BIRTHDAYS

For years, my friends and I celebrated the Beatles' birthdays.  It gives us an extra excuse to listen to their music and focus on their respective solo careers.  I guess I do that on a daily basis anyway, but their birthdays give me a chance to go all-out. :)  On this page, then, I've compiled all of the available pictures of these grand events.  Enjoy!

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JOHN'S 64th BIRTHDAY
October 9, 2004

I ran a classic rock club (called Apple Scruffs) on my college campus, so I invited club members to come to the celebration as well.  There were balloons and streamers everywhere, and I bought some flowers for John.  We baked two heart-shaped cakes (unfortunately, the cakes fell out in chunks when we tried to get them out of their pans) and talked about John's life and music.  Later, a friend and I went to a Beatles laser show and watched the Lennon Legend DVD (which never fails to make me cry).  It was a beautiful day overall, and the party helped to remind people of what an amazing person John was.

(the two heart-shaped cakes...crumbly but tasty)

(a small shrine for John)

(the leftover cake and the flowers)

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RINGO'S 64th BIRTHDAY
July 7, 2004

My friends and I decided to watch the definitive Ringo-movie in honor of his birthday: Caveman.  It's really not a particularly good movie, but it's quite funny nonetheless.  We baked a rainbow-chip cake earlier and decorated it after the movie.  Fortunately, we had a Baskin Robbins employee with us who is quite adept at decorating cakes...the tube of frosting was really difficult to use, though, so the writing isn't all that legible (but it was still a noble effort).  We also didn't have any candles on-hand, so we had to use a match instead.  All of us sang Happy Birthday, said why we love Ringo, and then gorged ourselves on the cake.

(my favorite scene from Caveman...where the ice monster is shuffling around in the ice cave)

(a close-up of the cake with a valiant handwriting job)

(because of the lack of candles, one person had to hold up a match...and, of course, another had to do the obligatory thumbs-up a la Paul)

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PAUL'S 62nd BIRTHDAY
June 18, 2004

My friends and I, being the poor cooks that we are (and we're lazy to boot), decided to go to a grocery store and get a cake for Paul this year (usually I bake one and struggle to write legibly on it).  We picked up the cake, got a pizza, and watched Help!.  I had printed out my favorite pictures of Paul earlier, so after the movie, I arranged the pictures all around Paul's cake and put one in the prongs of a fork stuck into the cake.  We lit the candles, sang "Happy Birthday" to Paul, and each gave a brief speech about Paul's greatness before digging in.  Beatles CDs and Paul's solo albums were, of course, providing the soundtrack for the whole day (but that's really no different from any other day, I guess).

(the cake surrounded by an array of pictures)

(a close-up of the cake before blowing out the candles)