St. Patrick's Day in Three Parts

I. "Green? Oh yeah. You know, I have a long history of playing just inside the boundaries of what you might call 'norms.' Sometimes I venture on an occasional missions outside of those boundaries too. So no "green" here."

- Me, when asked where my green was on March 17, 2008

II. "I used to think that St. Patrick's Day was an awesome day for a birthday. As a kid it made me feel special, since everyone was partying on my birthday. I'm sure a lot of holiday babies feel like that, maybe not the Christmas kids. I feel like Christmas would overshadow your birthday and make a person feel even less special... what with competing with JC and what not. But what do I know. I'm not a birthdayologist and it isn't something I've put too much thought into, I do feel that St. Patrick's Day is not the best holiday for an adult that likes to go get drunk on his birthday. I mean, everyone in the world is out getting as drunk as you. It's kind of awful. All of your drinks are died green. All white people are suddenly "Irish" and It's like, who knew how many fucking baseball fans there were in the world until you go around Baltimore on St. Patrick's Day. So many baseball kids in green with these ridiculous giant beer shaped hats or one of those big green and white "Cat in the Hat" hats... I mean... WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? Why do these people love to were those Dr. Seuss hats. Jesus... and "pimp" hats. They love that shit. And these beads... these Mardi Gras beads. Someone Decided that people can just start using these beads for ANY occasion as long as they are color coded to that holiday? This is just getting stupid. Women... PLEASE STOP SHOWING YOUR BOOBS TO DUDES FOR PLASTIC PARTY BEADS. Or don't... I don't know why I get so worked up sometime. And PEOPLE! STOP WEARING CROQS. That has nothing to do with anything else in this thread, but seriously. I'M SICK OF SEEING GROWN UPS PARADING AROUND SHAMELESSLY IN SLIP ON RUBBER NEON ORANGE FOOTWEAR. GET SOME SOCKS. COVER YOUR GNARLEY-ASS TOES SOMETIME KTHNX."

- Chase Lisbon on his birthday, March 17, 2008


III. "Well, this is how the first day at my new job was, as best as I can describe. I was supposed to have a meeting with the owners today to finalize everything, discus pay and all that. But at around 2:00 they said, “shut it all down, we're going out for St. Patrick's day!” During the final interview a few weeks ago, the big guy, Colin with the Irish accent asked me "Do you smoke marijuana or drink to excess?" I said, hahhahaha, uh, "no?" He said, well, do you drink at all? I says, well, sure, sometimes. The tall lanky guy, Bill, asks if I've ever been arrested and "what sign are you?" That's strange, I thinks, and the whole time I have a small terrier on my lap. So today, at 2:00 we go to the bar on the river front area and between the six of us (then, Bill's girlfriend arrives, the seven of us) we have about $450 in beer and shots. This is me, the big guy with the Irish accent, Bill the tall lanky guy, the editor who is training me who will be leaving to fulfill his army reserve stuff who I'll be replacing, Gina the receptionist and Mike the general all around guy, and for some reason the guys are trying to figure out how many pints of beer are in a gallon, forever, and Gina and I are looking at each other like, huh? And then they're using their fancy internet phones to make the calculations, and I say my phone can do the same thing, and take out my very un-fancy phone, and tell them that I can call someone who knows the answer and they're laughing, and I'm doing pretty well entertaining them subtly and not getting in trouble by saying stupid drunken shit, and at one point the big guy jokes about me hitting on the tall lanky guy's girlfriend and I start telling them the story about how I once had a job for one day until I went out to celebrate St. Patrick's day with them, then the big guy with the Irish accent tries to make me think that he wants me to pay the bill, of course I know he's kidding but he doesn't know that, I guess, and I says, well I just started a new job and I don't really have the money to pay for it, but I'd be happy to take them all out after my three month anniversary and treat them, and I seem to have passed some sort of test or something, then we all go to another bar, I figure I should go because I don't want to be the new guy who can't hang with the crowd, and the tall lanky guy's girlfriend starts saying to me "you know, they've been looking a long time for someone like you" and the Bill tells her to stop saying too much to me and they keep saying "you know it's not always like this" and to them it's funny that this is my first day because it's unusual and everything, but to me it's just normal to have unusual things happen. So it went pretty well, I guess."

- Small Jim Gym on his first day at work on March 17, 2008