I live in a zoo, I look like a monkey and I smell like one too. HAPPY?

It's mah birfday, betches! Today I'm 38 -- which is what, 480 in dog years or something? I am very nearly antique, a period piece from a time before cell phones and plasma TVs. Somebody get me some Doans pills and a Reader's digest, STAT.

Saturday night I celebrated my birthday out with some fine-ass local ladies. We had dinner at Golden West (hipster hangout in Baltimore lauded by Rolling Stone as a notable site in the Bmore music scene, which of course means I was the oldest person in the whole place), and then retired to my friend's candy store for further libations and playing of the Rock Band, finishing off with a screening of Mariah Carey's horrendous filmic travesty Glitter, served MST3K-style.

Being the classic front woman of rock that I am, I of course hogged  the microphone -- mah presssshusss... -- during most of the evening. A few crucial Rock Band learnin's gleaned:

• I cannot sing Kurt Cobain's vocal range. Like, at all. It just sounds like I'm trying (and failing) to hock up a loogie, and nobody really wants to hear that.

• Despite never having intentionally listened or exposed myself to Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive", I know every single goddamn word of that thing. I suspect Mtv is somehow to blame for this, like most unfortunate music-related things of the past 20 years.

• The Beastie Boys "Sabotage" is freaking impossible to sing without calling to mind Conan O'Brien's version and thus becoming incapacitated by laughter.

• I fucking ROCK at Radiohead's "Creep". 94% with a bullet, baby! Of course, after seeing that, my friend Debbie turned to me and said "Uhh, dude, I was sitting right in front of you. That was no 94%". Then my friend Caroline added "Yeah. That was, like, 92% at best." Naysaying haters. And with that I took away all of their microwaved movie butter flavored popcorn. Because, you know, fuck em'. Orville Redenbacher would agree.

By the by, I most certainly could NOT rock any Mariah Carey. I do not communicate with the dolphins.

Mother's Day brought the release of my 5 things list for the Baltimore Sun. I actually got one of those things, too -- A MACBOOK PRO, PEOPLE. It's so pretty, I'm trying real hard not to lick it. I'm sure forwarding my list to Jamie before publication helped usher that purchase into being. Shameless Gift Pandering? I HAS IT.

I plan to spend most of today nuzzling and caressing my new laptop, whispering terms of endearment in soft, low tones into its built-in microphone, batting my eyelashes and pursing my lips at its built-in camera-eye. If only it had a Jon Stewart VR simulation program... YOU HEAR THAT, JAMIE? CHRISTMAS ISN'T THAT FAR AWAY, DUDE.