Birthday 2013 Post-Mortem

I used to really look forward to my birthdays because everyone would go all-out on presents for me when I usually couldn't acquire things the rest of the year. As I've gotten older and money has gotten tighter from everywhere, I can't count on it like I used to. But that's okay, because when I do get something, no matter how small, it means all that much more.



I don't like big get-togethers, so usually we just do dinner and a movie as a family. We go to the Outback Stakehouse, my favorite restaurant, and we see a movie of my choosing (more on that in the next post). As of right now, those were my main presents this year. But my father got me a little bit more.

CDs. The first time in a while that I've actually wanted some music as much as some other things, and I got three albums:

The first is Danny Elfman's excellent score to Sam Raimi's "Oz, the Great and Powerful." I saw the film on Blu-Ray recently, and I highly recommend it.

The second is Rush's newest concept album, "Clockwork Angels." I haven't listened to it yet, and given the way their albums have gone recently I fully expect to have to listen to it over and over again before I fully appreciate it. But that's okay, I don't mind. I'm prepared.

But it's the last item that I'm most surprised and thankful for, and that is the soundtrack to "World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria." For those of you who don't know, the soundtracks to WoW and its expansions are only available with the Collectors Editions of the games, so the fact that my father paid a third-party a large sum for a second-hand limited edition CD is quite something. The score is quite brilliant; like everything else about the game, the music in WoW keeps getting better with every expansion.

In any case, it looks like I'm breaking out my old discman once again.