Green Food and Irish Jams

This is one of my favorite days of the year. First off, green is my favorite color and there is tons of it around today. I usually forget to wear red for Valentine's Day, but I never forget to wear green for St. Patrick's. Between my love of Notre Dame and the Boston Celtics, I've got green clothing to spare.

Now, a word to the wise about today - avoid the dark green beer. A couple years ago I went to a Celtics game on St. Patrick's Day and they were selling green beer, only by the darkness of it you could tell they had gone a little heavy on the food coloring. It still tasted fine, but peeing green later that night (before that I would have guessed they used blue food coloring with the yellow beer, but no) freaked me out for a second. Also, in their haste to capitalize on St. Patrick's Day the bakeries in various supermarkets in the area have been known to dye their bagels green. This is a mistake, as on first glance it just looks like the bread has gone extremely moldy. Lastly, just a point of clarification: if you order the green shake from McDonald's, it is not vanilla that they've made green, it is actually mint and after about 4 sips you've had enough of that.

I also love today because of the music. I've always enjoyed Irish music and so here is the list of my favorite Irish songs. There were some tough omissions to get it down to the Top 5. "Forever" by the Dropkick Murphys is a good song, but I don't really think of DKM as traditional Irish music and so they won't be making the list. Also, "The Voyage" by Celtic Thunder is a lovely tune, but it's not one that you'll be hearing today unless you're at a wedding. Here's are five songs that should be on any playlist for today.

1. "The Black Velvet Band"
2. "The Rocky Road to Dublin"
3. "Green Fields of France"
4. "The Wild Rover"
5. "I'm a Rambler, I'm a Gambler"

Obviously this is the tip of the iceberg and this list could be a lot longer; I'm just trying to get you started. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.