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!