The Ghosts of Birthday's Past

With my big 30th birthday tomorrow, I've been reflecting on my past birthdays. It has become a tradition with me that on my birthday, I see a movie. It all started when I was a kid, you know how it is. Birthday parties starting being about trips to the World Waterpark or Fantasyland. But me? I liked movies. So a birthday meant a movie.

It was somewhere in the mid-90s that it became a full-blown tradition. And now, as I get older, I find the list of birthday movies is becoming more and more difficult to remember. So, I'm going to put pen to paper and jot down the list for all time. Or, until this blog entry gets bumped off the main page. Either/or.

But yeah. These movies always have special memories associated with them, but I'm not going to share. That gets into the "way too personal" territory, and I'm really trying to steer the blog away from that.

But this is how it all began....

1988 - Short Circuit 2

1989 - Honey, I Shrunk the Kids [although, the original plan was for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier]

1990 - Back to the Future part III

1991 - The Rocketeer

1992 - Batman Returns

1993 - Jurassic Park

1994 - The Flintstones

1995 - Ah, my 18th birthday. No movie this year. Even though I don't drink, I humoured my family and did the whole "going to the bar for the first time" thing. Only time in my life I saw my mother get truly shit-faced.

1996 - Independence Day

1997 - Ah, the infamous summer of night shifts on a gravel crusher. Still the most brutal job I ever had. Needless to say, no movie cuz the job got in the way. I spent my 20th birthday lying on top of a gravel stockpile, staring at the stars, with my Walkman tuned to the CISN Country midnight request show.

1998 - Mulan [but the original plan was for Armageddon]

1999 - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace...again.

2000 - Shaft

2001 - I was volunteered to help out at a family function on my birthday weekend, so no movie. I spent most of the day driving to said function in Lloydminster.

2002 - Men in Black II. Notable in that it was the first movie I saw in Japan. I'd only been in the country for two weeks, didn't know anyone or how to do anything...but darn it, it was my birthday and I was seeing a movie.

2003 - Only back in Canada for a week. Still jet-lagged. Called off due to extreme exhaustion. But it would have been Hulk.

2004 - Fahrenheight 9/11

2005 - Herbie: Fully Loaded [the original plan was for Fantastic Four]

2006 - Superman Returns

And the new addition....

2007 - Transformers