Matthew Wayne Selznick

At the beginning of October, I offered to ship autographed, personalized copies of my first book, “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era” anywhere in the world in time to give as a holiday gift. Several people took advantage of the offer… but if you want to, too, you have to order quickly!

$18.00 gets you a signed copy of “Brave Men Run,” personalized if you like to whomever you like, shipped to you or to the recipient if it’s a gift. That’s a 20% discount on the retail price of the book, with shipping and handling to anywhere in the world included to boot!

See the original post for all the details, but know this: you must get your payment to me before 5:00 PM Pacific Time on October 31, 2008 to take advantage of this deal.

Thanks very much!

I haven’t said in, I don’t know, twenty five years, but MTV has done something right. MTV Music is… well, it’s music television, on your computer. You know, where television mostly lives these days anyway.

Imagine Hulu, but it’s all music videos. Or imagine YouTube, but without the dramatic hamsters and wildebeests fighting crocodiles or ninjas… just those old music videos you (I) compulsively add to your (my) favorites.

Imagine MTV, without the reality shows. Imagine MTV circa 1987 (sorry!)… but with current stuff, too. Oh my heck. If I had a hat I would be eating it, right now, raw.

Here, watch a video with me. It’s an old favorite of mine, and it’s just in time for next Tuesday:

On the October 24 2008 episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the star-maker of mid-list authors herself announced a special discount on the Amazon Kindle.

If you order a Kindle before November 1st and use the coupon code Winfrey provides (see below), it will cost you $309.00 — fifty dollars off the regular price. I’ll grant you, it’s still a chunk of change, but if you’ve been wanting a Kindle, this is a pretty good deal — almost 15% off.

I have a dog in this fight, of course. If you purchase your Kindle through this link, I will receive a very small commission. To get your $50.00 off, when asked “Have any gift cards, gift certificates or promotional claim codes,” key in OPRAHWINFREY.

When you do buy your Kindle, may I gently suggest you make your first Kindle e-book purchase the delightful eighties teen superpowers coming of age book “Brave Men Run — A Novel of the Sovereign Era.” It’s currently 20% off in the Amazon Kindle store — just $4.00! You’ll make this author very happy.

When I was a kid, Cracked Magazine used to be more similar to Mad than a weird hybrid of the Onion and Details, and sometimes they included iron-on transfers in the magazine. One of those was a drawing of Arthur Fonzarelli in his classic thumbs-up pose, and it said “I’m the Fonz on his Day Off.”

I wore that shirt a lot. Hey, I was in grade school!

Recently, the actor who portrayed the Fonz on “Happy Days” took up the role again on a day off. He was joined by fellow “Happy Days” alum Ron Howard, who also revisited his first roll alongside Andy Griffith. Together, they did something fun and, yes, subtle (you have to think about it) to get out the vote for Barack Obama.