A good friend of my wife’s, who’s since become a good friend of mine (Trish) confused me the other night, at the party, by saying that my gift was “being made in New Jersey” and that it would be a few days late.

Confused, and wondering, I forgot about it. Until last night, when Christine brought it home.

I opened the bag to find a bunch of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit schwag.  Trish knows it’s one of our favorite shows, and also knows that both my wife and I have crushes on Mariska Hargitay who plays a Detective on the show.

My gift also includes an autographed photo of the entire cast, and one just from Mariska.

Mariska Hargitay - it says "To Mike Happy Birthday"

My friends rule. Thanks for calling in the favor, Trish!  Great gift!  I’ll certainly frame both of the pictures, and hang them up in our place!

It’s my second day in my thirties, and my back’s killing me.  I know, I’m old.  But I have a good reason.

Last night was the party to celebrate my 30th birthday, and we did it in style. With the things we love. Movies (well, a movie theater), Rock Band, and pizza. Oh, and friends and family were in attendance, as well.

As any big event in our lives, the wife and I like to do something big. So we (read: she) rented a private screening room at Coolidge Corner Theater.  Seating for 45, and a huge screen.

We packed up our XBox 360, Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, our plastic instruments and headed to the theater around 6:30 to set up.  My back’s killing me is because I lugged a ton of that stuff a whole buttload of blocks since we had to park farther away than we should have.

Anyway, aside from back hurting, I feel pretty good today.  We had an awesome time last night.  A bunch of people from work, and past jobs, and family showed up to celebrate.  We played Rock Band for a whole bunch of hours, and people that had never gotten to play before got to play. And from the talk this morning, they enjoyed it.  It really is a game that everyone likes.  It’s impossible to not like the game, really. I challenge you!

Getting older is a weird thing.  Obviously I know I’ve turned 30, but I don’t feel any different. I honestly don’t think I’ve noticed my age at all since I turned 18. I don’t feel any older, I just feel like.  Obviously I can’t do all the things I used to be able to do, physically, but it’s not like I’m in a wheel chair or anything, so that’s good.

So far, 30 hasn’t been at all bad.  I rung in my new year with friends, family and gaming. What more could I want?  It was a great night.

Mac Pro day is rapidly approaching.  I was going to get it yesterday, but waited.  I asked for Apple gift cards for my birthday, so I wanted to wait till I got those, so I didn’t spend any extra money when I could have used gift cards.  So Mac Pro day has been pushed back to (I believe) October 9th, which should be enough time to allow for getting paid for the month of September, and the check clearing.  I’m super psyched, and will post before and after photos once I have everything set up.

Big thanks to everyone who came last night and celebrated, and for all the generous gifts everyone gave.  We’re definitely going to rent the theater again in the near future, and host another Rock Band night, since it was such a hit.  Next time we won’t use Facebook to invite people though, since that seems to be uber-ineffecient.

Another year’s passed, another birthday has hit.   Man, time flies.

You may have noticed that the “music” section of the website’s gone.   You’re not dillusional, it really is gone.   I took it down, while I redo it.   I started typing up the lyrics to all of the songs I’ve written.

It was misleading before, since there were only 12 songs up there, that were the 12 most recent.   In actuality, I think I’ve written well over a thousand.   I’ll know for sure, once I’m done typing them all.

As it stands now, they’re in various manila folders and hanging file folders on the floor in our office at home.   I’ve typed up about 30 so far, and haven’t had time to keep going, with all the other things going on.   I’ll get there, I promise.

Other than that, status quo.   Websites are still going well, working a redesign for MovieSnobs that’s about 70% done.   Rock Band 2 still kicks ass.   Christine still loves her job.

Life is good.   Nay, life is great.   And “Chuck” comes back tonight, and I love that show.   Now, if I can fix my internet at home, and get onto XBox Live to see what this big update today was, I’ll be happy.   Hopefully it’s the Netflix integration, which’d rule, since I just signed back up last week.   Online streaming is pretty bad-ass.