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Extreme Christmas Lights In Orlando
tripmine writes "The Orlando Sentinel has a story about a geek who can't get enough Christmas light. 'This Christmas, tech-savvy people such as Hansen are increasingly building the biggest, most elaborate holiday lights in neighborhoods across Central Florida and throughout the country. They typically work in fields such as computer programming, Web development, engineering or audio and visual services and are armed with a technical knowledge that the average person lacks. They trade tips and stories on message boards and set up Web sites with step-by-step descriptions of how they installed their lights as well as pictures and videos of the finished product.'" Many cities have neighborhoods where the spectacle takes up blocks at a time, not just individual houses, too, as anyone who's strolled down Austin's 37th Street can attest. Links invited (in comments) to the best / worst light-spectacles you know of.
I couldn't help but notice the huge, annoying, "Jesus is the reason for the season" in those Xmas lights. Maybe if the architect did as much research into history as he did lighting, he might realize that Christmas was appropriated from earlier pagan traditions and has very little, if virtually nothing to do with "Jesus". Historians also generally agree (among those that actually think there was a historial Jesus figure) that Jesus was not born on December 25th in the first place. He was more likely born in the Spring or Summer. It's one thing to believe something that's erroneous. It's another to cast it in a hundred thousand lights and broadcast your ignorance to the entire neighborhood. Happy Saturnalia!