Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 616

Resolution update: April 2011

1.  Lose 23 pounds, bringing me down to my high school track and field weight.

I'm down eight pounds since the beginning of the year.  Fifteen to go.

2.  Do at least 50 100 push-ups and 50 sit-ups a day.

Didn't miss a day last month and have officially increased the push-up requirement to 100 a day.

My wife watched me doing them last night and was impressed.

3.  Practice the flute for at least an hour a week.

No practice.  I'm a complete disappointment.   

4.  Find a wine that I can drink every night or so.

Nothing yet, but I tried five different wines in April thanks to a helpful waitress. 

5.  Complete my fifth novel.

Still deciding on which book will be my next, but serious progress has been made on one of the options.  It's looking like I'll be working on a primary novel and a secondary novel at the same time, in addition to my book on productivity and a couple children's books. 

6.  Complete and submit one children's book to my agent.

Nearly finished.  This month.  I promise.   

7.  Complete the book proposal for the non-fiction collaborative project that I began last year

Still a summer project, But I have a lunch meeting with my collaborator scheduled for July, so that's something.      

8.  Complete an outline for my memoir

Work continues, though my productivity book is becoming slightly and surprisingly autobiographical, which may steal large chunks of material from my memoir.  Not sure how to handle this.   

9.  Convince my sister to write on http://107federalstreet.blogspot.com at least once a week and do the same myself.

Despite her new job, no progress yet. 

10.  Drink at least four glasses of water every day.

Done.  And as expected, it is reducing my Diet Coke intake. 

11.  Complete at least one of the three classes required for me to teach English on the high school level.

Nothing done yet.

12.  Try liver.

Nope.

13.  Publish an Op-Ed in a national newspaper.

Nope.

14.  Participate in The Moth as a storyteller, at a live show or on their radio broadcast.

No, but I have another pitch written. I will call this week. 

15. See our rock opera (The Clowns) performed on stage as a full production or in a dramatic reading format.

Our dramatic reading at the local playhouse is scheduled for November 5 and 6.

16.  Organize my basement.

Progress continues, although it was limited this month.  The cat was ill and started peeing on the basement floor, thus shifting my efforts from organization to cleanup. 

17.  Land at least one paying client for my fledgling life coach or professional best man business.

None.  But now I've added professional best man to the list.  Please keep me in mind.    

18. Rid Elysha and myself of all education debt before the end of the year.

Still waiting on the funding.  My editor assures me that we have a best seller on our hands, so it shouldn't be long.

19. Replace the twelve ancient windows on the first and second floor of the house with more energy efficient ones.

Still waiting on the funding.

20. Make one mortgage payment from poker profits.

I have earned a little less than 25% of a mortgage payment so far.   

21. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.  Three days late. 

No sleep for the most responsible

Does anyone think it strange that we require doctors and air traffic controllers to work eighteen hour shifts without any sleep, yet all the people whose jobs don't deal with life-and-death death situations on a daily basis are allowed to go home at a decent hour?

Help. My wife might be drinking carpet cleaner.

Every night my wife scares the hell out of me. 

After brushing her teeth, she rinses with mouthwash, and though the mouthwash was purchased at our local pharmacy, it comes in an insanely  industrial sized bottle.

A ridiculous bottle, really. 

Not unlike the industrial sized bottle of carpet cleaner that we keep under the sink as well.

Here are the two bottles, side by side. 

I ask you:

Which is mouthwash and which is carpet cleaner?

Hard to tell.  Right?

How about now?  Look quick. 

Did you get it right?

Can you see why I might panic every night when I see my wife dumping what I think is carpet cleaner into her mouth?

If you cant spell, you look like a moron. And you make other people look like morons, too.

I managed McDonald's restaurants from 1986-1991, 1991-1993 and 1995-1999. 

During those years, I was arrested and tried for a crime that I did not commit (ending my first stint with the company), robbed at gunpoint (ending my second stint) and worked fulltime and oftentimes overtime in order to put myself through college.

Quite a busy five years to say the least. 

I finished my McDonald's career at a restaurant near my college, and I still visit the restaurant often.  In exchange for the occasional equipment repair or bit of technical advice, I receive a free breakfast whenever I want one.

Call it an Egg McMuffin retainer of sorts. 

I am proud of the work that I did for McDonald's.  It was incredibly challenging, terribly undervalued, occasionally dangerous, socially crippling but also very rewarding.  I was given the opportunity to help non-English speaking immigrants work their way from poorly-paid cook to less-poorly-paid manager, and more importantly, find confidence in themselves and their abilities.

Some still manage McDonald's restaurants today.  Others have moved onto bigger and better things.   

They were all great people. 

Some of the best that I have ever know.   

Which is why a sign like this makes me crazy. 

Inconvince?

Invintory?

Is it too much to ask for the manager to use the spell-check before posting a sign like this for hundreds of customers to see?

While McDonald's is hardly an ideal or preferred career path for most Americans, I learned a great deal during my years spent managing restaurants, including the importance of delegation, personal connections, follow-up, perspective and hard work

These are lessons that I continue to use today.  Every day. 

So when I see a sign like this, I get a little crazy.  It only serves to preserve the stereotype that McDonald's is staffed by morons.

The next day I went through the same drive-thru and was pleased to see that the sign has been replaced.

My only question:

Which is it?  Are they closing for invintory or equipment maintenance? 

Why the disparity between the two signs?

Thanks, McDonald's.  Making yourself look stupid once again.

If you cant spell, you look like a moron. And you make other people look like morons, too.

I managed McDonald's restaurants from 1986-1991, 1991-1993 and 1995-1999. 

During those years, I was arrested and tried for a crime that I did not commit (ending my first stint with the company), robbed at gunpoint (ending my second stint) and worked fulltime and oftentimes overtime in order to put myself through college.

Quite a busy five years to say the least. 

I finished my McDonald's career at a restaurant near my college, and I still visit the restaurant often.  In exchange for the occasional equipment repair or bit of technical advice, I receive a free breakfast whenever I want one.

Call it an Egg McMuffin retainer of sorts. 

I am proud of the work that I did for McDonald's.  It was incredibly challenging, terribly undervalued, occasionally dangerous, socially crippling but also very rewarding.  I was given the opportunity to help non-English speaking immigrants work their way from poorly-paid cook to less-poorly-paid manager, and more importantly, find confidence in themselves and their abilities.

Some still manage McDonald's restaurants today.  Others have moved onto bigger and better things.   

They were all great people. 

Some of the best that I have ever know.   

Which is why a sign like this makes me crazy. 

Inconvince?

Invintory?

Is it too much to ask for the manager to use the spell-check before posting a sign like this for hundreds of customers to see?

While McDonald's is hardly an ideal or preferred career path for most Americans, I learned a great deal during my years spent managing restaurants, including the importance of delegation, personal connections, follow-up, perspective and hard work

These are lesson that I continue to use today.  Every day. 

So when I see a sign like this, I get a little crazy.  It only serves to preserve the stereotype that McDonald's is staffed by morons.

The next day I went through the same drive-thru and was pleased to see that the sign has been replaced.

My only question:

Which is it?  Are they closing for invintory or equipment maintenance? 

Why the disparity between the two signs?

Thanks, McDonald's.  Making yourself look stupid once again.

Top 10 moments from the Mommy convention

As promised (after some encouragement from Ann O'Connell), I attended the Mom's the Word convention yesterday afternoon at the Connecticut Convention Center.

Here are some thoughts and observations:

1.  This was not a convention. 

This was not a conference. 

This was a collection of about thirty peddlers hocking their wares to the eleven people meandering up and down the aisles during the hour that I spent there.  Jewelry, body lotions, photography paraphernalia, and cooking products dominated the selection, though there were two prominently displayed medical screening companies and a bookseller there as well. 

Think flea market. 

Only smaller.

And in a hotel conference room.

With a $15 cover charge. 

And $3 for parking. 

Mom's the Word?  I don't think so. 

Cheap crap being sold under the guise of an event dedicated to mothers is more the word.        

2.  I did not pay the $15 cover charge, opting instead to confidently walk by the registration table like I owned the place.  I've come to realize that a man pushing a stroller can get away with a lot. 

Besides, it was better this way. 

Had I been required to pay the admission fee, I would've been forced to steal something worth at least $15 to morally justify my presence.   

3.  The first two convention center employees who I encountered had no idea what I was talking about when I asked where the Mom's the Word convention was being held.  One mistakenly directed me to a middle school dance competition and the other asked if I had the wrong day.

3.  The signage indicating the location of Mom's the Word convention explained the employees' confusion and left a lot to be desired:

The signs were essentially sheets of computer paper randomly taped to the walls. 

4.  The entrance to the room also left a hell of a lot to be desired:

Seriously.  This was the main entrance to the convention hall.  I have seen maintenance closets decorated better.    

5.  Want to see the entire event?  Here it is:

Right side of the room:

Left side of the room:

The whole thing was smaller than the gymnasium in my elementary school. 

6. I was too late to attend the panel of expert moms, but based upon the seating for the event (a total of ten chairs), I can't imagine that they expected (or received) much of an audience.

7.  I stopped at the bookseller's table and asked Clara if she wanted a book.  Despite my disgust with the whole situation, I am always in favor of supporting booksellers. 

Clara said no.  She wanted no book.  This was odd.

I showed her several books, attempting to entice her with pictures of things I knew she would like.  Cats.  Moons.  Buses.   

Each time she said no.

The woman behind the table showed Clara her favorite book and asked if she wanted to see it.

Clara said no.

She was apparently as disgusted with the event as me. 

8.  I stopped at a table covered in soaps and asked the woman sitting behind it if there was anything else to do except buy stuff.

She replied, "What did you expect?  A song and dance?"

For $15?  Maybe a song at least? 

I moved on.

9.  I was the only male attendee during my hour there.  I was asked by one woman if I was looking for my wife and told by another that her jewelry would make a great Mother's Day present. 

"My mother's dead," I said.  "And my daughter's mother left me."

Sadly, I couldn't get out the second half of the statement without starting to laugh, so I scurried off with my tail between my legs, feeling mean and stupid.     

10:  The best part of the day was spent outside the convention center, staring at the tulips with Clara while she enjoyed some milk and I finished my Diet Coke.   

It was almost worth the trip.  Except I still had to pay for parking.

Michael Scotts final words deserved to be heard

Just for the record, I did not approve of the final moment between Pam Halpurt and Michael Scott during Steve Carell's final episode of The Office.   

Like the final moment between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, the writers chose to leave the final dialogue between the two characters a secret, which in my mind amounts to little more than cowardice on their parts.

Afraid of the momentous task of writing the final lines of dialogue for a character of such import as Michael Scott, the writers blinked and chose the easy way out.

An unheard conversation, shot at a distance, and later summarized by Pam.

And the scene didn't even make sense.  Though we saw Michael turn over his microphone before heading to the plane, there was no reason why Pam would not have been miced at that moment, and so the dialogue should have been available to the documentarians. 

And if we were meant to believe that the filmmakers had captured toe dialogue between Michael and Pam but had chosen not to air it, why would they then ask Pam what had been said?

The audience deserved the last words of Michael Scott.

Not the friends I want

"Carrying a $10,000 Birkin bag by Hermès will make you the envy of your friends. It could also help you snag a higher salary and better job recommendations."

This is the lead to a Time article about recent research that suggests, much to my horror, that fashion choices, and specifically designer labels, influence earning potential. 

"The present data suggest that luxury consumption can be a profitable social strategy because conspicuous displays of luxury qualify as a costly signaling trait that elicits status-dependent favorable treatment in human social interactions."

While I find the results of this study unfortunate and sad, I like the idea of  designer labels being "conspicuous displays of luxury." 

Not "quality merchandise" or a "sound investment" as has been suggested to me by brand name mavens.  

A conspicuous display of luxury.  

Specifically, the researchers cite the ridiculous Lacoste shirts that I have criticized in the past  as being an example of a conspicuous display of luxury, a contention I have made all my life.  And though I understand how a purposeful demonstration of wealth can serve as an indicator of success (and probably low self-esteem), I am still stunned that so many people, so many years out of high school, still operate with these beliefs.

Make hiring decisions based upon these beliefs.

Find value in an embroidered reptile or an expensive watch or a series of interlocking G's on a handbag. 

It saddens me to think that all things equal, the guy with the embroidered reptile on his left breast is more likely to get the job than the guy without a reptile. 

And I don't love the lead to the Time magazine article either, which begins with the sentence:

"Carrying a $10,000 Birkin bag by Hermès will make you the envy of your friends."

While I realize that any handbag is unlikely to generate envy from any of my friends, I don't think any of them have ever experienced envy based upon the my clothing or any other of my physical possessions. 

And I can't remember the last time I was envious of a friend over something he or she owned.

Nor can I remember a time when a friend expressed envy over something that someone else owned.

I am admittedly envious of friends over their skill on the golf course, their ability to repair an car's engine, and the ease with which they can install a dishwasher, but I can't remember a time as an adult when I looked at a friend's clothing or car or jewelry or home and wished it were mine.

Frankly, if Time magazine was right and a designer label would make the envy of my friends, I might have to question the future of the friendship.

I have no time for such nonsense.

I graduated from high school a long time ago.

Henry Blake and Michael Scott: Thankfully not as intertwined as I (and many others) had feared

As The Office's Michael Scott leaves the show forever, he boards a plane for Colorado and his new life.  The final image before the scene ends is of his plane rising into the air.

And in that instant, I thought about Henry Blake's fate on M*A*S*H and was suddenly terrified that the writers of The Office might have decided upon a similar fate for Michael Scott. 

Henry Blake was the commanding officer of the M*A*S*H unit featured in the long-running sitcom, and in season 3, he finally received his discharge papers.  But the plane returning him to the States is shot down over the Sea of Japan with no survivors, thus killing off a beloved character at what should have been a moment of joy for the viewers.

The news of Blake's demise shocked the viewing audience. 

In fact, the very next night on The Carol Burnett Show, the opening shot was of Henry Blake actor McLean Stevenson in a smoking raft, waving his arms, hollering, "I'm OK! I'm OK!"

Even though I had seen Blake's demise in reruns, it still saddened me beyond description.  The thought that the same might be happening to Michael Scott sent a shiver down my spine. 

I mentioned this to my wife, but she had never seen M*A*S*H.  And then I wondered if anyone watching Michael Scott's last episode of The Office had experienced a similar feeling of dread upon watching that plane take off. 

M*A*S*H ran from 1972-1983, making it too old for me to have appreciated during it's original airing and too old in syndication for my wife.  But I watched the show in reruns on channel 38 out of Providence and loved every minute of it.

I've often said that it was the only good thing that my evil stepfather ever gave me. 

Sadly, I tried to watch some M*A*S*H reruns a few years ago and discovered that the show didn't survive the test of time.  In comparison to today's television, M*A*S*H is melodramatic, preachy and morally unambiguous.  It also contains a laugh track, which makes it sound overly earnest and dated.  

But I still love those characters and the memory of the show.

So I tweeted my thoughts of Henry Blake last night at the conclusion of The Office.  I wrote:

Terrified that we were going to have another Henry Blake moment as Michael Scott's plane took off. Anyone understand the reference? Anyone?

Within a minute I received responses from four or five people who had experienced the same feelings of dread, and by the morning, more than a dozen people had expressed similar feelings. 

This is the greatest of the Internet.  Twenty years ago I would have been alone in these thoughts, wondering if anyone else in America was thinking like me.

Not anymore. 

Before writing this post, I was responding to readers in Nebraska, California and Manchester, England.  All contacted me today through the unifying force of the Internet.  

And in the midst of writing this post, I received an email from someone in Minnesota who loved Henry Blake and also thought that Michael Scott might suffer a similar fate. 

Amazing times we live in.  Huh?

The Facebook gender gap

The Facebook Like button appears to possess a severe gender bias. 

I noticed a couple days ago that the majority of people who Like my status updates are female and wondered if this trend is isolated to me or consistent throughout the Facebook universe.

I also realized how unlikely it was for me to ever click the Like button, in part because I tend to de-value the button. 

As a writer, if I have something to say, I'll write it.  Not click a button. 

Based upon other people's use of the Like button, I suspect that my standards for liking something might also be high.

For example, If your status update indicates that you took your kids out for ice cream for the first time this spring, I'm happy for you, but I 'm not sure how this equates to liking your update. 

So while an update like this might receive a dozen or more likes, I am unlikely to click. 

I typically click the Like button for a witty remark, an interesting piece of data, or a laugh-worthy update, and only then if I have nothing to say in response. 

So I wonder:

Is there a difference in the way that men and women view the Like button? 

Do men view the button in terms similar to my own, and if so, what is the female perception of the button?

Or am I an outlier in terms of my use of the button?

And is my set of Facebook friends also an outlier?

Sampling my front page feed for a period of three days, I counted all the uses of the Like button on status updates that were not my own.

86% of the Likes on these pages were clicked by women.

And while 61% of my Facebook friends are also women, this still amounts to quite a disparity. 

In addition, I noted that only a small sample of men used the Like button over the course of these three days.  While more then 30 different women accounted for the 86% of clicks, only five different men accounted for the remaining 14%.

It would seem that only a certain breed of man uses the Like button with any frequency.

What causes these men use the button while so many other do not?  

Unfortunately, I have no answers.  I know how I use the Like button, and I know what the data tells me in regards to my small, admittedly biased sample, but that's about it.  When I finish my teaching career someday, I've often thought about becoming a sociologist, and this is the kind of research that I would love to do. 

In fact, I've toyed with the idea of declaring myself an unaccredited sociologist and beginning research on my own, absent any formal degree or training, but it remains a low priority at the moment.   

So absent my proposed research, what do you think?

Is my data typical for most Facebook users?

If so, what is the reason for this disparity?

And most important, what does this disparity say about the difference between men and women in general?

These are the kinds of questions I'd like to answer someday. 

And you know what?  Just writing them down and seeing them on the screen bumps my unaccredited sociologist idea up a few pegs.

Perhaps I'll be Matthew Dicks the Unaccredited Sociologist sooner than I thought.