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I am the very model of a modern… oh, forget it

My birthday was yesterday, and it was good. I woke up to find two balloons in the dining room, where the table was half-set for dinner. Later, when dinnertime rolled around, my grandparents came over, and we feasted on pasta, bread, sausage, and salad. For dessert we had an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. It had coffee-flavored ice cream, and I guess cake, and some dark chocolate stuff, and Heath bars on top. Yes, there is still a lot left if you want to come over and have some.

Not counting the value of the dinner and the concert, I got an amazing amount of money for my birthday. I also got gift cards for Starbucks from my parents and for FYE from Katherine. Thank you, everybody. So what am I going to do with the money? Put it in the bank, of course. I don’t really have much I could spend it on, so why not give it a bit of a guard against inflation and invest in the future? As for the gift cards, I already have tons of unused ones from birthdays past, so I hope to actually get some use out of them now that I remember that I have them.

Yesterday Casey told me that my friend Reid was going to be in a performance of The Pirates of Penzance. I haven’t seen either of them much since back in October, and it’s nice to see Reid doing what he loves the most, so I’m going to go and see the play. I believe my sister was invited too, but she doesn’t really get along with Casey anymore. I have nothing personal against her, and it’s really more about seeing Reid on the stage, so I’ll go. I think we’re going to be joined by Michael, so that should be cool.

Ah yes. I remember when my sister and I would go to Reid’s house and we would make up and record ridiculous movies. It started with “Dumb Wars,” a parody of Star Wars. We had to be in third grade or something, and one day after school a bunch of us little somethingth-graders were acting out this whole Star Wars parody. The next day a bunch of us decided to get together and act it out before the video camera. Others followed, including a magic act, a tribute to the ’70s, and the campy “Pigzilla.”

A few years later, Reid was in an acting company for kids. We even made a few class field trips out of his plays. He was like the star of junior high… I guess. Then, after eighth grade, he went to an art school to study acting, and the last I talked to him, he was having a blast there. How cool is that? It’s been fun to look back and see his transformation into a real live actor. I hope he pursues his dream further and wins an Oscar or something. Now I’m really starting to sound like some teacher signing a kid’s yearbook, so let’s just cut to the links.

Here’s how the constitution of the Confederate States compared to that of the United States. Speaking of which, one blogger out there echoes my feelings by asking why the heck the Confederate flag is such an accessory, and in New Jersey, no less.

I guarantee this is the weirdest thing you’ll see today (at least on YouTube, anyway): sock puppets speaking Esperanto. For what it’s worth, their pronunciation is good and their grammar is okay.

One year ago: “Now figure out this English-language colloquialism translated into Esperanto: ‘Mi ne havas vivon.’”