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Ok, so “today” is actually 8 weeks later.  My wife posted her entry on the benefits of a fall birthday on April 10, and I started writing mine the next day. Then, I encountered other priorities, a best man speech, podcasting, a lack of motivation, and a hard drive crash after finishing, which required a rewrite. Excuses aside, the summer is approaching and my rebuttal is below. Hopefully you judge my side of the argument for its content and not for its delay. Laura, a dedicated reader who was disappointed by this delay, has a spring birthday. Maybe she will add her thoughts on why it is better to have a spring birthday?

Summer is the best time to have a birthday. Without a doubt. After all, most people spend nine months of the year looking forward to the summer, which is arguably the best of the four seasons. That’s because summer represents freedom, fun, and friends – which are all part of a good birthday!

I cannot imagine any worse way to spend my birthdays as a young Brando than to have been in a classroom listening to a teacher lecture on something that really won’t be useful in 10 years, like the Medicis, isosceles triangles, or mitochondria (I can confidently make this claim because it is now 10 years later and I only use this knowledge for quizzo). Fortunately, I never once had to sit in a classroom on my birthday because my birthday is in July.

But the perks of a summer birthday don’t end with an educational vacation. My first 15 birthdays were an endless stream of awesome, including pool parties, picnics, and even Phillies’ games featuring serenades from ballpark hosts. I then became a counselor at a summer camp, so the past 13 birthdays have been spent with 500 of my closest friends. At summer camp, you can experience 500 people genuinely singing and wishing you a “Happy Birthday” – after parading you on a chair for a shower of High 5’s! Do they do that at winter camp? Oh wait, they don’t exist!

Forget eating stale donut fillings with your classmates while wearing mittens; nothing beats a summer birthday!

What do you think? Is it better to have a fall or summer birthday? Or do you prefer winter or spring? Make your argument, and keep it to 250 words or less!

Also, feel free to suggest Topic #2 for our He Said / She Said series!

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As you may have noticed, the preceding entry was posted by my wife, Ali.  The idea behind that entry was that we were looking for a way to promote a little creative writing between us, and the idea we came up with was to pick a topic and then take a “He Said / She Said” type of approach to the topic.  The only rules, or guidelines, are that we cannot read the other person’s post before we upload our own, and that we limit our posts to 250 words or less. We are experimenting with the idea and format, so we wanted a simple topic just to kick things off.  Since her birthday is in November and mine is in July, we decided our first topic would be “Why it is better to have a (Fall/Summer) Birthday.”  Ali posted her entry on Friday, and I will add mine today.  I promise I have not read Ali’s entry yet, and have only copied the URL for linking purposes.

Feel free to share your ideas for a topic you’d like to see us debate in this space.  We plan on getting a little more philosophical and provocative than “Best time to have a Birthday.”  We are also debating whether or not to adapt Twitter’s 140 character limit by limiting ourselves to 140 words instead of 240. If so, would this format be called Twlogging? Twentries?

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Brandon’s wife speaking here…just a random little post for everyone. My birthday is November 13th. I share this birthday with Robert Louis Stevenson, Chris North, and Whoopi Goldberg-quite a diverse bunch, if I do say so myself. To convince you why the timing of my birthday is the best, let me first get specific, then I’ll get general.

Specific: having a birthday in mid-November is the best because mid-November is 9 months from…Valentine’s day! This means anyone born mid-November was definitely conceived out of love. The rest of you…who knows?

General: Fall birthdays are great because everyone is around to celebrate – in the Winter no one wants to leave the house; in the Spring people are busy with graduations, weddings, and whatnot; in the Summer everyone is out of school and on vacation. However, in the Fall, people stay put as they recover from vacations and school starts up again — but people are also still willing to do fun birthday things with you because the weather is still decent.

Now who’s in the mood for some birthday cake…?

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I moved back to my hometown of Philly in May with my wife, who grew up in California with only a passing interest in professional sports.  I now can follow my favorite sports teams very closely, and I also am fortunate enough to have a wife who wants to become a fan of the local teams.  It is fun to watch Ali slowly falling in love with with the Philly sports scene.  It is even more fun watching her understanding of sports develop; before moving to Philly, “sports” meant watching a game and seeing who scored more goals, points, or runs.  Her definition of “sports” still involves watching the games, but has developed to include the joy of identifying with the players and learning each of their individual stories.

She knows all about the Jimmy Rollins’ yearly predictions; Pat Burrell’s rise, fall, and eventual rise again, before his departure and subsequent signing with the Tampa Bay Rays; that Jamie Moyer ditched school to watch the championship parade in 1980; Carlos Ruiz steady defensive play as a catcher after lying to accepting a challenge from a scout who said he’d only be interested in him if he was a catcher (he was a 2B at the time; he told the scout he would try catcher, despite never playing there in his life), and even that his nickname is “Chooch”; that Brian Dawkins responded to being criticized earlier this season for being too old and slow by taking it out on the Eagles’ opponents throughout the rest of the season and post-season; that the Flyers are a tough team and there is nothing more exciting than Game 7 in the NHL playoffs than overtime in Game 7 in the NHL playoffs — especially when your team wins, like the Flyers did in May; the agony of waiting 25 years to see a championship; and the joy we take in watching our rivals suffer.  Especially the Cowboys, Mets, and Giants.  Ali has truly become a Philadelphia sports fan.  Her development in this area probably received a boost by the Phillies winning the 2008 World Series and the Eagles recent, unexpected run in the 2009 Playoffs.  But I digress…

Ali’s education in Philadelphia sports included a whole section on the Curse of Billy Penn. I even updated the lesson to include the actions of workers building the Comcast Building, which is now the tallest building in Philadelphia. For those who don’t know, the workers wanted to break the curse so they placed a tiny statue of William Penn on the top beam in the building, restoring him to the tallest point in the city.  The Phillies then win the 2008 World Series, so some argue that it worked.

I would like to propose another reason for the Phillies victory in 2008, and it is one that can be confirmed in a few short weeks.  During the Phillies’ run, Ali noticed that Pat Burrell has very oddly shaped eyebrows.  Three weeks later, the Phillies won the World Series.  Then, during yesterday’s game, she noticed that Donovan McNabb also has oddly shaped eyebrows.  Not only are his eyebrows weird, but they are the exact same triangular shape as Pat Burrell’s eyebrows (see picture below)!!!  Even more amazing is that Ali noticed this about McNabb on January 11 — exactly three weeks before the Super Bowl!  That’s right, I am dubbing this phenomenon “Charm of the Eyebrows!”

Burrell and McNabb also share the fact they were first round picks by Phillies and Eagles in their respective sport’s drafts.  If the Eagles win the Super Bowl (I can’t believe I just typed that; 3 months ago I would be chastised for jinxing them by typing that!), you’d better believe that we will spend time in May checking the eyebrows of the Flyers players who were first round picks!!!

The Charm of the Eyebrows

The Charm of the Eyebrows