...twenty-nine, twenty-ten!

The sights and sounds all around are typical and familiar.

Belly dancers, smelly dancers, Master "Bapi" and DJ "Montu" are all in town! There is no escaping the usual overload of 'teasers' - a diarrhoea of adverts on the telly, and on the radio, repeated text messages and emails - the newspaper, meanwhile, has an extended 'Page 3' that's spread over its entirety. 'Colourful', to say the least - you could almost use the pages as wrapping paper. Look! They're even giving you discount coupons! If you spend your month's salary on a bottle of beer and some chicken-wings while Miss Anna from Somewhere-Vague-but-Foreign says "Na-mas-tay" and does the 'thumka'... you get a full 5% off! An offer that's hard to resist!?!

Even dull, drab, everyday locations will be transformed into 'rocking' dance-floors for the "Mega-Nite", the "Gala-Event", the "Biggest Party of the Year". Are you coming?

Wait!
We're almost there...3, 2, 1... and I'll bet that, precisely at that 'magical' moment, scores of folks the world over will be "bottoms-up"-ing their way into the 'brand-new' calendar year.
Woo hoo!

But hey! As seemingly cynical as I may sound, this is my stand - of course you should celebrate. You must celebrate. Regardless of how or where. It's really none of my business what you do. To be brutally honest, I don't really care (just as long as you're more or less safe, I guess).

You simply MUST celebrate.
'Cause 2009 was a rough one!

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I know I probably make it sound a bit like dancing at a funeral, but tonight, for me, is literally a send-off for one of the most testing years that I've seen in this lifetime.

It wasn't quite the end of the world (that isn't due for another 3 years!). Then again, it was never a walk in the park. For the better part of this year we've all been at the mercy of 'global' evil - the recession, which was, in my book, as big a pandemic as the swine-flu (they make quite a pair!) and a whole lot of other blood-sucking, spine-chilling, nerve-wracking nonsense took centrestage... and just stayed there! Their vicious tentacles spread themselves all across the globe and held Earth in a death-grip! (Well.. sort of)...

And, on the personal front, all of Murphy's Laws were pretty much the rule through these weeks and months. Not fair!

However, all said and done - somehow, at this point, the optimist in me has finally sprung back to life! :-D

I'm not sure - maybe it's just a simple sense of occasion that's at work. But I'd like to think that it isn't. I have this warm, fuzzy feeling about twenty-ten. No real indicators, no guarantees, but just a strong hunch that we'll be surfing on a wave of positivity well into the year ahead.

Cheers!
"Bottoms-up"... :-)

Have an awesome year!

Please Note: Master "Bapi", DJ "Montu" and Miss Anna are fictitious - they are not intended to bear any resemblance to characters living, dead or somewhat unsure. If they do, well... that's freaky.