Hung over and taking over the world.

Last Friday as we all know was good old Saint Patty’s day. I time when people claim to be Irish, dress up in ridiculous outfits, maybe watch a parade, but generally drink into excess. According to the History channel it was always this way, St. Patty’s day was originally a sober day where the Irish conscripts in the British army stationed in New York marched to show there solidarity for the plight of their brothers back on the green isle. However that is no longer the case. Every city in America, most in Ireland, and apparently now in Australia have parades, parties, and drunken mobs celebrating the Saint that brought Catholicism to Ireland.

Now I am part Irish. How much, well I really am unsure of that, but my grandfather was fond of claiming he was black Irish so that is good enough for me. This year I went with a group of people on a party bus. I only knew 3 of the 40 or soon the bus but that was fine with me. It was a fund raiser of sorts which I actually just find amusing (the money for the bus went to charity). KS and myself met up with ML and his GF – RB was working an overnight and could not come – at Bennegan’s in St. Louis Park and caught the bus there. Most people had had a couple and the ride was quite fun as there where plenty of adult beverages floating around. The bus only took us to two stops; a couple of bars in St. Paul.

I don’t remember the first bars name. It looked very small from the outside but the building had been added onto several times so it went much further back than you could have guessed from the street. It was absolutely packed. There must have been 3 to 4 hundred people in the bar. They really were only selling beer so that is all we drank. It was a lot of fun. I forgot how funny a large group of people consuming can be. The atmosphere was very similar to that at a rock show, just a lot of positive energy. The second bar was Gabe’s by the park. We actually walked there because we didn’t want to leave when the bus did and it was only four blocks. By the time we got to Gabe’s the party was winding down so we actually just had some water, hung out for 40 minutes or so, and got back on the bus.

Even though I didn’t think I had had that much I was a little hung over the next day. That morning I drove down to Apple Valley to get a haircut, stopped by the office to pick up a few odds and ends, then just went home to vedge-out. For the first time in I don’t know how many years just felt like playing video games. So I did, for like 5 hours. I few weeks ago to make plane time more passable I found one of my old favorites, Sid Meyer’s Civilization. It’s a very basic game graphically and the logic is fairly simple but it was one of the first to really have a good strategy setup. By comparison to today’s games there isn’t a lot going on. You are the ruler of a country and have to lead that country through history. You win by either taking over the world or being so far advanced that you can send people to colonize another world.

The way I always play is to sit around low with out causing a lot of trouble and building several well supported cities and really hammer out the knowledge base. Then when I am a hundred years ahead of the rest of the world I build battleships, transports, and mechanized units and take over most of the world. I say most because I leave one other city, surrounded by my troops so they can’t get out. Then build my ship and send it to colonize another planet to win the game. Simple strategy but it seems to always work. The game is pretty simple but pretty addicting, kind of like the original simcity. So that is how I killed a day. If no one could tell my GF was working all weekend!