Birthdays are Insignificant (except my wife's birthday) HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY ANNA!

I have been told that as you get older, your birthday seems to matter less and less. The significance decreases, and people tend to not hold it to a high degree. The dads get the ties, the moms get the makeup, and single people get socks.

North Bend, WA!

I honestly don't think birthdays are a very significant thing. I think they used to be important when death was very common. You would celebrate a birthday because of the feat of living another year. However, in our day and age, it is not very impressive to turn 16, 18, etc. I also don't like how with birthdays come the societal expectation for presents. When you turn 16, teens typically expect a car since they can now have a license. Or, if you are younger, you expect your family to throw you a party for you to invite all of your friends to.

I know this sounds like I am some fun killer. Or, that I am against birthdays. That is absolutely not the case. The sole reason I can get behind birthdays is because I can throw a party for my wife and expect people to take it seriously. I am certain if I were to go to Anna's friends and say "I am throwing Anna a party just because I want her to feel special" I would get a lot of "I'm busy that day" and "No thanks". I think it would be more meaningful to throw parties for people simply to show appreciation and love than to do it because our societal norms deem that we must do something for someone because they have lived ___ amount of years.

Anyway, rant over. Just felt like a birthday post regarding my awesome wife warranted me spilling my opinion that no one asked for.

This year for her birthday, I wanted to go big. Every year I intend on going big, but this year especially because she is turning 20, officially ending her teen-hood. I had a hard time deciding what to do. I knew it needed to be something nutty, something silly yet sentimental. I thought about writing her a very, very long card and having some people over for dinner. But, it didn't seem big enough. I also thought of writing her a song and taking her on a picnic, but I may use that another year. But, after our wedding, the idea hit me; I would make a sort of director cut of Anna's favorite movie, Megamind!

This took a lot of planning. First, I spent time figuring out what this would exactly entail. I decided to take memes and insert them into the film. There is this funny joke video style that people make called "YouTube Poop". Wikipedia defines it as "a type of video mashup or edit created by remixing/editing pre-existing media sources, often carrying subcultural significance into a new video for humorous, vulgar, satirical, obscene, absurd, profane, annoying, confusing, or dramatic purposes". I clipped a few parts of one someone made of Megamind and put them into her "director cut".

After that part was done, I now needed an intro. Something to kick it off. In order to do that, I decided to compile some memes I felt would suit her special day. I then put them at the beginning of the movie. So, there is a solid five minutes of "meme ads" at the beginning of the movie.

Finally, I needed to add a sentimental and personal touch. Something that would really cement that this movie was for her. This would truly be Anna's movie. So, I had the idea of remaking a few scenes of the movie with my now sister in law, Abby. After having a dialogue with her, she determined it would better suit the movie to make gags instead of outright replacing scenes with ourselves.

So, we got to work.

I took some time to plan out the scenes that we would do. I also planned out very DIY costumes to fit the personal feel that me and Abby were going for with our scenes. After a couple weeks, we were ready to shoot. It was a total pain getting the facepaint on, along with the costumes. But, we got it figured out eventually. Recording was also very strange. I have been on stages, played shows to many people. But, for some reason, I had a hard time keeping composed for a video that would be shown to less than ten people. After a lot of takes, we eventually got comfortable and had fun with it.

After those videos were finished, I then had to compile all of these things and edit them into the movie. Although it was not very hard, it was quiet time consuming. Especially waiting for the movie to render, ugh such a pain. Eventually, it did save successfully, not before giving me a whole headache about disc space on my laptop. I deleted a lot of stuff, even bought a new flash drive. But, it took deleting all of my old videos off of my laptop to give it enough space for Anna's Megamind movie cut.

I also had the movie burned onto a DVD as a physical gift for Anna. We don't have a DVD player. But, I really wanted her to have it. I thought she would appreciate being able to see and hold it. So, I went on Etsy and had it printed. It was a headache designing the cover, back, edge, insert, and disc. But, it all came together and the DVD copy of her movie was born.

After about a month and a half of silent work, Megamind: The Anna Cut was born. I rented out a movie theatre in North Bend, Washington to do a screening of it for her. I have been so nervous for her birthday because I have been anxious that she wouldn't like the movie cut. That it may be too cringe, or the memes I picked for her wouldn't be funny.

Day of her birthday, I told her we were watching Megamind in the theatre. She seemed excited, and better yet, her friend Leah came up with coffee for her! So, we just sat around and hung out until it was time for her movie. They got into their outfits, and we were off! Getting to the theatre, Anna saw that the marquee had a message reading "Happy 20th Birthday Anna!" she seemed so excited. But, the other side had an even cooler message. It read "Zombies, Kidneys, Cats if they were blueberries". There is nothing to get about the joke, it just is what it is, y'know?

The screening went great, she laughed a lot. After it, we played a game of Jackbox. Specifically, TKO. Leahs shirt won. It had a picture of the titanic sinking with the caption reading "Understood". I wonder if there is something deep there. Personally, my favorite was the shirt that someone made that had a dumpster labeled "dumpter" with the caption reading "Tell me I'm pretty".

Abby brought tiramisu, it was so yummy. We brought it home and fully intend on eating it all.

My birthday is on Saturday, and I am pretty excited. Tomorrow (Wednesday, April 9th) my friend Aiden will be visiting me from Florida, and we will be going on a roadtrip to Spokane. I am eager to show my friend around my home state, like he has with Florida, where I once lived. I am so grateful I have the ability to spoil my wife, and I will continue to do so. I know it's not the big things that really solidify the love you have for someone. But, the little things adding up. However, it's nice to do big things for people once in a while.

While I may believe that birthdays are somewhat nonsensical, why not use it as an opportunity to be good to others? Especially the ones we love most. But, if you're asking me, a random Thursday night out of the blue just surprising someone with gifts and a party for them is a million times better than an expected birthday party.

Thanks for reading!

Phillippians 4:6-7