Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 675

TheKnot.com threatening to take over the world

TheKnot.com is a website that many people (mostly women) use in order to plan their weddings.  I am familiar with this site because my DJ company has been recommended on it many times in the past.

Yesterday I was directed to one of these recommendations, and while there, I noticed for the first time that TheKnot has expanded.

Considerably. 

The site now includes TheNest.com, which provides advice on buying a home, investing, decorating and cooking. 

Now that you're married, ladies...

UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO update

My book tour continues this week with appearances at The Book Cellar in Brattleboro, Vermont on Thursday night at 7:00 and at Water Street Books in Essex, New Hampshire on Saturday night at 7:00.

I've been guest blogging about book tours on Water Street's blog, which you can read about here.  My final post in the three-part series goes up this week.

The following week I will be in New York City, appearing at Posman Books in Chelsea Market on Tuesday, August 24 at 7:00 and Wednesday, August...

My sources

A friend recently wrote to me:

I enjoy these little articles that you link to a lot. I just have one question though: Do you really have that much free time to find all of these? Please tell me there is some kind of automated thing that sends them to you.

It's a good question, and it's one that I get a lot.

Though I have RSS feeds setup for some of my favorite news sites, a lot of my news comes from podcasts that I listen to daily. The list includes:

Several CNET technology podcasts...

Matts theory on IQ

I have a theory.

We all begin with an IQ that tops 200, but with each successive smack on the head, our IQ drops.  I watch as my daughter hits her head on tables, walls and the floor, and I can't help but think that each time his noggin takes a lumo, she's losing a few IQ points in the process. 

Perhaps this is why nerds and geeks tend to have the highest IQs.  Unwilling to play contact sports and spending most of their time with their heads buried in books, they simply don't suffer as...

Words

If you're not listening to podcasts, you have no idea what you're missing.

If you're listening to podcasts but you're not listening to RadioLab, you have no idea what you're missing.

If you listened to the recent episode of RadioLab entitled Words but haven't seen the accompanying video clip, you don't know what you're missing.

If you don't listen to podcasts and therefore don't listen to RadioLab, you can still watch the clip, even though your taste and intellect are now in question. ...

Quarterbacks are jerks

Imagine that you are an offensive lineman, 360-pounds, crouched down into a three-point stance, ready to explode on the snap count. Your knees are sore from years in the trenches and your elbow is aching from the hit you took from the defensive lineman ten minutes ago. Even if you were fully healthy, it ain't easy crouching into a three-point stance when you are nearly 400-pounds. You've been in your crouch for eight seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds, and then you see the play clock run...

New York Times Book Review!

Okay, it's not exactly a full-blown review, and it's inexplicably in the Crime column, but still, you can find UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review!

I'm very excited.

Squirm

Sometimes, when I am sad or bored, I like to watch people squirm.

Is that mean?

I dont like the French

I know that it's easy and even occasionally popular to hate the French, but I do.  Not to the extent that I believe in "freedom fries," but enough. 

And this should not be taken lightly, since in almost all things, I prefer the contrarian viewpoint whenever possible.  I would love to love the French, but given who they are, it's simply not possible.   

And since neither of my books has been translated into French, I do not fear a literary backlash or drop in sales of any kind.  

In...

Casting is an art

Best casting job ever:

in the film Tommy Boy.

In this film, Warner must do the impossible:

1. Be good looking enough to play the lead female role in a major motion picture.

2.  Be not-so-good-looking enough to make us believe that she could fall in love with Chris Farley. 

And she accomplishes both objectives  brilliantly. 

In Tommy Boy, Warner skirts that line between good looking but not-too-good-looking with remarkable precision.  She does this with the help of a...