I get to interview a New York Times best-selling author later this afternoon, and coincidentally one whom I love to read and admire a lot professionally. It's no big deal. I'm sure you guys get to do that kind of thing all the time, right? Right? No? This is something of a big deal, you say? Well, great, thanks. Now I'm nervous.
Netflix is a many-headed beast: once you cut off one of its loading times, a dozen more rise to fill the void. Such was my experience last night trying to show Dear Little Sister the last episode of the first season of Sherlock (read: one of the most riveting episodes of television history). It basically stopped working altogether for the last 15 minutes unless you consider loading ten seconds at a time to be working. Which I do. But the folks? They're not so inclined.
I thought of something: I'm going to list some things about some of my friends that I really appreciate, without identifying which friends belong to which attribute. Then a witch-hunt can ensue to ferret out the offending parties and pop their positive influence like so much bubble wrap. Ready? Set? Go.
One is that they just naturally take in anything you say without ever letting it influence their opinion or outlook on you. That is, they don't ever take what you say and silently reevaluate you on its basis and treat you like a machine that they just found out has a faulty part to it. If the very next day you were to take the opposite stance or do something completely contradicting what you say or do today, they probably wouldn't notice, or if they did they wouldn't care, because they're not keeping score. They're just being your friend, no matter what. Go friendship!
Now when I say "you," I mean "I" or "me," case depending. The style guide is your Alamo. Remember the style guide.
Now I'll do one about a fictional character I admire. He killed his brother so he could become king, but instead of tying up potential loose ends, he sowed the seeds of his own demise by knowingly letting his only witness escape unscathed (save emotionally from watching his father die). I don't really admire him, actually. More like, "have participated in works of fiction in which he figures prominently." But I'm not made of precise wording. I'm made of carbon mostly, from what I hear. And some vitamin B12, I hear there's some vitamin B12 in there.
