Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 727

People-pleasers

This morning, as I was getting dressed, I turned on the television. The channel was tuned to HBO, which was airing a movie that I later identified as Bride Wars.

Based upon the scene that I watched, I will not be watching this film anytime soon. But I did catch a piece of dialogue, a phrase really, that I liked a lot. In the midst of a verbal confrontation between two characters, one woman accused the other of "people-pleasing" her way through life.

I love this line, despite the paucity of...

Like one great big pinball machine

I liked this advice a lot (via Jason Kottke):

Career advice from Charlie Hoehn:

"Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don't. No one does. You shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I'm following, and I'm not walking in anyone else's...

Saving the best

My wife and I own a TiVo.  There are two television shows that we do not delete in the event that we want to watch them again and again (which we have been known to do):

One More with Feeling, the musical episode from the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Niagara, the episode from the television series The Office in which Jim and Pam are married. 

They are two of the best episodes of television ever produced.

Milo in Germany

In keeping with tradition of selling foreign rights only to former enemies of the United States, the first foreign rights for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO sold last week to German publisher Blanvalet.

This is the same publisher that bought the rights to SOMETHING MISSING, which is apparently doing quite well in Germany.  I've been told that Martin's meticulous nature appeals to the German psyche. 

If you know anyone who is studying German, or even better, if you are in charge of a German studies...

How Many of Me?

HowManyOfMe.com will tell you how many people in the United States share your name.  Among other things, it will also tell you the name of the most famous person with your last name.

In my case, there are 17 other people in the country who share my name, and the most famous person with my last name is Norman Dicks, Democratic Congressman from Washington.

I admit it.  I was secretly hoping that it would be me.  I've never met anyone outside my family with my last name, and though I see...

White, fluffy drama

Vicious winter storm blasts the Midwest

Parts of the Midwest are being ravaged by an December blizzard while the Northeast looks at a wintry mess.

Vicious?  Blasts?  Ravaged?

I know it's The Weather Channel, so they can get quite excited over a snowstorm of almost any size, but does this headline and article summary from their homepage strike you as a little dramatic?   

Not to mention the incorrect use of the word an before the word December.

Goodness

Tortured soul. Thankfully not me.

Thankfully, I have never been forced to endure this kind of angst in the process of editing my books.   

Broken eggs are always funny

I went to a place called Kidcity Children's Museum with my wife and daughter this weekend.  It's a giant indoor play area for kids, with rooms designed around certain themes like a sailing ship, an undersea world, and a fishery (magnet fish running throughout the room on conveyor belts!).   

One of the rooms is designed to look like a farm, and among the many activities in the room is one involving eggs that are surprisingly life-like.

As I watched my daughter play with them, I...

Bad Santa

Have you ever  noticed that if a department store Santa Claus is not spot-on perfect, with a round belly, a perfectly tailored suit, rosy cheeks and a twinkle in his eye, he looks drunk? 

Santa is not something that can be done half-heartedly.  It must be done all the way or not at all.