I’m a year older today. No wiser at last check, but older. I’m not THAT old, but let’s just say if I want to keep up appearances I have to start lying about my age next year. We’re a gaming household, and the hotly anticipated Orange Box’s arrival ended up getting woven into the annual string of birthday festivities that launches with mine.

Birthday + finishing Portal = many cake jokes. At one point, Miranda suggested that we just get a tub of frosting and put a candle in it. I looked at her like she had grown an extra head, and she looked me square in the eye and in her best Gracie Allen straight-man voice said, “Well, if the cake is a lie then we can just do the rest.” Two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff….

When we went to pick up my birthday cake last night they wanted to go way overboard. When it comes to dessert they’re of the opinion that not only is it worth over-doing, it’s worth-over doing on a scale to feed the Red Army. I told them no, my diet was enough of a mess and we didn’t need all that much cake at the house.

Danica looked at me over the shopping cart and said, “The hips are a lie! Get the cake!”

We all broke down laughing right there in the middle of the store. Unfortunately, experimentation confirmed the presence of the hips and hard data trumps theories every time. It’s science. We didn’t get that cake. We compromised on something smaller. We didn’t realize it until we got it home, but it happens to bear a scary resemblence to the cake in the closing credits of the game. All we would have needed to do is rig a mechanical arm to snuff out the candle and we’d have been all set.

It’s not over. That joke and the whole timing gave me an idea. A nefarious plan has been hatched for my elder son’s birthday cake in three weeks and the girls are working on an “improved” version of this song. Take that, Black Mesa!

And speaking of songs, in that recent article about kid’s birthdays on Gamerdad I promised an update with the lyrics of this year’s Mom Birthday Roasting Song.

Sung to the tune of Something Better from Muppet Treasure Island:

Mom’s Better

I look at her and I want to sigh
It seems like she’s always asking us why.
Why can’t you do your homework
and finish it on time?
And I keep getting this email
So pay your library fines

Cause we’re lazy and inert but she gets us off our butts
And by the time she’s 52 she’ll already be nuts
My Mom looks like she needs to play more Halo 3
There’s never been someone better
No one better
There’ll never be anyone better than her for me.

The girls sang it as a duet with my son managing the backgrounds on the keyboard. It was quite sweet. They tell me they have one that’s a bit more, uh, direct that they couldn’t quite finish in time. I don’t think they’re going to be able to let it burn a hole in their pockets for a whole year, so I imagine they’ll trot it out when they’re done.

If you’re trying to sing it at home it won’t work exactly like it was in the movie. They cut the bridge out of the middle to make it fit; just use the music from the first and last verses. And I better explain part of the first verse: the bit about the pans and cans. Dishes have always been a sticking point in our house, and being stuck with washing the cooking pans and stuff that doesn’t fit in the dishwasher is considered durance vile.

The cans are a little more obscure. We have several family euphemisms for how thoroughly I’m going to ground you if you act up. Usually they involve a discussion of how difficult it is going to be for you to communicate with the outside world. Like, “Quit it or I’m going to ground you so hard they’re going to have to mail you daylight,” or “I’m going to send you book-rate to Pluto.” Or, as they reference here, “I’m going to ground you from anything more complicated than a couple soup-cans and some string.”

My presents were roses from my younger son, Animaniacs Season One from the girls, and my older son is plotting some devilment for this next weekend when he gets off duty. I got several great cards from my family and a Starbucks card from the gang at the office.

If I have to get older, I can’t imagine a better way to do it.

Tags: Misc