Happy Birthday to Me!

As this year's blog theme happens to be blogging in poor taste, I can't think of anything in quite as poor taste as my annual foray into narcissism that is my birthday post.

Your intrepid blogger and his Grandfather with whom he shares his Birthday.

I won't bore you with a long intro. I know what you are all here for, and I hope you are impressed with some of the new features to the chart!

That's right, I've added icons to track some of the events from year-to-year. They are all pretty self explanatory to avid readers of this post, but for those uninitiated here's a rundown:
- My friend Beth normally wishes me happy birthday fartface so there is an icon for that. Luckily she remembered this year since she forgot last year.
- My goal of getting both former Rachel Morgans to wish me a happy birthday fell one Rachel Morgan short. A full Rachel Morgan meter is a pretty rare feat. Perhaps in 2020.
- I've promised several times to no longer mention Ray Smith, but given our convoluted birthday history together I find it hard not to. Since he was the first thing I really tracked I feel obligated to put him on the chart. I tried to use his face for the icon, but he has deleted his facebook account, which likely means no more happy birthday messages from Ray. So without his picture I was forced to use that of Ray Smith the Welsh actor who played the tough-talking police chief, Detective Superintendent Gordon Spikings, in the television series, Dempsey and Makepeace.

In a family tradition, I received 5 drum solos!

As for trends, my facebook birthday posts continue to decline. I was down to 16 this year, but that was expected. It was really 15, but I counted my cousin calling me a garbage man on facebook since it happened on my birthday, but he didn't even include a happy birthday. But there was an uptick in overall messages, mostly due to strong returns via the group chat medium. I'm really interested to see how the numbers come together in 2022 when my birthday falls on the weekend again. Until then, thanks for all the "Happy Birthdays"!