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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.

A few weeks ago I stopped into the drug store near my work to pick up a couple packs of gum, and as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I noticed a large (probably about 6′x4′) sign posted in the grass at the rear entrace of the Taco Bell across the street. This is pretty much what it looked like:

I don’t know if I’m just a bastard or what, but it immediately struck me as hilarious. But then I started wondering more about it, specifically the reasoning behind the placement of the sign. Does Barbara work at Taco Bell? Does she just eat there a lot? [Note: if any of you want to make a sign like that for me, that’s a good place to put it, as I go to that Taco Bell pretty frequently.] Will she just be driving past the sign on her way home? Does this guy work at Taco Bell, and that’s why he was able to post the sign there? And what did he do that was so bad that he had to get a sign custom-printed and stuck outside the BACK ENTRANCE of a fast food restaurant to advertise his penitence? If I had more time I would taken a picture of it, because it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Ah, well - I hope those crazy kids made up and had a good Valentine’s Day, even though they clearly have no long-term potential. Whatever he did, she’ll never be able to completely forgive him for it.