As Woody Allen said, the heart wants what it wants. So, why are you here?

My birthday present: the thrill of the obvious.

Since I worked a double-shift on my birthday, it ended up being a little blah, but I did have this event to make up for it:

I was watching Poseidon with a couple friends of mine, and my dad wandered into the room towards the end to watch it. Now, if you haven't seen it, Poseidon is a strictly-by-the-book action movie that references - nay, outright steals - every trick used in disaster movies like Titanic, Armaggeddon, Cast Away, Die Hard, Gone with the Wind, The English Patient, Babe, etc. The dialogue is cookie cutter, it's paced exactly as you would expect, and so on. So when they jump out of the boat at the end of the movie, amazingly, there's a life raft waiting right there for them. They pull themselves in, and I said aloud: "Countdown to rescue - 38, 37, 36..." and then I stopped. My dad, who was standing behind me, quietly finished the countdown in his head.

When he got to "one," the night sky lit up with rescue helicopters.

Man. I am good.

In other news, for my birthday I got Arrested Development: Season Three, which I have not seen any of and is turning out to be every bit as good as I hoped, and will soon get The Office: Season Two, which I have seen most of and I know to be every bit as good as I hoped. Better, even.

I also got a first-edition Oz book and A Man, A Can, A Plan, so that I don't eat just baked beans and toast this time when I move out of the house. So it was a good birthday. But there's still time, everyone. You can still click on that Office link up there and buy me that hat.

posted by Ben Wyman @ 5:14 PM