Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 610
May 30, 2011
Your sense of smell or your cell phone?
From a recent McCann survey of more than 7,000 people ages 16-30 across a variety of countries:
Given a list of things (including cosmetics, their car, their passport, their phone and their sense of smell) and told they could only save two, 53% of those aged 16-22 and 48% of those aged 23-30 would give up their own sense of smell if it meant they could keep an item of technology (most often their phone or laptop).
We all know how important technology is to young people, but a willingness to sacrifice one of their human senses to keep it shows just how intrinsic it has become.
I didn't even have to think about it. I would do the same.
Without a moment's hesitation.
Am I crazy?
May 29, 2011
Angry, hilarious outbursts
When my daughter gets angry, she begins moving and narrating her motion as it is taking place.
For example:
Mommy: Clara, It's time for bed!
Clara: No! I running! I running!
Or…
Daddy: Clara, it's time to take a bath!
Clara: No, I don't want to take a bath! I moving! I moving!
And our favorite…
Mommy: Clara, it's time to go to school!
Clara:: No! I hopping like a bunny! I hopping like a bunny!
Chasing fire engines
When I was in my early twenties, I worked two fulltime jobs while awaiting trial for a crime I did not commit. I would arrive at South Shore Bank at 8:00 AM, leave at 5:00 PM, arrive at McDonald's at 6:00 PM and work until 1:00 AM.
I also worked on Saturday mornings at the bank and some Saturday nights at the restaurant.
During these two years, I dated a girl named Christine who was attending Massasoit Community College during the day and working at a restaurant across town at night. She would leave work about the same time I would and return to school the next day around noon, making her schedule similar to my own.
As a result, Christine and I spent an inordinate amount of time between the hours of midnight and 3:00 AM together, eating in diners, hanging around at the 24-hour bowling alley, driving around in my car and parked in various parking lots around town. She was nineteen and living with her parents and I was sharing a room with a goat and a guy named Rick in the home of a family of Jehovah Witnesses, so we didn't have any other place to go.
And one of our favorite ways to spend those early morning hours together became following fire engines to house fires.
We would park in the lot across from the fire station, and when the fire engines took off for a late night fire (and there seemed to be many of them in Brockton, MA during those days), we would follow closely behind, acquiring an ideal vantage point upon arriving at the scene.
We were witness to some spectacular pyrotechnic displays over those two years, and some of the firefighters even got to know us by name. Parking across the street and out of the way, we would sit on the hood of my car, watching the real life drama unfold before our eyes.
Fires shooting out through rooftops, collapsing chimneys, windows exploding, homeowners and (more often) pets being rescued in the arms of sooty firefighters.
I didn't own a television during those two years, but these dramas were far better than anything on TV.
Christine and I eventually broke up. She was about four years younger than me, and while that difference doesn't mean much when you are thirty, it's a lot more to overcome in your early twenties.
And with the end of the relationship came the end of my fire engine chasing days. Shortly thereafter I was found not guilty in a courtroom and was free to leave the state for bigger and better things.
But every time I see a fire engine fly by, sirens blaring and lights flashing, I experience this instinctual need to turn around and begin chasing it, a feeling I suspect is closely akin to a dog's need to chase cars.
And while I refrain from following the fire engines of today, I hope to someday find myself sitting on the hood of my car, bathed in the orange glow of a fire, watching firefighters battle the flames, with my daughter sitting beside me, slowly acquiring the same animal-like instinct for following fire engines that her father still possesses.
May 28, 2011
Is downhill downhill or downhill?
Scenario #1:
Something has gone wrong early in the morning. It is not good. The rest of the day promises to only get worse.
I say, "Damn. Everything is downhill from here."
___________________________________
Scenario #2:
A difficult day suddenly becomes much better when a colleague solves an especially challenging problem for me.
I say, "Wow! You just made my day! Everything's going to be downhill from here for me!"
___________________________________
And so I ask:
Which usage us correct? The positive or the negative connotation?
Please don't say both.
How to be pretty
Today's message to my daughter:
_____________________________________
An important thing to remember, little one:
Attractiveness is more closely related to IQ than actual physical appearance.
Nothing is uglier than a stupid person.
May 27, 2011
Me? Or a muzzled version of me?
Over the past three days, I have been keeping track of the number of ideas, thoughts and feelings that I was unable to share because doing so might have hurt the feelings of a friend or family member.
The total: 19
This includes three blog posts that I cannot write.
I find this frustrating.
Equally frustrating is the number of friends and/or family members to whom the three blog posts and the majority of the 19 thoughts, feeling and ideas might offend:
The total: 3
So I'm left wondering:
Are these three friends and/or family members more easily offended than most, or are they more prone to saying and doing things that I am likely to find reason to criticize, mock or poke fun at?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is both.
And while I have no desire to offend these people, because they are legitimately people who I want in my life, I find it exceedingly difficult to muzzle myself for their benefit.
And so I'm also left wondering:
Would these likely-to-offend friends and/or family prefer that refrain from remarks that might be critical or hurtful to them, or would they prefer that I just be myself and express all ideas and opinions absent of any filter?
Would they want to know what I genuinely think, or would they argue that ignorance is bliss?
In short, do they want me to be me or a less-than-authentic version of me?
On a positive note, my wife did not account for a single one of these 19 instances over the past three days.
I clearly married the right woman.
Why videogames today suck
It happened about fifteen years ago. I was playing a new PC game called Diablo with some buddies and liking it very much. About an hour into the game, my character was killed by an arrow-shooting monster, and my head dropped to my chest.
Damn. I'd have to start over.
"But, wait," my friends said. "No need to start over."
When a character dies in Diablo, he or she simply reappears back in town without any of the equipment or items previously accumulated. And the lost equipment and items remain on the ground where your character died, so while it can be tricky to get back there without any weapons or armor, it is doable. And you have all the time in the world to accomplish it.
In short, the game has no risk. There are no life-or-death battles taking place within the game. It is simply a means of item-accumulation.
And while I kept playing because my friends were playing with me, the joy in playing the game was gone.
It's why I eventually became a griefer, finding a way to circumvent the rules of the game in order to kill players (also not normally allowed) and strip them of the items that they had spent hundred of hours accumulating.
The game needed genuine risk to be worthwhile.
So when I came upon this graphic illustrating the difference between the videogames of my youth and the games of today, it made sense to me.
There was a time when dead meant dead in videogames. When finishing a game was only possible for the most skilled players. When you would literally be drenched in sweat upon defeating the game's boss.
Hell, there was a time when every game cost 25 cents to play, and that made the stakes extraordinarily high.
But as videogames moved exclusively into the home and the videogame industry looked to expand beyond its base of hardcore gamers, it sought to create games that would appeal to a more casual gamer. The new games allowed players to experience the fun of playing the game without having to make a serious commitment in order to become good.
The risk-reward was removed from most games, like Diablo.
This is probably why I play significantly fewer videogames today. It has nothing to to with age.
It's all about the stakes, or the lack thereof.
May 26, 2011
Introducing Matthew Green.
My last name has caused me problems before.
And many, many more that I have yet to write about.
But despite the burden that a last name like Dicks has carried, I never imagined giving it up for a new name.
It may not be pretty, but it's my name.
I have never been able to understand or respect someone who changes their last name just for the sake of preference. I've known a few of these people during my life, and each time, I have continued to use their original last name whenever possible.
I can be a real jerk sometimes.
But my last name hasn't been all bad. Thanks to Dicks, I learned at an early age that the best place to punch someone is between the eyes and never in the mouth. The stomach is pretty good, too, but only if you know you can get a off a solid punch.
I know lots and lots of people with beautiful last names who would be useless in a fight, so there is something to be said about a name like Dicks.
It toughens you up.
I have two uncles named Harold and they both go by the name Harry Dicks.
My father's name is Leslie, and he goes by Les Dicks.
And you have never met three tougher men.
I like to think I am following in their footsteps, even if my first name is slightly more palatable than theirs.
But after forty years, it turns out that I will be changing my name after all.
We have sold the rights to my next book, MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, to nine different countries so far, including the UK. And one of the terms in the contract with my UK publisher, Little Brown UK, is that I change my last name for the British version of the book.
While Dicks might be an amusing name in the United States, it is apparently quite offensive in England.
At first I was admittedly taken aback by the request. I was annoyed, disappointed, and a little flummoxed. While my previous two books had not been published in the UK, I knew that the US version of the book had made it across the pond and been read by many, many people there without any complaint.
So why the need for a change now?
After some research into the matter, it turns out that this is not an unusual request, and many authors from the US are asked to change their names for British publishers. Randy, for example, is a first name that is changed quite often in the UK, and there are others.
The British are apparently a sensitive people when it comes to these kinds of things.
Thankfully, my disappointment over the news was cushioned significantly by my introduction to a wonderful editor at Little Brown UK who will be working on my book, as well as a serious commitment from the publisher in regards to the novel and my future career.
It would appear that they love everything about me except my last name.
And so came the process of choosing a new last name. My initial thoughts were names like Phallic or Shaft, and had I not already had great respect for my editor at Little Brown UK, I may have forwarded these choices with a glad heart.
But instead, I decided to get serious and choose a more fitting name.
And since I was able to choose anything, it was suggested by a fiend of mine in the publishing business that I opt for a name that would place my books on eye-level shelves in bookstores.
Apparently authors with last names beginning with W often change their name to improve their book shelf position.
Ultimately I sent two names to my publisher and asked for them to choose what they preferred.
The names were Green and Mandeville.
Green is my wife's maiden name, and Mandeville was my mother's maiden name.
Either choice would pay homage to someone I loved, and both seemed fitting.
The publisher chose Green almost immediately, liking the single syllable match with my real name, Dicks, as well as the simplicity of the name.
Matthew Green.
And while my mother's maiden name would have been nice, this choice made my wife quite happy, and I have always believed in the phrase:
Happy wife, happy life.
And so after forty years of mild-to-moderate suffering with the last name Dicks, it has finally been changed, at least in one country, and on one book.
It's a strange feeling, having a new name.
I can't believe that women do this every time they get married.
The Rapture. Part II.
May 25, 2011
Explanation at last
Pretty damn funny.
And some truth to it, perhaps?
