Today is my birthday and I am a lucky panda.

Oh hey. I didn't see you come in there. Have a seat, watch the candles. Wouldn't want you to burn yourself. I know, it's been a while. I can't keep making excuses to you. I keep making these promises and I know it hurts. Baby, just give me one more chance.

Ahem.

Remember ages ago when I said I was doing a gift giveaway? Well, I'm still doing that. It's turning out to be more like a gift exchange, which is all sorts of awesome for me. Especially since the Dtoid community members are much more interesting and creative than I am. So far, I've gotten goodies from both Occam's Electric Toothbrush and DJKirsch and though I doubt either of them knew it was my birthday I'm going to pretend they were sending me birthday gifts. Because I am pathetic and lonely like that. LET ME LIVE MY LIE.


BITCH I WILL EAT YOUR FACE

This was the first thing to arrive from Occam. I want to write about the second package, which is full of all sorts of amazing goodies but Max wants to do an unboxing video so I'll leave that to him (I have an irritating voice). I'm pretty sure that Occam is some kind of wizard, there's no other explanation for how he could know about my rampant love for Xena. Just a few months ago, Max got me this:


INTERCHANGEABLE WEAPONRY

I found some more teeth models laying around while cleaning out my sim lab station so Occam's Electric Toothbrush, you've got more teeth headed your way in the near future. I think this is the only place on the internet that I can say that without it being weird.

A few weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to play every single gameboy-accessible Zelda game created by the end of my summer. I realized all the friend visiting and family catching-up-with that I have to shove into a mere 4 weeks just wasn't going to allow that to happen. Sigh. This isn't going to stop me from trying, though. I powered through Link to the Past and Minish Cap in about 2 weeks and proceeded to order Link's Awakening. When it arrived, I realized it wasn't compatible with my DS lite and proceeded to whine about it in Outer Heaven (my Dtoid hideaway). DJKirsch decided to end my incessant whining by sending me his old gameboy advanced, along with a few other goodies.


I AM SPOILED

He also sent me an old gaming magazine and Boktai. Max Scoville has taken both of these things with him to work, because the magazine is actually pretty fun to look through. Oh nostalgia. I haven't had a chance to play Boktai for two reasons: 1) I'm still on my Zelda mission 2) Max stole it.

I really hate using this word because it sounds awfully cheesy and lame but I feel pretty blessed to find so many awesome friends in the Destructoid community. Max and I were talking about the community members last night, discussing who's having a baby, what's so and so's work schedule, when we might be able to meet up with somebody while we're in New York... and I realized how much more Dtoid is than just an online community. At the risk of sounding like an after school special: Dtoid is like a family. A family that makes a lot of cock jokes, but a family none the less.

Thanks for making me feel welcome. It's my birthday today, and I know at least a few people still like me now that I'm 23.