Top O’ the mornin’ to ye, lads and lasses. Happy day before St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday celebrating the lack of snakes in Ireland! That seems like an odd thing to celebrate across the world, let alone in America? Well, it’s also an excuse to drink heavily.

But let’s assume that everyone wants to celebrate this holiday for a different reason: they’re happy that, as a result of St. Patrick’s efforts, the Irish were able to drastically reduce the amount of snake-related fatalities and thus had more citizens available to emigrate to other countries! (We can also thank the potato famine of the 1840s and a number of racist British laws, but for right now let’s stick with St. Patrick because it’s happier.)

The Irish diaspora is estimated at being around 80 million people, while the CIA Factbook places the population of Ireland at just over four million. The United States is home to over 10 times that many people with Irish ancestry; 44 million Irish Americans make it the second largest ethnic group in the country (behind German Americans).

UC Davis students in particular should be appreciative of the great thinkers Ireland has given birth to.

Where would chemistry students be without Robert Boyle? They would have no idea what was going on with gas pressure and volume, that’s for damn sure.

English majors should thank St. Patrick that famous writers James Joyce, James Swift, William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett (to name a few) never got snake-bit. Without them there’d be at least three fewer upper division English classes. They might also have to read books where something pleasant happens.

Political Science and International Relations majors, I haven’t forgotten you! The Irish have been important movers and shakers in international politics, have supplied a great deal of liberators and revolutionaries to various places, South America in particular (lookin’ at you, Bernardo Higgins). Even Che Guevara was part Irish. Maybe someone should design a Che shirt where he’s wearing a green bowler hat.

Fun fact: 23 U.S. presidents have had Irish blood (including President Barack Obama).

Okay, maybe you don’t want to be reminded of school with finals right around the corner. There’ve been a number of Irish musicians (Van Morrison, Enya, U2) and actors (Peter O’Toole, Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan) that have made an impression.

The Irish have made contributions all over the place; the Fighting 69th, composed almost entirely of Irish Americans, has been an active regiment within the U.S. Army since the Revolutionary War.

So how should one celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

First of all be sure to wear green. This is, ostensibly, to avoid getting pinched. Really though, the only people who actually pinch people who don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day are in elementary school. So really, you’re wearing green to avoid getting shit from people your age who are mature enough not to pinch you but will still point it out.

Second, have some traditional Irish fare for the day. The easiest way to do this will be to find a restaurant that will be undoubtedly serving some kind of corned beef dish as their daily special. From my own research, I’ve tentatively formed the opinion that you could also just take your favorite dish and add a bunch of potatoes to it and it’s probably served in Ireland (for extra authenticity, convert your recipe measurements to metric!).

Third, it’s important to have fun. In Ireland, St Patrick’s Day means going to a pub and drinking a Guinness while watching horse races and then going out to dinner. In New York or Boston, you’ll end up watching the big parade.

In Davis, it’s up to you (just gonna toss this out there: most of the bars will be serving green beer), but you should be optimistic and convince yourself it will be a good day. If the Irish could overcome centuries of discrimination, a huge famine, more discrimination in other countries, religious infighting and the U.K.’s climate, you can have a great Tuesday in their honor.

Éirinn go Brách!

RICHARD PROCTER might be an English name, but you can talk to him about why he identifies with his Irish ancestors at rhprocter@ucdavis.edu.

Over the last week, I spent a lot of time staring at my computer screen. Due to a flare-up in my arthritis, I found myself with a lot of forced relaxation. One such day, I loaded my Firefox homepage and spent six hours straight surfing the web.

Being a technologically challenged twenty-something, I admit that I frequent the same websites, only venturing outside my comfort zone either for class research or because my StumbleUpon toolbar does the legwork for me.

For those who are unaware of the magic of stumbleupon.com, you owe it to yourself to give in and lose your stumble-virginity. You won’t regret it, though your grades may suffer.

Six hours is a long time. It’s enough time to watch three movies, drive to and from San Francisco for lunch, or fly cross-country (provided you don’t go bankrupt buying a non-stop flight). In those six hours, I discovered that the Internet is a phenomenal place. There is a website for everything you could ever hope to know, and, unfortunately, some things you never wanted to know. There’s even an online cure for boredom, called bored.com.

There is virtually no piece of information a motivated web surfer cannot find. A decade ago, the search for obscure or ancient knowledge might require hours at the local library, a drive to the county clerk’s office, or even a trip across the country to the National Archives. Now all it takes is a decent Internet connection. After hours of googling and clicking on the stumble button, I felt I had the power of the gods at my fingertips.

Here are a few websites I found worthy of checking out; some I knew about before my six-hour exploration, but they’re so good I had to include them:

Fmylife.com: Stories of unfortunate situations and events. Anyone can submit one, and anyone can read them. They’re things that, whether you want to admit it or not, will make you feel better about your own life. Even the entries that strain credulity will make you laugh.

Tellmewhatyoubelievenow.com: The concept behind this website is simple: we all have different thoughts every second of the day. The website template says, “Right now, I believe …” and someone fills in the blank. Every time you click, a new person’s thought pops up, and you can add your own! Think of it as an existential facebook status update.

Etsy.com: It’s like eBay for the homemade set. You can buy all kinds of strange things, like cufflinks shaped like poodles and keychains made out of those old beads you melt together with an iron. The coolest part is you can shop by color!

Hiddensongs.com: Do you know what a hidden song is? I didn’t. Turns out there are often songs at the end of CDs we buy that don’t exist on the back of the case or on any song listing! Who knows how many CDs I’ve bought with songs I never knew existed? Never fear, there’s a list here.

Fuzzmail.com: Okay, this is weird. You can send emails that unveil themselves as if they were watching as you type. It records every keystroke, every backspace, every time you press the space bar once too many times, and replays it all when the recipient clicks on the link. I’ll say this: it definitely makes the email more dramatic. It would be a great way to reveal a secret … stealth-like and suspenseful.

I realized during my six-hour stint as an aimless web wanderer is that too often I use the Internet for a purpose. I seldom surf the web just for the thrill of seeing how much information I have access to. Maybe I can change that and take some time to submit to my online wanderlust.

I confess, I spent a little too much time browsing the depths of the web this week and lost track of time. I didn’t intend to write about the Internet for my column today, but by the time I realized it was time to sit down and write, I no longer had enough time to explore the real world for a topic. Oops! I hope you’ve enjoyed my attempts to distract you into thinking that I always meant to write about spending time aimlessly clicking around and discovering the world wide web.

EMILY KAPLAN has to give props to her editor Richard for referencing fmylife.com in one of the funniest e-mails she’s ever read. If you have any funny e-mails to share, please do so at eckaplan@ucdavis.edu. Oh, and good luck on finals!

“This is not cool, man.“

“This is bullshit is what it is.“

“At least they left us our tire swing.“

“Well at this point it’s really just a tire.“

My friend and I stood at the end of the trail that once led to our old stomping ground in the hills above his house. We’d discovered it back in third grade on one of our outings, and, now 14, had returned every summer since. But what appeared before us now was neither ours nor ground (though it was certainly stomped). And that didn’t sit well with either of us.

The trail led to a clearing in the forest about a half mile up from his backyard. Arising suddenly from the thick Manzanita undergrowth and black oaks, the break in the brush and canopy opened up to a view of the valley and plain hundreds of feet below; we could see our houses, our school and the S-shaped sidewalk that never did look quite right from the ground.

Directly behind the vista point there was a small meadow about the size of a baseball diamond surrounded by Douglas fir, the relative youth of the place broken only by a giant oak that surely pre-dated the Union. A bit further on were outcroppings of granite boulders, winding deer trails and a creek that usually ran until May, leaving behind a narrow ravine over summer.

Over the years we hauled up plywood and four by fours to build a fort, a dilapidated bench and table, and some rope and an old Firestone for a tire swing. A lantern hung from a crude hook in the fort’s ceiling for when our parents let us camp out.

The time we spent there defined my passage into adolescence. We talked about our first crushes and our first heartbreaks. We learned how to use a hammer and a level. We learned the difference between centipedes and millipedes, flies and horse flies, gardener snakes and rattlesnakes.

He told me about the divorce. I told him about the drinking. We got cuts and scrapes and bruises on our palms, on our legs and most importantly on our egos.

Not only did we grow up there, but it grew up with us. The caterpillars turned to butterflies with the seasons, and the trees that we dwarfed just six years ago now dwarfed us. We saw generations of birds use the same nesting sites, and the same bobcat had been patrolling the area at least as long as we had.

But now, as my friend and I stood at end of that trail, what lay before us looked more like Mordor than the Calvin and Hobbes wilderness we remembered.

We saw a dusty, gray landscape torn apart by man and machine. We saw bobcats and caterpillars of an entirely different sort; bulldozers, backhoes, dump trucks. Everywhere we saw roots twisting up through the detritus as though gasping for breath. And gone, too, was the soundtrack of the forest’s contests; the droning buzz of insects, the woodpecker’s staccato, the rustling leaves punctuated by silence.

All that remained now was the wind; carrying dust from one corner of the desolation to another, as though it mattered where it went.

And lying at our feet like a corpse was our tire swing; the severed rope draped limply over the tread.

What my friend and I didn’t know until later was that there were people interested in this place long before we were. The city council for one, and the developers who financed their campaigns, wore their wedding rings and sent their kids to the same private schools for another. It was “prime real estate,“ they said; a growth opportunity, an unused resource. And over the next few years, we saw what happened when an unused opportunity gets realized.

With the council’s blessing, the meadow of our childhood was plowed, paved and partitioned into sprawling suburbia, complete with 3,000 square foot stucco houses crammed onto a quarter of an acre (starting in the “low“ $600s), gated communities, homeowners associations and backyard pools and vineyards.

We called it the city on a hill.

Because when Jesus told his followers, “You are the light of the world; a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden,“ the destruction of natural ridgelines and incessant light pollution probably weren’t what he had in mind.

But all’s fair in love and interpreting the Bible.

So those who came to this mount seemed to have heard an entirely different sermon; one of vanity, entitlement, consumption. Truly, they were the light of the world, and they did not intend to hide it.

Normally, the hillside development ordinance and general plan would have required such a project to follow certain regulations; the ridgeline could not be broken, homes would be “stepped“ to follow the natural grade, trees replanted and materials selected to match the surroundings and minimize visibility.

But the city had approved their temple under “planned community“ zoning, which allowed developers to skirt those regulations. The result: a scattershot collection of hill-top McMansions where steady stands of forest once stood visible from over 10 miles away.

There was outrage, of course, but the uproar wasn’t much of a concern to Mayor Janet Condron who dismissed it blithely: “At this point, the houses are built and there’s not much we can do.“

Thus, the city gave developers carte blanche. And it’s no wonder; they bankrolled around three quarters of the $24 million project, taking the burden off the city and then passing costs on to homebuyers (who could, around that time, get a negatively amortizing adjustable rate mortgage with no money down).

The result was the scarred earth policy my friend and I faced at the end of that trail. And it was by no means unique; the pattern of deception and destruction was repeated without hesitation across the country, incentivized by the lending and securitization practices that currently cripple Wall Street.

Then as now, all that was left to do was to take stock and press on. So after some time of standing in silence, my friend reached down for the Firestone and motioned for me to do the same.

We left dragging our tire through underbrush and grass, over rocks and dirt, hoping that there was still somewhere else to go; hoping that they hadn’t taken everything.

At least not yet.

K.C. CODY waxes lyrical: And the path that once was lit, by the moon and the Milky Way/ will never again be traveled, because progress is always paved. Wax lyrical back to kccody@ucdavis.edu.

Super Senior,

I just got a Facebook invite to an Apr. 2 screening of Pirates II in SciLec. What the crap is going on? Is this legit?

Pee-wee Herman

For those who don’t know, Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge is the $10 million sequel to the most expensive porno ever made (Pirates, $1 million). To give an idea of what that means, the $80, four DVD set comes in a case that looks more like the next edition of World of Warcraft than a porno and has special features like casting calls and bloopers.

In the words of John Boehner, “Oh. My. God.“

Now, I was hesitant to write about this; I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for alerting Grace Alive or Campus Crusade for Christ and prompting some kind of self-righteous, “we suppress our sexuality and so should you“ protest, but they don’t read my column anyway so I’m not too concerned.

Anyhow, rumor has it that the Entertainment Council’s balls grew by a factor of 10 and somehow managed to organize a free public screening of Pirates II in all of its uncut, hardcore glory. But like you and just about everyone I know, I had my doubts as to whether this thing was really going to go down.

So I e-mailed the council, and as of this writing have yet to get a response. Frustrated, I did me a Google and found out that UCLA actually put this thing on in December, complete with a discussion panel composed of the film’s stars and director. We aren’t getting the pleasure of meeting Evan Stone, but on balance, this is happening.

That said, I really don’t care if it’s an elaborate April Fool’s joke; I’m pretty sure that 500 college students showing up at the same place at the same time in anticipation of watching porn in public for two hours can find something entertaining to do.

Oh, just a note, the best part about the event’s Facebook page is that right below the picture it implores you to “Invite People to come.“ I laughed for like 10 minutes.

Super Senior,

I’m thinking of applying to graduate school since I can’t find a job and my parents don’t understand me. You’re a writer, how should I go about a statement of purpose or personal statement? A cover letter?

Majored in Art Studio

What you say and how you say it totally depend on who your audience is. Writing a cover letter is an entirely different beast from a statement or purpose or personal statement.

When it comes to cover letters and applying for internships or jobs, you’re going to want to befoul what you have to say with all sorts of jargon. Throw down with something like this, “My academic and professional experience as a [insert major here] at the University of California at Davis has provided me with a highly versatile skill set with regards to [insert field here]. I am adept at finding innovative solutions for dynamic projects via group collaboration and professional networking, as well as identifying potential gains in efficiency through cost minimization. This position offers an exceptional opportunity for both personal and professional growth, in addition to being a highly profitable, mutually beneficial working relationship.“

What you just said was that you went to college and can do stuff, but what you just did was give them an administrative hard-on.

Of course, if it’s graduate school you’re interested in, there’s a whole new set of rules. When it comes to the personal statement, you want to sound conversational. After all, you’re basically asking some professor at some university if he would be so kind as to allow you to submit yourself to his will for the next two to six years; set the tone at least somewhat in your favor.

Sample: “I hear the point of the personal statement is to let the admissions committee know why I even bothered to apply, and subsequently wow them with my wit and engaging personal story. Well, on the first count, I’ve decided to apply to graduate school for a variety of reasons; [insert reasons]. As for that engaging personal story, [insert endearing, slightly self-deprecating anecdote about overcoming adversity and persevering against all odds].“

The statement of purpose is all on you though; I don’t know shit about art.

Super Senior,

What is your living situation like for your fifth year? I’m going to be the only one of my friends staying for more than four years and I’m not sure where I’m going to live and who I’m going to live with. What do you suggest I do?

So Ronery

This is precisely why you get to know at least two people who are a class or more below you. It is in this way that you can weasel yourself onto their lease when they become seniors.

If you have not done this, I would suggest one thing above all else: Do not find a roommate on Craigslist. It will end with one of them crying violently on the ground of your bedroom at 3 a.m. wearing sunglasses, screaming about the invisible stalker in the room. This is the sort of thing that’s funny when it happens in a movie.

Your life is not a movie.

To avoid it becoming one, I suggest doing the following in this order: Ask people you know if there’s anything available (if you haven’t done this already you’re pretty stupid), look at and post fliers on campus, check The Davis Enterprise and finally, use Facebook.

These options are ordered by decreasing social capital; the more you’re connected to the people you might be rooming with, the less likely things are to be shitty and the more you can blame someone else for not warning you if they get that way.

And if all else fails, sleep in the 24 hour reading room, shower at the ARC and cook using the microwaves at the Coho. I’m sure it’s been done.

K.C. CODY is tired of asking his friends for questions. Don’t be a stranger, send yours to kccody@ucdavis.edu.

Hollywood is dead. The shining Western beacon of filmic expression and exportable art that has defined American culture for decades has now assumed the status of a vestigial organ. Where modern film was once the most promising of artistic mediums, the relevance of Hollywood products to present and future generations has gone by the wayside. Mainstream film just doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s a mental death. In a purely capitalistic sense, Hollywood’s doing great. The first month of this year was the best January Hollywood had ever seen, liberating a jaw-dropping $1 billion in gross sales. Most Hollywood analysts cite the economic recession as a primary contributor to recent successes. With looming hardships that the common consumer fears without completely understanding, we turn to the $10 escape of the ever-welcoming movie theater.

But Hollywood’s still dead. The recession is serving as life support. With Paul Blart: Mall Cop dominating box office sales, it’s safe to diagnose that Hollywood is in a persistent vegetative state. I say, just pull the feeding tube already. It’s embarrassing.

Hollywood knows it, too. It essentially signed its own death certificate when it gave the Bollywood-tinged U.K.-produced sensation Slumdog Millionaire a bailout of Oscars last month. The Academy Awards is normally a narcissistic star-studded gala of Hollywood congratulating itself on a job well done. Not this year.

The Feb. 24 Oscar broadcast drew the lowest viewership in history. Even industry insiders backed off from attendance, sensing that perhaps at last the beastly business they serve has jumped the shark. They weren’t being disingenuous – we had no good movies. Low-budget commercials offering to ‘BUY YOUR GOLD!’ reminded lonely watchers of the recession we’re in, potentially in a ploy to sell more tickets to Madea goes to Jail.

Postmortem, Hollywood can’t escape singing the same old songs. Genres have worn into deep predictable ruts. They’ve become mined out labels that serve only to guide consumption rather than help explore the content of a medium. Taking a forced glance at one of this year’s biggest-advertised action films, Max Payne, one can see how Sunset Boulevard’s lifelessness sucks our souls right out of our eye sockets.

Payne was a production so utterly rank it failed to give Mark Wahlberg a bounceback from The Happening. (Look up his performance on YouTube, cuz ho-lee shit, it’s Wicker Man all over again.) To prevent the analysis of Payne from being a total downer, I’ll compare it to what I consider two action successes: the first Matrix and Fight Club.

Payne repackaged an unoriginal idea that even the video game industry had forgotten, while Matrix was built on a heavily borrowed sci-fi stroke of genius and Fight Club loyally adapted an underground novel that you absolutely must read before dying. Payne almost seems conscious of how played-out its genre is and sets out to distinguish itself by failing to include any action for the first hour of film. Instead, viewers are forced to plod along through (surprise) seedy nightclubs in (surprise) a city gone to hell while a hero reminisces about (surprise) a murdered wife and child.

Special effects were abused ad nauseam in Payne to cater to music-video CG junkies, whereas tastefully limited graphics were used to groundbreaking effect in both Matrix and Fight Club. The latter two successes capped their action masterpieces with a hero’s transcendence. Payne tapers off with Wahlberg killing the end-boss. (Hint: His mentor betrays him!)

It’s clear to see that what matters in modern action films like Payne isn’t an enticing plot, but the ability to listlessly cash in on conventions of genre. Sort of like comparing a good storyteller with the guy that bashes in his window and steals the TV.

Hollywood’s corpse has more than one kind of stink. The biggest ‘serious film‘ contender at the Oscars this year was the biopic of gay rights legend Harvey Milk. Hopefully, Milk’s passionate fight for equality was familiar to us Californians long before the previews came out. On the heels of Prop 8, Milk could have been a crucial voice against intolerance. Could have been.

For a frame of reference, I’ll contrast Milk with Malcolm X. X opens with a direct feed from the Rodney King beatings a year prior – Milk shows old tape of anonymous gay men getting marched out of a bar in a police raid. Where are the gay couples denied legal recognition? However beautifully arranged, Milk wound up yanking tears instead of agitating public opinion. The laughs were few and the audience is inclined to pity Milk for his closeted life and suicidal lovers. Milk portrays a hero in intimate relief but his cause takes a back seat. The real driving principle behind the gay rights movement is scantily on camera compared to Milk’s internal turmoil. Malcolm X had Denzel Washington reciting Brother Malcolm’s speeches word for word, putting the audience right on the folding chairs of the Nation of Islam.

Strangely, Milk is somewhat absolving of Milk and Moscone’s assassin, Dan White. White didn’t need to be crucified, but he escapes the film with a text roll that ignores the Twinkie defense and soft jail time for a double political assassination. Malcolm X finishes on its strongest note with Nelson Mandela speaking to a classroom of black children. Milk leaves the slain champion a ghost rather than a friend, fizzling out without a eulogy.

Resurrecting dead heroes to placate liberal sympathies without a cry for action is downright disabling. Zombie Hollywood shows its ability to encapsulate dissent without making a real point. Slumdog had a ton more to say about modern politics than did the movie about a goddamn politician.

Dead Hollywood is a drug we all need to quit. We pay out the nose to sit through previews and ‘escape‘ from our worries for two meager hours. It’s like a hallucinogen, minus the indigestion, epiphanies and closed-eye visuals. My advice is to avoid the movie-theater dealers and just learn to download movies you actually want to see. If you need me, I’ll be watching independent horror films.

CHEYA CARY realizes he didn’t talk about Watchmen, which is an issue he has deep misgivings and a slight fanboy hope over. Tell him what movies you didn’t see this year at cheya.cary@gmail.com.