Where will you be?" and "Will you meet me at the Wag's Restaurant on Dale Mabry on New Years Eve 1999?" and blah blah blah. It's stupid. But I could hear the screaming from here. And I was there earlier in the day. Anyway, I did the NYE thing on the Square in 1990 (the year I moved to New York), and a couple of years later I ended up on 8th Avenue off the square at midnight. The backwash that ends up on 8th Avenue at that hour is hard to describe, but it was mostly the people who were too drunk to be on TV and who were kicked off Times Square. That's almost as bad as getting kicked out of a McDonald's. the thing i really resented about the Y2K "disaster" was the incontrovertible assumption that computer programmers who wrote the code that might choke on Y2K were all too stupid and too moronic to ever be able to fix it or respond to it or comprehend the enormity of the apocalypse they had started. in fact i have met very few individuals who think that any human in the universe has any control over the unspeakable atrocities computers are capable of. the idiotic assumption was and still is that computers are out of control and in control and that they will ravage the universe.

i bought three cans of black eyed peas today. i'm making a black eyed pea soup.

it's been years since i've sought a party for new year's eve. i prefer staying home or hanging out with a handful of mellow people. what a surprise. bell_jar, dried black-eyed peas are just a tiny bit harder to cook than canned and they taste way better. hoppin john is the traditional dish. use vegetable bouillon or spike or follow the recommended alternative on the recipe page in lieu of bacon if that's how you swing. happy new year!

Always wanted to be kissed on New Years, because thats what everyone else around me was doing... This year does not look promising.

Oh Hal I didnt get kissed either, and I'm only slightly inebriated. I played mini golf with my friends Jamie and Anita (a couple) then we had a bbq, then we played The Game of Life, which I won... which is odd becasue a. i never win. 2. its the game of freaking life. so. happy new year from a slgihtly drunek moonit to u all... i hope u all get kissed... dammit. i'm so hjealguous. what jealsou. why do my fingers not work prolper y .. wita. fuck heh. damnit i'm lonley and bored.

getting kissed in a mass of drunk women isn't the hardest of things. find a mass of drunk women, hal. we eat crab instead of black-eyed peas. yea us!

crab sounds good. still, my texas grandmother used to give us ham, fried okra, and the infamous peas on january 1st. i've been thinking about this so much lately that now i want it. went to the grocery store earlier this morning. it's turned really cold. when i got out of one of the puddles near my parking spot. i go in and buy coffee, flour & corn tortillas, pinto beans, antacids, bacon, oranges, cat food, and a little pull-top can of dog food for the dog. there are two groups of people ahead of me at the only check-out counter open. a couple gets in line behind me, then the woman says "mira, tiene naranjas" and they both head off toward the produce section. even though i can still understand only the most basic spanish, it still kind of thrills when i understand what people are saying. however, this means that the people in line behind me now is a woman with 3 kids - all boys ranging, as far as can judge these things, from 7 to 11. the 7 year old is bustling around me trying to dig through the candy and magazine displays. finally i put my stuff on the counter and roll over to lean up against the next counter while waiting for the couple ahead of me to get checked out. when i do this, the 7 year old says, "how did he do that?" meaning popping a wheelie. the mother says, "well, he just..." and makes wheelie-popping motions with her hands. "how does he do this?" says the 7 year old and gives my front caster a little kick. the mother tells him not to touch my chair, but i just wave it off. "what happened to you?" he says. "what happened? i fell off a building." the second oldest one says "was it ten feet tall?" "no, it was about 25 feet." "25 feet? was it a skyscraper?" "no." "are you from new york? are you one of those people from new york who fell off a building?" "no. i think all those people died." "no. one of them fell and lived because he had a special parachute." "i saw a story on tv about a kid in new york." said the 7 year old. "his parents left him behind and he had to take a train. he stole money from his parents." "always a good idea," i said. "it was a cartoon show," said the 7 year old. "i was on tv," said the oldest. "i was diving and they put it on tv." "wow," i said. "do you live alone?" said the 7 year old. "yup," i said. "you don't gotta wife?" "nope." "you just like to sit alone, sometimes." "yes," i said, then shot a glance at the mother and smiled. "now i know why." the girl behind the counter checked my groceries. when she saw my pinto beans she said, "do you have any black-eyed peas?" i said i did, at home. i went back to the car. the dog wasn't there anymore. i went home.

Computers are alive. And, they have suddenly decided I'm their enemy now. Now, after all my years of work they are ganging up on me. There were some major problems related to Y2K. But, they weren't publisized for obvious reasons. One I know of was that for several hours the NSA lost contact with a large number of spy satalites. This is something you don't want public at the time. Remember this - most problems with Y2K were not solved. They were just delayed. Twenty or thirty years from now us dinosaurs will be needed again. I'm spending the night at home with my wife. Eat cold cuts. And, watching the ball in times square on TV.

nothing much. I do celebrate the turning of the year as a Celt: around October 31st. The Celtic year runs from 1st of November to November. The Chinese year runs (I think) end of January to January. The goats don't get to celebrate any of this. Reindeer tend to rest on January 1, after pulling all those floats in the Rose Parade, or something like that. Used to have a house party. ExInLaws used to have a big party. Drank Manhattans til New York seemed way closer. Haven't gone out on NYE for years. Spent the millenium (1999-2000) drumming and sitting in front of a fireplace. Hours. Hope everyone reading this has a safe and wonder-filled new year. Stay out of tall buildings and small boats in the Florida Keyes.

not that this matters, but in the second paragraph of that post up there i swear i remember writing "an emaciated dog was drinking out of one of the puddles near my car." sometimes my brain is full of these little blank spaces. happy year. new.

Nice idea and all Nate, however.... I live in a college town, its the holiday season, the majority of the women who will be out drunk tonight who would normally be out drunk in this town are home now, where ever that may be... Screwit, I'll kiss my goddamned cat, order a pizza, and drink sake till I can't stand up.

my new years traditions include loggin my butt on here finally to wish all of youz a good one and hopefully, if all goes according to plan, i will in fact, not remember my night tonight. love you kids. hope the new year is blessed fer all of yaz.

I missed the xmas 'wish you all well' so i took time out of my absolutly empty schedulle to say Happy New Year, everyone, on this BBS that is, the rest of the world can suck me off. ooops!that sounds a little bitter.... Oh well im just jokin anyway. happy new year! (heres hoping i can afford pc in the new year.

See thats what new years is about... Not remembering it for the rest of the year.

The Black half of my family's tradition is peas-& rice (from my fatha's people who are Bajan/but all Blackfolks I know of have black-eyed peas & rice on New Year's Eve). The Whitefolks side always has champagne /which my Mom says goes straight to her knees/so I don't know why she doesn't drink something else. The rice in peas & rice is for abundance/the peas are for luck (the 1 pea = 1 day of good luck thing was also what I was always told). And you have to season them w/a piece of pork of some kind -- also for luck/but don't ask me why. Champers makes any occasion special but I think it's a must-have on New Year's Eve. I'm at work now & I debating whether to stop by my friend's crib when I get off @ 11:30. I need to call & see who else is coming. It's cold & rainy here/so I'm kinda not in a partying mood. My personal tradition if I'm spending New Year's Eve at home is to perpare a killer meal of foods I really love (usually seafood) to ring in Year/in hope that I'll be lucky enuf to eat like that every nite. I need to try & hit the liquor store on my dinner break. I hope everyone here has a good bottle of champers & someone they love to start off 2002 with. ;)

Droopy,it mattered to me :) I went back and reread,looking for the "dog" reference. I'm glad I'm not crazy,but I'm not sure about this. Usual New Years activities for me. Bon fire with the OB crew of a hospital I used to work at.Gumbo,fireworks and the usual plethora of pranks that alwyas accompany me.Got a great new,very annoying and loud "Fart Detector" "FART ALERT! FART ALERT! CAUTION! YOU HAVE ENTERED A NO FARTING ZONE! EVACUATE,EVACUATE!" iT GOES ON AND ON,VERY LOUDLY,AND VERY ANNOYINGLY,IT WAS A BIG HIT AT THE X-MAS PARTY,SO i'M SURE IT WILL OFFEND EVERYONE :) Then some friends are playing at a very popular dance hall here,"Grant Street Dance Hall",which headlines really big talent,Percy Sledge,Marcia Ball,Aaron Neville,and other various major talents,so I'm really excited that my friends are playing there,so I'm going to see them,after the bon fire. HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL!

My in-laws are coming over for new years. Or as my best friend calls them, my out laws. They said they were supposed to be here early in the afternoon, but they still aren't here. It is after 7pm our time. I hope they realize that the kids have to eat, so we won't be going out. Anyways.....I hope YOU GUYS have a great new year.

I was wondering where the dog was too, Droop.

Yeah, me too. I'm alone this New Year's Eve, and I'm feeling kind of...philosophical about it. I hate this holiday, so it would be retarded of me to celebrate it anyway. I hate anything that acts as a marker between past and future. When I was a kid, I used to freak myself out by blinking and then thinking "that blink is in the past." And then, "now that thought is in the past." And then "now *that* thought..." and on and on and on. That's what New Year's Eve is like to me. I'm drinking whisky, though. 12-year-old Scotch whisky and water. Nasty stuff. Droopy, how do you do it? I've also made some sugar- and fat-free chocolate pudding that's setting in the refridgerator. I bought jeans on sale yesterday without trying them on in the store, and I came home and found that they're so tight I have to lie down to zip them up. Ridiculous. I argued with myself for quite a while and decided to keep them because a) you don't often find nice jeans on sale for $20 and b) I really do need new jeans since my other pair has a big hole in the right knee and c) this is my incentive to exercise more. Ugh, I really cannot drink any more of this. Good thing it's mostly water, so not much will be wasted. I must be strictly a soft liquor/dessert wine kind of person. Good night.

thanks for correcting that thing about the dog, droopy. it was going to drive me crazy and cause me to have to waste a little more of Mark's computer space asking you about it. clarifying the dog's relationship with the puddle made a big difference.

Well, it looks like my in-ou-laws aren't coming. No phone call. My brother-in-law just called asking about them. They are a no show. Hope they are allright. They say that death comes in threes. We have had two major ones this year. Here's hoping New Years Eve doesn't bring the third. Then again, it would suck if they stood us up and didn't call or anything.

it's been nearly an hour since it became 2002 in my time zone. i broke open the lagavulin 16 year old scotch. i drank one for hal, which i said i would do. i had one on spider's behalf. any scotches i have had or continue to have i dedicate to everyone else.

thanks droop. we're playing penis-man(TM). i'm in violation. the barrel came down. the group of us will have to drink in punishment for this one. the penis-man is harsh but fair. i took someone else's shot of vodka. it was a barter deal. she ended up eating some fish food. the crunchy ball type. i'm going to have to take another shot when i get upstairs. before the barrel can come off. everyone will. one shot each to restart the game. the bell rang. it will be midnight in 15 minutes. drunkicus.

Can the honeys play Penis-Man too/or is this a male bonding ritual thing? And Happy New Year, Nate & Droop! I polished off a bottle of champers & got into the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel. Just me & the cats.

Ok... So all didn't go that bad... Got kissed and laid... Thats all I can say.

Droopy,I hope you downed a good one for Janny,and I try to do the same for you,you are my hero...cheers.

of course i did.

Hal, You've got my curiosity (I know that's got to be spelled wrong) up. Details. Details. Besides, weren't you complaining about not being able to find someone?

Ok Watcher, and anyone else who's curiosity I have peaked. First off, that is how you spell curiosity, I'm not a spelling wiz, but I know thats right. Second, this is what happened... I don't know if any of you remember Rachael, but she's a person I dated a few months back in an attempt to move on, and get away from the thought of Marcy. And it worked for a while, but extensive baggage, on both her part and my own caused things not to work out so well. Suckage. Well I went out on Monday night, with her and a few other friends. We ended up kissing at midnight, that was cool. I don't think either of us had that planned. Well so we left the bar, and I was taking her to where she was staying, ie: another one of our friends house, well said friend had gone home early to her boyfriend, and as we were driving by we saw one light on... Their bedroom light. Didn't figure it would be a good time to stop in, because well we both knew that the only one light on meant that they were fucking, and they were fucking hard. If I had turned the car off we could have heard them from the street. Soooo we decided it was probably best to leave them to what they were doing and not interupt. So we went to my place to watch a movie, and we did, watched the Starship Trooper Chronicles DVD's, and drank aprox. 2 bottles of Sake. Got good and drunk. Now I don't remember how it all came about but next thing I knew we were naked and having hot oil monkey sex... and it was good too. Yesterday we had some good long talks, about baggage and the like. Pez, and a few others will be glad to hear I'm letting go of Marcy for now. Christmas and a call I recived from her yesterday lead me to belive this is the best course of action in my life. Who knows, in anycase, I'm giving it a shot.

i ate peas, drank mimosa's and ate space brownies.

I had hot monkey sex yesterday too when I returned from Ohio. No oil though. Damn.

Snickers to self,then slips on bananna peel.

I slept with my ex boyfriend. go-on tell me off, you all know you want to. but dammit it was worth it.

go Hal! and go moonie...i guess....if you want... the sig. and i decided (for the 2nd year in a row) that parties are annoying, all our friends are lousy company when they're drunk, and that New Years sucks in general. So just like last year, we celebrated alone at his place by getting only slightly buzzed, gettin' it on, and watching the most retarded movie we can find. Last year it was Showgirls. This year it was A Knights Tale, which is so horrible i won't go into it any further.

Yeah, A Knights Tale was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Although the knight's love interest was pretty hot.

Hey its a good flik when your high and trippin balls... belive me I know... Moonit, as for what happened, no one can rag on you darlin, you got laid. As for what happens now, thats what we'll rag on you for. But we won't do it till we know whats going on now... SOOOOO, whats going on now?

nothin. that was it compadre. finito. no regrets.

I watched Army of Darkness last night.I forgot how funny it was. Knights looked like they smelled pretty bad. I remember reading somewhere that the stench of castles was close to unbearable.For some reason,which escapes me now,they would put straw/hay all over the floors,and it would rot/mildew,and stink-up the stronghold. I don't think personal hygiene was a plus back then.

Hah. Happy New Year to me! Gawdammit. It's starting out swell.. It started out at a DC yuppie party and turned into a drug infested roll on the floor with 3 girls two guys in yer bra sorta thing listening to real cheesie eighties music til 5 am. Ended with a threesome with my best girly friend who I've had a crush on ferevah and this hot little boy I've been dating in DeeCee fer a few months now. Got to watch them do it and wooo boy..that was a treat. And today it's snowing all over the place and work is cancelled and to tell you the truth..this new year seems to look a hell of a lot more promising than any one that came before.

fuck

I think that is what she watched :) I got stood up all the way around and couldn't even get my husband to play board games with me (let alone anything else). Glad someone's new year is promising. I thought the new year couldn't get any worse than the last one (with 3 deaths in the family). I was wrong. My baby cousin (who I am very protective of) was out with her boyfriend/fiance'. They were totally sober. Drivin home at 2:15 am, Katie went to change lanes and hit some water and her car went out of control. They fell off of an overpass, onto an embankment where the rolled and then flipped the van. She was wearing her seatbelt (thank god) and is very cut up and has lots of stitches, but nothing was broken and she will eventually heal. But he (Jay) wasn't as lucky. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt and ejected thru the winshield (where she had to climb over him to get out) and later he died of head trauma. You can see an article at www.press-tribune/archive/news/0102/02/new06.asp What is it with my family these past years? We're all dropping like flies. One uncle, one grandfather, one very close grandmother, and now my cousins fiance'. I need a drink. Well, that and some hot oil monkey lovin!!!!!

Damn, eri. Well, since so many others had hot oil monkey sex, I must confess that I did too, the last day of 2001, with a nearly complete stranger. That ain't never happened to me before, and I'm still suprised that it did. There must be some monkey sex karma going around...

This is weird. Admittedly mine was with an ex, but it was still monkey sex.

send some my way. Cold is slowly receding but I don't know if it will be sufficient for tonight's date, which may have to be postponed til I am less infectious. I am in the coughing/sore throat stage, although It's not too bad. I need to go pick up more Throat Coat Tea.

Dammit Kalli... My thoughts of new years monkey sex, don't even hold a fuckin dirty condom to that... Shit, shit, shit. Now I have to work all day with thoughts like those...

Don't let your affection give you an infection,put some protection on that erection.

Kalli wins!

totally, and to think i actually got the sordid details over the phone. she definitly wins.

I saw the Bluejackets beat Anaheim. That's a close 2nd.

shit everyone is beating Anaheim...even crappy expansion teams like the Bluejackets.

hey, did the dog get anything, Droop?

huh? oh. no, not from me. he was gone. had i put the can out, the crows would've eaten it. he looked like he could use a good meal, though. i keep the can of food in my car in case i see another hungry dog or whatever. good thing it's colder 'n a witch's tit.

witch's tit in a steel bra?

I want sorid details too... Hell it doesn't even have to be via phone, I accept email, snail mail, ICQ... Anything.

Speaking of hot monkey sex, this makes me giggle.