For my birthday this year my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl ' by Emmylou Harris and 'Off the Wall ' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean you can't have a music collection without Prince's 'Purple Rain' - it just can't be done!

At her birthday my seven-year-old daughter will say that she wants these big cakes and certain expensive toys as presents and I can't say no to her. It would just break my heart. But when I was little for birthdays we just played outside and we were happy if we got any cake.

Even when I was a kid I had a good thing with kids. To this day if I go to a birthday party with one of my kids I swear to you I am so much happier hanging out with my kids and their friends than talking to the grown-ups.

The American flag is an enduring symbol of liberty democracy and justice. It is fitting that the House act to protect it as we approach our nation's birthday and as our men and women in uniform rally behind it in Iraq's battlefields.

If there's one thing I really want for my birthday that is for the mining company not to mine my daddy's reserve.

I love having my birthday at Australia Zoo.

All I watch is the Food Network. I took a cheesemaking class a few weeks ago and I told my family and friends to only get me kitchen stuff on my birthday. I'm into every kind of cookbook and anything by Anthony Bourdain. I'd love to own a restaurant if I could find the right chef.

I wasn't very good about juggling family and my career. I was interested in who was coming to the children's birthday party what my son was writing. I was thinking about Legos.

The turning point was when I hit my 30th birthday. I thought if really want to write it's time to start. I picked up the book How to Write a Novel in 90 Days. The author said to just write three pages a day and I figured I can do this. I never got past Page 3 of that book.

There weren't any astronauts until I was about 10. Yuri Gagarin went into space right around my 10th birthday.

I had arranged a birthday party for him and my children who are all Aquarians. Instead we got married. I ran out of excuses. It was just us and my children.

I've looked after my money. As I started working around my third birthday my first check went straight to the bank.

I did a cake for the 60th birthday of Elton John for Britney Spears' 27th birthday and for the 'Circus' album she put out - the cake had circus themes. I prepared a cake for a surprise 82nd birthday event for the architect Frank Gehry the cake was comprised of mini-replicas of his buildings.

I'll never forget my 24th birthday when my tooth got punched out. And for a second I was like it would be really hilarious if I sold it on eBay. But I can't that's just too creepy. I don't think I can go there.

We were probably the last people in the country to get a VCR and we didn't have cable. There wasn't any admiration of glamour no 'I want to look like them or have that lifestyle' because everyone in my town had the same lifestyle. So I didn't think 'Ooh a movie star's birthday!' I just thought 'What?'

My parents were dishonest people. If it was my birthday I knew my mother took me to the K-Mart and she stole my toy. She'd put it in the shopping cart and we'd walk out. I was raised with that.

One I built when I was a kid and it was a real miniature of Disneyland. I fell in love with the park when I went there with my parents on my 12th birthday.

Mattresses! Beautiful! Let's go buy a couple of mattresses. Give 'em to people for their birthday.

The summer of 2002 at the Wilson birthday party I met Van Dyke again and I made plans to have dinner with him.

I went to a rare live Van Dyke show and met him there. And then he came to a show of mine and we spoke back stage. The third time was at Brian Wilson's birthday party.

Nicole will come up in conversations where it's in a part of the conversation. Or we may be somewhere and I would tell some story about their mother and I. You know we always honor her birthday.

My mom FedExes a red velvet cake she makes from scratch to me every birthday.

Well I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.

I started running around my 30th birthday. I wanted to lose weight I didn't anticipate the serenity. Being in motion suddenly my body was busy and so my head could work out some issues I had swept under a carpet of wine and cheese. Good therapy that's a good run.