Birthday thoughts

Let me couch this post in the following way: I've always been competitive. I don't know if it was because I played sports through high school or why I played sports through high school, but it's nonetheless true. While taking a full slate of classes during my senior year at Claremont, finishing my senior thesis and finding employment, I also took it upon myself to teach myself how to play effective checkers since the kids at the camp where I worked the previous summer had little trouble beating me. I don't need to actually play for real money to stay up all night winning a poker tournament amongst friends.

So please excuse me when I like to look at birthdays as a competition.

Irrationally, I like to think about the subjective possibility of being the "best" person born on your birthday. My birthday is November 3, and I've got some decent competition, though primarily in the entertainment industry. Dolph Lundgren, of Rocky IV fame, shares the same day of birth as me, as does Dennis Miller. Michael Dukakis is about the only non-entertainment competition that I've ever found. Roseanne Barr and David Letterman's son were born on November 3 as well. Bob Feller was born on my birthday; Bobby Thompson, who hit the Shot Heard Round the World, as well. Phil Simms shares the day, too.

Check out your competition here and here and here and here.

I bring this up because today, February 12, is both Abraham Lincoln's and Charles Darwin's birthday-- tough competition, and both were actually born in 1809, too.