Gatherings and good luck.

when organising a gathering you must ensure that the "life of the party" is you. after all it's you they must remember and so here is my tip.
Tip number 6: let the world revolve around you for an evening.
good luck.

Birthdays...

ahh... the time of the year when all your friends have birthdays... presents slowly depreciate in cost and personal value and your cards become less and less enthusiastic... HBD becomes your new best friend )(in the abbreviation world) and you start to buy cards that already have a greeting written inside... But all is not lost for Miss Nobody has a solution!
Tip 5: find just one thing that your friend likes and buy something vaguely related. for example my best mate loves playing scrabble so i got her a scrabble mug. it isn't hard to find something in second hand shops etc and if you do one shopping trip and buy 7 or so presents you can fill up a 'present draw'. once you've got one of those you can just give people 'present draw' presents and everything's a lot easier. also never write HBD. Your friend will no longer be your friend. if you can't remember their actual birthday don't just write something on Facebook- send them a text etc.
just a little rant about the small amount of time and effort birthday's actually require. don't be lazy, be a good friend.