Daniel85

Well, it’s been and gone. My 21st birthday.

There’s this great significance to the age that I just don’t understand. It’s a cultural artifact of 21 being the Age of Majority back in the olden days. I think that if we’re going to celebrate anything, it should be 20. We do work on a decimal system, after all.

Anyway, what was going to be a glum, lonely day here up in Melbourne turned into a surprisingly enjoyable one. When I came back to my room after my shower in the morning, my mum and step-dad were waiting there in the darkess, which scared the absolute shit out of me. They took a photo of it too, which I’ll post as soon as I get a copy. There’s a look of pure terror on my face, straight out of a 50’s B-Movie. (They’d talked the landlord in his shop downstairs into letting them up into my room.)

For presents I got The Chipmunk Adventure on DVD, a hoody (love my hoodies), and a digital video camera. The most heartfelt present was the DVD. The Chipmunk Adventure was my brother’s and my favourite movie when we were little. We had it on VHS, and used to watch it incessantly. That was until my mum’s deadbeat boyfriend of the time taped over it. It was something of a tragedy, because the movie wasn’t really available anymore. Secretly, though, I think mum was glad that she didn’t have to put up with “Wee are the boooyz of rock and rooooooollll-uh!” and “Wooly Bully” twenty times a day.

After that they took me out for lunch. We were originally going to go to a cafe, but Ron suggested we should hit McDonald’s for a couple of El Macos. Family joke: I always have Mexican food on my birthday. He probably wasn’t serious, but I was like ’shit yeah’, and so we drove up and down Rathdown and Nicholson Sts looking for a McD’s. Eventually we found one in bloody Coburg or something. It was the worst McDonald’s ever: icy thickshake with no flavour, fries that managed to be both burnt and stone cold at the same time, and the burger had that dark-yellow cheese which is always a telltale sign of any McDonald’s Family Restaurant’s quality.

Later in the day, after I’d been to class and was at home making a simple dinner (cheese and salami toasties- the best!) and pondering how I’m gonna rock YouTube with my new camera, dad rang and asked what I was up to. I told him, and he told me to ’chuck the toasties in the bin. I’ll be over in half an hour and we’ll go out for dinner’. Well, I wasn’t about to let good food go to waste (cheap student here!), so I put them in the fridge for breakfast.

Dad and I had a few beers at the North Fitzroy Star before heading to The Empress (his wife’s mum’s pub) for a meal. It was the first time I’d been to the Star. Pretty nice ambience as they say, but maybe a bit pretentious for me. I prefer a dark, grungy pub (like The Empress), although even that involves some measure of pretention these days. Fuck, I’m such a misanthrope.

I had a nice talk with dad, and I think for the first time ever I actually told him what I want to do with my life (which is write, as long-time Daniel85 readers will know). I’ve always kind of dodged the issues of career and ambitions with dad, and I guess part of that is being so indecisive and unsure myself of what I want.

Anyway, dad gave me carte blanche in deciding what my birthday present from him and Michelle would be. I immediately thought “Back To The Future and Indiana Jones trilogy boxsets”, but that’s not really a 21st present, is it?

Thanks for reading, and again to the people who wished me a good one.

Thanks also to the good people at Nestlé who, I only found out yesterday, have released three new limited edition flavours of Kit-Kat Chunky. I can only imagine that some Nestlé exec was like “Crap! It’s Danie85’s birthday! What do we have in R&D? Anything? Just release whatever we’ve got in R&D!” There hasn’t been much on the food & drink front lately, so I’ll definitely be reviewing all three of these fuckers.

Oh, and I have a new article up at Retro Junk: http://www.retrojunk.com/details_articles/898/. It’s a review of a charity fundraising comic starring the X-Men in a fight against African famine, released in 1985. In true Daniel85 can’t-keep-the-focus style, I also use it to talk about 80s music and 80s society. Check it out.