Birthdays

The dogs enjoy celebrating birthdays
because there is food involved.
But because birthday cake (sugar)
is not really good for dogs (and
chocolate is a definite no), we
celebrate by getting a birthday
Spam - the dogs prefer the bacon
flavored one. We all love bacon.

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Visit the official Spam® website.

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Macky Rae, my youngest dog, celebrated his 3rd birthday last August. He's a Leo.

Freedom, the oldest, was born in April (Aries), Sarah in November (Scorpio).

Macky enjoy birthdays, as do my other two (Freedom and Sarah). We make a special event out of it, and I go get some tasty treat for them from the store.

I celebrated my birthday last summer (Gemini).

Actually, I did not "celebrate" as much as "observed" it. I just got up one morning, and there it was. And I might have actually completely missed it, except for the numerous "Happy Birthdays" plastered on my Facebook wall from friends and loved ones.

I would have been happy not celebrating (or observing) my birthday, but my dogs were not going to allow that. The dogs enjoy celebrating birthdays (any birthday) and for me to skip my birthday, and miss out on a bacon-flavored opportunity, was out of the question for them. So we (me and the dogs) celebrated. Well, they celebrated, I just observed.

Macky Rae, my youngest dog, asked me how old I was, so I told him.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "That's over 300 in dog years."

Nothing like man's best friend to make you feel old.

The dogs love Spam, bacon, or any other pig-product. Their desire for bacon (or bacon flavored anything) is strong, and they have come up with some rather ingenious means to acquire it. Macky Rae came up to me one morning and said "Dad, you know what today is? It is my unbirthday!" I assume he got that from watching Alice in Wonderland. "We should celebrate it" he suggested. Later, I found a old, empty Spam can, and gave it to him. "What is this? he asked. "It's an unSpam for your unbirthday." He did not find that very amusing. After re-examined the can and snorting, he said "It is not even the bacon flavored one."

Birthdays are just not really all that fun anymore, at least for me. Birthdays are, for the most part, more fun for children than they are for adults.

As a child, birthdays mean you are getting older.

As an adult, birthdays mean you are getting older. 

When you are younger, there are more significant birthdays to look forward to:

• At 13, you become a teenager (much to the delight of your parents).
• At 16, you can drive the car (much to the delight of your parents).
• At 18, you are an adult. You can vote, buy cigarettes and smoke (legally), join the military - almost everything other adults can do.
• And at 21, you can drink (much to the delight of society). You can buy liquor, go into bars, get drunk, and wake up naked in the neighbors front lawn.

In addition to being 35,  to be president
you must also be a natural-born citizen,
have been a permanent resident for 14
years, and not have participated in a
rebellion against the United States.

Define "rebellion."

After your 21^st birthday, there is not much to look forward to until you are 67 and start collecting social security. Oh, there are a few insignificant birthdays of note:

• At 25, your insurance rates go down.
• At 35, you can run for President.
• At 40, you are as old as dirt.
• At 50, you are over the hill.
• At 55, you get a discount at Denny's.
• At 60, you are older than dirt.

And, if you are fortunate enough:

• At 100, you are officially ancient. If you live that long.

Hey, it could happen. Consider:

• George Burns - 100
• Moses - 120
• Abraham - 175
• Adam - 930
• Noah - 950
• Methuselah - 996

Surprise!

A lot of people do enjoy celebrating their birthday, I'm just not one of them. Many people treat their birthday as a personal holiday, going so far as to take the day off from work.

There are a few benefits to birthdays - like the free beer you get at the bar.

In our culture, birthday gifts from friends and loved ones are common, and many participate in the ritual of the birthday party.

And then there is the surprise birthday party, where the friends and loved ones plan a party without telling the birthday person. Everyone gathers and awaits the arrival of the unsuspecting birthday recipient, and then when he/she arrives, everyone yells "Surprise!' and sings the birthday song.

No one has ever thrown me a surprise birthday party.

Everyone knows I have a concealed weapons permit. 

 And you don't actually celebrate your birthday. You celebrate the anniversary of your birthday (although usually when one says "anniversary" one is referring to a wedding anniversary, unless qualified else wise, such as the anniversary of 9/11). But an anniversary, whether of a birthday, wedding, or some other event is the day that the Earth, in it's orbit around the sun reaches the approximate same position that it was at when the event being celebrated originally occurred.

When you look at it from that definition, birthdays seem a little silly.



Dog Latin The word anniversary comes from two
Latin words: Anno meaning "year, and
versar meaning "to return to the same
approximate position".

So, how did birthdays start? Many cultures, past and present, celebrated birthdays one way or another, but the origins predate written history.


The Earth has gone around

sun twenty-one times since

you were born. You are now

permitted to consume beer.

Many cultures use the birthday to delineate childhood from adulthood. The exact age depends upon the culture. In Jewish culture, you are a man at 13. In the United States, you are "a man" at 18, unless you want to drink (then it is 21). This can be traced back to the primitive rite of passages ceremonies of our hunting/gathering ancestors.

In  primate times, a "boy" was not automatically considered a man just because the Earth had gone around the Sun a perquisite number of times (and returned to the approximate same position that it was at when he was born).He had to prove he was worthy of being called a "man." There was usually a test of some sort, such as going out to hunt (and kill) a woolly mammoth (with only a sharpened stick). If he succeeded, he became a man and there was a feast held in his honor (roasted woolly mammoth). If he failed, he was probably killed (crushed by a woolly mammoth) and his unworthy DNA was removed from the tribal gene pool.

The female rite of passage was a bit simpler: Mother Nature (not the tribe) determined when a girl entered womanhood (the number of times the Earth had gone around the sun being irrelevant). The event was celebrated with craps and bloating.

Wolly Mammoth hunting has gone out of style (due in part to the lack of mammoths, woolly or otherwise). Which is sad, because there is a proliferation of stupid people in our culture. We need to return to "rites of passage" (or at least institute a written test) in order to weed out some of the "unworthy DNA" from the gene pool.

Just because the Earth has gone around sun eighteen times since you were born does not make you a man.

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Here's an interesting piece of information: If you have at least 57 Facebook friends, there is a 99% chance any two of them share the same birthday.

If you are interested in the math, see the

birthday problem on Wikipedia.org.

In probability theory, the  birthday paradox concerns the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, some pair of them will have the same birthday. By the pigeonhole principle, the probability reaches 100% when the number of people reaches 367 (since there are 366 possible birthdays, including February 29). However, 99% probability is reached with just 57 people, and 50% probability with 23 people. These conclusions include the assumption that each day of the year (except February 29) is equally probable for a birthday.

Go to your events list and see how many of your friends share the same birthday.

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Actually, more people are born in October than any other month. This means more people were conceived in January (and this indicated that the national copulation rate increases in January). Several theories have been put forth to explain this, but do not adequately explain the phenomena. A common theory is that January is a cold, dark month, and people do not have much to do, other than have sex.

Copulating is a great way to warm up, I agree, but there are other cold, dark month which do not have an increased conception rate. So this theory also does not adequately explain the phenomena.

Since the NFL expanded, the

season has been extended and

the Superbowl now occurs in

February. If my theory is right,

November will soon become the

most common birthday month.

I has a theory of my own. What does January have that other months don't? The end of the football season.

Think about it: The die hard football fan has been glued to the TV every weekend since August. Suddenly, it's all over.  He become lost. Disoriented. He looks around, and notices a strange woman in the kitchen washes dishes.  

No, wait - that's his wife. Something stirs inside him. Its been awhile, since August. He slips up behind her and begins to fondle her... well, you know where.

"Hey, baby. You is lookin' good today." 

He wants sex. The dishes need to be washed, but she gives in easily. It has been awhile, since August.