Saturday 5 December 2009

Fireworks and Christmas Lights - two big light ups that really get me down

If there is one thing that Christmas and New Year have in common, it's big lights, both of which I generally find really annoyingly expensive and a waste of money and energy. Yeah, I'm the New Year and Christmas Grinch, rolled into one.

I saw an article on the news recently about this Australian house thta has about a million household lights and decorations outside it. The darn thing looks garish and it makes me sick. What I find repulsive about this is a) the expense and b) the wasted energy.

I'm not a rampant greenie by any stretch of the imagination, but heck, why do you want to blow out your bill like that? What's even more stupid is the way I bet you that Today Tonight will run one of those feel good stories abotu how much Christmas Cheer this guy has - it would be un-PC to suggest anything else - and then pretty soon afterwards run a story abouthow we can all energy save around the house. Tip No. 1 - turn off all those bloody lights!

Then the guy admitted that he spent $100,000 on Christmas decorations. What? He could have bought another house for that much and instead he opted for some tacky light-me-up talking reindeer?

But $100,000 on decorations is a drop in the ocean compared to NYE fireworks. Fireworks have to be the biggest waste yet. I can't see the point of them, the best place to watch them is on your TV screen and that being the case they ought to hire some graphic designers to do a cool display using CGI or something and save a whole heap of money.

No, instead we have to spend millions each year stringing stuff up on the bridge that gets blown up in a few seconds and goes up in pretty colours and then disappears. Its only use is to attract people in droves outdoors so they can piss and get pissed and leave broken glass and urine all over the place. Not to mention that fireworks are rather dangerous too.

Later on someone will complain about how we don't have enough money for this or that and you can go back to those pics you have of fireworks on NYE and watch how those millions of dollars got blown up. Wouldn't it be nice if the govt could say instead they were going to do something actually useful with the money, like we decided to buy books for schools or donate it to research or looking after a museum or something instead of blowing it up over a bridge?

And if they did announce that, it's very likely people would whinge about the Mayor not having the right New Year spirit.

5 comments:

Dan the VespaMan said...

I think you might find there are many people who think similarly to you Maria. Xmas and New Years tends to throw society into mass madness for a few weeks.

Best just to ride it out.

JahTeh said...

Good to read that I'm not the only Grinch that hates fireworks and the waste of money. I'm old enough to remember bonfire nights which terrified me. The boys used to throw these little exploding things under my feet, horrible. Tim T would probably be an expert on these.

TimT said...

Nah, I was a pusillanimous little wretch and I wouldn't have done anything like that to olders, who represented the voice of terrifying authority. I only remember being rude to adults once - when my older brother and his mate Nigel showed me some rude graffiti on the wall and made me go around shouting it out at adults. That worked well until I accidentally did it to a teacher. I got pulled aside by the headmaster after assembly the next day, and I was absolutely shamefaced and repentant.

I remember firecracker night, it was a blast, literally and figuratively. Then I remember when firecracker night was banned and we all had fun going about grizzling about governments who ban firecracker nights.

Lad Litter said...

Love the TV CGI idea. Almost Leunig-like! I hate ostentatious christmas light-ups. Imagine moving in in July and finding out everyone in your new street does it. Brrrrr!

Anonymous said...

What the individual does with his money is his business. Personally, I love driving around looking at the Christmas lights every December.

The real grinches are the State Government and the greedy energy departments what are raising the prices by 64%, that no-one in their right mind will want to bear the costs during the jolly season. Or any other time for that matter.

Never been a big New Years nut though.