My 29th Birthday Stash

When I woke up yesterday, on my 29th birthday, there was a card waiting for me downstairs from my girlfriend telling me I was about to have the most memorable birthday of my entire life. When I first read this I thought she was being a little bit optimistic about a day that honestly didn’t seem that special. I mean don’t get me wrong I was extremely excited about my birthday, but we didn’t really have anything planned that would seem to make it the most memorable birthday of my life. I mean that’s a bold statement don’t you think? Well by the end of the night I was proven completely wrong, because my 29th birthday truly turned out to be the most memorable birthday of my entire life.

I had decided a couple of days before my birthday that I would take the entire day off and do what every gamer should do on their birthday: stay home on the couch and play video games all day. In this specific case I was going to play Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition all day. Well I did exactly that and it was incredibly awesome. That game just rocks. I’m sorry it took me so long to finally get to it. I took a break to go running with the dogs at one point, and then shower, but besides that I just gamed all day. I just want to say I highly recommend that when your birthday comes you stay home and game all day because it just rocks.

When my girlfriend got home at 5PM the plan was to get dressed up and go to a surprise dinner she had planned for us. I had no idea where we were going and I didn’t ask because I love surprises. Well the surprise dinner ended up being at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which pretty much has some of the best steaks you can get on the East Coast. I got a 9 oz. Filet and it was probably the best steak I’ve ever had in my life, and trust me I have eaten steak in 6 countries so I know my steak. The dinner itself was so incredibly good that it alone made my birthday great, so I didn’t think much else that night would top it. I was so so wrong.

The plan after dinner was to go back to my place, open presents, play some Rock Band and maybe watch some TV before calling it a night. We didn’t want to be up to late because I had planned a huge birthday party on the next night (tonight), and we needed to spend the day getting ready. There was food to cook, and beer to buy, and there were almost 30 people coming, including friends and family, so I was very excited and wanted to make sure everything went smoothly.


My Incredibly Awesome Girlfriend Nicki

Well we get home from dinner, get out of the car, walk up to the house, and as my girlfriend opens up the front door I raise my head and all the lights in my house come on as 30 of my closest family and friends all yell “SURPRISE” at the same time. I was so surprised and scared at the same time that I stumbled back out the door in complete shock. It took me a couple seconds to even realize what was happening. My girlfriend had planned a surprise party for me on Friday night, and asked everyone to lie to me and say they were coming to the party I had been planning for Saturday night. Apparently this had been in the works for months. She had gotten a bunch of my best friends together and they had all schemed and plotted to trick me into thinking I had planned this big party for Saturday when really I hadn’t. It was incredibly conniving of them all.

You have to understand that in 29 years I had never been surprised on my birthday. Only once has someone tried to throw me a surprise party, but I completely new about it. I had actually thrown 4 or 5 surprise parties for other people, but no one had ever thrown one for me. It was one of those things I always wished someone would do for me, but I had pretty much given up hope. I mean it’s pretty difficult to trick me, and pull the wool over my eyes so much that I have no clue that a surprise party is being thrown in my own house. Well my girlfriend pulled it off.

Now let me finally get to how this relates to video games. I got an INCREDIBLE video game stash of presents this year. Let’s just go through the incredible list shall we …

1) Gears of War 2
2) Resistance 2
3) LittleBigPlanet
4) The Playstation Eye
5) A new Logitech Headset for my computer

I also bought myself a couple of games for my birthday which includes …

6) Rock Band 2
7) Fallout 3
8) Dead Space

I don’t know about you, but that’s an incredibly awesome video game birthday stash. I am incredibly grateful to all of my friends who got me all of these awesome games. Now I have to somehow find the time to play them all.

When I woke up and read that my girlfriend was going to make this the most memorable birthday of my entire life, I had a hard time believing her, but she totally pulled it off. She truly is the most incredible woman I have ever dated and I am extremely lucky to have her in my life. I just want to say thanks to her and all of my family and friends who really did make this the most memorable birthday of my entire life.

[Update]: I just wanted to make sure I gave credit to my buddy Chris and his awesome girlfriend Rachel, a.k.a. the "co-conspirators" of this party. They not only cooked a majority of the food for the party, but they also went over to my house early, set all the decorations up, and got everything ready for when everyone arrived. All I have to say to him is, "IN YOUR FACE!"