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December 26 |
We are getting ready to begin setting up for our annual live online new years party! There are many other choices available for new year's parties on new year's eve, but, this is the only one that you can celebrate in the comfort of your own home! |
December 25 |
This is Roman, the technical producer for Brent's Live New Years Show. Brent and Fred are taking the day off to celebrate Christmas and to unwrap their lumps of coal. At least being bad all year can keep you warm! |
December 23 |
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It looks like we succeeded in getting the final technical bugs worked out for our "Rising New Year's Ball!" We will be sending up a New Year's ball with a fireworks display for each and every one of the continental US time zones. We sent up a "test" New Year's ball last week in a brief test broadcast. The details came across surprisingly clearly in the streaming video test. We were extremely pleased and believe that you will be too. ABOUT THE RISING NEW YEAR'S BALL I have always thought that it was a bad idea when it was first decided that the new year's ball in Times Square should go "down" and not "up". From a marketing standpoint, it's quite clever and evil genius. Only VIPs can ever manage to get a a clear and convenient live view of the ball exactly when it hits the bottom. Wouldn't it be much better and more egalitarian if the new year were marked by the ball getting to the "top" before it lit up? This way EVERYBODY could see it equally. In a metaphorical sense, when the ball comes down it's more like we are saying goodbye to the old year rather than welcoming in the New Year. It's kind of like watching a sunset, if you will... In that case, let's accurately call it what it is -- A Happy Old Year celebration. Again, just because we've been doing something for a long time (in this case over 100 years) doesn't mean that it's still not crude and backwards. For how many centuries did doctors prescribe leaches as the treatment for hundreds of different ailments? In my own family we ate brussels sprouts for ten years after Grandma, our family matriarch, passed away. Ten years later we finally got to talking and decided that nobody really liked them and haven't choked down another brussels sprout since! So we hope that you will tune in on New Year's Eve to watch our New Year's balls which go UP and never DOWN. There is also quite an awe inspiring fireworks display in conjunction with our New Year's balls. Be a part of history in the making this year! Watch Brent's Live New Year's Show -- Home of the Rising New Year's Balls! |
December 19 |
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Dear Friends We are working like mad making last minute preparations for the show. We have received the following email more than once in the past week so I will address it here in the "news" section. "What's wrong with your countdown? Why do you have your New Year's countdown starting too soon." or
"Fix your countdowns!!!!" (apparently, more exclamation marks are useful for getting our attention) Well, the countdown isn't "broken". This is when our live new year's party for the entire world will start. The first place in the world to celebrate the New Year is Christmas Island, which is located in the Gilbert Islands of the South Pacific. So our show starts about 20 or 30 minutes before this first countdown to new years 2010 for Christmas Island. That will be 5:00 am New York Time, 2:00 am Los Angeles Time on the 31st of December. I won the coin toss this year so Fred has to wake up three hours earlier to turn on all the video, sound and lighting equipment. |
December 3 |
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We are looking for someone to take on oversight of our myspace account. We had a family friend doing it before and well, although he had the best of intentions it just never seemed to get done. Before we reassign yet another chore to our bespectacled, beleagured and b-rated Russian IT professional, Roman, I thought I might open up the search first to any fans out there that might have an interest. The last time I logged into our myspace account there were over 50 friend requests that had been left unanswered. We will do a better job in the future of answering our friend requests and sending some bloopers and other content over to the myspace Anyone interested is welcome to write me at brentATbrentslivenewyears.com (replace AT with the @ sign, of course). It would be helpful if you would put "myspace" in the subject line and provide some links to what you have done in the past. We are unable to pay you for your efforts since our show is currently non-profit (who would want to pay us for this crap, after all). But your assistance to "The Holiday Shared (more or less) Around the World" would be immeasurable. |
November 26 |
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Fred and I are absolutely stuffed after eating too much turkey. Fred was distracted while watching the football games when he had promised instead that he would be constantly basting the turkey. So we ended up with turkey that kind of fell apart in your mouth -- not because it was so tender, but because it was so freaking dry! We probably won't be able to make any turkey enchiladas this year. On the plus side, I could just put it back in the oven for another hour and we should be able to crumble it up and smoke it. Since we weren't feeling much like recording any of my new sketches that I had written we spent our time on this webpage making some small changes. Fred and I each have our own email addresses now. fredATbrentslivenewyears.com and brentATbrentslivenewyears.com. Just replace the AT with the @ symbol and it should work for you. Roman also has his own email. We will set up another page probably for anyone with technical issues that needs a little tech support on new year's eve. Our special thanks today go to our camera operator for 1) eating all the jellied cranberry sauce when it became obvious that no one else was gonna touch the stuff; and 2) for finally figuring out the cause of last year's intermittent left-channel audio glitch. We won't bore you with technical details but there is something to be said for getting into the studio a day in advance and making sure that things are working properly. We should do that! |
November 20 |
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There have been a few updates to our webpage. Roman our roaming Russian IT expert has updated our photo page. Now you can view go forwards and backwards in full view mode. Also there is an updated section that allows you to send us your own video links directly. You can't upload your videos to us directly yet, however, we are working on that for next year. And finally, a special section where you are invited to submit your own pre-recorded New Year's Toast (just like all the celebrities and politicians do nowadays anyway). If your toast is entertaining enough, we will waive the famous/infamous requirement. |
November 4 |
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Well, here we are in November about 2 months before the show. Usually about this time something comes along to kneecap us and send our page ratings plummeting into the abyss. This year’s rear-ending (NTTIAWWT) comes to us from Craig our former Fascist network administrator who deleted all of our backup content on his site without so much as a warning. Thanks Craig! I hope that Ubuntu beta continues to works for you. Thanks for teaching us all about what “throttling” means. Thanks to the clever and unexpected foresight of Roman, our roaming Russian senior network administrator, all of our old web content (flash bits and psd files were all saved onto a 10 meg HD that had to be located under several boxes of Roman’s stored and unwashed personal effects that await his next visit to America. The point is: Like a set of melamine-flavored plastic fangs with some sort of timing device, we are back again and doing what it takes to prepare for our next New Year’s Eve show. |
October 16 |
We are working here like mad trying to get ready. This means plugging things in and making sure that they still work. We hope that they do since we are a bit short of money and/or advertisers. Advertisers suck because they demand that we say nice things about them and their crappy products. Of course, if you would like your products advertised on the show; Who are we to question the wisdom of your judgment? After your check (that's cheque for our commonwealth compatriots) clears our bank we would be pleased to dodge your phone calls and provide cryptic nonresponsive answers to your emails. We are working on a surprise for this year's USA time zones. It's a kind of "New" New Year's ball. Only this one is not going to drop. It's going to go up!!! Unfortunately, we have lost the last 3 test New Year's Balls that we have sent up. Can you say "balloon boy balls"? ...Such tragedy, however, all in the name of science. We will continue to work out the technical bugs to make this happen. I promise to provide more information on how the "new" new year's ball will actually function. As our fans have come to expect, this will be high entertainment in the lowest possible fashion. |
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