In Lieu of an Actual Gift...

Last Thursday was the birthday of my work compadre Paul.  I totally forgot that it was his birthday until late morning, and I only remembered it then because I had smuggled my phone into the bathroom and took a quick hit of Facebook.  I know hundreds of people (a regular socialite,fer sure) but truthfully I only remember about 10 birthdays via my own brainpower.  Sooo yeah, birthday naggin' --that's one Facebook positive (to counteract the countless FB evils).

Anyways, I'd spoken to Paul numerous times by 11am, never once mentioning his b-day, so it was quite clear that I was oblivious to it.  And it's not as if Paul is going to get to make out with Jake Ryan on a table over a giant birthday cake that evening...so I felt bad.

I had happened to read that a.m. , the Wikipedia write up of Sept 6th.  It's this  NERDY workday custom of mine...I read the list of historical anniversaries du jour & famous birthdays. Yeah, yeah, yeah, scoff all you wanna now, but perhaps someday I'll be in a hostage situation, and I'll just up and blurt out, "You can't shoot me today!! Today marks the 30th anniversary of Wayland Flowers & Madame's debut on Solid Gold!!"  And --oh yes--I WILL be spared.   Who would ever snuff out such a font of quirk and knowledge?

But back to Paul's birthday.. . .due to my wiki habit, I happened to know that Paul shared a birthday with Max Schreck , the creepy mysterious German actor who played the titular role in Noseferatu (1922)  You'd have to know Paul to understand what wondrous serrendipity this is.  There is no better patron celebrity for this guy.  And Paul was also pleased to learn this. He posted it on his Facebook wall.  But he neglected--tragically-- to post the MS Paint masterpiece I made for him (on work time, please note,  so it wasn't just a gift of my artistry, but it was also a sacrifice of my professional integrity as a cubicle-bound minion drone).

I used the original (and intensely creepy) Nosferatu publicity still from Schreck's Wiki bio--

 

And I added some b-day flair....

 

Downright lovable, no??