It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to…

But I didn’t have to. I got some pretty great stuff.

Two things topped the list:

One: a new hard drive from Bridget, which will allow me to once again use my laptop as a laptop and stop using an external hard drive, forcing me to stay in one spot. I’ll be sure to load it up with all kinds of PDFs from RPGNow.

Two: DDI. Yes, my parents love me. I got a six-month subscription. I haven’t even logged on and tried it yet, but I’m very excited. Good job, mom and dad. I’ll probably try recreating everyone in the Lords of Dust campaign’s characters soon.

The goblin in question

Additionally, Bridget got me a pack of D&D minis, featuring a cyclops, githyanki, orc, beetle, and a very sad looking goblin. I feel kind of bad for him. It makes me want to play one now.

I also got Willow on DVD (a great movie for RPG inspiration), a $50 gift certificate to Amazon.com (perfect for D&D books), and a set of four framed pictures of old covers of various Marvel Comics including Iron Man, the Hulk, Spider-Man and the X-Men. I’m looking forward to putting those in my office in Chicago when we move.

I received some other non-game related things (Greg the Bunny on DVD and another gift certificate) which were also great.

An additional little present was an exchange I had on Facebook this evening. It went like this:

Shelly Mazzanoble: Happy Birthday, Mark!

Mark Meredith: Why thank you, Shelly! I just geeked out a little bit. OMG, Shelly Mazzanoble wrote on my wall!

Shelly Mazzanoble: Now I’m geeking out because Mark Meredith geeked out because I wrote on his wall! We could do this for days.
Anyway, I hope you had a great day and fabulous year to follow!

For any of you who don’t know, Shelly is the branding manager for D&D, and writer of Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress. She is also the “Player-in-Chief” at Wizards of the Coast. We’re friends on Facebook, but have never interacted at all. That was my brush with geek celebrity for the day.

G’night everyone!