Green Day

[Arcdelad]

no no no...not the sellout band, although Dookie did play an instrumental role in my sophomore year in high school...

Im referring to this day: 

My wife works as HR director in a 5-star hotel in downtown chi town that sits right by the river...saturday morning she recieved a call from work that required her to go in, and later that evening she had to attend a latino / latina black tie event that my wifes hotel chain sponsered...

so...I stuffed the kids into their snow suits, jumped into my car, and went downtown to drop my wife off at work....for those who dont know, st. patty's day is a big deal in chicago...they dye the chicago river GREEN and have a massive parade...

just how massive a parade it was becoming came abundantly clear to me as lines and lines of  wearing,  drinking swarmed my car, clogged intersections, waved to my kids in a drunken stupor, and turned the 5 minute drive from wacker to the dan ryan into a 30 minute nightmare...people were literally staggering around, crowds of similarly clad groups were chanting and putting people on top of other peopls shoulders, kids being gobbled up by what seemed like thousands of people, and scantily clad women all over the place (okay...that part I didnt mind so much)...

i guess thats okay...but two things jump out at me: 1) people get crazy when they congregate in mobs...Im not a pysch person nor do I have a degree in sociology, but it is very evident that when people are in large group settings some kind of rational behavior override kicks in....I wonder if the same thing happens in 40 man raids... 2) isnt st patty's day a catholic religious holiday? somehow we managed to morph a religious holiday into an excuse for getting completely wasted, while simultaneously solidifying the steroetype of the drunk irish guy...i cant WAIT for us to tackle easter next...

[Drygioni]

I dont know how religious St Paddy's (Paddy being the short form for the male Patrick, Patty being the female Patricia) day ever was. Its celebration marks the day patron saint of Ireland St. Patrick rid the country of its rat problem. Many here in Canada(mostly drunks ) are pushing for it to be a stat holiday here like in Ireland. Of course in Ireland its a week long event now.


and..... Mob mentality can be a dangerous thing. remember the school yard? lol


and and ......as for Green Day, pick up "Warning" in my opinion their best record 

[Shadowwolf]

and and ......as for Green Day, pick up "Warning" in my opinion their best record 

Insert shameless record store plug above, hehe.

St. Patricks day, is basically "supposed" to be an honoring of the passing of St Patrick the patron St of Ireland. He supposedly did a great deal of work in the AD era in coverting the pagans there to Christianity. He was basically a Catholic missionary in Ireland during the 300-400 AD time frame.

The holiday is originally a holy day, but through eons and generations of twisting and ignorance, its become a festival excuse to get drunk and spew chunks all night. Where this turn for the worse happened im not sure, but it became a holiday in the US before the country was even declared a country and originally celebrations started in Boston.

This holiday corruption is no different then most every holiday now a days. Look at Easter, supposed to be a religious holiday for Christians celebrating Jesus, somehow a rabbit got thrown in there and eggs being hidden from little kids and lots of chocolate.

[Arcdelad]

lol...love that comic...funny stuff shadow

[Kothnok]

holidays are funny like that... love the comic! lol

[Jandris]

Holidays around here are simply drinking days. We have this lovey thing called pub jumping where you pay a set fee and you can visit all the bars, nightclubs, pubs etc, without paying the cover charge to get in. There is a street in Phila called South Street - it is mostly bars & jewelry stores - and you can be totally wasted before the sun even sets. It has gotten so bad that the city had to put a curfew on the bars so that the "fun" doesn't start until noon. Mardi Gras got so bad that the police ran out of holding cells for all the women they arrested for flashing their breasts. Like your wife, for me it is just another work day. To think I used to enjoy the holidays .....

[Zario]

Arc, you probably saw my sister-in-law...sorry about that.  She's on spring break and went into the city with a few friends that live down town.  Long story short, she had an uber-crazy meltdown and my in-laws had to drive down from Milwaukee at 1 am to drag her rear end home.  It's probably a good thing, since her friends were saying she was trying to "walk home" to Milwaukee. 

Welcome to the Midwest!!   

[Luise]

Well I still enjoy holidays (comes from "Holy Days" - religious feast days). And not everyone has them as drinking days. Our Church is always packed for Christmas and Easter.

St Patrick allegedly drove all the snakes out of Ireland- never heard about rats.
:clovers:The three leafed clover was used by St Patrick to teach the people about the Trinity- 3 Persons, 1 God.
Often a saints feast day was chosen on the day they died.

As for eating chocolate eggs- the nuns taught us that they are a symbol of New Life in Christ.

Often the church introduced a Christian feast day on a date close to a pagan festival- the bunny rabbit is a leftover of that (I think it was a fertility celebration of some sort- for Spring). So the people celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, but kept some of their old traditions from the pagan festivities.

[Shadowwolf]

Somewhere along the line tho the    began hiding the  's.

[Kothnok]

Maybe that's the answer to the question about the chicken and the egg?

The  came first from a  ! 

[Drygioni]

hey Shadow, its not like I said "pick up the Green Day "Warning" record for $9.99cdn" from http://www.beatgoeson.com now shipping worldwide! 


although i suppose i could...


and yes, Luise you are correct. it was snakes, not rats.

[Arcdelad]

buy...music? what an odd concept....

[Vengeance]

lol