Ask Slashdot: What Is Your New Years Eve Tradition?
skade88 writes "What does the Slashdot community do to celebrate New Years Eve? Does your city do something cool and unique to celebrate? Do you celebrate with fireworks in front of your house, or in your favorite MMO (WoW, Minecraft, etc.)?"
Little bit of Minecraft. Some YouTube. Mostly trying to beat Ordos Missions in Dune 2000 (PC)
Never been big into New Years. I do most of my partying around Christmas time.. and when New Years comes around I've had my fill. I wouldn't mind hanging out with a few friends or something, but most are going to big parties or whatever. If they moved New Years a couple of months I'd probably do something, but at it's present date it's just to close to Christmas, and Christmas comes first so it gets all my party budget!
Last year I was working on something in my basement, heard fireworks and thought "I should probably go watch them or something.." but then I said "nah" and went back to what I was doing (and then had a "yup, I'm a geek!" moment). :>
This year I'll probably be watching ponies!
Discovery channel marathons, since i was like 10, yea im lame.
Dear Slashdort: Today is a great day for all the readers of Slashdort, because we will make linquini and boil a Linurx in a stew of Windors. Hooraye! COMMUNISM NOW!
UNITE with the Campaign for a Free Internet because today, our future begins with tomorrow!
Get uncontrollably drunk and yell at fireworks.
My internetting is no good.
A bag of Cheetos and my Serenity DVD. Forever alone, dude, forever alone.
Midnight !!
I try to get a first post, but now I have failed miserably. :-(
debugging all of this year's bad code
Today's Devil's Panties said it best I think.
"We could stay at home and drink hot coca in our pajamas."
I would add 'while sitting on the couch watching movies with my wife' to that though...
Each new year I take a vow of celibacy as my father before me and his father before him. It's a long standing family tradition.
it's just another day.
...to scare away the evil spirits. "Haven't seen any this year, have you?" he would always ask. "Must have worked," he opined further. This story was told to a Mexican cabbie who in all seriousness replied that my father was being silly, and that all you had to do was throw water out the back door to scare evil spirits away for the year. Who knew?
FYI, my father was an electronics engineer whose tongue was often so far in his cheek that it might have protruded from the vulgar aperture.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I spend most of the evening looking over a very scared dog.
It would be highly appreciated if those of you using fireworks waited until midnight.
But my buddy's a lightweight and fell out by 18h30. So I went home. *sigh*
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Stay at home where there are no police, the Vodka Redbulls are mixed well and don't cost $8.00, go to bed early, wake up early, then fish through the local inmate listings to see how many people I know that get picked up for DUI.
for these kinds of posts to pop up on Slashdot. And comment on them.
collard greens and peas. we do that for good luck. it has worked. so far.
...I stay home to avoid the drunks and police...
As of this year, I'll be undocking a Drake in Jita to unload enough Festival Launcher fireworks to fry someone's GPU.
I got a Casio VL-80 calculator decades ago for Christmas from my parents. I learned to play Auld Lang Syne on it and every New Years Eve for years afterwards I'd play that for the family. When I moved out I'd call my parents and play it over the phone for my mom. I've still got the calculator somewhere and it still works too!
It was my first date with the woman who is now my wife. We went to it for several years when we were involved with the organization that sponsors it. This year we're staying home by the fireplace watching some TV and just generally goofing off. Not a bad way to see the new year in.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I'm well paid but will die alone. So it goes.
watch a movie 'till midnight, then hug wife, and went to bed. Boring, but I don't make a druken idiot of myself like many. By 10AM there were 10 dead in road crashes, poor start to the year.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Here in Australia if you celebrated with fireworks outside your house you would most likely have the police around your house.
Lekker gezond!
I find it funny that Minecraft is mentioned, and even more so that this will be my second new year in game.
I have a decently elaborate "dropping ball" counter made with redpower and computercraft mods, with a new addition of fireworks for this year. We plan to set it off four times tonight, once for each of the US time zones.
Slightly better than being stuck outside in the cold and snow, especially seeing the majority of us do not have the opportunity to spend new years with family.
In bed by 10:00p! Staying up until midnight, the most overrated tradition ever.
Linux O Muerte!
I know I may get flamed for it but I like that game and feel Star Wars the Old Republic has improved dramatically over hte last year.
http://saveie6.com/
1. I play BZFlag. Don't know why, but it's become a tradition for me.
2. Use a handheld spotlight I have to signal a house on one of the hills around me, ever since about 4 years ago, I randomly shined my light up there, and they signaled back.
AGAIN.
Schlaffe. Ich schlaffe fuer die ganze nacht.
My wife and I watch the entire Extended Blu-Ray of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. We just finished Fellowship. Tomorrow we will watch Two Towers and Return of the King. We've been doing this since the movies were all available on DVD. (we both hate watching sports so New Years Day football was out).
http://www.sampletheweb.com
Stay up till sunrise having a LAN Party
Madrid - Plaza Mayor. Kissing random Spanish women.
Well...it was fun, until I grew up and got a life.
Now, I'm sitting here talking to you fools, and watching a movie with the spouse.
Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday. Tonight marks one complete rotation (roughly) of our planet around our sun.
I have no idea what my community is doing, but I plan to treat it as any other night, with the exception that I get tomorrow off. As I've grown older (27, for reference) and gotten out and lived on my own I find that annual celebrations hold little meaning to me, including my own birthday. If I'm going to celebrate, it's going to be for a relevant, contemporary event. If I'm going to make changes to my life, it's going to be when I realize those changes need to be made, not some arbitrary date. If I want to get together with loved ones, I'll do it when the urge strikes (at least, in so far as those I want to spend time with are also available.)
(Of course, I've no friends, no close relatives, and am anti-social, so my view could be skewed.)
I guess its kinda a tradition now that its the second year now:
http://www.hackerpublicradio.org/
some music, a good shoother, a beer, and compiling a new kernel :D
scifi channel shows twilight zone all day long
I get a moderately priced bottle of Scotch and avoid the internet
I get to throw out:
- Christmas catalogs and flyers (usually multiple pitches from the same stores)
- Charity solicitations (*always* multiple pitches from the same ones, including those I've already donated to this year)
- Anything having to do with elections and political campaigns
- Last year's wall calendar
- Bills paid over 12 months old (I keep a full year just in case)
- Ridiculously obsolete software and technology artifacts (this year I threw out some backups saved on 3.5" floppies)
I personally usually don't celebrate new years anymore. i used to host parties, but I got tired of babysitting drunks and making sure people got home safe, etc. Sometimes I'll consider the past year and look at ways to improve myself or my situation. Sort of a introspection which may or may not result in a resolution.
My neighbours do this cool thing which I think is Austrian in nature. They sweep their house with a broom to symbolically sweep away the past. Then they go outside and, if i understand correctly, throw coins at the house to symbolize desired prosperity. They also walk around the block to symbolize travel/vacations they wish to take. Then they set off small fireworks. I think it's a lovely tradition which includes the family and does not involve getting falling down drunk.
I pull out Thwaite for NES and make my own fireworks. Then I pull out FantaVision for PS2 and make my own fireworks.
Most years I'm busy New Years Eve making chili for the Margarita and Chili-Fest on New Years Day. Unfortunately a bit under the weather this year so that's been delayed.
It's dull, but I usually spend the evening at home with a bottle of wine, cleaning the house, rearranging the furniture... generally getting things ready for another fresh start on a new year. Tomorrow morning I'll probably fix pancakes, take down the holiday lights from the front porch, and... begin.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Well, the local pubs always have specials. Other than that, nothing traditional happens in my area except maybe people watching the Times Square Ball drop in New York City. Of course, that signals New Year's Day in NYC. It's 5 in the morning in London and 11 P.M. (2300 hours) where I reside. I just don't understand how it's such a big celebration if it means that it's New Year's Day happens at midnight in only one timezone. Yet another reason why we should have a world clock instead of time zones and Daylight Saving Time/Summer Time.
I have been a captive in America my entire life. Everybody and everything uses customary units instead of metric.
With approximately 30 percent of drivers later on New Years Eve driving DUI; it's not a good night to be out on a bicycle, which is my mode of transportation.
Besides, SISS is cheap and I have nothing to regret when I get up in the morning of January First.
So, right now, I am working on refurbishing one of my pieces of lighted jewelry to wear at a party in mid-January.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Smoked Salmon on Rye, Brut Premier, Jumbo Shrimps, Oysters, all nice and quiet with myself as company.
I tend to stay sober sit on eve online on a gate and make quite a large profit off the drunks. its like a second christmas.
-Noc
And sometimes I vomit on the keybo
and fap fap fap in the new year.
roll over and go to sleep.
So when crash I know that I won't feel any worse for the rest of the year.
I commit all my outstanding code. Then I wait until the next year to fix the build.
I prefer to end the year and same way I start it, stoned off my ass.
I can watch the Space Needle's firework show from my window, so I don't even have to go outside.
Go outside, in the cold and probably rain (this is seattle), to be harassed by panhandlers, cops, drunk fools, more panhandles, then to have to crank my head up to watch 10 mins of fireworks, only to have to deal with more panhandlers, cops, drunk fools, high fools, and traffic.
I could go to a party, but on the way there, have to deal with panhandlers, probably cops, drunk fools, high fools and then once I get to the party, I'm dealing with drunk fools. Then once the cops show up, i'm back outside dealing with the panhandlers, more cops and of course, drunk fools.
I could go to a bar, but i'm sure you get the picture.
In case you didn't notice, drunk people tend to bother me.
Be seeing you...
"Dinner for One" is THE German New Year's tradition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v4BYV-YvA
I'll watch that again with the wife. Somehow it improves with repetition.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
And I managed to win the damned game. (Roguelike, so zero mistakes AND some luck are needed).
I own a small business. My New Year's Eve celebration consists of taking inventory. (Yes, I know that I could do it tomorrow instead, but I like to get it over and done with since it's such a tedious job.)
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Do absolutely NOTHING!
... the things whose counterparts I vowed to adhere to a year ago.
While griping about the noisy fireworks and praying no idiots get any in their eyes and I get called in to do something about it.
My recent tradition has been to spend this time debating whether or not I should go to one of the New Year's Eve parties I've been invited to (okay, okay, I only ever get invited to one). Usually I get distracted by the Internet along the way and promptly forget that it's New Year's Eve until the next day when people ask me what I did for it.
This year though, I'll definitely go to the party. Just as soon as I get done reading through and commenting on Slashdot, of course. And then my RSS feeds.
Get into the sacramental wine and bless things until good and vashnigyered!
Particularly rumaki.
There's been perhaps a hundred boring days this year, so one more won't kill me. So I just let them drag me and fake it like a bored whore giving a freebie.
I live in Las Vegas, and friends always assume that because I live in SinCity, I must be a party-animal... Nothing could be further from the truth.. My partying days are LONG past (62 y/o), so the wife and I hit the sack about the same time we do the rest of the year, namely 10pm-ish.. Frankly, you couldn't pay me enough to go down to the "Resort Corridor" (what the local newsmedia calls the "Las Vegas Strip") on NYE... And you can only watch that stupid glass ball drop on TV so many times before its "been there.. seen that.." It's 6:30pm here in the Pacific timezone, so there's only about 5 1/2 hours left of 2012... WHERE THE HELL DID IT GO????
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Server room hearing loss. My wife is up dancing with her girl friends and I have mooved out into the reception area of the ballroom to read Slashdot. Best new year event ever!
I'm playing Magic with my kids tonight. When the clock strikes 12 they're going to bed and I'm breaking out the booze.
This year finds me in the Toronto Airport returning home to Nova Scotia. A late plane caused me to alter my plans so now I should spend the beginning of the New Year airborne. For an extra $100 I was able to get business class. So if I party too much will grab a hotel in Halifax and drive home tomorrow.
To fuck off and die
I run email on my own server.
I run a script that moves all email to . I start the year with a clean mailbox. This allows me to keep nearly two decades of email without drowning in it.
I do the same with my apache logs but I don't need a script for that.
I used to always volunteer to work. The office would be empty and I could always get some serious work done on those odd projects that always get put off into the future.
Luckily, my former employer usually cut everyone loose at about 2pm or so. By then, as my sis always says, "It gets drunk out early." After the invariably hair-raising drive home, I stayed there.
Everclear and soda can do a perfectly adequate job of putting me on my butt if that's my goal or maybe I'll just go to bed. I never understood the reason for partying during really big events where the crowd crush is such a pain. I'm happy to party at the drop of a hat but this particular holiday is just too overdone.
Never understood why a change in a calendar year requires me to celebrate it or its different than any other day.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
That title about covers it.....do not covet /.ers
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Climbing on the rooftop with a microphone and uttering strange pre-scripted chants.
Just kind of hunker down to avoid the small arms fire in this county.
I open my door to let in the new year, it does get a bit drafty though.
Since you asked.. We start with a cheese course, then wrap up with a chocolate course. Kickin' it old school.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
..to keep refreshing Slashdot to see what all the cool kids are doing.
or wants to!
I buy all kinds of crazy shit on eBay that I would normally have the common sense not to! Then I regret it once it arrives! What am I going to do with the Google branded server from last year? I don't know but it looks nice in the rack!
1) Turn On ABC
2) See if Dick Clark Shows up.
3) If He Does. He's Alive. Otherwise He's Dead.
Not too sure if he's Dead yet...
Too drunk to remember
Your mom.
I always like to do a line of coke and hit a fleshlight for about 30 mins. then when I'm about to blow a load I stick a taser in my ass and set it off. One time I almost shot the fleshlight across the room.
...is an MMO now?
But that aside, on New Years (which was yesterday here ... I'm in Australia) my wife and I went into the CBD of my city for the fireworks at 9pm, but didn't hang around until the midnight ones as the city events are all alcohol-free and we wanted our midnight champagne. Went home, opened a bottle at midnight, watched the other fireworks on TV. Boring but pleasant :)
And yes, people will cook the festive dinners, offerings to the Gods etc and patiently wait for the new year to be "born" before starting the prayers. The patriarch will read the almanac that predicts how much rain there will be that year, "Measure it by the ark. Ark of 1000 cubits long and 2000 cubits wide and 500 cubits deep. 2590 arks of rain will fall this year". Let me see if I can dig up the precise time and the amount of rain for the coming New year.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If I don't switch the numbers around on New Year's, I'm liable to forget until quite awhile later.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
For fun, I call into the future wishing the rest of the world a Happy New Years. After we pass midnight, I call to other stations out west and say I'm calling from the future! :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
Since I was a kid my parents had a New Year's Eve party that hundreds of people attended. Since they've been gone I've made a tradition of having a few friends over and having jumbo steamed/peeled shrimp with horseradish cocktail sauce along with Mount Gay Rum and beer chasers. We're pretty much wasted right now, as it should be. Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin are pretty entertaining! I love my parents who really knew how to throw an excellent new year's eve party!!!!
Monitoring the network so people can browse the web !
A tradition we have is burning the Xmas tree festooned with fireworks.
Times are tight, not too many left over fireworks this year Also, Alcohol. Ditto previous state of the union.
I scour ebay for closing bids in the hopes most of my competition is wasted - avoiding ususal last minute bidding wars.
This does not work nearly as well as it used to with all of the automated bidding crap.
Happy new year everyone!!
and lots of it.
I'm a grown ass man, so I don't wank off to a change in the calender. I believe I've worked every eve/day of the past fifteen years (though it was particularly fun, during Y2K).
I'm doing New Years the old school way, drinking with friends over IRC.
But Dick Clark didn't show up. You may now buy the Time Life Home Video box set of American Bandstand.
My best friend (and bff) has her birthday today. Since she was 8 we've had the birthday party / slumber party combination at her house. My uncle's birthday is just before christmas, so his birthday gets diluted just like Jessie's bday does. Last year there were eight of us for the night; this year more are at other new year's eve parties, but here I am getting ready for the west coast new years in two hours one-hour+fifty-five-minutes!!!
/. !!!! Woo-hoo-hoo!!!
How do you get strike-through text to work?!?! Woo-hoo i'm at a new year's party posting on
tasty black-eye peas, rice, diced tomatoes/onion/sweet pepper, with a bit of nice sharp cheddar on top. healthy, traditional, distinctive. even goes well with a bit of bubbly!
Every year, my family has a tradition of holding money - at least a dollar - at midnight, as a sort of spell to make sure that we will be holding money the whole year. Silly superstition, and the kids know it is, but it is still kind of a fun little thing.
:::The Spear in the heart of the Other is the Spear in the heart of You; You are He - Surak of Vulcan:::
Here in Sweden, the tradition is to watch Dinner For One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v4BYV-YvA/ (on TV every year since 1976), get very drunk and then watch fireworks (or set them off yourself and get your fingers blown off if you're drunk enough).
This year I had actually planned to play World of Tanks at midnight since my girlfriend is sick and sleeping.... but of course a colleague showed up and I had to go to a pub run by Russian criminals and drink lots of things. Now I just hope I get sick too so I can stay home and sleep for a week.
Odd facts about the number 2013. It's not evenly divisible by 13.7. Also, it's the only odd number evenly divisible by 1 between 2012 and 2014. Shazam !
Ahhhh New Years, aka Sylvester day, celebrating that great Christian sa.int who earned his beatification from the Church by slaughtering Jews. Since the Middle Ages, this day was observed with pogroms, rape and destruction of Jewry all across Europe. A fitting tribute from the Useless Nations. Peace in 2013 indeed.
could it be?
I wish someone would tell my neighbours.
For 12 years straight, a group of us drops LSD at 11:15. Good way to bring in another chapter in this long story.
I take new year's eve easy. What I'm doing for new year's day:
1 large onion
1 bell pepper
6 cloves of garlic
3 stalks celery
(a good-sized smoked ham hock) and/or (4 strips of bacon and a fist-sized chunk of tasso ham)
4 bunches of collard greens, torn off the stems between the veins
1 lb of dried black-eyed peas
quart of chicken stock or broth - homemade is best, low-sodium if you're buying the canned stuff.
a couple stems of thyme and a bay leaf
salt and pepper
tabasco sauce
rice
green onions
Soak the black-eyed peas overnight (12 hours, preferably) then rinse and drain when you're ready to cook
Dice the onion, pepper, and celery, split between 2 bowls
If you've got a ham hock, heat a little oil in a dutch oven and sear it in a dutch oven for the peas. If you have bacon or tasso, cube it and render out some fat in the dutch oven or stock pot. You want 2 pots going with a little rendered pork fat, preferably with some meat (either hock or bacon.)
Pour a bowl of trinity (the onion/celery/pepper mixture) into each pot and sweat for about 5 minutes on medium heat, stirring every so often. Press 3 cloves of garlic into each pot and give a quick stir after 30 seconds.
Add beans, thyme, bay, and stock to one pot and give a stir; wait for it to come to a boil then lower heat and cover. While waiting for first pot to boil, gradually add torn-up collards to the other pot, stirring often to let the greens wilt. When all greens are in the pot, cover it and lower the heat to a simmer. Season before serving.
While peas and greans are cooking (cook beans for about 45 minutes, greens for a little less), make a cup or 2 of long-grain white rice (basmati is great.)
Put peas and greans over rice with some chopped scallions and a good dash of tabasco.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I find, stalk, and ultimately punch a midget every NYE, a tradition started in '87.
In some years it was harder to find the little fellas (they are always male) than others until I realized I had to go where the midgets were celebrating.
Strange thing - midgets like to party together.
Every word of this is true.
Every year my band gets about five different gigs for new years eve parties, and when the drinks flow the tips flow too :) All in all its not a bad way to welcome in a new year and earn some extra cash.
This year, I went to a church get-together. I was basically ordered out at the end, over nothing (I wasn't mean or drunk, and I got out physically okay). Aspies like me don't do well here, and things often get worse in a hurry.
So next year I promise to stay home. It seems like a pattern with me. Every few years, I think I have a place that fits me, and I plan to have a good time. And something always goes wrong.
Maybe I should just resign myself to staying home every new year's eve, and watch movies or read a good book (I have no family that can stay up that late and enjoy activities with me).
Perhaps in the future I'll volunteer at a soup kitchen (maybe on the holiday or on a different day, it depends what the charity's needs are).
Go to bed early.
Wake up after midnight as baka neighbors fire off firecrackers. Last night were especially loud and at 12:08, one was set off right by my bedroom window.
Curse those unfeeling rubes who celebrate during wartime. Curse this mad Empire, soaked in blood. Pray that someday, the Republic will be restored.
Go back to sleep and dream of randy Japanese anime girls and nekomini's.
Where I'm from we put calcium carbide in a milk drum, add some water, jam a soccer ball in the opening and light it.
Going room by room gathering all the misplaced important papers and consolidating bills...
But especially finding and discarding all previous 'new years resolutions' lists made over the years.
Good, I think I have found them all now. They are discarded, unread.
I will not be making one this year.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
...watching all the films of the "Alien" saga (I will watch "Alien 3" this afternoon)
Maybe that can be our new tradition.
My New New Years tradition will be playing Ingress in downtown Tampa.
(name withheld by request)
My established procedure is this: 1) Go to bed. 2) Go to sleep. 3) Wake up on Jan 1. Voila! It's a new year without all the fuss, bother, and hangovers.
Is there something to be sad about, then?
Black-eyed peas and cornbread-- traditionally brings luck for the new year.
Bacon and ham is usually involved as well.
In the Northeastern US we have a softdrink called Moxie, which has been around for ages. It is awful, awful stuff that tastes like medicine. Since neither my friends nor I drink alcohol, we started a ritual about 15 years ago (no one remembers exactly when) that participants have to chug a can of Moxie at midnight. The logic is, the year can go nowhere but up from there. I and various friends have performed this ritual ever since. The one time we skipped it, we ended up having the worst ice storm in memory. Coincidence? I think not...
"Oh... to eat pizza again..." by erroneus (253617) on Saturday December 22, @05:20PM (#42371769) from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3335159&cid=42371769 since that disgusting fatbody pig's an obese swine with no dick!
Besides being heavily into computer tech, I also brew beer. For the past decade or so New Years Eve has been spent with a group of local beer geeks (brewers and judges). The guy who hosts it always has a keg of something great (this year it was Firestone Walker Union Jack), and also does a 10+ year vertical of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot. Everybody else brings a few bottles of something to share. We've probably got better beer than any other New Years party in town!
BASSNECTAR
Given the type of people you are and the type of lifestyles you live (I'm speaking to you, stereotypical Slashdotter), this is one of the evenings that you should absolutely go out regardless of what you perceive of as risks and hassles. Yes, people are drunk. Yes, bars are crowded. Yes, people who rarely drink get out of control and make impulsive decisions.
Now, let me put that in the proper perspective by reducing half of the population. Yes, women are drunk. Yes, bars are crowded with women. Yes, women who rarely drink get out of control and make impulsive decisions.
You could be that impulsive decision.
Don't complain that you can't get a tan if you stay inside on the sunniest days.
Heh. It's just another day for me/us. However, because it's a BFD for many, we do delight in turning the police/fire scanner up. We get a healthy chuckle from all of the activity. Of course, there's generally always something, more or less, happenin' here in the beeg shitty, but times like NYE are far more entertaining. It's amazing what idiocy people will do, esp. when they've enjoyed a little too much ETOH. .45 rounds don't fall upon our noggins.
We'll not go out and risk highways with a substantially higher percentage of drink drivers among the traffic. We avoid checkpoints, where one's guilty until proven innocent. We stay home.
Curiously, there's actually one good, or at least interesting, reason to go outdoors 'round midnight in our neighbourhood. This is because, somewhere not too far away, there's someone who has an automatic weapon. From the sound of it, we believe it to be a Thompson. He/she goes out at midnight every NYE, and most July 4ths, to let fly a full 100-round mag. We assume it's aimed UP, and hope that ballistic
Life's not boring.
The South Pole station holds a marathon (and fractions thereof) across the Antarctic Plateau in the morning, and then members of the station who have formed bands over the season play a concert in the gym to bring in the new year.
Kinda how I loved the History channel which then turned into the UFO/Bigfoot/X-Files channel.
Who'd have thought they could get worse?
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I don't know why you can't just launch from the neighbor's lawn like I do.
Of course if you do it on New Years, then there's possible eyewitnesses out on the streets, and the rude-awakening factor just isn't there.
3 am on a random Monday, but perhaps you don't hate your neighbor?
I live in the Netherlands. Lots of fireworks and noise bombs, even days before the New Year's Eve, but on the actual day they started at 8 am and continued until 4 am on New Year's day. Between 8 pm - 2 am it was nothing short of a war zone here. Thousands of euros used to pollute the atmosphere and trash the streets. Argh!