Well, the Year of the Fire Pig has officially started, preceded by an unrelenting barrage of firecrackers Saturday afternoon as local businesses and properties made offerings at their spirit houses and exploding firecrackers to scare away any bad spirits before the start of the new year.  Those things are loud and up on the 25th floor we could hear them from buildings all around us.

To start the year off right, we had friends over for dinner last night.  Unfortunately, I suffered a number of accidents and mishaps all evening long: I burned my wrist on a hot pan and then my hand when lighting a candle; stumbled over a chair; and overturned a creme brulee.  Not particularly fortuitous for the year to come.

For whatever reason, butane is difficult to find here.  Tawn stopped at a half-dozen shops yesterday and had no luck finding any, so I had to use the broiler in my convection oven to brulee the creme.  It didn’t work very well.  I think I saw butane at Central Chidlom so will go back there today or tomorrow and stock up.

As for the Year of the Pig, here’s the forecasts for the year to come for me and Tawn from the Hong Kong Tourism Authority’s website:

Year of the Rabbit (Tawn): Good prospects and fortune await “bunnies” in a well-aspected, happy year when you make positive progress.  You’ll be as popular as ever among your wide circle of friends and family.  Love lives are also promising in such a memorable year.  Work is also encouraging, but try being bolder in promoting your skills.  Stay alert for opportunities and for most of a rewarding year you’ll hopping around delightedly.

Year of the Dog (Chris): Man’s best fried can relax.  The calmer pace of the Year of the Pig is much to the liking of over-anxious dogs, who tend to fret under pressure.  Much headway can be made by capitalising on opportunities, with your characteristic loyalty highly appreciated and rewarded.  Your “pack” at home will appreciate your considerate nature in a satisfying and often exciting year.

These horoscopes really don’t tell me anything useful.  Who writes these things?  Oh, the tourism authority.  Right, that explains it.

Let me try my hand at making some predictions for my year to come.  We can look back at them in one year’s time and see how they turned out:

This will be a year of change, leading towards eventually settling down.  After much searching, you will make a large investment.  Uncertainty about career will be cleared up as longer-term arrangements are made.  Extended family will face obstacles in which some resolution is reached, but the year will end with some issues unresolved.

How’s that sound?  Self-fulfilling enough?  Especially when you consider that Tawn and I have been going condo hunting pretty much every weekend.

This story about students at my alma matta from the AP via the San Jose Mercury News:

Outrage over college theme party accused of mocking Hispanics

Saturday, February 17, 2007 – Santa Clara, Calif. (AP) —

A “South of the Border” theme party has stirred outrage at a Silicon Valley university after students showed up at the bash dressed as Hispanic janitors, gardeners, gangbangers and pregnant teens.

Photographs from the private, off-campus party organized by Santa Clara University students in late January appeared on the Internet soon afterward, prompting an outcry on campus.

One image shows a partygoer with a balloon stuffed under her shirt, making her appear pregnant. In another, a woman wears pink rubber cleaning gloves and carries a feather duster.

“A lot of people have the idea that Mexicans or Latin Americans are all like that, and that’s wrong,” said Nadine Rasch, 18, a finance major from Guatemala, who did not attend the party.

Paul Locatelli, president of the nearly 8,400-student Jesuit university, has condemned the party. No students have been disciplined, but a campus spokeswoman said the school is investigating the party and that the university’s code of conduct extends to students who live off-campus.

A protest march organized by students attracted 250 people Tuesday, and the campus has held meetings and plans a forum for this Thursday.

What an embarrassment.  I can’t believe that something like this would happen in this day and age, especially in the Bay Area. I’ll be writing to the student newspaper to express my shame at being affiliated with SCU.