Winter, I hope, has finally melted away from this little corner of the world. Bring on spring.

March Madness is upon us. The kids are wearing orange Syracuse University t-shirts and vests in weather that warrants at least two layers and they're playing basketball in the streets.

Go G-Mac! It's a local thing, you probably wouldn't understand.

The St.Paddy's Day Parade downtown (yesterday) saw everyone walking around in bad shades of green, but they all looked happy (drunk) enough. It's an odd thing, but whenever I see someone wearing a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" badge over here I feel like asking them what they thought of the whole Roy Keane / Mick McCarthy thing that happened a few years back and whether Bertie Ahern should have gotten himself involved at all. Ninety-nine percent of people that say they're Irish in the USA have absolutely no idea what the Hell any of that means. It would be like having someone say they're American and not know who Donovan McNabb or Kelly Ripa are, or a self-pronounced Brit not knowing what Wolves and Accrington Stanley have in common.

Little things like that fascinate me for no reason whatsoever. The word "rivulets" and the number "312,000" fascinate me for no reason too. I wish I knew why. Maybe I have half a brain.

I missed one of my friends' birthdays. Sorry, Matt in Leicester. The card is on its way to England. I just wanted to say "sorry", but this has been a busy few weeks for me, and here's why...

Reason One: I'm filing for the removal of conditions on my Green Card so we're rushing around for all the paperwork. I'll probably have to go to Philly to get the new I-751 Green Card in a few months.

Reason Two: work is getting interesting. I applied for a position in another department with a more relaxed atmosphere (as opposed to being given a new position... see January's post), and someone high up in the company now seem interested in the pseudo-company-website I created (click here to see my handiwork) ...apparently, the company paid a ton of money to have an image consultant tell them their current web-site is shit. It was made using Word for Windows, which any eight-year-old kid can manage, so I could have told them that. What they need is some old English immigrant with a G3 Mac computer and a copy of Macromedia DreamWeaver to do their site, that's what I say.

Oh, and the current site cost the company $5,000 so I'm guessing the manager in charge of approving the original must have a case of "sunk cost pride". He, or she, doesn't want to admit it was a bad purchase. One scientist writes that people (of a certain perfectionist type) that buy an expensive piece of tat will not throw this junk out because they have invested more than money in their decision. Their very pride is at stake. So they keep the bad purchase because they believe they'll eventually get their money's worth. Websites, designer shoes on sale, clothes that cost an arm and a leg but warp after one wash, an expensive restaurant meal cooked to imperfection... it's all the same really.

Enough of reason two. On to reason three.

Reason Three: The icing on the cake is that we've put a bid on a house. It's at the high end of what we want to pay, but the house itself looks great and I really hope we get it. So now my mind is full of the possibilities that we could be moving house soon. But we may not be, because they may turn down our bid. It's the not knowing that kills you!

So, once again, sorry for missing your birthday there Matt. What with the immigration stuff, the prospect of a new job at work, being asked to be the webmaster to boot, and potentially having a mortgage in a matter of weeks... well, life is what happens when you're making other plans.

Happy St.Patrick's Day for real on Wednesday, people (beannachtaí na féile Pádraig, as they say in Ireland).

Listen : Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers ... Zombie - The Cranberries.