Italian Line Cruise Ships - No brawling.

The offices of GO! Tower have been mighty quiet lately, with all the staffers off for the holidays. It warms my heart to know that in less than a day our carpet will be another year out of style. I am pleased. Today is Arbitrary Slightly Bigger Year Number Day Eve, or as you probably call it, New Year's Eve. You probably have some kind of plan to hoist a glass or bucket with one or more friends. I wonder what percentage of the world population starts each year with a blood alcohol level of zero? Anyway, I won't. That's for sure. I'm not going into the city to stand in a packed crowd of drunk people that can only move vertically, then to drive home in a 20-mile four wheel power slide and wake up behind the wheel in my own living room, assuming I didn't get into a drunken fight with a stranger and ride home in a cab, ankle deep in several inches of shared vomit. That's for extra sure.

What I will be doing is having a couple of local friends over to drink in my basement bar, The Vista Del Mar lounge. After, I'll wobble upstairs and fall into bed. My guests will have less than a mile to drive home. In all likelihood, I'll face six inches of snow to clear tomorrow morning with a bit of a headache. Ah well.

You know what would interest me, as far as public parties go? A civilized new year's eve event on an Italian Line cruise ship in 1936. See? Civilized!

Apparently, there was a time when going to a party meant wearing a tux and having room to stretch your legs, and being all grand and stuff. Of course, this is an ad, and as such, is a view into a pretend world of fiction and lies.

Still, if you went to a New Year's Eve party on an Italian Line cruise ship way back then, you probably stand almost no chance of being punched, or being called "bro" by a guy with droopy eyelids and spittle at the corner of his mouth... unless you'd broken into the Dowager Empresses state room and stolen her crown jewels. Then there's all those icebergs to dodge, or else face becoming a romantic historical disaster.That's just not cricket.

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