Yesterday was MJ’s 5th birthday, and we had a nice family dinner at his favorite restaurant: Burger King.

We were joined by Matt and Debbi, and their kids, so it was a nice small celebration. MJ opened up some of his presents that included: 35 dollars in cash and gift cards (enough to buy him a big-boy bike), a nice set of Cars (Mac, Blue Dinaco Lightining McQueen, and Flo and Ramon), a super stomping Optimus Prime, two other smaller transformers, and a Diego action figure. Made out good, he did. If Angie is feeling up to it she might post some pictures.

In this morning’s news I found out that its the birthday of the smiley:

Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.

“I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-),” wrote Fahlman. “Read it sideways.”

The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive feelings with a smile — or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.

…

Computer science and linguistics professors contacted by The Associated Press said they were unaware of who first used the symbol.

“I’ve never seen any hard evidence that the sequence was in use before my original post, and I’ve never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did,” Fahlman wrote on the university’s Web page dedicated to the smiley face. “But it’s always possible that someone else had the same idea — it’s a simple and obvious idea, after all.”

Variations, such as the “wink” that uses a semicolon, emerged later.

So… Happy Birthday Smiley!