"They F**k it Up Every Year."
It's been awhile. I last updated QC/D on Nov. 26 (and even that was an advertisement at best) which means I didn't even touch this site in December. It's now 2011 so I should probably start things off right with some photographs and words/rants. I noticed a lot of blogs/websites were doing "lists" of the best moments of 2010. Not gonna lie, it was a good year. I could recap it all in list fashion, but it would probably just be a bunch of stories about Reds games, waffle house, beer and the occasional abandoned building. I will share two stories though: The story of where I've been and why nothing has been done on this website in over a month followed by the story of New Years Eve.
If you follow the site on Facebook, you may have remembered me saying I was gonna update it after finals week at school. If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed I was eerily silent, no longer making lame jokes and hurling insults at streetcar opposition. So what happened? Well admittedly, I was pretty busy during finals week, I had a lot to get done. When that was done, I really wanted to relax. I'd been exploring on the weekends and shooting lots of photos for school, myself and City Beat. I needed a break from the camera. After my last final I bought a six pack of Moerlin Northern Liberties IPA and turned on my Xbox 360. I never got the new Call of Duty and still play Modern Warfare 2, despite having the game for over a year I don't have much time logged on it and to be honest, I suck at it. However, since purchasing an Xbox in 2008, I never really play it. When I get time to play it, its a nice break from reality. Then that got interrupted by getting a new job. The job was complemented by holiday gatherings, one of which my roommates and I threw. The aftermath seen here:
So you see; between cleaning up that mess, fighting online video game battles, spending time with family, school and 40 hours a week working to get rent money - I had a lot on my plate. Like I said, I've been exploring and shooting photos still, I just couldn't find the time to take a few hours to sit down and get a large update done on this site. Even at this moment, I need to finish writing this in the next half hour so I can go reunite with the band I played with in high school.
I had a point I swear. I don't think anyone really cares enough to hear me make excuses about my crappy job or see photos of how many beer bottles and bowls of skyline dip were left laying around my apartment, so here's an interesting story and some photos:
The past two years I've started the new year off with a recap of what I did to celebrate New Years Eve, which both years has been: Go to Fountain Square. Not one to break this tradition, I did the same thing this year. I hate New Years Eve, but I like it at Fountain Square. The holiday annoys me. It's so cheesy, people buy all the good food from the stores, the people at Wendy's are rude cause they don't wanna be working on NYE and you gotta think about all the crap you forgot to do last year (in fact, the best thing I like about the holiday is that Spike TV shows a 'Band of Brothers' marathon). Fountain Square is nice though. It lacks the touristy cheesiness of the Times Square you see on television, there's plenty to do, cheap Hudepohl and really loud fireworks.
Going to the square this year was going to be even better. I even turned down immediately going to a big party (which included free star trek pinball and a delorean) my good friend was throwing because I wanted to be at Fountain Square. This year was going to be even better. Instead of going with dude friends, I got to take my awesome girlfriend (aka Gozer).
Gozer and I had dinner at Don Pablo's across the river and I kept telling her about how good a job Fountain Square does with the whole New Years thing and why its really the only thing I like to do for the "holiday." I just hoped that this year they didn't screw up the countdown like they did last year and the year before that. (Did you catch the obvious foreshadowing there?)
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| - Awesome Columbus Blue Jackets advertisement on the square. |
The weather was great, unseasonably warm and the square was packed. We parked on Ninth St. a few blocks away for free, knowing that the Fountain Square garage would be packed with soccer mom SUV's from the folks who were "brave" enough to venture downtown that night. All kidding aside, it's great seeing so many people downtown. Fountain Square gets a nice mix of friendly people from all walks of life. Whether its the 'rad dads' from the suburbs, the hipsters, the little kids ice skating, the hobo who asks you for change before wishing you a happy new year or disgruntled writers/photographers like me who are grateful for something cool to do on New Years Eve. Its a good time and a good crowd. By 10 PM when we got there, the announcer said there were 2,000 people at the square already.
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| - So warm outside, ice cream melted instantaneously. |
With time to kill, we took a walk around the square and downtown.
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| - Never forget. |
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| - After seeing this photo, I still don't see how anyone is still against how the renovated Fountain Square turned out. |
Did you ever see "A Night at the Roxburry?" (If you answered no, stop what you're doing, go rent it, prepare to be confused/disappointed/entertained - if you answered yes, keep reading) Remember how the two guys wanted to open up a club where the outside was decorated to look like the inside of a club and the interior was decorated to look like the outside cityscape? Well apparently, we have that here in Cincinnati. Case in point:
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| - The elaborate vision from 'Night at the Roxbury' has come to fruition outside The Righteous Room. |
Apparently at the Righteous Room (since the outdoor is kind of decorated like a club) people like to hang outside, crowding the sidewalk. There's even drunk girls dancing on the sidewalks and these cool dudes in pink dress shirts showing off how they get down to the best songs of 2010. Since there's so many idiots outside cluttering up the sidewalk its safe to assume that the inside must be decorated like a generic cityscape, hence why everyone wants to be outside acting like an idiot, thus making my 'A night at the Roxbury' theory true.
After taking a walk around the city, we found a place to stand and wait for the countdown. This year the folks from Fox19 were doing a live show. Due to the huge crowd, it was hard to hear the broadcast over the speakers as news anchor Tricia Mackie interviewed the mayor on the jumbotron. That was fine though, because I was sure they'd be showing a countdown or a clock. Well, all of the sudden the clock in the right hand side of the screen disappears. Tricia Mackie is still on screen talking and there's no numbers counting down.
I check my cell phone: 11:57 PM - Nope, still no countdown on screen.
11:58 - Nothing, no idea what they're saying on the tv.
11:59 - "Ok, seriously, are we gonna countdown from 10 seconds or something?"
At 12:00 AM on January 1, 2011 myself, Gozer and everyone around us awkwardly looked at each other wondering if they were going to show anything or not. A few muffled cheers broke out and slowly the kissing began as did a seemingly random celebration. There was no countdown though, just Tricia Mackie talking on a screen like Big Brother in 1984. They screwed up the countdown again, just as they had done the year before and the year before that (when they've managed to not time it right and do it a few minutes late). The crowd awkwardly began to celebrate, many still with a confused look on their faces. In the face of disappointment, I couldn't help myself, I reflexively shouted: "They fuck it up every year!" The guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Dude, that's the quote of the new year!"
I'm not sure if the folks at Fountain Square were at fault or if it was the folks at Fox19. I'm sure if you could've heard the broadcast you would've heard a countdown, but seriously; for how many years have people been counting down the hours, minutes and seconds to the new year on television? How do you forget to show a countdown? I guess screwing up the countdown has become a tradition. It was disappointing, but in a way it makes Cincinnati unique - "we fuck it up every year."
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| - Reflection of the fireworks on the Westin building. |
Despite the lack of a countdown, the fireworks were awesome. They even had a video of KISS playing "I Wanna Rock and Roll all Night (and Party Every Day)" with flamethrowers attached to the jumbotron that were synced up to the music like a 1970's KISS performance.
We left the square after the fireworks finished and made it out to my friend's party. All in all, it was a great night, one of the best New Years Eves I've ever had. I got to spend it with someone I really care about and great friends (although, still, a countdown of some sort would've been nice).
So there you have it: I've busy and I went to New Years Eve at the square. I've still made time to explore though. Gozer, Venkman, myself and the rest of "Cincinnati's 8th Precinct" have been busy taking our cameras where most won't go. More to come on that soon.
Till then, here's a small taste of some recent adventure:
Thanks for reading.
-Gordon