Montreal New Years Eve 2010 :: the Blog

On a slightly off topic note, while staring emptily at my computer screen and dreaming of freedom and green field, I realized that the dreadful office-party season is closing up upon us.

Again.

Some places call them Christmas Parties, more politically correct places call them New Years parties, I call them “it’s a once-a-year party, let’s get it over with”.

The yearly office party is usually held in the last 2 weeks before New Years; unfortunately, the trauma it results in can carry on well after NYE. All together, we’ll try to make this experience as painless as possible; just follow my advice and I promise it won’t hurt (too much).

Most importantly, drink, socialize, take-off like the social butterfly that you are (this expression is stolen from my brother, I can’t believe he actually uses it in real-life conversations). Score some points with the boss, the HR ladies, but don’t make a fool of yourself by puking in your co-workers car (you know who you are). I know it’s difficult not to overindulge. But contrarily to a regular new years party, you’ll unfortunately have to see these people again. Unless of course, you go at it too hard, at which point you might be excused from your services permanently.

Make sure you have some backup plans for the night. As soon as you feel that you’re loosing control of the situation, head over to the backup plan. Hopefully that backup plan is composed of like-minded individual in whose company you can drink and make a fool out of yourself without fear of being left at home alone on Monday morning.

Prepare interesting conversation topics off-hand. Ok, not really. This is exaggerated and stupid. I meant to say that it might be hard to have an interesting conversations with people you see all year long all the time anyways, but preparing in advance is just plain ridiculous; sorry for my incompetence. Instead, for once talk to that assistant that you’ve never spoken with, or just try to be warm-hearted and have fun, the conversation will flow on its own from there.

All right, it’s not really all that bad. Look around yourself (if you are in an office obviously). The quality of your office new years party depends on you and the people that surround you. If you work with a lot of young people, chance are your office party will be worth calling a new years party. If you work with older people, but which are goofing around all the time, again chances are your new years office party will rock. If you work with older people that never bother speaking to you, good luck.

Again, always make the best out of everything.

Last year I was working in a hyper-young and trendy company. Our new years office party was insane, with managers standing on tables and taking five shots in a row. I was ordering 50 shots at a time; obviously it was open bar.

This year I am working in a hyper-old and un-trendy company. I guess I’ll have to be the one on the table taking all the shots. And pay them out of my pocket, cause we sure won’t have an open bar.

Party like it’s 1950

I guess the Resolution 07 party has officially taken shape: they have now announced the roster of artists that will be spinning that night (see the Artists section of their site http://www.resolutionnye.com). There are a few names there, which I don’t know, and a lot of text, which I don’t feel like reading, so I’ll leave you the honours of scouting it, and then posting a comment here if you want to mention something about the Victors, Maxes and Fabis that will be playing at the Bell Center on New Years Eve.

And now that the whole mystery about Tiesto’s personality split has been solved, talking about Resolution NYE has kind of lost its gist; it’s just not that entertaining anymore.

Here is my new interest: what are local DJ/musicians/other local stars going to do/perform/party at for new years eve?

First name that popped in my mind is Kid Koala, so I quickly googled his site.

Wow… you’ve got to check it out http://www.kidkoala.com/. The design is brilliant. I love it. It feels like you’re reading someone’s diary or Kid Koala’s private letter to you.

But there are no news for NYE, either on Nija Tune’s site for the Kid (http://www.ninjatune.net/kidkoala/) or on the Kid’s myspace page (http://myspace.com/kidkoalaonesandtwos). All the public can learn is that Kid Koala is going to be in Singapore on December 20th, and we all very well know that Singapore is far away from Montreal.

So there we go, a new mystery for me to solve.

And on a totally unrelated topic, why is that everyone has their own MySpace pages nowadays? When I say everyone I really mean everyone, from the Kid, to your cousin’s little known garage band to my grandmother. Damn, I feel such a strong temptation to start my own myspace page, but that would be ridiculous: a myspace page about my real site about new years eve! How twisted of a logic would that be. No, I will resist and I will boycott myspace. Anyways, it is owned by the big-time media News Corp. They are rich enough already, I am not going to give them my content for free. Long live independent blogs, long lice independent media.

Check-out Kid Koala’s art work

This is my little break from everything, just some philosophical thoughts; yes, it does happen to me too from time to time. The Sherlock Holmes in me will be back a bit later to investigate all these suspicious events surrounding the New Years Eve, but for now I want to share some deep and insightful thoughts (right) on life.

This idea was planted from Katie’s comment on her fears about the upcoming NYE: “[my boyfriend] came up for new year 2000 and by luck ended up in a bar which he and his group of friends took over. this year we won’t have the huge group, so I’m worried he’ll be disappointed”.

It’s funny, but people always try to live up to past events. That’s as true of a law as gravity. You know that when you throw an apple down Place Ville-Marie it will hit the parked taxi car on the street bellow. You also know for sure that when you plan something special with a bunch of people, something like New Years for example, you’ll hear “I wish it is as fun as ….. (insert event here) was” from someone.

That someone is likely to be me.

Oddly enough, New Years Eve always happens to be a fun night for me, even though I know as well as everyone else, that it is just a regular night like every other night. Really, what’s so special about the 31st? Why couldn’t NYE be on the 4th or maybe the 25th? Actually it could, but it isn’t. What makes NYE special is not the date, but the idea and the general agreement that it is a night to be celebrated. It is a simple as this, just like some pre-historic tribal celebration: for some reason, the tribe decided that on that particular date there will be ritual magic dances, and so there are, every year, on the same date.

Back to living up to the past. Unfortunately, the past is just that, the past. By definition it will never happen again. So there isn’t much sense in trying to live up to it. Most importantly however is that everything and everyone changes. And events like NYE are amazingly good for making you realize that. Take me for example. Two years ago, for the first time since I can remember, our little group of lads celebrated NYE each in our own separated corner (BTW, British slang is in, if you did not notice). The morning after, when that realization came upon me, it was quite weird. But, the morning after was also the best beginning ever of a new year for me.

I did not live up to the past that NYE night. I lived in the present and made the best of it. At that point, that present was very different from the past, and that difference can sometimes make you feel unsafe and uncomfortable. But because I lived in the present, that night will forever remain special to me.

Don’t try to repeat the past, there is not point. The future is always better than the past.

Do the best of every moment.

And when you do talk to your lads the morning after, you’ll realize that it might not be the same anymore, but it is definitely the best for all of them and you.