THREE DAYS OF PARTYING: Part 2--Doomsday Gathering

For four thousand years, the Mayan long-count calendar indicated that at 1:11AM Hawaii time today, either the world comes to an end, or a new 7,000 year period begins, and anything in between.  So, whew, delete the doomsday extreme.

However, maybe the doomsday clock is synced to the International Dateline (which is complicated and crooked, but either 11 or 12 hours away from the Greenwich Mean Time, now officially known as the Coordinated Mean Time, in  the UK), an hour west of Hawaii.  Samoa last year arbitrarily said it would move from the east side of the Line to the west side, thus skipping 31December 2011 entirely,  That map to the left is now obsolete.  What makes it particularly confusing is that Samoa goes on daylight savings time at around the end of September, and subtracts back this hour during the first week of April.  In any case, Samoa and Honolulu today share the same time, but it is already December 22 there.  What has this got to do with the end of the world?  Nothing at all.

My final view before I left the Ala Moana Hotel:

The end or not, I had already resigned myself to raising my cholesterol level and weight during this three day period.  Yesterday, a 24 ounce Porterhouse.  Today, a Zippy's chili frank with rice and macaroni/potato salad for breakfast:

It occurred to me that, rather than bringing some truffle infused foie gras pate to Judith's and Bruce's Last Pupu and Wine Party tonight, maybe I should balance the offerings by changing to a large tub of Zippy's chili:

However, those epicurean celebrants might well react with revulsion, so I passed.

If the world survives, I will thus complete this posting after 2:11 AM Hawaii time, when 21December12 officially ends on Planet Earth.  By then our final tasting and wining extravaganza should also be over.

So I'm back from the end of world party at Judith and Bruce's fabulous home, here with Terri:

They have a panoramic view of Honolulu, and the Hilton Hawaiian Village fireworks were entertaining:

Best as I could guess, the fifteen of us drank approximately fifteen bottles of wine and champagne:

We also had lamb, foie gras, prosciutto, shrimp, meatballs, and assorted other dishes.  We saw a few shorts and the perfect movie, Last Night, which dealt with the last night before the world actually ended.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 82% "audience like" rating.  There is another movie called Last Night, but  that film just came out last year and had nothing to do with doomsday.  Our movie was released in 1998, filmed in Toronto and had an R rating,

Alas, as you're reading this, doomsday did not arrive this time.  Maybe in 7,000 years.

-