Happy New Year

In a few minutes or so, the new year will start to be ushered into the United States.  Those of you outside the United States, especially in countries with only one time zone, may not understand this next part.  But it's something I've always wondered about.

At the end of every year, a crystal ball drops in Times Square in New York City to help count down to the new year.  It's fun, and it's a festive atmosphere.  It's a time of celebration and a time to look forward to new opportunities and experiences.

The problem is that, as many of you know, I live in St. Louis, which is one hour later than the East Coast of the United States.  I remember in 1999-2000 because people were celebrating the new millennium, and then again in 2001-2002, because people were trying to move past 9/11, New Year's celebrations were televised live for each time zone in the United States.  However, the usual practice of most television networks is that they broadcast the ball drop live on the East Coast, and then rebroadcast it in each time zone when midnight strikes.  Here's the main issue: watching it here in the Midwest takes away from the excitement, knowing that the ball drop is not live, and that we're getting the retreads from New York.  It's a little anti-climactic, when 12:00 AM on New Year's Day is supposed to be, again, fun and festive.  That's why you see everybody with their friends, hanging out, kissing...

Actually, now that I've brought that up, I've spent more years at home watching the ball drop by myself.  It's kind of lonely.  And I've never had a New Year's kiss either, so those shots of couples kissing at midnight kind of rubs it in.  Thing is I can never find a group to hang out with for some reason.  As to why, well, that topic is for another day.

I'm sure the lonesomeness adds to the lack of excitement for me (my ex-girlfriend decided to ditch me for her friends one year and said I wasn't invited to the party, for example, when we were dating).  Anyway, I've always been curious as to why networks can't just show a New Year's celebration live for each time zone.  It would be cool to see something different every hour instead of the same old ball drop every year.

Update (12:03 AM CST): So this year in St. Louis, the Fox station broadcast the New York celebrations on tape delay to coincide with midnight here.  The ABC station broadcast live programming, but doesn't mention New Year's CST.  All other stations broadcast programming that doesn't even mention New Year's.  I feel so insignificant.  The Midwest is definitely flyover country, unfortunately.