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On the old-timey Roman Calendar, March 15 (tomorrow) was known as The Ides of March. I’m sure that all of you have heard the “beware the Ides of March,” (although I keep finding that I seem to grossly overestimate what people have and haven’t heard before) but might not know what it means or where it’s from.

The specific quote is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, although in that play he is quoting the “soothsayer” (weird job title, eh?) Spurinna who told Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.” To quote the Wikipedia entry, “Caesar disregarded the warning.”

What is still more extraordinary, many report that a certain soothsayer forewarned him of a great danger which threatened him on the Ides of March, and that when the day was come, as he was going to the senate-house, he called to the soothsayer, and said, laughing, “The Ides of March are come”; to which the soothsayer answered, softly, “Yes; but they are not gone.”

Of course, before the day was out, Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times (and thusly killed) by members of the Senate. Whoops!

However, today is still 3/14, which as was just brought to my attention is Pi Day (3.14). I’m immedately a huge fan of Pi Day, but only because the people who celebrate it make me look waaay less nerdy. Thanks, guys.

Of course, the biggie this week is St. Patrick’s Day, in which we celebrate the patron saint of Ireland by getting hammered and physically abusing any poor bastards who forgot to wear something green when they got dressed in the morning. Good times. This is the first year in awhile that I’ve had any specific plans for the big day, although it seems like the past few years it has always been on a weekday, which makes it slightly more difficult for me to go out boozing. I’ve never had a case of the “brown bottle flu,” but I’d still have a problem getting up in the morning if I was out all night the night before. Oh well, not an issue this time. Erin go bragh and all that.