It's My Birthday!

Seventy-nine years ago today, I plopped forth out of my mother's yawning ladyparts and onto the land I love so much, The Belgian Congo Zaire Democratic Republic of the Congo somewhere near where birthers say Obama was born. Some things never change. You rule a country on a throne of Hennessy empties and steal from the people, and apparently now Barack Obama steals from disadvantaged white people. According to those birther guys, he and I are a lot alike. At least they're consistent. Their thesis seems to be: black people steal.

Anyway, wow, what a long strange trip it's been. I hope you all had a great summer!

Now, what do you get for the guy who has it all? I honestly can't tell you. I hadn't even seen this coming — like the date isn't really even that important to me — so I didn't put together a gift list. I tried going over to Stormfront, the world's #1 white supremacist website, to get some ideas of What African Leaders Spend Their Money On, but even all those suggestions seemed too predictable. Best not to get me anything.

Besides, I feel I owe you guys something. For a while now we've been about a third of the way through redesigning this site to make it look a little more professional and to add more widgets and tables to it, while still keeping a sparsely elegant look. We came up with something that (surprisingly) turned out very Gawker-esque — the same textual width down the middle, but with nicely distinct and unflashy columns down both sides — and hopefully we can get that rolled out within a month or two. Unfortunately, the economy being what it is, we're paying our designers in the sort of cash that doesn't inspire quick work — or even work at all! — and I can't blame them for not snapping to it. Hopefully publicizing their lollygagging shames them a bit into getting some more stuff done.

And if the economy stays as horrible as it is through that process, maybe we'll integrate some sort of shameless "Look at Our Amazon Wish Lists and Buy Something off Them Here!" widget in one of the new columns, and we can celebrate my birthday by giving me things any day of the year. Until then, I'm celebrating by corning six pounds of brisket and drinking Irish beers.

L'chaim!