Happy New Year from Mad Minerva

I'll be offline for the rest of today and for most of tomorrow. It's time for welcoming 2008 with friends and family -- lots of food and fun and games.

In fact, I'm wearing green velvet as I'm typing; I'm waiting for the Cinema-Mad Sibling to fetch me so we can go meet some friends for dinner, then a little dance party organized by another friend (and by "little" he meant 90+ people are invited), and then coffee and snacks and games until midnight.

Tomorrow will be sleeping late, then meeting more friends for more fun. One -- the infamous Il Barista -- has challenged the Sibling and me to Wii (!) tomorrow night.

So, Happy New Year as I log off! I give you some gorgeous eye-candy from the awesome Aussies, who -- as one of the first nations to see midnight -- lit up Sydney harbor with a galaxy of fireworks plus fun party music.

Happy 2008 with Asian-Pacific flair!

And also of course from the celebrations in Taiwan -- check out Taipei 101's vertical fireworks!

Euro Notes: Terror Threat Cancels New Year's Celebration in Brussels

New Year's celebrations are canceled in Brussels.

No fireworks, no ice skating, no shopping. No fireworks??

I don't know about you, but I seem to recall how New York City carried on with celebrations despite terror threats on every New Year's Eve since 2001.

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: Il Barista Tries to Kill Me with a Hello Kitty 2008 Calendar

I simply have to post this.

My dear old school friend Il Barista -- yes, Il Barista of Satan Coffee infamy -- has given me a new calendar for 2008. This sounds generous, sweet, and thoughtful, doesn't it?

Think again, buddy. THIS was the calendar!

When I tore off the pretty gift-paper and saw what horror lay beneath, I screamed -- and he laughed and laughed. "It comes with stickers!" he crowed. Oh, yes, it comes with stickers -- 75 nauseatingly cute, little pink Hello Kitty stickers. There you have it -- the first Hello Kitty monstrosity of 2008.

With friends like Il Barista, I don't need enemies! (And La Parisienne was in on it, I know!)

You want a war of cute? It's ON.

Funny Video of the Day: JibJab's Review of 2007

The humorists at JibJab have done it again with their musical retrospective of 2007.

Go and enjoy!

Looking Back at 2007

Welcome to a new blog home!

Let's start a new year by looking back at the year that was. It did go by so quickly!

MM's Person of the Year:
Time magazine's choice of Vladimir Putin as its Person of the Year has caused quite a stir. Admittedly, the choice rests on influence, not on whether that influence was positive or not.

I have my own choice for Person of the Year: I give you . . . General David Petraeus.

Honorable mention must go to the late, great professor Liviu Librescu.

A Year in the News:
What are your picks for most important news stories of the year?
The UK-Iran captured-sailors incident? The debut of the world's most famous polar bear cub? The EU's 50th birthday? The Don Imus snafu? Virginia Tech? The rise of Sarkozy in France? The wretched immigration bill that blew up in May-June? Tainted goods from China -- with poisonous lead in almost everything? Major war games in Taiwan with jet fighters on Sun Yat-sen Freeway? Enormous doping scandal at the Tour de France? The Live Earth concert madness? Petraeus's surge in Iraq? The assassination of Benazir Bhutto? The Spice Girls reunion as a sign of the coming apocalypse? The start of the fractious political horse race for the 2008 U.S. Presidency? The debut of the iPhone? The end of the Harry Potter saga? The self-parody of Al Gore and the Nobel Peace Prize? Bobby Jindal winning the Louisiana governor's election? The famous King Juan Carlos smackdown of Hugo Chavez? "Don't tase me, bro"? More rioting in Paris? Lee Myung-bak's new role as South Korea's president? The Frankenstein-like revival of the EU Constitution? Libel lawsuits by Arabs against academic presses in the UK and US? The baseball scandal? Oh, and news that didn't deserve to be news -- every single, stupid, degrading celebrity "story" that sullied the airwaves through the entire year.

The Best of MM in 2007:
This is quite a load of self-referential tripe, I'm afraid, but it might be fun to look back at 2007 in the blog. These aren't news links, per se. These are my picks from Quirky Asia Files, Quirky Euro Files, and various nerd notes. Here's a glance back at a year of rants, laughter, thoughts, and concerns.

January

• China's pork-flavored postage stamps
• A pig-free, politically correct Chinese New Year?
• Germany's monster bunnies
  
• Teaching Brits to use French gestures
• Courtesy and rudeness in Euro circles -- a big blog discussion

February

• Japanese eggs = ad space
• Pro-Shakespeare rant -- keep the Bard in the classroom!
• China: bulldozing history
• French professor explains how to talk about books you've never read
• Japan: excessive karaoke can be a health hazard

March

• Hong Kong's Hello Kitty Subway Wedding
• UK nanny government (literally) -- giving babies marks for crying
• Harvard updates undergraduate curriculum
• Buy infidelity offsets!
• Defending Wilberforce
• Cute Knut!
  
• Ode to a Spell Checker
  

April

• It's been fully 25 years since the Falklands War
• Goldfish in formation swimming!
• China's rediscovery of classical music
• Darth Vader comments on cellphone courtesy
• Harvard analysis of media bias of the Israeli-Hezbollah war

May

• Rice paddies cause global warming?
• The Wordsworth daffodil rap
• Italian town bans Chinese lanterns
• The Hello Kitty Manicure
• Thoughts on female voters and female political candidates
• How a computer mouse REALLY works
• Horrifying food from China -- the first major media report in a long string this year of dangerous Chinese imports.
  
• Plus . . . "Star Wars" and the Cinema-Mad Sibling turn 30 on the same day

June

• Hungry Planet!
• Harvard research suggests "diversity" can be negative
  
• UK-Israel academic boycott mess
• Romantic rabbits cause flight delays in Milan

July

• Jogging is an un-French, right-wing activity!
• A silly song about doping at the scandal-ridden Tour de France
• I want an iPhone!
• Rubber ducky armada invades England
• Irony alert: China censors British defender of . . . China

August

• Cambridge University Press and the suppression of books
  
• (see versus Yale University Press)
  
• Guitarist of Rock Band "Queen" Finishes Astronomy PhD
• Endangered Gummy Bears
• University rankings worldwide
• Hong Kong's 9-year-old university student
• The coolest statistics you'll ever see
• China's scandal of price-fixing noodles

September

• A tale of 2 campus speakers: Larry Summers versus Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• A professor's final lecture
• Does affirmative action hurt minorities in law school?

October

• Sputnik's 50-year anniversary -- how Sputnik changed the world
• UK restaurant serves Peking-duck-style squirrel pancakes
• Berlin's museum of broken relationships

November

• A 600-year-old recipe for German bratwurst
• China: the human cost of hydropower
• Thanksgiving video fun

December

• Cloned Korean cats that glow in the dark
• Why is Harvard so expensive?
• World Bank: Chinese economy is 40% smaller than previously thought
• R.O.U.S.'s in Indonesia
• The war on cupcakes
• Some idiot thinks medieval English people were healthier than modern Brits
• The eye-poppingly bad Hello Kitty Christmas tree
• Japan's defense minister worries about Godzilla
• Egypt copyrights the pyramids
• "Beijingoism"

That was the year that was!

Blog Relaunch in January 2008!

Dear friends and gentle readers,

My blog (currently at http://madminerva.blog-city.com/) will be moving to this new address (http://madminerva.blogspot.com) on New Year's day, 2008!

Update your links, and I look forward to seeing you here for "Mad Minerva 2.0."

Best wishes,
MM