Happy Birthday To Me

On Wednesday the world celebrated the birth of one of the blogosphere's most celebrated members, notably John Scalzi. Oh, it was my birthday too, something celebrated only by myself, Linda, and our kids. I have a sneaking suspicion that the kids were only in it for the cake. I'll take whatever attention I can get.

At this point in the post, I'd like to give a ginormous "Thank You" to my beautiful wife. Despite a sick child, the stress of a broken work laptop and the stress of an impending vacation, she took the time to make the house a birthday haven that only a comic book fan could love. Even though we had decided to celebrate my birthday proper on Friday, she took an unexpected child illness, and it's subsequent attendance by both parents, to celebrate my birthday. She didn't have to do that, and it meant a tremendous amount to me. So, Linda, thanks. And thanks for everything else too. You're pretty cool.

So, what exactly did the house look like? Well, let's take a look.

Batman and Spider-Man were the heroes of the day, as demonstrated by these lovely baloons. Yes, that's a Jim Lee Batman. Woot! My son wanted to take them and play in the other room with them, but we weren't having any of that. My balloons! My balloons!

Next up is the Spider-Man banner on the pantry door. This banner doubles as a pin the tail on the donkey kind of game, where you take individual Spider-Man stickers and try and "pin" them on the topmost spire of the building there. Now, keep in mind that the Pin the Tale on the Donkey set has got to be what, 5, maybe 6 years old? This banner is on the order of 19 feet tall. Even on the packaging material there are pictures of small childen, their arms outstretched towards the heavens, desperately trying to either pin Spidey on the spire, or be rescued from this celebratory hell by either their parents or a game of Musical Chairs. Even the horrors of being the only child without a chair, are preferred to this Sysiphian endeavor.

In the foreground of this picture is one of three Spider-Man ribbon hangy things that were hung from the ceiling. In the background is one of even more copies of a photo of me taken at Ben's last birthday picture. It is not a photo I am particularly proud of, as my face is smeared with cake and I have a beer bottle and a fork to celebrate my 3 year old's birthday. The combination of my facial expression, the cake and the beer make me look like some sort of escapee from a mental institution, breaking into people's homes and helping them eat cake. The funniest part of the house's decorations was various copies of this picture, complete with slogans like "Mmmmm Cake" and "You've Still Got It". My wife, ladies and gentlemen. It's why I love her.


This is a picture, albeit a kind of crappy one, of the fridge. It's decked out in more pictures of Retaded Cake Guy as well as Batman plates and napkins. I should say The Batman, as it's my understanding that the WB will come to your home and beat you with a sock full of pennies if you refer to the Dark Knight in a manner inconsistant with the latest marketing materials. I'm a big fan of The Batman, any Batman really, so I don't mind.

Finally, after the children were in bed, we capped off the celebration with take out from one of my favorite restaurants, the One Star Ranch. This place is known for it's beef ribs, one of which is in the picture to the right. Yes, that's one rib. I used to make country style pork ribs for myself, Mark and Andy, and they were so large that Andy called them "Dinosaur Ribs". These beef ribs make those things look like toothpicks. It was so large, I couldn't even finish it. I took the huge hunk of meat on the left side of the rib, placed it in a Tupperware container and weighed it. It came out to over a pound, and that was just half of the meat that came on this thing. For the record, I prefer the pork ribs, as they're more flavorful, but you certainly can't go wrong with these babies.

For my birthday I received a number of wonderful gifts, most notably a PS2 with a copy of Guitar Hero, complete with guitar shaped controller. I know that this probable elicits laughs from the gamers in the audience, the fact that just now I'm getting my hands on a console that's been the r0x0r for about 6 years, but I picked up God of War for 20 bucks, new, the other day and will spend the same amount for all of the Jak and Dexter Games, Kingdom Hearts, Katamary Daimacy and the Ratchet and Clanks. Who's laughing now? By the way, the name of my band is The Finites. Our lives may be finite, but our capacity to rock is infinite.

Next week the wife and I will be lounging in beautiful Florida, but I have left the house in the care of Andy. He'll be posting my missives in my stead, or maybe he'll forget and he won't. Either way, have a good week.