#may 22nd 2002

[hockeytown-gifs]

Stevie's Troubles - Detroit Red Wings 2002 Playoffs

[ontgerunway]

Toji died in 2006 summer. (May-September in Japan)

Megumi was born 22nd December 2002

He was 3+, not even 4 when Toji died. So Toji's flashback of Megumi being so young makes sense and Megumi not remembering him also makes sense.

When Gojo went to meet Megumi, he was 5-6 years old. So he didn't immediately go back to Megumi after Toji's death. So Megumi's "I haven't seen him (Toji) for years makes sense as his father literally been dead for years.

As for why Gojo didn't immediately go back? I have a theory that Toji's second wife was alive at that time or around them. She's also probably the one who told them Toji ran away not knowing her husband actually died.

And Gojo only stepped in when she ran away herself and probably waited a few days to see whether she returned or confirmed her death (idk she's dead but I'm giving her the benefit of doubt).

So the criticism of Toji not seeing Megumi for years is bs as he himself took care of Megumi as a child and when he realized he couldn't be good father to Megumi he decided to marry Tsumiki's mom and I do think she's a decent mom as Toji is good at judging characters (i.e. he was right about Gojo). This is why I think she also died, or was murdered.

And the criticism of Gojo not going back to Megumi immediately is also bs. Megumi and Tsumiki were not left alone for years. Megumi and Tsumiki were going to school, his step mom must have admitted them there before getting erased out of existence. Why would Gojo interfere when one guardian is still there?

The kids could not get admission in school without a guardian and that's why I think his step mom was alive and around them that time.

After her disappearance, Megumi thought she ran away with Toji. And that makes me question if her disappearance had anything to do with Toji's death. Maybe she heard something about Toji after all these years and wanted to find out and get herself killed in the process, which is a good probability as Toji had lots of enemies due to his profession.

I'd say their marriage was fairly recent as Shio himself didn't know about it. He was very much involved when Megumi was a baby and thought Toji was still a single dad when he met him in 2006 and Megumi was still a toddler.

Anyways, I just wanted to put it out there to people who say Toji left Megumi alone for years or Gojo left Megumi alone for years.

Neither of them makes sense and total BS

[not-with-you-but-of-you]

Shall I stay? Would it be a sin If I can’t help Falling in love with you?

Happy 22nd Anniversary to Lorelai’s Graduation Day (aired on May 14th, 2002)!

[digimonarchive]

Digimon in all animated media - Anime, Movies and OVA

1st pic = Digimon Adventure anime (Japan: March 7, 1999 - March 26, 2000; USA: August 14, 1999 - June 24, 2000)

2nd pic = Digimon Adenture 02 anime (Japan: April 2, 2000 - March 25, 2001; USA: August 19, 2000 - May 19, 2001)

3rd pic = Digimon Tamers anime (Japan: April 1, 2001 - March 31, 2002; USA: September 1, 2001 - June 8, 2002)

4th pic = Digimon Frontier anime (Japan: April 7, 2002 - March 30, 2003; USA: September 9, 2002 - July 14, 2003)

5th pic = Digimon Savers / Data Squad anime (Japan: April 2, 2006 – March 25, 2007; USA: October 1, 2007 - November 2, 2008)

6th pic = Digimon Xros Wars / Fusion anime (Japan: July 6, 2010 - March 25, 2012; USA: September 7, 2013 - August 16, 2015)

7th pic = Digimon Xros Wars: The Evil Death Generals and the Seven Kingdoms anime (a.k.a Digimon Xros Wars part 2) (Japan: April 3, 2011 - September 25, 2011; USA: March 8, 2015 - August 16, 2015) **

8th pic = Digimon Xros Wars: The Young Hunters Who Leapt Through Time anime (a.k.a Digimon Xros Wars Hunters or Digimon Xros Wars part 3) (Japan: October 2, 2011 - March 25, 2012) ***

9th pic = Digimon Adventure Tri OVA (Japan: November 21, 2015 - May 5, 2018; USA: September 15, 2016 - September 20, 2018)

10th pic = Digimon Universe Appli Monsters anime (a.k.a Appmon) (Japan: October 1, 2016 - September 30, 2017)

11th pic = Digimon Adventure: (a.k.a Digimon Adventure 2020 or Digimon Adventure reboot) (Japan: April 5, 2020 - September 26, 2021; USA: November 19, 2022 - April 13, 2023)

12th pic = Digimon Ghost Game (Japan: October 3, 2021 - March 26, 2023)

13th pic = Digimon Adventure (Movie) short film (Japan: March 6, 1999; USA: October 6, 2000 as the first segment part of Digimon The Movie)

14th pic = Digimon Adventure: Our War Game! movie (Japan: March 4, 2000; USA: October 6 2000 as the second segment part of Digimon The Movie)

15th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: Vol. 1: Digimon Hurricane Landing!/Vol. 2: Transcendent Evolution! The Golden Digimentals movie (a.k.a Digimon Adventure 02 Vol 1 and 2) (Japan: July 8, 2000; USA: October 6, 2000 as the third segment part of Digimon The Movie) ****

16th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: Diablomon Strikes Back / Digimon: Revenge of Diaboromon movie (Japan: March 3, 2001; USA: August 5, 2005)

17th pic = Digimon Tamers: The Adventurers' Battle / Digimon: Battle of Adventurers movie (Japan: July 14, 2001; USA: October 16, 2005)

18th pic = Digimon Tamers: The Runaway Digimon Express / Digimon: Runaway Locomon movie (Japan: March 2, 2002; USA: October 2, 2005)

19th pic = Digimon Frontier: Revival of the Ancient Digimon!! / Digimon: Island of Lost Digimon movie (Japan: July 20, 2002; USA: October 23, 2005)

20th pic = Digital Monster X-evolution movie (Japan: January 3, 2005; USA: August 1, 2020)

21st pic = Digimon Savers The Movie: Ultimate Power! Activate Burst Mode!! movie (Japan: December 9, 2006)

22nd pic = Digimon Adventure 3D: Digimon Grandprix! short film OVA (Japan: July 20, 2000)

23rd pic = Digimon Savers 3D: The Digital World in Imminent Danger! short film OVA (Japan: July 8, 2006)

24th pic = Digimon Adventure 20th Anniversary Memorial Story Project OVA short films (Japan: November 22 2019 - December 25, 2020)

25th pic = Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna movie (Japan: February 21, 2020; USA: September 29, 2020)

26th pic = Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning movie (Japan: October 5, 2023; USA: November 8, 2023)

** This is the 2nd part of Digimon Xros Wars saga with Taiki, Kiriha and Nene on their adventure while Akari and Zenjirou are left out.

*** This is the 3rd part of Digimon Xros Wars saga with Tagiru, Yuu and Taiki as the protagonists. This 3rd part has the overly long title so we fans prefer to call it 'Digimon Xros Wars: Hunters' or 'Digimon Young Hunters'.

**** Yes, this movie has an overly long title. I had a hard time deciding whether to highlight it in bold or not.

Happy Digimon Day!

[kafus]

over the weekend at the knoxville regional pokemon championships, i met up with a longtime internet friend in person for the first time, and he traded me a very special pokemon - a unique celebi that takes a bit of context to explain the significance of

from november 2001 to january 2005, the building that is now a nintendo world store in new york city was actually an american pokemon center, which hosted the "Gotta Catch ‘Em All!" station, a large machine that you could pop your gold/silver/crystal cartridge into (or later ruby/sapphire/firered/leafgreen, but that's not relevant here) and get a special distribution pokemon unique to the store. often times these were normal pokemon in eggs with special moves they couldn't usually learn, but other times they ran distributions for shiny legendaries, and of course, the mythical celebi.

there's very few pictures of the machine and all of them are pretty low quality, but you can see an iteration of it here during the gen 3 era:

when PCNY (pokemon center new york) shut down, the machine and its contents were presumed lost forever, but due to the preservation efforts and the good luck of a few individuals, some of the distributions have been preserved, as well as parts of the machine and its software. this is extra incredible because almost all gen 2 save files from the time the machine was actually functional are long since wiped due to the battery inside dying, meaning that very very few of the gen 2 event pokemon distributed from this machine at the time still exist. i won't go super in detail on that in this post but you can read an article about all of that here (julie, the person who runs this historical PCNY fansite is incredibly passionate and if you want to know anything about the PCNY store i absolutely recommend reading her writing!)

so, one day when i was rambling to my friend (his name is Venty!) about my fascination with the PCNY machine, and how i wish i had been born early enough to experience that, as well as wishing that i could have traded with anyone in gens 1-3 as a child but never got to due to isolation, venty told me that he's actually friends with a guy (Professor Rex) who knows the guy who owns the remnants of the PCNY machine (Gridelin), and he would love to reach out and ask if there's any way rex could distribute a celebi to himself and trade it to him sometime so that eventually when me and venty met in person one day, he'd be able to trade the celebi to me.

i pretty much burst into tears and very passionately explained how much that would mean to me - not just because owning a celebi actually distributed from the historical PCNY distribution station is just... insanely cool, but because like i said, i had never traded anyone in the old internet-less generations of pokemon, and having that be my first was just... a monumental thought. i am deeply fascinated with old gen event distributions because of the tactile, interpersonal nature of them, in direct contrast with my isolation and loneliness as a child. it might sound silly to be so worked up over a collection of bytes/pixels, but i really couldn't believe venty would offer me something so kind. and not only did he offer to ask - rex said yes!!

so on may 21st last year (2023) rex traveled out and distributed the celebi to his pokemon silver cartridge. specifically, the celebi is from the "Celebi Present Campaign" which ran from the 22nd of november 2002 to the 28th of november 2002. the display on the monitor is the same video that would have appeared on the screen in the PCNY store, but flipped sideways here haha. (the gen 2 distributions were special and had custom animations for the legendaries and stuff, which you can watch here in full quality on gridelin's channel - there's videos of the other distribution animations on his channel, too!)

and then months later, during the weekend of august 11th 2023, rex and venty met up at the pokemon world championship in japan and rex traded the celebi to venty's gold cartridge...

...then, finally, just this past weekend, on sunday (february 4th 2024) venty and i finally met in real life for the first time at the knoxville TN regional pokemon championships, and with link cable in hand the celebi finally made its way to me in my hotel room, after crossing the ocean twice and passing through canada to the US to japan and back to the US...!!

gen 2 pokemon data isn't very complicated, but you can tell that my celebi is unique from the other PCNY celebis dumped online (here and here if you'd like to play with some of these historical pokemon yourself) because it has the trainer ID of 00204 which none of the publicly available celebis have - though of course to me, regardless of what becomes publicly available in the future (and i hope one day the common layperson can simply emulate the PCNY machine, video game preservation >>> unique collections always) this celebi will always be special and unique because of how it got to me, and because it represents my friendship with venty who i care so much about. it was an extremely kind gesture i will never forget and i can't believe how much traveling and how many people were involved with getting this tiny bundle of bytes and pixels to me. i hugged venty after the trade was done haha

oh, and by the way, don't worry, i have the hardware to back up my gen 2 save files so this celebi will never die even after my crystal cartridge battery eventually dies once more!! (also, while i don't think it would be an issue i do want to say please don't bother any of the people mentioned in this post...! gridelin & co are working on making the distribution machine in question available for anyone to use, it'll come out whenever it's out and for now there are dumps of the events that were recovered. i would not want them to receive any annoying requests for pokemon because of me. thank you!)

[elizabethwydevilles]

Padme, during RotS development

One thing to understand is that for the first several months of pre-production, George Lucas is still writing the script (pre-production started roughly around late April of 2002, with the first draft of the script finished in late January 2003. To quote Paul Duncan: 'before the script was written, the design team were given the freedom to imagine possible scenarios', and Rick McCallum: 'usually no one would go off and spend millions of dollars without understanding what the very foundation of the film they're making is, but we break that very rule of film production'.

Sources for this post are The Art of Revenge of the Sith by J. W. Rinzler (2005), The Making of Revenge of the Sith by J. W. Rinzler (2005) and The Star Wars Archives, 1999-2005 by Paul Duncan (2020).

It's also going to be a long ass post, so see under the cut.

June 7-21 2002(?): Ryan Church painted a battle scene: 'What if a bunch of bad guys were attacking Padme and the clones who were trying to get back to their ship?'

August 2002: While revieving costume designs, GLucas indicated that Padme will need senatorial, casual and action wear.

October 12th, 2002: 'For the first time, it is rumoured that Padmé might die in this film. She might be seen last on Alderaan.'

October 25th-31st, 2002: In response to GLucas requesting a new locale for a Padme and Anakin 'love scene', Erik Tiemens designed several Naboo sceneries. Upon viewing them, GLucas moved the scene to Coruscant; some design elements are used for Kashyyyk.

October, 2002: Iain McCaig designed costumes for Padme. Note the bird of prey.

October 2002: While designing the world of Kashyyyk, Erik Tiemens painted a scene of Padme walking with wookies. (Note: Image is a cropped version of the full art work)

November 1st-8th, 2002: Iain McCaig: 'George said there might be a scene where Padme's doubled over in agony and Yoda is there unable to help her'.

November 22nd, 2022: Erik Tiemens designed a set of new locations for Padme and Anakin 'love scene' on Coruscant.

December 19th, 2002: Erik Tiemens: 'I was brainstorming with Iain [McCaig] and he thought that Padme might have a dagger in her hand'.

December 20th, 2002: Derek Thompson illustrated his idea of having Vader find Padme and the children, who are being protected by Jedi.

January 31st 2003: GLucas delivered the first rough draft to his producer Rick McCallum. The outline given in the book is brief, but Padme's basic storyline in the 55 page script appears no different. However, Anakin's nightmare about Padme features her consumed by flames, and Padme goes to Mustafar with her handmaidens and Captain Typho - who are gunned down by clones on arrival.

February 6th, 2003: Erik Tiemens designed a piece of concept art for Padme's funeral procession.

April 12th/13th 2003: GLucas presented the first official draft of the movie script. It's 111 pages long. Padmé and her entourage are still attacked on their arrival on Mustafar, but this time by droids whom Anakin defeats. In regards to Padme's death, Palpatine tells Vader that a Jedi murdered her.

May 5th, 2003: Iain McCaig's designed Padme's funeral outfit.

May 24th, 2003: Erik Tiemens illustrated Padme and Anakin's farewell before he leaves for Mustafar.

May 29th, 2003: Erik Tiemens illustrated Padme watching the Jedi temple burn.

June 13th 2003: GLucas presented the second official draft of the movie script. It's 135 pages long. Anakin's nightmare of Padmé is changed from her being consumed by flames, to her dying in childbirth. There is now a scene where Palpatine suggests to Anakin that Obi-Wan is meeting with Padmé secretly. In regards to Padme's actual death, Palpatine tells Vader that he [Vader] murdered her, just as in the movie. Just like the finished movie, it is noted that Padme dies of a broken heart. Padme's final smile at Leia is noted to be the smile that Leia remembers in RotJ.

June 26th, 2003: The fourth draft of the script is completed, consisting of 129 pages. Padme is no longer accompanied to Mustafar by Typho and her handmaidens.

June 30th, 2003: Principal photography begins.

July 2nd, 2003: First Padme scenes are shot, both located in her apartment (Her and Obi-Wan discussing Anakin, and Padme with the other senators).

July 3rd, 2003: Revised script for the scene in which Obi-Wan tells Padme he knows about her and Anakin.

August 12th, 2003: Last day of principal shooting for Natalie Portman.

September 17th, 2003: Principal shooting finishes.

December 21st, 2003: Iain McCaig designed a practical costume for Padme.

March 9th, 2004: All but the last ('thunderous applause') of Padme's political scenes have now been cut from the final film.

August 23rd - September 3rd 2004: Reshoots

August 23rd, 2004: Additional scene scripted for reshoot the following day.

January 31st, 2005: One last day of filming for Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen.

Script excerpt (unknown date)

Art (unsure dates)

Padme's apartment layout and colours

[darkelfguy]

Happy 22nd Birthday Morrowind! May 1st, 2002 - May 1st, 2024!

[the-aussie-knight]

Playboy Playmate: May 2002

Name: Christi Shake

Born: 22nd of August 1980

Measurements: 34D-24-34

[heroesriseandfall]

Canonical Batfamily Birthdays

Here are all the birthdates I know of that are canon somewhere in DC, with a preference for the main comics continuities. I have included exact sources and image references when possible. I am not including character introduction dates, just actual birthdays.

If you find any other sources for Batfamily birthdays, please do share!

A moment of silence for Batfamily characters who don’t have canonical birthdays yet, so far as I know. This includes Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, and more. :(

Summary

Source images will be further down, but here’s an overview in roughly age order (I’m not sure of Kate vs Selina’s ages) with the dates the birthdays were introduced and used:

Tim Drake: July 19th (from 2003)

Jason Todd: August 16th (from 2004)

Cassandra Cain: January 26th (from 2002)

Helena Bertinelli: February 14th (in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold universe, from 2010)

Helena Wayne: September 7th (from 1984), potentially October 20th or the 22nd of unknown month or maybe October 22 or maybe Feb 28th (all the New 52 on passports from 2011-2012). These could also be New 52 Helena Bertinelli’s birthdays or nobody’s birthdays. who even knows.

Dick Grayson: March 20th (from 1995), October ~24th ish (from 1990), November 11th (from 1976), December 1st (on Earth-16 in animated Young Justice universe, from 2012)

Barbara Gordon: September 23rd (from 1976), sometime in fall (from 1987)

Selina Kyle: March 14th (from 1976)

Kate Kane: January 26th (in Batwoman TV series from 2020), March 21st? (word-of-god by J.H. Williams III from 2012)

Bruce Wayne: October 7th (from 2021), February 19th (from 1970s various to more recently), April ~7th (from the late 1940s)

Jim Gordon: January 5th (from 1976)

Alfred Pennyworth: April 8th (from 1976), August 16th (in the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe, from 2016)

Note: in this post when I say “main comics continuity(s)/universe” I’m referring to anything that’s been a “home” continuity for the comics at some point. For example, pre-Crisis Earth-2, Earth-1/New Earth, and Earth-0/Prime Earth, as opposed to Elseworlds or DCEU earths that are still part of the broader DC multiverse but have never been the primary continuity of the comics.

Below are further details and source panels.

Details and Sources

Tim Drake

Tim has only been given one canon birthday. He turned 16 on July 19th in Robin Vol. 2 #116 (cover date Sep 2003).

Robin Vol. 2 #116 (Sep 2003)

Jason Todd

Jason turned 18 on August 16th in Detective Comics #790 (March 2004). This is his only canon birthday.

Detective Comics #790 (Mar 2004)

In post-Crisis/preboot (1986-2011) continuity, there was a gap of six months between when Jason died and when he was resurrected (Batman Annual 25). Jason died April 27th according to his death certificates in Batman Annual 25 and Batman Files 2011, so he would’ve resurrected near late October.

Batman Annual 25 (May 2006)

So, it could be that post-resurrection Jason is biologically 6 months younger than he chronologically should be. But honestly, do we even really know what multiverse-breaking resurrection punches and then a Lazarus Pit on top of that do to someone’s body??? Either way it’s just much more simple to just use his chronological age.

Cassandra Cain

Much like Tim and Jason, Cass has only ever been given one birthdate: January 26th from Batgirl Vol. 1 #33. With that birthday, she turned 18 in Batgirl Vol. 1 #37.

Batgirl Vol. 1 #33 (Dec 2002)

When Jan 26th actually comes, Bruce suggests David Cain could’ve lied about it, but Cass denies that idea and continues to treat the day as her birthday.

Batgirl Vol. 1 #37 (Apr 2003)

Why it's likely her real birthday: Bruce initially believes Cain must’ve lied because he doesn’t think Cain could’ve known her birthday. However, we later learn Cain had lied about her origins and was actually her biological father. Batgirl v1 #62 and #73 show he was there for her birth and could absolutely know the date.

On top of that, in Batgirl #37 Cass remembers celebrating her birthday with him as a child, so he did seem to actually keep track of it. I honestly don’t see any reason to believe he’d lie (Bruce is just a jealous spoilsport).

Helena Bertinelli + Wayne

I’m combining them here because the New 52 gives me a headache.

Helena Bertinelli celebrated her birthday on February 14th in a spin-off comic from the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold series. This is obviously not part of regular comics continuity and the characters differ from the usual comics in many ways. And yet, for reasons that will soon be clear, it’s my favorite for actually being about Helena Bertinelli the Huntress and for not being an utter mess.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14 (Apr 2010)

In a character profile at the end of Infinity Inc. #7 (Oct 1984), Helena Wayne’s birthday was September 7th, 1959. Calculating back from October 1984, that would make her 25 at the time.

During the New 52, Helena Bertinelli was initially portrayed as a long-dead (secretly alive but don’t worry about it) mobster’s daughter and replaced by Earth-2’s Helena Wayne who got stranded on Prime Earth. This H. Wayne stole H. Bertinelli’s identity in the form of several forged passports and IDs, which had hints toward birthdates. The question is, can we take any of those birthdates seriously, and if so, which birthdates and for which character? (Cue my headache.)

Skip ahead to Dick if overthinking fake passports sounds boring.

When comparing to a real Italian passport, the date on H. Wayne’s fake Italian passport appears to be a birthdate. Note that the fake name is Carol Bertinelli, not Helena. H. Wayne said her IDs were inspired by H. Bertinelli but clearly she’s taking liberties for the IDs so that’s a point toward these being useless for H. Bertinelli birthdays.

Huntress Vol. 3 #1 (Dec 2011)

I don’t recognize the month abbreviation as a real abbreviation, but from the visible letter O I’m going to assume it means October. If it is, then the date is 20 October 1985. Sidenote: a 1985 birthdate during 2011 could put her age at about 26, which is actually quite close to how old she could’ve been based on pre-Flashpoint! 1985 has been given as Helena Wayne’s death year before, so it’s an interesting choice of a birth year for her. (Thanks to DC’s sliding timescale, though, birth years don’t actually mean anything in the comics.)

They don’t show her complete US passport, but I can see a “22” in line where the day of the month should be for her birthdate. This already contradicts the previous passport. This one uses Helena Bertinelli’s actual name, though–does that make it more relevant than the Carol one or this all still ridiculous because of the discrepancies?

Worlds’ Finest Vol. 1 #1 (Jul 2012)

We can try to glean the US passport birth month from the passport number at the bottom. The first two digits (“12” here) indicate the agency that issued the passport. 12 means the Honolulu agency. Right after “USA” is supposed to be the birthdate plus an extra number, in the order of year/month/day with the year being the last two digits of a year. Here we encounter another problem. It says 810228. This would imply her birthdate is 1981/02/28. That’s February 28, 1981. Since the earlier line indicated her birthday fell on a 22nd, this already contradicts itself.

Interpreting a Machine Readable Zone (MZR) on a Machine Readable Travel Document (MRTD)

However, I’d bet comic writers and artists aren’t always well versed in passport numbers (it’s already a stretch for me to bother checking it…). If they put the extra digit before the birthdate instead after, and the date is formatted month/day/year (the most common format in American English, so probably their first instinct), then we can drop the first 8 and it’s 10/22/8[?] with the last digit unknown. This would put her birthday as October 22, sometime in the 1980s. The 22 matches the earlier line, the October might match the previous passport if that really did say October (but contradicts the 20th), and the 1980s year could be 1985 to match the Italian passport.

At the end of the day I’m personally just going to let Helena Bertinelli be a Valentine’s born baby and call it a day, unless/until she gets a better one in the comics. For Helena Wayne I’d easily pick September 7th.

(My question is: did they give the crossbow vigilante a Valentine’s birthday as a Cupid joke??)

Dick Grayson

Dick has probably had the most birthdays of everyone (unless Bruce has more I don’t know about). All of them have their drawbacks.

In a main comics continuity, his most popular and most recent is “the first day of spring” so probably March 20th. This comes from Robin Annual 4 when his mom says she calls him Robin because he was born on the first day of spring. That presents some problems since there are other explanations given for the origin of “Robin,” including that his mom said he was “always bobbin’ along” (Dark Victory #12, page 17) or the original inspiration of Robin Hood (Detective Comics #38, p3).

Robin Annual 4 (Jun 1995)

Before that, in Secret Origins Vol. 2 #50 (Aug 1990), Marv Wolfman wrote a version of Dick’s origins where Dick turned 10 a week before his parents died on Halloween. That would make his birthday October ~24th (presuming that “a week” before Halloween literally means 7 days here).

Secret Origins Vol. 2 #50 (Aug 1990)

The first drawback of the October birthday is that it’s tied to Dick being 10 when his parents die on Halloween. Dick’s age and the date his parents die change a lot depending on the writer (Nightwing Vol. 1 #1 says his parents died June 27th, Dark Victory #8-9 says May, etc.). The second drawback is that few people remember this version of his birthday even exists.

Dick’s birthday is November 11th in Super DC Calendar 1976. Note: Despite being a non-diegetic calendar from almost 50 years ago, this source remains well known and used among comic enthusiasts (including those working at DC). Generally, I would say it should mainly apply just to pre-Crisis continuity, but it is also useful for characters that haven’t gotten updated birthdays ever since (like Roy Harper, Barbara Gordon, or Selina Kyle, for example).

Super DC Calendar 1976

Sidenote: Since Damian doesn’t have a canon birthday, November 11th is favorite to steal for my own fan canon Damian birthday. Dick has plenty birthdays to share and I think it’s cute. @ DC, give Damian and Steph birthdays, they’ve been birthday-less for decades!

Indeed, DC writer Tim Sheridan and editor Mike Cotton debated whether Dick’s birthday was in March or November. They favored March 20th and wrote a birthday scene in Teen Titans Academy #1 (published March 23rd, 2021). The publishing time near Dick’s birthday was intentional, though the date isn’t mentioned within the comic itself.

Link to tweet

The above birthdays were all meant to apply to a main comics continuity at some point. However, Earth-16, better known as the animated Young Justice universe (therefore outside of main comics continuity), says YJ Dick’s birthday is December 1st.

Young Justice Vol. 2 #20 (Nov 2012)

Unlike Helena Bertinelli, Dick has plenty of comics birthdays to choose from, so personally I’ll only count Dec 1st as being the birthday for YJ animated/Earth-16 Dick Grayson until or unless it’s ever mentioned to apply to main comics continuity.

Barbara Gordon

Super DC Calendar 1976 says Barbara’s birthday is September 23rd.

Super DC Calendar 1976

Since then, the only time I recall her birthdate hinted at is in Secret Origins #20 when her adoptive mom says her birthday is in the fall. This could support her birthday being September 23rd.

Secret Origins Vol. 2 #20 (Nov 1987)

Although she has celebrated her birthday on panel since then (the end of Nightwing Vol. 2 #153), she hasn’t been given any other actual birthdate. So I’ll keep September 23rd and call it a day.

Selina Kyle

Super DC Calendar 1976 says Selina’s birthday is March 14th. Once again, although it hasn’t been mentioned within a comic, it’s stuck around in popular consciousness (see: Catwoman actress Zoë Kravitz wishing Selina a happy birthday on March 14th).

Super DC Calendar 1976

Selina celebrated a birthday on panel in Catwoman (2002) #37 but the date was never mentioned. I don’t know of any other reference to her birthday, but my reading of Selina is thus far more sparse than my reading of the others.

Kate Kane

Kate’s birthday options all come from outside of the comics themselves.

In “An Un-Birthday Present,” season 1 episode 11 of Batwoman, a parallel version of her twin Beth had a driver’s license showing her date of birth as January 26, 1990. She and Kate later celebrated their birthdays on an episode aired Jan 26th, 2020. I don’t keep up with live action DC shows so I unfortunately can’t offer a screenshot (if anyone has one or the timestamp, please let me know!).

(I kinda wonder if somebody looked up Batwoman’s birthday for these episodes, saw Batgirl’s (Cass’s) birthday, and just ran with it. Batwoman and a Batgirl sharing a birthday is just. Ughhh.)

In 2012, one of her comic writers tweeted to choose a random date for her birthday and picked March 21st, which so far as I know has never been used as her birthday in comics.

Link to tweet

Bruce Wayne

Bruce’s most popular birthday is February 19th, but his most recent one is October 7th from the digital-only comic Legends of the Dark Knight. I believe that’s the only time October 7th has been referenced, but I’ve heard the animated show The Batman said his birthday was in October (can’t confirm, haven’t watched it recently).

Legends of the Dark Knight #10 (Jun 2021) - Note: two pages have been combined into one for this post

Still, even associates of DC seem to remember his February 19th birthday better. In February 2023, Warner Bro’s Gotham Knights game did a sale for Bruce’s birthday. I’ve also heard the birthday was used in the Gotham TV show, but again, I don’t watch much live action DC shows.

The February 19th birthday appears to come from the 70s and 80s. It’s his birthday in the Super DC Calendar 1976, and in Batman Family Vol. 1 #11: “Suprise, Suprise!” (May 1977). Bob Rozakis (known as DC’s “Answer Man”) said Feb 19th was Bruce’s birthday in the letter column of Detective Comics #494 (Sep 1980).

Letter column of Detective Comics #494 (Sep 1980)

Batman Family Vol. 1 #11: “Suprise, Suprise!” (Jun 1977)

Super DC Calendar 1976

Way back in the 40s, his birthday was in April, possibly April 7th. During a birthstone murder mystery, Bruce says his birthstone is a diamond, which is traditionally the April birthstone.

World’s Finest Comics #33/6 (Mar-Apr 1948): “The 5 Jewels of Doom!”

Star Spangled Comics #91 (Apr 1949) might imply the exact date was April 7th but we’d have to assume the party is on his birthday and that “this month” refers to the publishing month of April. I believe this is where people get the April 7th birthday when they bring it up.

Star Spangled Comics #91 (Apr 1949)

Early April also shines in Batman: Year One where it shows Bruce’s first night out as Batman being either the night of April 6th or the early morning of April 7th (Batman #405). So although the April Bruce birthday hasn’t been used in decades, it’s still a Batman birthday in a way.

I have also heard people say Frank Miller considered Bruce’s birthday to be in November. However, I have yet to find an original source of him saying that, and honestly (just like the “March 21st” birthday for Kate) if he never used it in any canon material I don’t put much weight in that.

Jim Gordon

The only birthday I’ve ever seen for Jim is January 5th from Super DC Calendar 1976.

Super DC Calendar 1976

Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred’s birthday in Super DC Calendar 1976 is April 8th.

Super DC Calendar 1976

In the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe (an alternate reality where the video game of the same name is set in), they show Alfred’s birth certificate, where it says his birthday is August 16th, 1943.

Injustice: Gods Among Us Year Five #26 (Jun 2016)

Maybe you’ll notice that August 16th is Jason’s birthday. A little funny considering the issue features Alfred refusing to share his birthday only for us to learn it’s the same date as Jason’s. Still, annoying. There are so many days in the year! Stop choosing the same ones!

This Alfred birthdate runs into a similar problem Helena’s birthdates did: it’s not part of main comics canon, it’s an alternate universe, so it may not be applicable to the main comics universe.

Note: if we calculate that 1943 birth year from Jun 2016 when the comic was published, that’d make Alfred 72 soon to be 73. Does that mean anything in canon? Probably not, but oh well. Also...token British character born by Windsor Castle? …of course.

Personally, I would rather go with the April 8th birthday than the Injustice one, since Injustice is an alternate universe. Also, outside of the humor of it, the idea of Alfred and Jason sharing a birthday is a bit too much for me. Still, it’s up to people’s own cherry picking.

Chronology

The birthdays in publishing order alongside notable reboots. A soft-reboot refers to reboots that only changed a few details with minor consequences, keeping the overall continuity mostly intact. A major reboot has significant effects on continuity (too many to list).

1935-1986: Pre-Crisis era (Golden Age begins ~1946, Silver Age runs from late 50s--early 70s)

Mar-Apr 1948: Bruce’s birthday is in April

Apr 1949: Bruce has a birthday party on the 7th of “this month”

Skipping a good three decades because I barely even know what’s in there. Sorry lol

Mid 70s to early 90s: Bronze Age era

1976: the super dc calendar says Bruce’s birthday is February 19th, Alfred’s is April 8th, Dick’s is November 11th, Babs is September 23rd, Selina’s is March 14th, Jim’s is Jan 5th

Jun 1977: Bruce celebrates his birthday on February 19th

Sep 1980: letter collumnist says Bruce’s birthday is February 19th

Oct 1984: Helena Wayne’s birthday is on September 7th, 1959

Mar 1986: the major Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot (begins post-Crisis/New Earth era, many previous comics are now considered Earth-2 instead)

Nov 1987: Babs birthday is in fall

Aug 1990: Dick turns 10 a week before Halloween (probably October ~24th)

Sep 1994: Zero Hour soft reboot (Batman and Robin become urban legends so Robin is not allowed on video, Bruce’s parents’ murderer is changed to unknown instead of Joe Chill, Selina is no longer a once-prostitute)

Apr 1995: Dick’s birthday is the first day of spring (probably March 20th)

Oct 2002: Cass learns her birthday is January 26th

April 2003: Cass turns 18 on January 26th

Sep 2003: Tim turns 16 on July 19th

Mar 2004: Jason turns 18 on August 16th

Jun 2006: Infinite Crisis soft reboot (Joe Chill is restored as the arrested Wayne family murderer, Superboy-Prime's punch retroactively resurrects Jason)

Apr 2010: In the Batman: Brave and the Bold universe, Helena Bertinelli celebrates her birthday February 14th

Oct 2011: the major Flashpoint reboot (end of post-Crisis/preboot, begins the New 52 and changes the primary universe to Prime Earth; significant character/timeline changes and erasures)

Dec 2011: Helena Wayne’s fake Carol Bertinelli passport seems to list October 20th as a birthdate

Jul 2012: Helena Wayne’s fake Helena Bertinelli passport lists some 22nd unknown month, Oct 22nd, or Feb 28th birthday

Sep 2012: Batwoman writer J.H. Williams III randomly picks Kate’s birthday as March 21st on Twitter

Nov 2012: Earth-16/YJ animated Dick Grayson celebrates his birthday on December 1st

Jun 2016: In the Injustice: Gods Among Us universe, Alfred’s birth certificate says his birthday is August 16th

Jul 2016: Rebirth reboot (restores some pre-Flashpoint continuity, some characters regain previous histories but now semi-synchronized with the New 52 era)

Jan 2020: Batwoman TV show Kate celebrates her birthday on January 26th

Mar 2021: Writer Tim Sheridan says he & his editor chose March 20th as Dick’s birthday over the November option

May 2021: Infinite Frontier holds all previous continuities as potential canon, restoring more of pre-Flashpoint

Jun 2021: Bruce says his birthday is October 7th in a digital-only comic

Feb 2023: Gotham Knights game has a sale for Bruce’s birthday

[un-fairway2003]

Happy Kim Possible Day 2024! Today is the 22nd anniversary of Kim Possible when it first aired a day right before the Scooby-Doo live action movie on June 7, 2002! This canon Kim Possible EU-only comic is called "Podobieństwo Przypadkowe?" which in Polish means "Accidental Similarity?" and it was originally released in Germany way back on May 31, 2007 in a German Disney magazine called "Micky Maus Magazin Sonderheft Kim Possible Nr. #02-2007" with the original title, "Zu ähnlich" which in German is "Too Similar". It was later republished 4 months later in Poland in April 2008 in this magazine called “Kim Kolwiek Magazyn Nr. #04-2008” that I have translated from Polish into English.

[thelittlelegends]

This is a blog for sharing and spreading love for the smaller Zelda games in the fandom! See a full explanation here.

See the post with all the game infographics linked here.

CURRENT PHASE: POSTING!

The month of August is focused purely on created works, primarily new – we want you to make things! -- but also the old, we’re not picky.

Reblog the main posts we create with links to your works, or @thelittlelegends and use the tag(s) The Little Legends/thelittlelegends and whatever games you created for! We will try to reblog things we’re tagged in, but we still might miss some!

There is no such thing as a late entry! The posts will remain rebloggable indefinitely, but we may be less attentive once August is done in terms of reblogging your contributions back here.

IF YOU WANT TO TREAT THIS AS AN EVENT:

The “posting” month begins August 1st with Minish Cap, and ends August 31st, two days after Wind Waker is posted.

Hard mode: besides that this went up the day before... have every game entry done before the next game after it is posted.

Is there a reward? Not at the moment, but we will be deeply grateful and you will get showered with love for your services! If someone states an intention to try for completionism, perhaps we can work something out!

BRIEF GUIDELINES:

You may share other people’s work as well, but please find and @ the author on Tumblr (or comment on their AO3 if you can’t find a Tumblr url) if you do!

While we can't -- and don't want to! -- stop you from reblogging with stuff based in an AU, we ask that you focus on materials that highlight the setting and side characters of the game in question in the works you produce and share. Something that focuses on just Wind Waker Link isn’t as meaningful as something happening on Outset Island. A well-done Link’s Awakening Space AU (ala @ovegakart's short piece here) is very welcome!

Recommended tags for the games themselves usually follow these formats:

LOZ: [Abbreviation, eg. MC, AOL, OoA, LA, etc.] Legend of Zelda: [full name] [Full name] eg. Legend of Zelda (1986) or LOZ (1986) (Remember Tri Force Heroes is three words!)

I am unsure if there's a standard tag on Tumblr to disambiguate Four Swords (2002) from Four Swords (manga) but you can start using that if you'd like for this purpose!

Posting Schedule for games in August:

August 1st: Minish Cap August 3rd: Adventure of Link August 6th: Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons August 8th: Cadence of Hyrule August 10th: Phantom Hourglass August 12th: Four Swords & Four Swords Adventures August 15th: Link’s Awakening August 17th: The Legend of Zelda (1986) August 19th: Link to the Past August 22nd: Tri Force Heroes August 24th: Spirit Tracks August 26th: A Link Between Worlds August 29th: Wind Waker

[hockeytown-gifs]

Grind Line Glimpse - Wings @ Avs - May 22, 2002

[redpanda5442]

Mega Man franchise (near) complete anniversary calendar

Since I couldn't find this anywhere else online (Seriously! Why doesn't this exist!), here's a mostly complete collection of the release dates of every single megaman franchise game and some extras. I've tried to keep it to one line per game where feasible but this has led to some abbreviations such as "PS1" instead of "Playstation".

This calendar will always count the earliest release region and platform and for dual release games I've not included the subtitles as some of the listings would get very long.

Mega Man Battle network legacy collections 1&2 both released for PS4 but since they are digital only, this effectively acts as being released for both PS4 AND 5 so I listed 5 as I feel it's the more relevant choice.

If I've missed any games please comment to let me know :D (or if I've made any mistakes! I've already fixed some things based on feedback!), I was going to include all the manga series too as those particularly interested me but it was too difficult to track them all down with dates so I haven't bothered but I can always come back in future to edit this, if anyone knows about them: please send me a DM!. I may also add the Mega Man complete works artbooks at some point too, but I can't be bothered researching that rn. If you REALLY want them on the timeline, comment or DM.

If any wiki resource or anything wants to use this feel free but please for the love of god fact check it please, as I write this sentence it is 1am and I very may well have written something wrong or used a source that has incorrect information.

If anyone wants this formatted like a regular hangup calendar, let me know and I'll consult the graphic design department (Don't worry @faustisgettingviolent I'm not talking about you)

Comment if you share a birthday with a piece of Mega Man media.

January

10th - Mega Man X Collection (NA/2006/GameCube, Playstation 2)

February

17th - Mega Man Soccer (Japan/1994/SNES)

25th - Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection (EU, NA/2020/Switch, PS4, Xbox 1, Windows)

March

1st - Mega Man 10 (NA/2010/Wii)

2nd - Mega Man Powered Up (Japan/2006/PSP)

20th - Mega Man Battle & Chase (Japan/1997/Playstation)

21st - Mega Man Battle Network (Japan/2001/GBA)

23rd - Mega Man Zero: The Animation [Promotional short film] (Japan/2005/DVD)

24th - Mega Man 7 (Japan/1995/SNES)

April

14th - Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection (WW/2023/Switch, PS5, Windows)

14th - Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection 2 (WW/2023/Switch, PS5, Windows)

20th - Mega Man Legends 2 (Japan/2000/PS1)

21st - Mega Man Zero 4 (Japan/2005/GBA)

23rd - Mega Man Zero 3 (Japan/2004/GBA)

24th - Mega Man & Bass (Japan/1998/SNES)

26th - Mega Man Zero (Japan/2002/GBA)

May

2nd - Mega Man Zero 2 (Japan/2003/GBA)

June

22nd - Mega Man Anniversary collection (NA/2004/GameCube, Playstation 2)

July

6th - Mega Man ZX (Japan/2006/DS)

10th - Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (Japan/1996/Arcade)

12th - Mega Man ZX Advent (Japan/2007/DS)

17th - Mega Man X7 (Japan/2003/Playstation 2)

19th - Mega Man Xtreme 2 (Japan/2001/GBC)

22nd - Mega Man V (Japan/1994/Gameboy)

22nd -The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (Japan/1999/PlayStation)

24th - Mega Man X Legacy Collection (EU, NA/2018/Switch, PS4, Xbox 1, Windows)

24th - Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 (EU, NA/2018/Switch, PS4, Xbox 1, Windows)

26th - Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (Japan/1991/Gameboy)

29th - Mega Man X: Command Mission (Japan/2004/Playstation 2, GameCube)

August

1st - Mega Man X4 (Japan/1997/PS1, Sega Saturn)

5th - Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha (Japan/1999/Wonderswan)

5th - Mega Man: Fully Charged [Animated Series] (NA/2018/TV)

8th - Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 (WW/2017/Switch, PS4, Xbox one, Windows)

25th - Mega Man Legacy Collection (WW/2015/Xbox one, PS4, Windows)

September

15th - Mega Man [Animated series] (NA/1994/TV)

22nd - Mega Man 9 (NA/2008/Wii)

27th - Mega Man: The Animated Series [Animated series] (NA/1997/TV)

28th - Mega Man 3 (Japan/1990/NES)

October

2nd - Mega Man 11 (All/2018/PC,PS4,XBX1,NS)

20th - Mega Man Xtreme (Japan/2000/GBC)

29th - Mega Man IV (Japan/1993/Gameboy)

November

5th - Mega Man 6 (Japan/1993/NES)

12th - Rockman EXE Operate Shooting Star (Japan/2009/DS)

13th - Mega Man Star Force 3 (Japan/2008/DS)

22nd - Mega Man Star Force 2 (Japan/2007/DS)

23rd - Mega Man Battle Network 6 (Japan/2005/GBA)

25th - Mega Man: The Power Battle (Japan/1995/Arcade)

29th - Mega Man X6 (Japan/2001/Playstation)

30th - Mega Man X5 (Japan/2000/Playstation)

December

1st - Mega Man X3 (Japan/1995/SNES)

4th - Mega Man 5 (Japan/1992/NES)

6th - Mega Man 4 (Japan/1991/NES)

6th - Mega Man Battle Network 3 (Japan/2002/GBA)

7th - Mega Man X8 (NA/2004/Playstation 2)

9th - Mega Man Battle Network 5 (Japan/2004/GBA)

11th - Mega Man III (Japan/1992/Gameboy)

12th - Mega Man Battle Network 4 (Japan/2003/GBA)

14th - Mega Man Battle Network 2 (Japan/2001/GBA)

14th - Mega Man Star Force (Japan/2006/DS)

15th - Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (Japan/2005/PSP)

16th - Mega Man X2 (Japan/1994/SNES)

17th - Mega Man (Japan/1987/NES)

17th - Mega Man X (Japan/1993/SNES)

17th - Mega Man 8 (Japan/1996/PS1, Sega Saturn)

18th - Mega Man Legends (Japan/1997/PS1)

20th - Mega Man II (Japan/1991/Gameboy)

24th - Mega Man 2 (Japan/1988/NES)

Exact date unknown (I couldn't find it 💀)

Mega Man (NA/1990/DOS)

Mega Man 3: The Robots Are Revolting (NA/1993/DOS)

Mega Man [Animated Film] (Japan/1999/Direct to video)

[kpopsunbaes]

I'm seeing K'Pop coming up with both the dating rumor and the term "K'Population" making the rounds again. For those who are unaware, both are inaccurate.

A few years back, Serin and I were the team that researched the group and investigated where the rumor/name came from. The episode I've linked explains it and provides sources, but here's the TLDR on these two matters.

K'Pop

K'Pop wasn't an abbreviation for K'Population. They debuted as K'Pop and went by that name until disbandment.

As stated during the group's Sugarman2 appearance, the name "K’Pop" was created by Joo Younghoon who produced the group. While on a business trip in Japan, he was inspired by the term “J-Pop” and came up with “K-Pop” as the Korean counterpart to the J-Pop wave. This was the first example of the term being officially used in Korean music, as previously the term for the genre we know today as K-Pop was referred to as Hallyu (한류) and/or Gayo (가요). This is why the music show Inkigayo is named as such, as the name literally means popular music.

Note: K'Pop is styled as such in English, but during promotions, they were also sometimes referred to as "K-Pop". Due to the genre using a hyphen, when referring to the group, an apostrophe is preferred to reduce confusion.

The first reference to K'Population that I found came from the long-defunct website http://kpophwaiting.net. It was an English fansite in the 2000s for the group, as K'Pop had international fans. I found Japanese fansites from 2002, and references to fans in the US.

On the front page of the kpophwaiting site was a notice that read the following: “K-Population is here for those K-Pop fans who do not speak Korean and may have a hard time finding things on the band.” From this, we see that "K-Population" wasn't used as the group's name at all, it was for a fansite.

Sidenote, in case you're wondering what K'Pop's fans were called, it was K’Popcorn (케이팝콘), which also went by the nickname Popcorn (팝콘).

I have no idea how K'Population got misconstrued as being the group's name on various English wikis years later. I assume it was due to general misinformation that was parroted over the years.

The Dating Rumor

From what I could gather, the original Korean and international K’Pop fans didn’t seem to be the source of the dating rumors.

The first mention of it I could find was from 2007, after the group had gone inactive (and technically disbanded) a few years prior in 2005. On January 22nd, someone made a Daum Cafe post saying they heard a rumor from their new friend that Woohyun and Youngwon had dated and broken up pre-debut. However, the poster themselves doubted it and seemed to want to share it because they thought it was funny. The commenters from that time also didn't seem to take it seriously either.

The fight between the two members from 2003 was brought up during this. The context for it being brought up was that the poster was musing about the idea of them fighting and they vaguely remembered Woohyun had bandages on his hands from an actual fight with Youngwon. They didn't claim the dating rumor and the fight were connected events.

For those of you who are unaware of the circumstances of that incident, here's a brief explanation. The group's coordinator was leaving, so the company had a farewell party for them. Prior to that, Youngwon's drinking habit of being rowdy was known to the group. He got drunk during the party, and around 3am Woohyun was fed up with Youngwon picking fights with him. While he was waiting for his ride, Youngwon came up behind him and punched him a few times before staff separated them. Woohyun had an injury to his face and his wrist, as he fell during the incident. (S) After multiple insincere apologies, Youngwon finally got it that he hurt his friend, so he publicly apologized to Woohyun for his actions and they both moved on. There were no further incidents publicly between them, and the group went on to release another album. Despite what people have spread around, the fight wasn't even close to being the reason why K'Pop disbanded -- it also didn't cause long-lasting discord between the members either, as we know from their later reunion.

However, it appears that didn't matter to the next person who spread this rumor. Also in 2007, a reporter wrote an article that acted as if the January post was a true summary of events. Although the article itself is lost to time, a fan's reaction to it was preserved. The fan was annoyed that the fight was brought up to drag the members. They also claimed that due to the reporter's reputation, they doubted the dating rumor was true. The fan's speculation about the article being written to bash the members wasn't unwarranted. For context, around that time, an article came out that discussed the morals of idols who trained/debuted while underage. Youngwon was mentioned in that article, as that reporter brought up the fight with Woohyun in it.

In 2011, the dating rumor article was brought up in conversation among netizens. They remembered the article, but forgot that they didn't take it seriously. So, the story got spread around again as if it was fact. This is why retractions are so important.

After K'Pop's appearance on SugarMan2, the dating rumor was spread to international fans through articles on sites like Koreaboo and Allkpop. To this day, you'll see people associating K'Pop with this rumor after a giant game of telephone.

Final Notes

When it comes to K'Pop, people know them more for two inaccurate pieces of info than anything else they actually did. If you read this whole post and are interested in knowing what the group actually did, I recommend listening to the podcast audio included at the top of this post. I hope I explained this well enough for people to get why 1st Gen fans have been cracking down on those who repost about K'Population and the dating rumor.

Please be cautious when looking at English language wikis for 1st Gen groups in general, as they tend to include wrong info (and generally don't list sources). For example, Baby V.O.X's entry on Kprofiles includes the wrong picture of the original leader (it shows a different member from an MV a few years after her departure) and doesn't list that she was the leader. Additionally, H.O.T's Wikipedia page is a DISASTER. So, be cautious, folks.

[thisisyourdriverspeaking]

In a mood to post one of these today so here is racing tunes for the F2 grid. Enjoy 😊

Juan Manuel Correa (9th August 1999) - Will Smith - Wild Wild West

Ritomo Miyata (10th August 1999) - Five - If Ya Gettin' Down

Kush Maini (22nd September 2000) - Sash - With My Own Eyes

Richard Verschoor (16th December 2000) - Bon Jovi - Thank You For Loving Me

Niels Koolen (25th May 2001) - Bon Jovi - One Wild Night

Victor Martins (16th June 2001) - Shaggy ft Rayvon - Angel

Enzo Fittipaldi (18th July 2001) - Dido - Thank You

Rafael Villagomez (10th November 2001) - Gabrielle - Don't Need The Sun To Shine (To Make Me Smile)

Amaury Cordeel (9th July 2002) - Baha Men - Move It Like This

Dennis Hauger (17th March 2003) - Sugababes - Shape

Franco Colapinto (27th May 2003) - DMX - X Gon' Give It To Ya

Zane Maloney (2nd October 2003) - Jamelia - Superstar

Joshua Durksen (27th October 2003) - Big Brovaz - Baby Boy

Paul Aron (4th February 2004) - Joss Stone - Fell In Love With A Boy

Roman Stanek (25th February 2004) - Will Young - Leave Right Now

Taylor Barnard (1st June 2004) - ATL - Calling All Girls

Isack Hadjar (28th September 2004) - The 411 - Dumb

Gabriel Bortoleto (14th October 2004) - Brandy - Afrodisiac

Oliver Goethe (14th October 2004) - Good Charlotte - Predictable

Jak Crawford - (2nd May 2005) - Ciara ft Missy Elliott - 1,2 Step

Zak O'Sullivan (6th February 2005) - Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight

Christian Mansell (9th February 2005) - Rooster - Staring At The Sun

Ollie Bearman (8th May 2005) - Snoop Dogg ft Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake - Signs

Pepe Marti (13th June 2005) - Will Smith - Switch

Kimi Antonelli (25th August 2006) - Arctic Monkeys - Leave Before The Lights Come On

All added to this playlist 😊

[jamesv-t]

Gig survey

As ever, previous years can be read at #gig-survey, and this year’s one can be found below the cut.

Normally this begins with a list of my top five gigs of the year, but as every single show has been great this year, it would be unfair to the ones which get left off, so instead of ranking them I'm just going to present them chronologically.

21st February - Zara Larsson (Roundhouse, London)

27th April - The Warning (Kentish Town Forum, London)

18th May - Olivia Rodrigo (The O2, London)

21st June - Taylor Swift (Wembley Stadium, London)

3rd July - Against The Current/Dead Pony (Lafayette, London)

18th July - Taylor Swift (Veltins Arena, Gelsenkirchen)

22nd July - The Warning (Crate Brewery, London)

25th July - Bruce Springsteen (Wembley Stadium, London)

3rd August - Girls Aloud (Preston Park, Brighton)

20th August - Taylor Swift (Wembley Stadium, London)

6th December - Dead Pony (The Garage, London)

Total number of shows?

Eleven.

Most surprising show?

The Warning at Crate Brewery, but only because I wasn't 100% sure it was going to be them until about an hour before doors!

Most disappointing?

Olivia Rodrigo, but that's unfair on her - she was great, but not and never having been a teenage girl, I still had trouble connecting with her.

Farthest travelled?

Veltins Area in Gelsenkirchen, Germany - 575km/350 miles from my front door.

States attended shows in?

Cheerful, grateful, euphoric, terrified, bored, knackered and achy. 

Venue most visited?

Wembley Stadium, three times.

Worst injury?

Backache after sitting on the floor for The Warning at Crate. Several bruises after moshing too much at Dead Pony.

Most expensive ticket?

Standing tickets for Taylor Swift at Wembley.

Band seen the most?

Taylor Swift, three times.

Best new discovery?

Girls Aloud, which is an odd section to put them in, considering I remember burning their debut single onto CD when it came out in 2002, but I realised watching them that I really had underappreciated them!

Bands seen this year that also broke up this year?

None!

Friends made at shows?

None at shows, but a special shoutout to some of the DPA Cult (particularly @pleasegetoutofmywalls and @tuesdayinhell) as friends I've made through music.

Band members met?

Anna from Dead Pony after their set supporting Against The Current.

Best souvenir from a show?

I have added to my wardrobe this year. Two new Warning t-shirts, two Taylor Swift tees (and a free tote bag), a wonderful Springsteen shirt that's my ideal design/colour scheme, and a really comfy ATC t-shirt!

Longest time in line?

Two hours before the first Taylor show - we were standing for this one.

Shows seen from the barricade [front row]?

Got to the barrier for Girls Aloud and stayed there all day. Weaseled my way to the front row for Against The Current, which I'm proud of considering several people who paid for M&G/early entry ended up behind me - the confidence of a man who had several stouts in the queue knows no bounds! Was second row for The Warning at Crate but still ended up in their aftermovie.

Most shows in one month?

July had three.

Most shows in one week?

July had three in the space of a week - two stadia shows sandwiching a tiny one!

Biggest crowd?

Probably Taylor at Wembley. Either time.

Any drunk encounters?

Not really - I was drinking but never drunk.

Top 5 best 2024 concert moments:

1. I know the best concert moment last year was The Warning, and this remains the same 12 months on. As well as getting to see them in their largest UK headline gig to date, at Kentish Town Forum, a few months later there were whisperings of a small secret gig in London in July. I paid £20 for it, on the off-chance, and wandered up to enjoy a nice summer's evening in the capital. If nothing else I'd get plenty of book reading done on the train there and back. Sitting in the sun outside having a pre-gig beer, I figured they would be playing when the band walked past me less than a metre away! I was lucky enough to see a stripped back, acoustic set from a band who are going to be huge, in a tiny venue, and every time I corrected my posture and sat up straight I ended up right in Dany's eyeline, so ended up getting half the set sung to me!

2. Against The Current/Dead Pony. I'd seen both bands live a couple of times in previous years so knew they'd put on a great show, and when they announced a few joint dates on mainland Europe I was very nearly booking a trip until I was gently reminded of prior commitments. When they announced a London date I was there, and there early enough to get to the front of the queue. Entering the venue security divided the queue into two lines, one upstairs and one down, and I ended at the front of the downstairs line - making a beeline for the front of the crowd as soon as doors opened. I ended up wangling myself into the second row, behind two women who were shorter than me - not that that mattered much, as there was no barrier between the crowd and the stage. I ended up not just close enough to see that ATC's singer had the label hanging out of the back of her top, but close enough to read the text on it. Both artists were as fantastic as my high expectations, but the cherry on the cake came during Dead Pony's performance of 23, Never Me. Anna got into the crowd and quickly spotted me as one of the few who was singing along, so we ended up singing the chorus to each other!

3. Around the turn of the year, in that dead zone between Christmas and New Year where time has no meaning, I used my Christmas money to get myself a book. Reach For The Stars (Reach for the Stars by Michael Cragg review – bubblegum pop’s finest hour | Music books | The Guardian) is an oral history focusing on British millennium pop – from the Spice Girls until X-Factor via Steps, S Club 7, Billie Piper, B*Witched, etc. One of the bands given the most focus, along with interviews with all 27 Sugababes, was Girls Aloud. After finishing their substantial chapter (and bemoaning the sheer extra information cut out) I remarked that it was a shame that their heyday coincided with that annoying period in my life when I foolishly thought I was too cool for pop music, so I never saw them live.

Two days later they were announced as headliners for Brighton Pride festival, which we already had tickets for, and so that took care of that. We got there in enough time to get a spot on the (plebeian) barrier and rotated positions, with Dana and Sophie in front of me when the Girls took the stage. I was transfixed, absolutely blown away. They had finished a substantial arena tour but shook up the set for Pride, rolling out some old favourites (including Watch Me Go, which featured Nicola singing about someone “thinkin’ bout her butt” and made me feel extremely seen). Sophie swapped places with me and I ended up on the barrier, a literal human version of the heart eyes emoji as this ginger goddess strutted her stuff in front of me. I am struggling to put into words just how good they were.

Subsequently I’ve had several deep dives into their back catalogue, to the point that they are my most listened to artist since August! The arena tour was filmed and shown on one of the TV channels over here in mid November which sent us both down the GA rabbit hole again, watching old interviews and live performances, none of which compare to them at their current heights. While I’m annoyed I missed out on seeing them as a five piece, I would not have been this entranced by them if I hadn’t gone into the Pride set relatively cold.

Top 3 worst 2024 concert moments:

1. With fees, I paid around £100 for my ticket to Bruce Springsteen, up in the gods but facing the stage. The first half an hour of his set was soundtracked by three guys in their 40s/50s shouting over the music to catch each other up on what had been happening in their lives recently. After a piano ballad was drowned out by these dickheads a couple in front of us asked them politely to be quiet, only to be confronted by an aggressive expletive filled rant about how they'd paid their money and were entitled to have a chat.

Fortunately I was on my own and had been keeping an eye on an empty seat a few rows down as they were doing my nut in, so I moved there and had a great time, but the sheer entitled arrogance of these wankers still irks me now.

2. We had tickets to two more Olivia Rodrigo gigs in Manchester, earlier in May. Fair enough, the venue wasn't ready in time and the gigs were postponed due to bits falling off the roof. But no update was provided as to when the gigs would be rescheduled for, for another six months, leaving us in limbo if they actually would get rescheduled at all or just quietly cancelled.

3. This is a very personal one. My favourite era of Taylor's is Speak Now. That album was the first of hers I listened to; the first gig of hers I went to was on the Speak Now tour. I didn't really appreciate it as much as I should've done and was looking forward to getting to hear some of the songs from that album live again on her Eras Tour. I managed to stay largely unspoiled for the tour ahead of my first gig on the tour, the first Wembley show. (I knew that the set was broken down into each album; I knew that she'd play Shake It Off because of a lookback piece on the song that I read about a week before the gig which had the spoiler in there; and I knew that there was something involving a hat and the song 22. That was it.) When she came out to sing Enchanted I was excited to see what songs we'd get - the previous three eras in the set had had between 3 and 5 songs played.

Speak Now got one.

When she turned around and went off stage at the end of the song I was confused. When the video screens started showing that f**king snake - Reputation has never been my favourite album - I was fuming. Genuinely, the only thing stopping me from remonstrating with her over her choices was the video at the end of Enchanted referencing the advert for her Wonderstruck perfume which contained that era's defining scent.

I had just about calmed down and managed to enjoy the rest of the show (eventually) when I was informed that she used to play Long Live - my favourite track from the album - as well, cutting it to shoehorn in a set for The Tortured Poets Department (an album with which I also have issues). This set me off all over again.

It gets worse.

As well as the 43 songs which comprised the regular set - I'll say this for her, she gives value for money - she also took to playing two secret songs towards the end of the night. These two would frequently morph into three or four songs as she would mash up pairs of songs together. One which I was hoping for was Fearless deep-cut Change, which she wrote for the US coverage of the 2012 Olympics. This remained unplayed, for over 100 dates before our final gig of the tour (which was the final European date as well).

It remained unplayed until the night before our final gig, when she mashed up Change with Long Live. It was very hard not to feel attacked by her in that moment, even though the rational part of my brain tried to tell me not to take it personally.

The day before. This has got me so annoyed in reliving it for this write-up that I need to spend an hour in the angry dome again.