You know it's a slow news weekend when one of the Yahoo! news headlines on its top page is about St. Patrick's Day parades starting. At least they're no longer talking about Tipper Gore running for the Senate, which would sound like a practical joke if it wasn't so scary sounding.

For someone of Irish descent, you would think St. Patrick's Day would be a big deal. It isn't. As a kid, I wore green to school as often as not, and most years we'd have corned beef and cabbage for dinner around the day, if not on it. We had a Clancy Brothers album or two around the house, but the lack of a working turntable spared us from any further cultural damage.

You'd think going to college in Boston would have instilled some of the holiday spirit(s) in me, but that didn't work, either. I'm not a green beer person (though the beers that are made green can only improve with the addition of food coloring). Which isn't to say I never went out on St. Pat's. There was one memorable year where a few of us went to the Sunset Grill and Tap in Allston and the more sober among us had to have the less sober grab on to belt loops to make sure we stayed together and didn't wipe out in the wet snow that was falling. Another year saw a downtown-area excursion that became a quasi-pub crawl, which was OK. I'd have enjoyed it more if the Guinness wasn't in plastic cups, but I understood the problem the bars were trying to avoid.

So as far as this year goes, with St. Pat's being on a Sunday, I don't see much raucous celebration. A salute to my Irish flag may be it; all the beer I have in the house is American.

And, for what it's worth, Yahoo! has dropped the headline about the parades for one on Liza Minelli's wedding. How sad is your career when the highlight of the last 10 years was singing at the Michael Jackson tribute? I'm not even sure how this qualifies as news, but then I remember that Joan Collins' wedding was splashed around a bit last month.

Come to think of it, Liza versus Joan would be a good second installment of Celebrity Boxing, wouldn't it?