The Happy Birthday Song Goes Public

April 8, 2016Jenn Goddu 4 Comments

Photo credit: Shawn Hoke via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

A longstanding copyright dispute over public access to the birthday song was resolved late last year in favor of the song entering public domain.

A Los Angeles judge ruled invalid the copyright claim of the companies collecting royalties on the “Happy Birthday” song for the past 80 years. The LA Times reported, Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the song’s use, as it had been doing since 1988, when it bought Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which claimed the original disputed copyright.

The paper also offered a thorough history of the controversy surrounding the song that “evolved into the well-known birthday song, with lyrics by Patty Smith Hill, and became what the Guinness World Records book has said is the most widely sung song in the English language.”

I am, of course, happy to think nothing untoward will happen to me for singing happy birthday in public. Well, not legally anyway, I cannot blame anyone who questions my enthusiastic yet often dischordant efforts.

Nevertheless, this may lead to a loss in the world of eateries. After all, the way in which all assembled waitstaff serenade a dining guest is part of a restaurant’s character.

I am clearly not alone in this theory, as I found a blog about birthday song experiences by an If You’re Wondering author, Connor, who decided Chuck E. Cheese has the best version with these lyrics:

Clap your hands!
Now stomp your feet!
You’re a Birthday Star at Chuck E. Cheese!
You’re our special guest,
We all aims to please
You’re big time, big stuff, going far
Here’s to you our Birthday Star!

Connor also checked out Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Chili’s, Texas Roadhouse and more.

Despite the silliness he finds in the derivations, I still believe that if everyone turns to the same familiar song, it will take away the flair! I am all for public access to the song, but I hope to see restaurant owners continue to strive for creativity in the ways in which they celebrate their celebrant diners.

Photo credit: Peter E. Lee via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Birthdays at 100. Not so bad after all.

April 2, 2016Jenn Goddu Leave a comment

Photo credit: MichaelTapp via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

If I were a better debater I might be dead now. Back in my college days I ran a debate case with a partner suggesting that anyone reaching the age of ____ should end their lives. I don’t remember wanting to kill them, but they were to dutifully off themselves. I don’t remember the precise age either; but I am certain 40 would have been as old as I would likely go. More likely 35.

I was 18. That seemed forever away, and I couldn’t imagine wanting to be middle aged. Let alone old. It’s the same kind of thinking four-year-olds show in seeing 16-year-olds as adults.

Recently, though, I read we are typically lasting longer. I know my RSS feed for birthdays regularly shows someone hitting 100 featured in their local paper. It’s no longer a big thing. According to the Press of Atlantic City, the National Study of Aging projects the population of people 100 and older is expected to increase 400 percent or more.

A Saskatoon paper in my native Canada recently covered six centenarians’ celebrating their birthdays together in the same senior’s center.

Also recently on social media there was an image going around of a 98-year-old man wanting to get 98 likes from his granddaughter’s network. He was over 69k when I read about it, and the messages were from around the world wishing the man a happy day. I loved seeing people from Ireland, Tokyo, Australia and France wishing the near-centenarian happy birthday.

Image source: Popsugar.com

And now that I am officially middle aged, I can appreciate someone living that long. I still don’t know that I want to, but I understand the appeal. After all, I have a son now and would love to see as many of his birthdays as I can. Plus, seeing a grandchild’s birthdays (while a largely unfathomable idea right now) would be something to enjoy too.

So, take this blog as a public retraction of my earlier stance. I will live and let live with my own special emphasis on birthdays going forward!

Birthday Busters

February 19, 2016Jenn Goddu Leave a comment

When you’re a kid, the worst thing you might imagine happening on your birthday is getting sick. Once you’re a little older, the tragedy is the right person not coming to your party or you doing something that will never be forgotten by your pre-teen/teen guests.

Photo credit: anna gutermuth via Foter.com / CC BY

When you’re an adult, though, what are some of the worst things that might happen on your birthday?

Dying. com provides a list of celebs who died on their birthdays including:
- Actress Ingrid Bergman
- Feminist author Betty Friedan
- Jazz musician Sidney Bechet
- Renaissance painter Raphael

Apparently, your chance of dying on your birthday is 6.7 percent higher, according to analysis from University of Chicago economics researcher Pablo Pena.

Someone you love dies on your birthday. I can’t find any stats on that one, but that would be horrid. At least here are some suggestions for how to mark the anniversary of the individual’s death.
Even just having a horrendous allergy attack on your birthday because there are nuts in the cupcakes or some other awfulness would be pretty bad.
Being asked for a divorce or served divorce papers. Huffington Post has two different articles related to birthdays for divorced women (at 25 and at 30).
Getting fired. In Wisconsin, a company settled out of court with two employees both fired on their 62^nd birthdays.
Setting fire to your home. The Daily Mail shares images of a birthday cake candle catching a balloon on fire and turning into a ball of flame.

Plus, I’ve written already about birthday honorees causing a riot, or being fined for celebrating their birthday, or ending up in jail.

Yeah, it’s not so upbeat. So, to end this consideration of birthday busts on a brighter note, enjoy a little schadenfreude around birthdays and check out this Awkward Family Photos’ gallery of birthday disasters.

Lucky Lottery Birthdays

February 12, 2016Jenn Goddu 4 Comments

Photo credit: Jeremy Brooks via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Many of us view our birthday as a lucky day. Some take it even farther and play birthdays to win big in the lottery!

A North Carolina man played his family’s birthdays to pick all five numbers and win $246,279 from a $1 ticket. “I’d used those numbers for a while and was about to pick some new ones,” Svedek said in the news coverage. “I’m so glad I didn’t. This feels really good.”
A Virginia woman won $100,000 when playing family birthdays on Powerball. She thought she’d only won $50K, but since she spent the extra dollar for Power Play her prize doubled and, according to her daughter, “she just about had a hard attack.”

Turns out, though, this isn’t actually the best way to pick lottery numbers. Sure, the numbers are easy to remember, but lottotutor.com — yes, there is such a site — suggests playing “birth dates starts you out on a disadvantaged path.”

You are, after all, limited to the numbers 1 to 31. Plus, if you do win, there’s a “higher probability of a diminished return by sharing that prize pool…because so many other lotto players also use their birthday numbers.”

Of course another way to incorporate a birthday with the lottery is to buy the tickets as a gift. A 19-year-old received two Illinois scratch off tickets from her Dad on her birthday and won $4 million! (Guess her Dad’s feeling pretty set on birthday presents for his daughter for years to come).

Nevertheless, as I wrap up this blog, I can imagine my logic professor brother rolling his eyes at me for even remotely endorsing the lottery. So, I’ll remind you that your odds for winning the lottery are slim — whether you play birthdays or not.

Lots of Birthday Chocolat

January 29, 2016Jenn Goddu 2 Comments

A friend who knows me well suggested I should write about birthday chocolate. As a lover of both birthdays and chocolate, I am game.

Image Source: The Cupcake Cowgirls

So, what does one write about birthday chocolate? How deliciously delectable it is? How deliriously happy you might make a birthday celebrant with a simple box of chocolates? You should already know this.

I was interested to see, though, how the chocolate companies handle birthday offerings:

Godiva, for instance, touts its birthday gifts suggesting: “You’ll never have trouble finding birthday presents again now that you’ve discovered these chocolate birthday gift baskets… you’ll be the rock star for getting the perfect birthday presents.”
Russell Stover lets you pick the chocolates for your gift box and personalize the packaging by adding text and your own photo (although this isn’t specific to birthdays, but that’s one of the examples).
Ghirardelli wants you to “celebrate someone special” by choosing the 15 chocolate squares to go in their gold tin with birthday wrapper.
Laura Secord didn’t market for birthdays, but as a proud Canadian I do have to say I thought the milk chocolate NHL team-themed hockey pucks were pretty cool.

If you want to make your own chocolate goodies for a birthday there are many recipes for a #yummybday.

Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake is an easy recipe to follow.

Or how about these two-ingredient gluten-free truffles from Minimalist Baker.

Image source: Minimalist Baker

More of a white chocolate fan? Try Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe for Cake Batter White Chocolate Fudge (although white chocolate is fake chocolate…).

Image Source: Sally’s Baking Addiction

I’m personally a fan of Chocolate Mousse, so here’s a simple recipe for that (although I have yet to make one at home that meets my high standards).

Finally, I thought I’d finish this rumination with a few fun facts selected from Slide Fact’s 22 about chocolate. Did you know:

Ruth Wakefield traded her recipe for Toll House Cookies in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
We can overdose on chocolate. A lethal dose is 22 pounds (or about 40 chocolate bars).
Every second, Americans collectively eat 100 pounds of chocolate — that’s birthdays or not!

Hey Shorty! It’s Your Birthday.

January 15, 2016Jenn Goddu Leave a comment

Birthday height

Ok, I do love the Go Shorty, It’s Your Birthday song. Of course, I do. It’s a birthday song!

Yet a recent study in Britain also reveals that your birthday has an impact on whether or not you really will be a shorty or not.

October babies (me again) are on the lower quarter in terms of expected height! December’s babies are the real midgets on the chart drawn by the Telegraph’s infographic team.

A UK study examined the growth and development of 450,000 men and women to find:

Children born in June, July, and August were heavier at birth and taller as adults.
Summer babies were 10% less likely to be short — under 5 foot 9 inches for men and 5 foot 3 inches for women.
Girls born in the summer started puberty later.
Individuals born in autumn vs. summer were more likely to continue in education post age 16 years or attain a degree-level qualification.

The authors suggested the results were related to how much sunlight the mother gets during pregnancy, since that in part determines in utero vitamin D exposure.

Oh, and the Telegraph had another article along this lines, reporting on a study of 400 people that said “babies born in the summer are much more likely to suffer from mood swings when they grow up while those born in the winter are less likely to become irritable adults.”

I guess these are more things we can blame on our parents. That is if we’re willing to even consider the fact that our birth month reflects a certain effort on their part nine months earlier.

Best of January Birthdays?

January 8, 2016Jenn Goddu 3 Comments

There’s a lot of complaining about December birthdays. I have two friends born on December 25^th, another December 23^rd, and my husband’s is December 30^th. They all have bemoaned the sharing of their birthday with Christmas. Even my mother, a December 16^th child, has talked about having birthday presents combined with Christmas presents, which according to at least one web critic is a big no-no.

Yet, I wonder if people who have January birthdays could be worse off? I’m an October baby (as faithful readers well know by now). So, I don’t have personal experience with this.

Only it seems to me that January babies could encounter the following:

Gift givers being plain tuckered out with shopping.
Bank accounts are especially strained after the holidays.
Re-gifted gifts. (So, I didn’t like it under the tree, but it’s perfect for you!).*

Of course, I’m not going to feel too badly for the January baby. After all, there are studies showing the many advantages that come from being born at the start of the year. I wrote about what Malcolm Gladwell said about this just last month.

Still, I don’t want to squash the enthusiasm of any January babies. So, I’ll end off with this list of special things about this birth month courtesy of American Greetings:

January is home of several awesome national monthly observances, including National Hobby Month, National Blood Donor Month, National Book Month, and National Thank You Month.
January is a month of extremes! It is the coldest month in the northern hemisphere and the hottest month in the southern hemisphere.
Your birthstone is the garnet, which represents purity, truth and friendship.
The flowers of January are the snowdrop and the carnation.

Oh, OK, one more downside from a Pinterest posting to consider:

*Re-gifting is not one of the birthday taboos I wrote about previously. Maybe it should have been.

Happy Birthday Officially!

January 1, 2016Jenn Goddu 4 Comments

Happy Birthday 2016!

Well before I stayed up late and drank too much bubbly at 2016’s birthday bash last night, I started thinking of all the birthdays that we’ve turned into holidays.

This is one of the best kinds of birthday. Someone else’s birthday is so special we get a day off from work? Yes please! It’s one reason we love celebrating the birth of our countries too. There’s Bastille Day July 14 in France whereas China takes a week off in October to mark its National Day.

But, let’s see what famous folk merit a government-acknowledged holiday to commemorate their birth:

Martin Luther King Day, celebrated in the United States since 1983, is on the third Monday of January to mark Dr. King’s birthday January 15 — although this holiday is meant to be commemorated with service.
President’s Day is the third Monday in February. Although it started out marking George Washington’s Feb 22 birth, the day now marks all U.S. presidents’ birthdays (though history.com, reports some states do still mark Lincoln or Washington individually).
Victoria Day in Canada celebrates Queen Victoria born May 24. The day is officially recognized with the Monday preceding May 25 off. That’s why it’s popularly known as May 2-4 weekend (for all the people who head to the cottage with a 2-4 of beer —Even though Victoria would surely not approve!).
Australia marks the Queen’s birthday the same Monday in May, but New Zealanders wait until June 1 (probably since that’s closer to Elizabeth’s birthday).
Queen Elizabeth is feted June 9 in England, although her birthday is actually April 21 (the two birthdays for reigning monarchs is quite common apparently).

Oh, and October 6 is a work holiday at my house for the awesomeness that is me, but I’ve yet to persuade others to join me.

What officially-recognized government-sanctioned birthdays did I miss? Let me know! I’d love to add to this list.

Bad at Sports? Blame Your Birthday

December 18, 2015Jenn Goddu 3 Comments

I was voted most accident prone in my graduating high school class. Although I’ve played soccer most of my life, and did play basketball on my middle school team, I’m not the best athlete. I had always thought my lack of grace was to blame.

However, it may just be my birthday!

Turns out those of us born September – December are at a disadvantage when it comes to playing sports.

Photo credit: William & Mary Photos / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

In a New York magazine article about Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) and his views on success, I learned about “what academics call the relative-age effect, by which an initial advantage attributable to age gets turned into a more profound advantage over time.”

He makes the case with hockey players, but I’ve also seen it argued with Australian Premiere League rugby players. The idea is that those with a January 1 eligibility cutoff in sports, those that have a birthday earlier in the month are more likely to reap the benefits of higher-level play.

For instance, a hockey player born in February will be playing alongside kids born in April and August. Well, the earlier born kid is likely to have more maturity (Gladwell mentions physical, but emotional could help too). So the January baby gets recruited for an all-star team which leads to more practice, better coaching, and tougher games. By the time the kids are older, the January baby has an advantage over the October kid who was less mature when those choices were made.

Gladwell suggests, according to the same article, “elementary and middle schools put students with January through April birthdays in one class, the May through August birthdays in another, and those with September through December in a third, in order ‘to level the playing field for those who—through no fault of their own—have been dealt a big disadvantage.’”

That would mean a lot more shared class birthday parties — in those schools at least that allow birthday parties these days.

Photo credit: Graceful Cake Creations / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Happy Hours, Free Food, Birthdays..Security?

November 27, 2015Jenn Goddu 1 Comment

It’s been a couple of years (thankfully) since I last had to clock in at an office job. Nevertheless, I was not at all surprised by a security firm’s findings that data security is less important than office birthdays and who stole a yogurt out of the shared break room fridge.

Centrify surveyed 400 IT decision makers in the U.S. and UK to find among the most frequent topics of office conversation:

Employees leaving or joining company (30% US, 7% UK)
Happy hours (24% US, 17% UK)
Free food left over from meetings (22% US, 20% UK)
Holidays and birthdays (22% US, 18% UK)
Kitchen etiquette (18% US, 17% UK)

Plus you know that holidays/birthdays should be higher since the free food is often a birthday cake and happy hours are prompted by staff birthdays!

Photo credit: Buthaina AlOthman / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

Centrify goes on to argue that “every effort” should be made to educate users about data threats and security protocols. Yet I don’t envy the guy who chimes in over coffee: “sure there’s free brownies over at accounting, but when’s the last time you changed your Internet password?” Let’s just say he is unlikely to be invited to the next staff birthday shindig.

You can bet this brilliant birthday cubicle decorating idea would be the talk of the water cooler:

Photo credit: Ryan Leighty / Foter / CC BY

BTW, another interesting survey finding? Weather-related emergencies were more likely to be talked about at work in the U.S. (25%) than the UK (14%) where one supposes a stiff upper lip helps them get through all that rain without worry. Although I’ve seen the Scots try and survive a few centimeters of snow and it wasn’t pretty!

Birthdays are Best

Everything about birthdays. A blog focused on birthday fun facts, parties, tunes, trends and more. And there will be cake.

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