Happy (Start Of) 2008!

Whether you're out on the town or watching Dick Clark at home, New Year's Eve is a time to celebrate. And with so many of our members wishing each other a happy, safe and prosperous New Year (such as in these threads on our Art & Artists and Miscellaneous boards, from which I cribbed the utterly bizarre yet amusing picture to the right), I got to wondering how our members rang in 2008.

After doing a little digging with my handy eBay Marketplace Research tool, I found that a lot of people were partying it up. Over 2300 sets of champagne flutes were purchased in the month before New Year's, and over 3000 packages of party hats. We even had almost 300 purchases of 2008 glasses (I always wondered where people got those). But maybe we like our revelries on the quiet side - only about 400 purchases were made for noisemakers.

And some of us made plans for New Year's Day at the last second. About 140 listings for Rose Parade tickets sold last month, with the vast majority selling after December 20th. But regardless of how you spent New Year's, it looks like most people did so responsibly. Only about 45 listings for hangover prevention were needed.

Happy 2008!