Sunday, April 19, 2009

Causes for Celebration

First, and most importantly by far, I have two new followers! Whoo-hoo!

Welcome to our humble community, Fragrant Liar (I like that) and Trisha. May you find the key to happiness here at Murphblog. (Hint: It involves exceedingly low expectations and healthy amounts of chocolate milk.)

For those keeping score at home, that now brings the total to 19 and with one more I'll have a nice little five by four rectangle over there on the right. If you're like me, that missing square in the bottom right corner is driving you nuts, so here's what we'll do: Whoever can recruit another follower to the blog gets a book. I'll even give you a choice. You can have The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Rules, or Mr. T's autobiography. Here's how you win:

1. Convince someone to follow.
2. Have that person comment.
3. In that person's comment, they mention that they were referred to the blog by you.
4. I get your address and send you a book.

Why would I do this for one follower? Because I really like symmetry. Symmetry rules. And because I like round numbers, probably because they're divisible by lots of other numbers, which is a kind of symmetry, right?
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The other cause for celebration is I am done with revisions. (Good thing too; they're due today.) Put the finishing touches on it this morning and will be emailing it to Agent Guy later this afternoon. It's all rather exciting, but the real reason this is cause for celebration is that Anita will no longer be able to insinuate that I really should be working on the book instead of writing awesome blog posts. Plus, I can now work on some other stuff, like my book about the alligator who thinks he's a crocodile but no one cares because they can't tell the difference, so the alligator/croc is having an identity crisis and having to deal with other animals' apathy toward his plight. It's a surreal, coming-of-age, allegorical tall tale. Plus, there's going to be a scene in which the alligator professes his love for symmetry. It's gonna be sweet.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Has to be a good feeling to have revisions complete. I'll work on the follower thing, do wives count? Also, the allegorical tale sounds like a lurking, reptillish tale. What a croc of rough skinned goodness!

BTW - crossing chalk has a makeover.

Paul Michael Murphy said...

Saw the makeover (and commented). I like.

Unknown said...

I'm pretty sure I purchased that Mr. T autobiography for roughly 4 cents at a Rawson Memorial Library "Bag for a Buck" sale. That's ok... words of such wisdom are meant to be shared, after all. I give you permission to give it away... or... since I became your 20th "follower," you could send it to me and I can put it next to Dirk Benedict's book (look it up... sounds like a good read!) on my shelf.

Paul Michael Murphy said...

Hm. Well I must admit I did not expect this....(thinking)....

Okay, how 'bout this: If you can convince someone to be my 21st follower, I will give you a choice between Rules and Edgar Sawtelle. Mr. T is spoken for (and seriously, after reading his book I wish someone would have spoken for him.)

Why the 21st follower? Because...uh...it's the 21st century???

Yeah, sounds good. Not as good as the whole symmetry thing, but you work with what you have.

Paul Michael Murphy said...

Ignore my last comment. I found another way to solve the problem. I just kicked off a follower.

I know, it sounds cold, but I'm pretty sure Chuck Dinsmore just follows as many blogs as he can in the hopes that the blogger will reciprocate and read his stuff. (I'm pretty sure of this because dude is following like 200 blogs.) I'm pretty sure he does not actually read Murphblog.

I don't need readers like that, even if it does mean a nice rectangle, so, he's gone.

Back to 19. Original offer still stands. (Except if my brother wants Mr. T he can have him.)

Anita said...

Your book could always be improved.

I was just about to send 20 followers over to your site, but then I saw the prizes and I said, "Psh."

Have a great week, everyone!

Monica said...

i can understand your love of symmetry, PMM. (you'd think that the word for symmetry would be more symmetrical. Like a palindrome or something. {come to think of it, why isn't 'palindrome' a palindrome? Why wasnt i around when words were invented?})... Where was I?
oh yes.. new blog subscribers. I hope that my offspring listens to me. Does she count?

Kelly Polark said...

I did NOT know you could kick off your own followers! If the dude comes back groveling and becomes number 20, does he get the book?

Paul Michael Murphy said...

Kelly--no.

Samantha said...

Kelly told me I should stalk, er, I mean follow you. Hi!

3eccaM said...

I am here because my mother sent me :) I listened. Now what I didn't listen to is to clean up the basement or tidy the bathroom... p.s. my mom is Monica

Paul Michael Murphy said...

Becca, don't worry. I don't listen when my wife tells me to clean those places either. So just think of it as preparing for adulthood.*

*This only works if you marry a very understanding person with a lower mess threshold than yourself.

My theory: if the mess if bothering you, then you should clean it. I'll clean it if and when it's bothering me.

Monica said...

ok, Paul, who's freaking side are you on.. For gosh sakes... You just wait till you have kids.. i'll mess them up so bad. (ps. Becca says that you are a very insightful man. I have another opinion) And she did not, in fact, follow of the instructions i gave her. She didn't sign up as a follower.... (truth be told, she's more of a leader than a follower) Oh man. i thought i was a shoe in for that contest. Dang teenagers....