St Patrick's Day

[Bella_Vixen]

Personally, the 'amateur Irish' annoy me.

As a friend of mine said - holidays like this are amateur drinking time. Pros take the day off (well, stay home and drink).

Quoted for truth.

[Elspeth]

We are going out for a little drinking and a lot of soccer for St Patrick's day. It is the home opener for the Sounders (soccer)

Let that sink in. They are having our home opener of a soccer team on St Patrick's Day. The beer will flow. So glad we have decided not to drive around that day. Taking the ferry across the water.

[Jester]

Most of the people who go out drinking on St. Patrick's day are drunken yahoos.

As one of the drunken yahoos in question, I have to say, if you've never done it, and you want to, go for it. Have fun! Enjoy yourself! See life from the other side of the green bar this year! Something tells me you won't get out of control. Not so sure about me....

I plan to hold a quiet get-together with some old friends Bailey's, Jamesons and Guinness.

CAR BOMBS!!!!

As a friend of mine said - holidays like this are amateur drinking time. Pros take the day off (well, stay home and drink).

As a professional drunk myself, I have to slightly disagree with you. A lot of the pros DO, in fact, stay home. But some of us need to be out there to show the amateurs and beginners how it's done.

I am actually not sure what I'm going to be doing this year. I have both the holiday and the day after off, as part of my normal schedule, which is good. I know several of my friends are going out. Some are doing the organized pub crawl, some are making their own. I am torn between doing the official organized one with the one group, or doing the make-our-own with the second group, or just doing my own thing. Right now I am leaning towards a combination of A and C, as my friend Photo Dude, the ringleader of Group B, can be a real asshole when he's drunk.

A few things I WILL be doing.

Every year for St. Patty's Day, I have my drinking checklist. At some point during the day, I will have at least one of each of the following four things: a Guinness, a Smithwick's, a Harp, and an Irish Car Bomb.

Also, I plan on starting off the day with an Irish Breakfast at the non-downtown Irish pub (as opposed to the two downtown Irish pubs), as they have an awesome Irish breakfast which includes the black and white pudding (that the other two do not), and it is on my way downtown. And I will be riding my bike downtown, rather than driving, in case anyone was wondering. Even though riding a bike with a giant Guinness hat is not that easy, I will manage it. (Wouldn't be the first time I rode a few miles with a giant hat on my head!)

Also, my newest favorite bar, a tiny six-seater bar in a bait and tackle shop (I'm serious), which has the island's cheapest beers (including some really tasty ones for very little), is rumored to have some amazing corned beef and cabbage that day. Now, they don't normally serve food there--it IS a marine shop, after all!--but apparently every year on St. Pat's, two Irish friends of the owner whip up their own home-cooked corned beef and cabbage specifically for the customers of the bait shop. I have to try it. Especially since I've been told that it's even better than the CB&C at the non-downtown Irish pub--which as the best CB&C I've ever had.

But I do hope to try to keep my drunken idiocy in check this year, and just enjoy the holiday. I plan on perhaps even pacing myself, which is not the easiest thing to do on pub crawls.

We'll see.

[Cat]

CRML, if you do go out, have fun seeing the other side!

Tomorrow I am heading to the aquarium to pet some penguins, then seeing my fave band play some Irish tunes (no Danny Boy). Then, top the night off with a replay of the Revs game.

I predict a great night. And a thank you in advance to all the awesome bartenders!

[Dilorenzo]

an awesome Irish breakfast which includes the black and white pudding

Curse you! NOWHERE around here has black and white pudding, NOWHERE, and gods do I ever want some. My wife had to go and watch the How It's Made for the blood pudding and I was salivating...

Damn you and your plans to have a better Paddys day than me. (Yes, seriously all it takes).

[firecat88]

My plans for tomorrow are the same as they have been all week: Make fun of the Irish Music station on Music Choice for being so horribly cliche (do we really need 10 different covers of Danny Boy and When Irish Eyes Are Smiling to be played every other hour?) and listen to the good stuff like Flogging Molly, Gaelic Storm, RUNA, and Celtic Woman (why, yes, my playlist does have everything from Altan to the Young Dubliners). Also, there will fish and chips involved. Or, at least, I'm hoping there will be. Otherwise, I know a good recipe for colcannon.

It'll be weird, though. O.o This'll be my...first or second St. Patrick's Day since I started college that wasn't on a school day.

[Redbeard]

The wife and I?
Boondock Saints, Guiness and a bottle of Jamesons.
It's the simple things in life, like ultraviolence and booze that make me happy.

[Giggle Goose]

Hey, what do you have against us drunken yahoos?

I have the day off too and actually am on spring break from school...so the fiance and I are going to visit a friend in Savannah, GA. I pretty much have no choice but to partake in the festivities. I'm a wine sipper but I pick one day a year to go out and get completely shit-faced, annihilated drunk. No time like the present!

[dragon_wings]

The wife and I?
Boondock Saints, Guiness and a bottle of Jamesons.
It's the simple things in life, like ultraviolence and booze that make me happy.

Dammit! How did I forget about the awesomeness of Boondock Saints? I close that night and open the next morning so I probably won't do anything. But I might be willing to risk the exhaustion and sleep deprivation to stay up and watch Boondock Saints.

[Becks]

I have to work for three hours, and I'll be cursing every single person who decides to get their corned beef and cabbage fix by getting a Rueben.

[Merriweather]

Depends on how you feel about green beer, LOL.

I have to admit, we kinda hit the ultimate in St. Patrick's Days several years ago, nothing we could do now could be impressive. We actually managed to spend St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.

Wasn't all that impressed with the drinking, loved the music, but high point for me was seeing the Book of Kells.

[Jester]

Damn you and your plans to have a better Paddys day than me. (Yes, seriously all it takes).

I will take more curses like this, thank you very much. And your St. Patty's Day is only as good or bad as you allow it to be. So if you want to have a great one, get out there and have a great one. Since I have decided to kinda make my own day, rather than do the organToog off and get in the shower, than casually ride down to the nondowntown Irish pub for my Irish breakfast and a couple of Harps, then into the breach I shall go! Some friends of mine are making their own crawl, allegedly....I'm sure I'll catch up with them. Another couple of friends are going diving, and then will catch up with me later. To each their own. Only guaranteed of the day is that I will have a blast.

I wonder if I'll see my one friend, who is quite literally the epitome of Irish: she's a gorgeous redhead with green eyes, whose name is Kathleen, and whose birthday is TODAY. Can you GET any more Irish than THAT?

I have the day off too and actually am on spring break from school...so the fiance and I are going to visit a friend in Savannah, GA.

By all accounts, Savannah has the biggest St. Patty's Day celebrations in the South, and one of the biggest in the country, if not the world. Should be fun. I am actually jealous of you!

[KiaKat]

The restaurant across the street has decided to hit up *every* stereotype about bars on St. Paddy's Day. $2 pints of green beer, faux-Irish music, and, just to round it out, BAGPIPES.

Not Irish Pipes. Highland. Idiots. All the servers are in green tshirts, there are green balloons scattered around, and they have green-and-white tinsel left over from Christmas wrapped around the railing.

I make no secret out of my dislike for this particular establishment. It's the bastion of the Lowest Common Denominator.

[firecat88]

The restaurant across the street has decided to hit up *every* stereotype about bars on St. Paddy's Day. $2 pints of green beer, faux-Irish music, and, just to round it out, BAGPIPES.

Not Irish Pipes. Highland. Idiots. All the servers are in green tshirts, there are green balloons scattered around, and they have green-and-white tinsel left over from Christmas wrapped around the railing.

I make no secret out of my dislike for this particular establishment. It's the bastion of the Lowest Common Denominator.

Wow. Just...wow. O.o Reminds me of the woman on Cupcake Wars who put fortune cookie and takeout box decorations on her cupcakes for Chinese New Year

[Jester]

The day was awesome in every way BUT culinarily.

The Irish Breakfast was not available at the first pub, as they were doing a limited menu to ease the pressure on the kitchen. So I let the server talk me into the Irish Stew. Which was beyond terrible. Looked like a bowl of brown gruel with some lumpy mashed potatoes thrown on top. Tasted about the same. My friends liked their Irish Stew, but I wonder about them. Even they admitted it was somewhat bland. To the pub's credit the fries with brown gravy that we got were spectacular. Seriously yummy. And I am not much of a fry guy.

I don't know why the stew was so bad. Normally this place has killer food. I DO know that I never eat at my favorite downtown Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day, because their food, while normally awesome, suffers horribly on this day, even with them running the limited menu they do (since they are so completely overrun). So maybe the same thing happened to this pub, or maybe the cooks were just overwhelmed. I do know that last year on this day was when I first tried their corned beef and cabbage, and it was beyond awesome, so I can't figure out what the issue was. Oh well....

The corned beef and cabbage that I got at the bait shop, that had been so talked up by the owner....was good. Very good. It was not, however, great. The first pub where I wanted to get the Irish Stew still has by far the best corned beef and cabbage I've ever had. Not just in Key West, mind you. In my entire life.

Later in the night, for dinner we hit the killer sports bar down here, and I had their ridiculously massive ahi tuna salad, which is about the size of my head. And I ate the whole damn thing.

The rest of the day was fun, hanging out with various friends at various bars, including partying or getting drinks to go from every one of the four Irish establishments down here. And I completed my St. Patrick's Day checklist that I have ever year, having at least one of each of the following: Harp (had 2), Guinnes, Smithwick's (had at least 2 that I remember) and an Irish Car Bomb. And the great thing about the car bomb was that my one friend had never had one, so we devirginized her on that count.

And I was at at least 10 different bars that I can count in my head, 11 if you include the one place we just got to go drinks from. But I'm sure I'm missing one or two.

Needless to say, I have quite the hangover today! But I will fight it by going back to where it all started yesterday, the New Town Irish pub, and getting the Irish breakfast I was denied yesterday. Yay!