MARINES, PARATROOPERS, AND THE PEACEFUL IRISH

Blogson Mike the Marine of From the Halls to the Shores has posted a review of the movie Gunner Palace - along with a review of the movie theater he saw it in and the people who watched the movie with him, which is at least as good of a read as the movie review itself, and includes lines like:

And then there were your burned out hippies... the kind that take as much pride in the "Kerry '04" bumper stickers on their Volvos as they do in the "Mondale/Ferraro '84" stickers that are still there as well.

This is the kind of post that demonstrates why I wanted this guy to get his own blog in the first place.

Now, Matty O'Blackfive has been raving about how wonderful this movie is for months (as Mike points out in his post). So why haven't I said anything until now? Why haven't I linked any of Matty's reviews?

Because I suspected him of blogging sober.

And when Matty's sober, he starts talking like a liberal. "Save the whales!", "No blood for oil!", "Do it for the children!". A tragic affliction, which he normally controls via medication.

So for all *I* knew, Gunner Palace could've been as evil as Fahrenheit 9/11.

The moral of the story:

Never trust a sober Irishman.

Meanwhile, it IS St. Patrick's Day, so I figured I should share a few:

Ireland has long been famous for the crabby temperament of its inhabitants, and used to be called Angerland, until St. Patrick realized that "ire" is a MUCH more sophisticated-sounding word.

The symbol of Ireland is the Shamrock. Which used to be called the "Samrock", but the new pronunciation quickly took over, since that's how a liquored-to-the-gills Irishman would pronounce it, anyway.

The Irish are clever and inventive people who are popularly credited with inventing several different types of bar soap, none of which they've been able to sell to France.

Which really sucks because France is upwind of Ireland.

The first Irishman in America, Paddy O'Tatertot, was also the man who built Notre Dame college and started it's legendary football program. This caused the mass immigration of the Irish to America in the late 1800's, as they all wanted to see this union of the two best aspects of their home country - devout religion and open-field brawling.

Another important symbol of Ireland is hardwood cudgel known as the "shillelagh". Which used to be called a "Sahlay", but changed for same reason as the Samrock.

Ireland is a land filled with verdent green grasslands. Plants grow well there because of the soil's incredibly high content of organic minerals, which come from the Irish peeing all over the place as they stagger from pub to pub.

The Irish choose their leader by having a drinking contest where the contenders match each other - drink for drink - until there's only one man left standing, who is then declared President.

The election of 1324 continues to this day.

Matty O'Blackfive is the current leader.