Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 691

Possibly maybe potentially exciting. Someday. Maybe.

Both SOMETHING MISSING and UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO have been optioned to producers, one for film and the other for television. 

All this really means is that someone has paid me a not-enormous sum of money for the rights to try to put together a deal with a television or film studio.  This involves writing scripts, soliciting actors and directors, pitching their ideas to show runners, and the like.  If a television pilot or movie is eventually made, I get paid a more significant amount of...

My dream

In the novel Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut writes:

I make my living being impolite.

I can only pray to be as fortunate someday.

Floor plan of Dunder Mifflin

I love The Office.  There was a time when Jim and Pam weren't together that I hung on every machination of their potential relationship.

The best part of this floor plan of the office is the thus-far unexplored section in the top center.  What could this mystery space contain?

Sadly, I'm more intrigued by this than by most of the undisclosed mysteries from Lost.

More utterly fascinating ideas from RSA Animate

Death by headphones

Every time I get angry at my cat for waking me up in the morning or sending my to work with a hole chewed out of the crotch of my wool pants, I remind myself of an unfortunate incident from a few years ago and soften my stance a bit. 

It was a Saturday morning, and I was home alone, doing the laundry, wearing my headphones, and listening to music.

I opened the dryer, removed a shirt, and went into the bedroom to get dressed. Realizing that it was still a bit damp, I returned to the dryer...

I bought my refrigerator on Craigslist

I had dinner with friends a couple nights ago. For a time, conversation centered upon clothing (as it always seems to do), and a woman who I had met just an hour or so ago explained, "She buys some of her lingerie at
Marshalls… and she isn't embarrassed to say so."

Isn't embarrassed to say so?

Unsure if the comment was meant to be complimentary or derogatory, I wanted to scream, "Why should she be embarrassed? Is she in junior high? Are you in junior high?"

But I restrained myself and...

The evils of swashbuckling action

Have you noticed that in addition to a simple rating, the Motion Picture Association of America adds a reason behind the rating to each and every movie that appears on the big screen?  You need to watch the preview closely in order to see the reasons along the bottom of the screen, but it's often worth the effort.

Some of the reasons are hilarious. Here are a few of my favorites:

Twister: PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather.

Alien vs. Predator: PG-13 for violence, language...

Wondrous vulva

This product should not be referred to as a puppet. 

Puppets speak.  They sing.  They romp and play and make children and adults laugh. 

Please don't tell me what these puppets are supposed to be speaking.

I'm sorry.  It's just not right.  Just the fact that the puppet comes in Original and Mini sizes creeps me out.

And does the puppeteer need to be half-naked when holding the damn thing?

Goonies never say die

It's the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Goonies this week.

I loved the film, as all children of the 1980s should, but I always had one big problem with it.

At the end of the film, when Mikey opens his marble bag to reveal the jewels that he has managed to retrieve from One-Eyed Willy's cache, the assumption is instantly made that this small handful of possible-costume jewelry will be worth enough to cover the mortgages on a significant number of homes in the neighborhood.

In fact...

No credit

In graduate school, I learned about the way in which researchers use the Likert scale. If you're not aware, the Likert scale is the one that asks respondents how they feel about a particular idea but asking of they:

Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree

It was named after Rensis Likert, who published a report describing its use in 1932.

But I can't help but think that a concept like the Likert scale is so obvious and ubiquitous...