I was born on September 4th, 1982 (or 9/4/82).

For most of my life I have had a strong dislike of this as my birthday for a variety of reasons, not least of which that none of the separate numbers that make up the date (9, 4 and 82) are prime numbers. 9 and 4 are perfect squares of the very first two prime numbers, which is kind of neat, mind you, but that’s simply not as compelling as being prime numbers themselves. And 82, well… that number is just boring.

In addition, no genre-defining, generational movies that would spawn decades of imagination-capturing toys and merchandise would come out in 1982 (instead, we got E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial—a movie that to this day looks creepy and I have no interest in, despite having ridden an outdated amusement park ride themed for it and being intrigued by the legend of the millions of copies of the Atari video game adaptation allegedly buried in a New Mexico landfill).

Hasbro wouldn’t unleash Transformers upon the US for another two years (although it would become the first love of my life when they did), and even the inaugural year of 3.75” GI Joe: A Real American Hero action figures wouldn’t be upgraded from unusably limited “straight arms” that only moved at the elbows to having the new “swivel arm battle grip” until 1983.

Disney opened a new park in 1982, but even that isn’t as big of a landmark as it could be for me, as it’s “just” EPCOT (“Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow”, although it has strayed quite a bit from that as its defining concept over the years). In theory, EPCOT should be one of the most fascinating theme parks ever envisioned, but the reality of the park–especially in its current state–has left me disheartened and discouraged. But more about Disney later on in this book.

So what historical things did happen on my birth date…? A handful of relatively obscure anime characters not worth mentioning have birthdays on September 4th, and a few franchises like Tron, My Little Pony and Buffalo Wild Wings (BW3, or “B-Dubs” as I affectionately call it) that would eventually have varying degrees of relevance to my life came into existence. But overall, it is a very insignificant and uninteresting birthdate.

Basically, it is an ordinary day. And if there’s one thing that drives me crazy, it’s being ordinary. Not because I think I’m better than anybody else, but because I’m bad at being similar to everybody else. My mannerisms, my speech patterns, my behaviors, the intensity of my interests, what and how I eat, the ways that I feel and communicate… they’ve all been deviant from societal norms for as long as I can remember. And if I’m going to be so wholly different from others, I feel like I should have a birthday that stands out in some regard too. Not in a way that’s “special”–just “apart”. I don’t like doing things halfway.

But alas. Life is full of little disappointments (as well as lots of positive surprises, too, hopefully). And if the humdrum historical context of someone’s birth date was even worth ranking amongst the disappointments in their lifetime, that’d have to be a pretty good life.

Whether or not my life has been so unspectacular–or blessed–that something as lame as a birth date is worth mentioning on my list, well… let’s read on and see.