another championship, another parade. 3 patriots superbowl victories, 2 red sox world series wins, and now the celtics with their 17th championship after a 22 year hiatus. celtics fever is infectious as folks all over boston dig into their closets to find something green to wear. not even on st.patrick's day have i seen more people wearing green.

the parade didn't start until 11am but i got there an hour ahead of time just so i could find a good spot. the procession was in the reverse order of the other sports parade, starting at city hall (north station, near the garden) and finishing down at copley square. there weren't as many people as there were for the red sox and patriots parades, since those happened when the college students were still in town. however, there were still a lot of people. i made my way to the corner of tremont and boylston street and sat by a rock wall, waiting for the parade to get started.

as the hour drew closer, everyone was standing up as to not miss the action. i stood next to a guy wearing a paul pierce jersey. he was a real hardcore fan, even stomaching all the games from last year, when the celtics had their worst record in franchise history. we reminisced about game 6 and chatted about celtics' future, whether ray allen would retire, whether james posey would go to a different team that can offer him more money.

the procession didn't actually arrive at where we were until close to noontime. we knew it was close from the news helicopters flying overhead and the sight of confetti blowing into the air off in the distance.

as the duck boats made their way down the street, there was a roar through the crowd. we saw lucky the leprechaun (disappointingly portrayed by a full-sized human), followed by a large flatbed truck carrying all the celtics dancers wearing gino t-shirts (they're called dancers, not cheerleaders, despite the pompoms). the first player we saw was paul pierce, holding his MVP trophy and smoking a victory cigar. the guy next to was so happy i thought he'd cry tears of joy as he pumped both fists into the air and screamed.

with just a dozen players in the playoffs (and 3 more that didn't play due to injuries), they could've easily had a player per duck boat. instead, handful of players were crammed together per boat, so depending on where they were standing, it was really easy to miss them. i had good looks at paul pierce and ray allen, but i didn't even see kevin garnett until i checked my photos, and even then it was just the back of his head at best. the procession went by pretty quickly too, just a few minutes and it was all over.

like that, the celtics storybook season finally drew to a close. we don't have to wait too long for the next season though: it all starts again in october.

not wanting to leave just yet, i wandered the grounds of boston common like the many other fans, making my way to the large jumbotron that was broadcasting live as the parade headed towards copley square. since i knew i'd be in the neighborhood, i made plans to go watch a movie at the boston common theatre. i decided on iron man which was starting at 1:05, about a 45 minutes wait. i decided to head into the theatre. other than the ticket guy downstairs, there wasn't anymore security. it'd have been very easy to sneak in an additional movie or two, but i really wanted to get back home and rest after all that parade standing.

iron man was awesome. never really took to the comic book, but this movie makes me want to go back and read some old iron man stories. the same reason why people love james bond is the same reason people would love tony starks (robert downey jr). he drives fast cars, dates hot women, and has all the best gadgets. who wouldn't want to be him? early in the movie we see what kind of life he leads: has a one night stand with a reporter, has a pretty assistant (gwyneth paltrow) who cleans up his mess, and the stewardesses on his private jet also double as strippers. did i also mention he's the head of a military industrial complex that makes super weapons? after being held hostage by terrorists, he discovers that his creations are actually ending up in the hands of the enemy. instead of building them a weapon, he secretly builds an iron suit to escape, a prototype of the eventual iron man suit. all the scenes of him testing his suit and running into problems and successes are awesome. when he finally does finish the suit, it's totally kick-ass, which is a good thing, because the bad guy also has a suit and now they must fight in epic summer movie comic book adaptation fashion. when the movie was finally over, i got this feeling i get when i see a really good film, and that is, "i want to see it again!"

when i got back home, i spent the rest of the night holed up in my bedroom trying to get the m0n0wall box to work. i disabled the DHCP server on the linksys router i bought yesterday, converting it into a wireless access point (WAP). i was able to see the m0n0wall setup page through the WAP but i just couldn't connect to the internet. maybe it had something to do with the fact that i essentially had two routers operating on my local area network. i finally gave up by the end of the night, deciding i'd try again tomorrow by hooking up the m0n0wall box directly to the cablemodem instead (and thereby getting rid of one of the routers).