Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 693

Congrats on your respiration system

Why do people applaud after a person blows out the birthday candles on their cake?

I can understand why we might rejoice in a six-year old child's ability to blow out the half a dozen candles that adorn his or her cake, but shouldn't this tradition end sometime before we enter adulthood?

Think about the customary birthday cake sequence:

We sing happy birthday to the honoree and then clap.

Then he or she blows out the candles and we clap again.

Why is this necessary?

Last weekend I...

Disappearing follicles?

One of my former students said that she found a "very old photograph" of me, taken during my first year of teaching, twelve years ago.

"You had a lot more hair back then!" she said.

Really?

[image error]

Here's the most recent photograph of me, taken just yesterday.

Do I really have a lot less hair today?

Resolution update: May 2010

In an effort to achieve my yearly goals, I post my monthly progress here.

Below are my sixteen New Year's resolutions and my progress thus far.

1.  Lose seventeen more pounds, bringing my weight down to 185 pounds, which was my high school pole vaulting weight.

Three more pounds down.  Thirteen to go.

2.  Complete CHICKEN SHACK by April 15 (adjusted from an original target of my birthday).

Finished writing the book on April 17.  Finished final revisions on May 2.

Revisions following my...

It aint news

I have nothing against sending photographs of your children to friends and family. In fact, I think it's great when someone uses their family photo as a holiday card instead of a cartoon drawing of Frosty the Snowman.  

But I object when the photograph is sent under false pretenses. Birth announcements fall into this category.

I would argue that in the course of human history, a birth announcement has never been sent to someone who did not know that the baby had been born.

Therefore, it...

Not a T-Rex after all

In response to Phil's recent comment that my arms resemble that of a T-Rex, a better, more sympathetic friend researched arm length ratios on my behalf.  It seems that your arm span (fingertip to fingertip) is supposed to be approximately the same length as your height.  Usually people are within a half-inch to inch or so.

Actually, she's been accused by her husband of having T-Rex arms and was looking to end a 25-year old disagreement.

So I took some measurements tonight, and it turns out...

Lawyer jokes made easy

This is almost too ridiculous to believe.

Elysha and I were driving through Hartford on interstate 84 when we saw a billboard advertising Lady DUI, an attorney who specializes in DUI cases here in Connecticut.

My first reaction: How is someone with a suspended license supposed to see this billboard?

Later that day I visited her website and found it to be even more surreal. Lady DUI, whose real name is Teresa DiNardi, has a video of herself on her home page that explains her law...

I found this utterly fascinating

Grossest thing ever

This is a topic that recently came up on another blog that I read, and it's a journal topic that I invite my students to write about each year. Children love to write about disgusting and inappropriate things. As do I.

I have a great many contenders for grossest thing ever

I once saw the backfire from the bus blow a hole the size of a grapefruit in the leg of 14-year old Keith Salome, who had been leaning against the exhaust pipe.

I saw my own femur and kneecap exposed to the world as I...

Im Popeye the Sailor Man. Or a dinosaur.

Playing golf on Thursday, my friends noted that my persistently awful tee shot probably has something to do with my arms.

"You have Popeye arms," one of them said.

"What the hell are Popeye arms?" I asked, stepping away from the ball. 

"Look at your forearms," the other one said.  "They're bigger than your biceps.  Actually, the last time we played, Phil said you had the arms of a T-Rex.  All short and stumpy."

Nice friends.  Huh?

So after I managed to shank my tee shot short and...

Super powers

Here is a list of some of my stranger super powers:

I haven't thrown up since the riding on the Music Express at Rocky Point Amusement Park in 1982.

I drank more alcohol from the age of 19-22 than most people drink in a decade, yet I've never had a hangover.

Despite this, I very rarely drink nowadays. It's lost its luster for me. I prefer Diet Coke and apple juice. At breakfast one morning with Elysha's parents, I ordered a large glass of apple juice. Her father said, "Apple juice? Who...