Countdown to 2006

12:05
Okay, well televised coverage of New Year's Eve is ending... goodnight all (or rather, good morning) -- I'll be sure to save this page

12:04
CNN's got a photo slideshow of revelers in Times Square.

12:03
Fox News decided to switch to something else now, unfortunately for the people in the West... well, "The Party's On!" on CNN

12:01
Better late than never... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! (lol)

12:01
Well, I wonder what's going on now....

12:00
Ooo, nice fireworks

12:00 AM, January 1 2006
Nice fireworks. Too bad everybody counted like 10 seconds late :)

11:59
Lemme actually watch this time... 10 seconds!

11:59
Less than half a minute...

11:59
43 seconds

11:59
Less than a minute...

11:58
1 minute...

11:58
Almost....

11:57
2 minutes and just a few seconds....

11:57
Wow, the "Little Apple" -- Manhattan KS -- is REALLY hyped up for such a small city

11:56
Hmm, Times Square is still pretty eventful

11:55
3 minutes and just a little more...

11:55
New Orleaners' resolutions: "REBUILD NEW ORLEANS!"

11:55
LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES!!! And my laptop's battery is dying... wait, no actually it's still at 33% capacity

11:53
*FLASHBACK* to Hurricane Katrina in late August

11:52
I wonder what's going on in Chicago?

11:52
On our way to a brand new year...

11:50
WCIA doesn't seem to be doing anything special. Back to FOX with less than 9 minutes left in the year for me :)

11:49
They're going on break, time for me to check out WCIA

11:49
Ooooh, the minute countdown is about to get into the single-digits for us

11:48
*Crowd cheers looking at the entertainer, Chris Owens', dress*

11:48
An entertainer just got out of a limo and is being interviewed... "not only are we celebrating New Year's Eve, we're celebrating the rebirth of our city" (quote is approximte)

11:47
Awww, no New Orleans fireworks today ;(

11:47
An abundance of New Orleans footage... it's really foggy

11:46
What's still going on in Times Square?

11:46
OMG, this interviewee's gotta change her talking style... you're not talking to your girl friends, OMG :D

11:46
14 minutes left....

11:45
I guess they're interviewing some Hollywood self-proclaimed "idiot."

11:44
Lol, the female host just got hit in the face with confetti :P

11:44
BTW that was on ABC... and they're back on Fox

11:43
According to Gordon (via AIM), Regis just asked some question Millionare-style... and a Chinese person got it right! No racism here, but go China :D

11:42
Commercials again...

11:41
According to Goodman, there's 13,000 people at Las Vegas joining him in a toast to 2006 (the "biggest ever")

11:41
"The past is the past, it's been a great year." --Oscar Goodman, Las Vegas mayor

11:40
Less than twenty minutes now

11:39
Hey, there's the mayor of Las Vegas being interviewed... oops I used the passive voice there, but I don't feel like and don't have much time to change it now

11:39
Shout out to Gordon Ruan :)

11:38
I gotta say, this is pretty good country music... unfortunately Fox isn't giving us the title. Is it "American Child?"

11:37
Oh, and the music continues

11:37
Blogging without any client is not so bad... right now I'm manually adding HTML in Notepad++ and auto-uploading via the freeware SmartFTP FTP client

11:36
I've been blogging for the last hour and a half... wow. I'm also chatting with Gordon on AIM, who's watching ABC

11:35
This country music's not so bad...

11:34
It's *still* quite lively over in Times Square...

11:34
A little over 25 minutes left for us revelers in C-U

11:33
They're back in Nashville right now

11:33
Regis, please say "darn" instead of "damn" ;)

11:32
Uh-oh, it's Regis. He looks quite active for a 74-year-old.

11:31
The show's back on

11:31
CNN: still on ads. Fox: still on news.

11:30
Well, like they said, another news break. Lemme switch to CNN for a min

11:29
Nice and simple photo slide show from Fox News

11:29
A Swiffer commercial

11:28
About 31 and a half minutes left till 2006 for us here, so please stay tuned ;)

11:27
Hmm, I wonder what that was for.

11:26
"The United States Air Force, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Navy, the United States Army Reserve, and the United States Army..."

11:26
Hmmm, something's happenining in Manhattan KS (the so-called "Little Apple")

11:25
34 minutes to go, this is a random post since there's a lack of anything better to say right now.

11:24
Nagin wants to resolve to be very careful of what he asks for in 2006. No hurricanes, no tornadoes, etcetera. He looks kinda tired, and sounds like it too.

11:24
Nagin says he's "so ready for 2006"

11:23
The mayor of New Orleans is talking about some random stuff now... I'm listening

11:23
37 minutes left for us in the CT zone...

11:21
This is much less interesting than what happened in New York, but whatever. At least it's more interesting than C-U, or so it seems

11:21
Back to updates every 15 secs :D -- actually I just realized I never actually changed it to per-minute updates

11:20
Hey, they got a countdown clock for Central Time! Yay, maybe I'll not switch to WCIA later then!

11:15
Maybe WCIA 3 will have a live countdown that's actually synced to our local time. Hmmm.

11:11
Beautiful shots of people in Times Square who've stood here for six hours without peeing.

11:09
Wow, those are some really enthusiastic people... still celebrating, heh :)

11:07
Should this page still auto-update every 15 seconds? Maybe I'll increase it to a minute since NYC's passed the big event already

11:06
That looks like alcohooooll....

11:05
Happy New Year, NYC, but I don't think this was as festive as ringing in the new millenium ;)

11:04
Well, still 56 minutes to go for us here in C-U...

11:03
Wow. I think I missed part of the ball drop because I was too busy typing :P

11:00
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10:59
THREE TWO ONE BAM!

10:59
HUGE COUNTDOWN....

10:59
Less than 20 seconds!

10:59
Ball flashes...

10:59
People cheering excitedly...

10:59
Ahem, the mayor speaks! He's got 48 seconds to go

10:58
1 minute

10:58
Okay, that's far from ballistic. I guess it'll gradually change... and indeed they do.

10:58
Just under two minutes remain

10:57
Well, they're not exactly "ballistic" yet... the people, I mean

10:56
Nice new soothing music in Times Square

10:56
Three and a half minutes

10:55
According to the hosts, the people at Times Square go really ballistic just a few minutes before the new year... that'll be nice to see :P

10:55
Just less than five minutes... the NYC mayer is standing below the hosts, apparently

10:54
Six minutes!

10:52
The male host's daughter just txt'd the host, and they went to a shot of her daughter waving her hand out the 15th-story window of her apartment... very interesting indeed

10:51
I'm gonna post this page on del.icio.us to see if anyone cares to come... probably not, but that's okay. I'll still update :D

10:50
The number of minutes left to 2006 in the east is now in the single digits....

10:49
Yet another break for commercials...

10:49
LOL, he looks dorky with that hat.

10:48
I guess I'll be ringing in the new year an hour early... but that's okay. I'll still stay up till 12

10:47
Hey, 12 minutes left in 2005 for those crazy people in Times Square!

10:46
People are stunned that they just got high on water.

10:46
Okay, this is messed up.

10:44
Interesting... interviewing a shy person. She just said her name was "Cheese." Wow, shaky camera and people are really hyper. What are they doing? What the heck? Dubyoo tee eff?

10:44
Some dude's trying to make other people look drunk by drinking H₂O.

10:43
Gordon's watching Times Square events over at ABC... unfortunately, my now-discontinued satellite package doesn't include that channel :(

10:41
Commercials!

10:40
What the heck? The female host just got emotional over something. Well, it looked like she recovered immediately.

10:40
Just updated my blog about this page.

10:38
Talking to a soldier from Iraq, who is celebrating New Year's Day

10:36
Shots Footage of people waving and looking happy abound.

10:35
None of this music is exactly spectacular, IMO... well, I'm not really the person for comment in the country music department, either.

10:34
Aaron Tippin sings (and Fox put an exclam!) Maybe I spelled that wrong -- Fox just removed the ticker that had his name on it.

10:33
A performance is starting... the dude in Nashville can hardly hear over the people's shouting.

10:33
The counter's going down by the second... well of course. 26 minutes left to 2006 in the east.

10:32
Going to Nashville, TN -- I've been there.

10:31
Yay, they're back. The hosts are thankful it's not snowing, raining, or too f*^#*!@ cold.

10:30
Ah, a news break. CNN's are much better, but whatever.

10:29
Champaign-Urbana is just about 1.5 hours away to 2006. I wonder what my neighbors are doing... I don't see a huge line of cars anywhere near my house, so there doesn't appear to be any big party around. Oop, back to Fox News.

10:28
Commercial break, and New York's only about 30 minutes away from 2006.

10:27
"They heard me complaining about the heat -- or, I mean, from the cold" (Yeah, I guess it's a pretty lame quote now)

10:27
The male host is like, eating a bunch of candy or something. Oh, they're Hershey's Kisses.

10:26
Interviewing random bystanders again. That was interesting

10:25
HOLY CRAP!!! London had some nice fireworks there... and a #@^&load of people watching as well

10:24
Those Asian/Australian New Year's celebrations look awesome... I wonder how NYC's will be ;)

10:23
w00t, scenes from Sydney, Australia about, um, many hours ago.

10:23
WTF? Some peopple decided to celebrate the new year in some puny little place in Kansas when they had the opportunity to go to Times Square?!

10:22
38 minutes left to 2006 in the East...still really eventful in Times Square. They're switching to Manhattan, KS now... cool Google Earth transition again. (Oh, and BTW, you'd probably need to watch to understand what I mean by "Google Earth transitions.")

10:21
"Welcome back to Times Square, crossroads of the world..."

10:20
I wonder if anyone is actually reading this....

10:20
...

10:19
Ads again?

10:18
This host is crazy, man. He's getting high on water?

10:17
Yay, finally returning to NYC... this time, with no cool Google Earth transition. Awwww.

10:16
Wait, no, that wasn't Sin City. Is that even a place? Wait actually... ah forget this, they're someplace in the West. It's not as exciting as NYC.

10:15
Those "2006" glasses look freaky.

10:15
Just switched to scenes in, uh, "Sin City" -- transition was a Google Earth satellite travel thang

10:14
They can't identify who's performing right now.

10:13
Is this thing on tape delay? What happened if they interviewed some person who cusses uncontrollably?

10:12
"They're from China, Mexico," blah blah blah... they're interviewing some random bystander who's been in the same spot in Times Square for four hours straight

10:11
Those crazy hosts are back on, currently commenting about the strong security here tonight.

10:11
They're back

10:10
As I enjoy jazz music from a Lexus commercial, I just changed the title of this page. Enjoy.

10:09
Commercials... well, first there's greetings from U.S. troops.

10:08
They want me to stay tuned for more penguin coverage?

10:08
Wow, this is boring. Please don't split the screen with half penguins and half Times Square, Fox.

10:06
What the hell? They just switched to a shot of penguins. Maybe I should pay more attention.

10:04
Who the **** are they interviewing? It appears to be some guy from New Orleans who liked it there until Katrina came. He's giving his New Year's resolutions right now... he wants people from America to help them.

10:03
They just talked about Regis Philbin, which I used to see often on "Who Wants To Be A Millionare."

10:00 PM CST, December 31 2005
I'm watching Fox New's "All American New Year 2006" right now... some random people are throwing confetti out of a window... Fox is calling this drop "premature." Hmmm, this program is pretty crazy. Oh well.