One year older and wiser too

I'm clearly not averse to shameless self-promotion, and this is never more evident than in relation to my birthday. I make sure people know when it is--it greatly increases the chances of getting presents.

I apparently did a really good job this year. This week I received "happy birthday" gifts, calls, texts, e-mails, cards, status messages, wall posts, comments, verbalizations, and/or milk and cereal from at least 85 different people. I've done my best to respond to each person individually, but in case I missed some, thank you very much. I had a great birthday, and it feels great to have so many relatives and friends who took an interest in making it so.

Here's a picture of one of my favorite birthday memories, a surprise party my friends had for me five years ago.

Getting a pie in your face is actually pretty fun, although I'm embarrassed I let them get me. In the group of nine or ten guys I hung with at the time, we had a running gag for about a year that resulted in four or five of us getting pied (the other running joke involved hiding one of those giant Pizza Pipeline boxes in each others' apartments). I believe I was the last one.

I was at the party, there was music playing, and I was dancing around, and my friend Robyn complimented my glasses and asked if she could see them. I stupidly handed them over, and then David called me into the kitchen to show me something.

I realized about two seconds before it happened that I had been duped, not enough time to avoid Aaron Lewis smashing a custard into my grill and turning me into a Skeletor look-a-like. I can't believe I fell for it, but like I said, it was fun.

My birthday is actually pretty infamous. April 20 is the stoner Christmas, the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy, and, of course, Hitler's birthday. It shocks me how many people know this. The connection was first pointed out to me by my orthodontist, of all people. This was back in the pre-Google days, when it was harder to glean random trivia like this. I'm pretty sure Stalin's birthday is not common knowledge, and nobody knows when Genghis Khan was born. Why does everyone know about Hitler?

Turns out I also share a birthday with several others of varying levels of notoriety. I knew about some of them, but I had no idea about Crispin Glover.

So thanks again for the birthday wishes. And if you forgot, don't worry, it's not too late--as some like to say, it's always 420 somewhere!