Besides being known for obnoxious and sometimes deadly (with their cars) drunks, New Year' Eve is the time for fireworks. Every city in every country has more than one big fireworks display for the common masses on New Year's Eve....just so there is something to entertain them while they vomit that vodka they have been chugging all night. Our fireworks displays are a little like the ancient Roman gladiator fights..great spectator sports that stir the masses.

I like fireworks and fireworks displays (Has Al Gore Global Warmed fireworks shows too? I wonder). As a kid all of we kids shot fireworks in the neighborhood for weeks up to and after New Year's day. Our Christmas vacation was a time for fireworks of every imaginable style. It's been a long time since I shot any myself, because Jane didn't ever like them. So I never did shoot them with her when she was small.

Adults are only supposed to shoot fireworks with kids as a "supervisor' even though the adult usually has more fun than the kids being supervised, finances and promotes the shootings. My favorite firework were those small bottle rockets that could be ignited after being placed in a hollow tube which was aimed, not at the sky but at a target of our best amusement. To my knowledge I never maimed or killed anyone as a child when I shot them that way.

Maybe...This year the BBC web site again had a nice video showing some of the biggest New Year's Eve fireworks displays all across the world . They all looked spectacular if predictable and similar. I think the technology is so shared today that if you see one big fireworks display in one city it' probably much like a big one in another city. What is different is the setting. I liked the ones this year from Moscow and Paris because they were set off at St. Basil's Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. The setting accentuated and perhaps even trumped the fire and explosions of the displays.

Some of the displays were much bigger than others, but it's hard to notice that. Once a huge explosions happens comparisons as to size are hard to make. But the one in Paris at the Eiffel Tower was illuminated by a pulsating, multicolor display, described by the Parisian city officials as "a giant Christmas tree with tinsel". It was somewhat different from the norm. I liked that. The one in Tokyo use big bubbles in it. Leave it to the Japanese to have an odd anything, much less an odd fireworks display. If the Japanese ever put on a normal New Year's Eve fireworks display it may be a sign that that nation has slipped into normality. How sad that would be.

Politicians usually make speeches at those big displays. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, for example, said to the crowd at St. Basil's, "The past year was not a very easy one for our country, and I want to thank you for all bearing up together". I didn't hear all the speeches by the official at the fireworks displays worldwide (than God fro that!), but they must have all sounded like a "Support me, because I am giving you this fun fireworks show and the opportunity to become deadly drunk" theme. I imagine most of the viewers would rather more enjoy igniting the politicians that the fireworks.

New York City always has it's big New Year's Eve countdown to midnight event in Times Square, Manhattan without much fireworks. Hundreds of thousands of people descend upon Times Square (one must arrive about 8 hours before midnight to secure a spot at Times Square) already mostly already drunk (viewers of the magic ball are no longer allowed to bring alcohol into the venue) or stupid because once allowed to take a spot within the barricades are not permitted to leave until 1 am. That means no bathroom passes and plenty of smells to prove it on the clothing of the drunken revelers.

Besides just wanting to "be there", what are those people looking at? A lighted ball dropping atop the One Times building on Broadway that hits the ground precisely at midnight. As the New Year draws near, giant video screens display about two minutes of sound effects and music culminating in a countdown to mark the end of each hour. At midnight there is a two minute mini fireworks display above Times Square. That's it! Just two minutes and a much smaller version of a fireworks show.

And finally, after that, New Year's Eve confetti is released from rooftops of buildings throughout Times Square as the cold, drunken revelers celebrate the New Year (and discover their pockets have been picked amidst the jostling of the crowd), creating a brilliant panorama of color that blends in nicely with the vomit they have hurled the past 8 hours.. It's a traditional New York Style new year welcome.

No wonder I like the garish fireworks shows in other cities better.