Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 558
January 24, 2012
5 amazing fantastic things that I stupidly misjudged or prejudged at first
In the spirit of admitting that you can be exceedingly stupid at times (a quality I wish more people possessed), here is a list of five things that I initially misjudged or prejudged incorrectly.
It frightens me to think how many other things I might find as amazing fantastic if I opened my mind a little more.
With this in mind, I have included yoga and meditation on my list of New Year's resolutions.
1. Wait Wait Don't Tell Me: My wife insisted that I would love this NPR program for years, but I refused to listen, explaining that I have never liked game shows.
"But it's not a game show," my wife would say, and I would dismiss her claim.
Finally, I agreed to give it a try, just so I could say, "I told you so."
Today, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is one of my most cherished podcasts.
2. Audiobooks: Back in 1990, my best friend and roommate began listening to audiobooks on cassette tapes and suggested I do the same. I told him that listening to a book was stupid. I thought that it was akin to cheating. I suspected that recorded books were meant only for morons who could not read.
Three years went by before I gave my first audiobook a try, and only then because I was on a road trip with a friend who was listening to a book.
Today I "read" more books via audiobook than I do in the traditional form, not because I don't read often, but because I am almost always listening to something, and that something is most often an audiobook.
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: My friend, Coog, suggested that I watch this show back in 1998, but I thought it sounded stupid and childish. After much debate, I finally agreed to watch one episode and immediately confirmed my suspicions.
It was stupid.
A year went by, during which time I continued to read and hear about the greatness of this show, so one summer day, when I wasn't feeling well, I decided to give it one more shot.
I loved it. And I understood something fundamental about the show that I had missed in my first viewing:
It's supposed to be funny.
Serious as well, but funny for sure.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer went on to become my favorite television show of all time, and ten years later, it became my wife's favorite show of all time, too.
4. Snow pants: My friend, Shep, began wearing snow pants to Patriots games three years ago in order to stay warm.
I told him that snow pants were for little kids and people engaging in winter sports like skiing. I told him to man up.
After freezing my ass off for two years while watching Shep sit comfortably in frigid winter temperatures, I conceded that snow pants may have merit. Shep and my friend, Gary, purchased me a pair for my birthday last year, and I was decidedly warmer during this past NFL season.
5. Brie: I used to think that brie was a disgusting half-cheese-like-substance that looked awful and probably tasted twice as bad. Since there were almost always other cheese options available, I avoided brie and never even gave it a try.
Then I was having dinner at a friends a few years ago and my wife insisted that I try just a little bit.
I was hooked. The rind is disgusting, but the cheese itself is fantastic. I couldn't believe that I'd missed out on the greatness for brie for over 30 years.
Cautionary Tale unnecessary
It should be noted that in Clara's three years of life, she has put exactly one item into her mouth that was not food.
Despite my genetic contribution, we somehow have a little girl who listens and obeys the rules with stunning regularity.
______________________________________________Cautionary Tale
Scott was telling me about his daughter, Grace, yesterday. Specifically, he was describing her habit of putting anything she can find into her mouth: rocks, toys, dog food, etc. In subsequent conversations with friends, it appears that this is more common than I once thought.
Cindy's son, Nathan, was actually found eating cat food this morning.
Your uncle Jeremy ate the cheese out of the Kibbles and Bits when he was little, but that was only after I tricked him into doing so.
But Grace seems to take this propensity to eat non-food items rather seriously. Scott told me about a time when he noticed that she had something, which he thought was a rock, rolling around in her mouth. Springing into action, he opened her mouth, reached in with a finger, and located the foreign object.
As he removed it from her mouth, it flew away.
It had been an insect that she was keeping alive within her mouth.
As the kids say, don't go there, little one. As part of wilderness survival training, Daddy has eaten his share of insects in his life, some cooked and some raw, but I swallowed the little buggers.
Keeping something alive in your mouth long enough to have it fly away once removed is just not cool.
January 23, 2012
You should not compare your wife to an elephant, regardless of the context
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Faux pasYesterday, in an effort to make Mommy feel better about the trials of her pregnancy, I told her that an elephant is pregnant for two years before delivering, so nine months is nothing in comparison.
She punched me very hard.
A nightmare involving crystal meth, the New England Patriots and Mandy Patinkin
My daughter is infatuated with The Wonder Pets, a show that features three singing animal superheroes of sorts who work together to save other animals and storybook characters who in trouble.
"There's an animal in trouble, Daddy!" is one of Clara's constant refrains.
Mandy Patinkin, the Broadway and television actor and singer, inexplicably guest starred in a recent episode that featured him as a groundhog looking for a new home.
I say that his appearance was inexplicable because I'm not sure what benefits the producers of The Wonder Pets derived from Patinkin's performance. My two-year old did not register his presence as anything but another singing animal in trouble, and I only became aware of his presence after hearing the show from the other room and wondering what animal had decided to overly dramatize and purposefully attempt to outperform The Wonder Pets in terms of his singing.
He stuck out like a sore thumb and did not exactly sound as if he was singing for toddlers.
I sincerely hope his work on the show was pro bono.
But worse, last night I had a nightmare in which Mandy Patinkin invaded all of the other shows I watch. He strode through the streets of Portlandia, occupied Don Draper's couch, sat beside Jim and Pam in The Office, wandered the sidelines at a Patriots game, and joined Jessie as he cooked up crystal meth in a trailer on Breaking Bad.
In each show, he sang, narrating the action in the overly dramatic, singsong voice that he used in his episode of The Wonder Pets. Every time I changed the channel, Patinkin was there, screwing up another show by crooning to the characters who I have come to love.
I rarely have a dream in which someone is not trying to kill me. Almost every dream of mine is a nightmare. It's no fun.
But I have to tell you… This was worse.
January 22, 2012
Gratitude journal: Patriots
Tonight I am grateful for the New England Patriots, who are once again heading to the Super Bowl after an emotionally draining game in Foxboro today.
More than six hours after the game ended, I am finally home and still on edge.
It was an exciting game, but give me a blow out any day.
This will be the Patriots seventh Super Bowl in franchise history and their fifth in the previous decade. They have won three NFL titles thus far.
Impressive to say the least.
When I first became a fan of the Patriots, the team was not a winner. Games were held in the old Foxboro Stadium, which was little more than a concrete bowl surrounded by a dirt parking lot. Victories were few and far between, and the playoffs were a rarity indeed. In 1992, when I was living less than a mile from the stadium, the team went 1-15 and suffered through a locker room sex scandal that caused me to give up my season tickets.
There were more bad times than good during those years, and I suffered through many years of frustration.
Even when the team went to their first Super Bowl in 1986, they were embarrassed by the Chicago Bears.
I am extremely fortunate that the franchise has turned around and become one of the most winning teams in NFL history, and I count myself lucky to have been able to attend games on a regular basis for the last three years as a season ticket holder once again and prior to that on a less frequent but fairly consistent basis.
I will never forget the excitement and joy in watching the Patriots win the AFC championship tonight, and I am so grateful to have been there to witness this historic game.
Its the Year of the Dragon, which is a hell of a lot better than the year of the rat or the rooster
According to the Chinese zodiac, this is the Year of the Dragon.
I'm glad. Other options include the rat, dog, ox, pig, rooster and a host of other unimpressive, rather ordinary animals.
The tiger isn't bad, I guess, but it isn't exactly a dragon.
I don't understand how the Chinese zodiac is comprised of eleven animals that actually exist in the world today (most of which can be found on an average farm) and one fictional, fire breathing monster.
This would be akin to Santa's sleigh being pulled by eight flying reindeer and Gamera, the monstrous, inexplicably jet powered turtle that is most famous for fighting Godzilla in the 1960s Japanese monster movies.
Untrustworthy narrator
On Wednesday my daughter will turn three years old.
Ever since the we discovered that my wife was pregnant (May 14, 2008), I have written a daily blog to our daughter entitled Greetings Little One. It contains stories, observations, bits of wisdom, photos, videos and the like. A thorough recounting of the thoughts, feelings and events of the day for Clara to read when she is older.
I started writing the blog for her, but in truth, Elysha and I have enjoyed it a great deal. To be able to go back to a specific time in our daughter's life and read about what we were doing on those days has been an unexpected blessing.
In terms of parenting, starting the blog was one one of the best decisions I've ever made.
Writing it has also helped me to savor every day that I spend with Clara. Parents often say that their kids grow up so fast. I have not found this to be the case. I suspect that because I sit down and recount the events of every day of Clara's life in some small way, time has not been quite so slippery for me.
In thinking about Clara's upcoming birthday, I've been reading some of the posts that led up to her birth three years ago and have been enjoying the opportunity to reminisce immensely.
During this week, I am going to publish a few of those posts from Greetings Little One here. I hope you enjoy.
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Originally posted on January 11, 2009:
… Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey and Stinky
Speaking of reading to you, I should also mention, little one, that I can be somewhat unorthodox when reading to kids. I have a habit of diverting away from the words on the page and inventing my own stories up on the spot while pretending to read.Improving upon the book, if you will.
A few years ago, I was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my students. Bored with the story that I knew so well, I decided to add a new child to the book, joining the ranks of Charlie Bucket, Violet Beauregard, Mike Teavee, Varuca Salt, and Augustus Gloop. Staring at the pages and turning them now and again, I invented entire passages about a bratty little child and his outlandish exploits. I cannot remember the specifics of this new, sixth child, but many students raised their hands with questions about why they had never seen or heard of this new character in the movie version of the novel.
Books and movies always differ in some way, I explained.
Surprisingly, my instincts about adding a new character weren't so far off. Roald Dahl's original manuscript included a sixth child.
From Wikipedia:
In 2005, a short chapter which had been removed during the editing of the book circulated, entitled "Spotty Powder", was published. The chapter featured the elimination of Miranda Piker, a "teacher's pet" with a headmaster father. Wonka introduces the group to a new candy that will make children temporarily appear sick so that they can miss school that day, which enrages Miranda and her father. They vow to stop the candy from being made, and storm into the secret room where it is made. Two screams are heard, and Wonka agrees with the distraught Mrs. Piker that they were surely ground into Spotty Powder, and were indeed needed all along for the recipe, as "We've got to use one or two schoolmasters occasionally or it wouldn't work." He then reassures Mrs. Piker that he was joking. Mrs. Piker is escorted to the boiler room by the Oompa-Loompas, who sing a short song about how delicious Miranda's classmates will find her.
So beware, little one. You may end up in class some day, wondering why the teacher's version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs doesn't include Stinky, the oft-forgotten eighth dwarf who was actually responsible for saving Snow White but ignored by the press because of his unusual body odor.
January 21, 2012
Gratitude journal: Fraidy-cats
Tonight I am grateful to all the people of Connecticut who find it too dangerous or too inconvenient to leave their homes as the clouds overhead dump three or four inches of snow on our highways and streets.
I get so much done during a snowstorm. Super markets, gas stations, banks and restaurants are all devoid of the masses that would normally impede my progress, particularly on a Saturday.
Instead, I am left to complete my errands quickly and efficiently.
It's like living through an apocalypse except for all the death and inconvenient closing of businesses.
The many covers of SOMETHING MISSING
By reader request, the following are the various covers of my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING.
The book's foreign rights were also purchased in Russia and one or two other countries (I think), but I have yet to see the cover art for these yet.
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US trade paperback and large print editions:
Japanese edition:
Korean edition (retitled THE VERY GOOD THIEF):
Germany edition (retitled THE GOOD THEIF):
US audiobook:
You are probably stupid in comparison to your children, and you only have your parents to blame
A study was released this week reiterating the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant and identifying the end of the first trimester as the most dangerous time for a pregnant woman to consume alcohol.
The end of the first trimester appears to be the period when alcohol can wreak the most havoc on fetal development, causing physical deformities as well as behavioral and cognitive symptoms, according to research in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Despite the clear evidence that consuming alcohol can cause great harm to a developing fetus, alcohol still poses a serious danger, particularly when a woman does not know that she is pregnant:
While the data reinforce current guidelines that expectant moms avoid alcohol, it's particularly difficult for those in the first days of pregnancy, especially since 50% of pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned. That means most women may not even become aware they are pregnant until the middle or end of the first trimester.
Despite these dangers, expectant mothers drink and smoke far less frequently than they did twenty or thirty years ago, which causes me to wonder:
Has the extreme reduction of alcohol and nicotine consumption during pregnancy caused children born today to be more intelligent than the children born thirty or more years ago?
Wouldn't it stand to reason that a generation of human beings whose mothers routinely smoked and drank during pregnancy would be less intelligent in comparison to a generation of children whose mothers reduced and/or refrained from these cognitively debilitating behaviors altogether?
All other things being equal, is it reasonable to assume that my daughter's IQ is likely higher than that of her parents, grandparents and great grandparents?
I think so.
I realize that if this is true, there is not much use for this information other than to gloat, but in my experience, gloating can be quite fun.
It can also lend credence to the desire to ignore the wisdom of your elders. If you parents or grandparents were bathed in an amniotic slosh of whiskey and beer and nicotine during their most critical periods of their development, who are they to tell us that we need long term care insurance or should consider purchasing a more practical automobile?
Compared to the children born in the last twenty years, they aren't even functioning on the same cognitive cognitive level.
At least that would be the argument I would make.
