Football fans, welcome to Dallas-Fort Worth and places around and in between! First, sorry about the cold weather. It happens when you have Green Bay and Pittsburgh headlining the game. So what can we do? Here are the answers to all your “North Texas” questions and myth crushers from The Dallas Morning News.

Photo by flickr user John Pozadzides

Technically, Cowboy stadium is in Arlington, not Dallas. Oh, not the one with the cemetery. That’s in Virginia. It’s Arlington, Texas where the 2010 MLB American League champions Texas Rangers play. Dang proud of ‘em even if they didn’t win the World Series.

You’ll also find a couple of amusement parks where I spent many summers there including Six Flags and the water park that has changed names many times.

Although Arlington is an entertaining city sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth, naming the teams “Arlington” just doesn’t work. Sorry, Arlington.

On top of the identity confusion, did you know that official Super Bowl merchandise say, “North Texas”? Bland, isn’t it?

“Where are you from?”

“North Texas.”

“Where’s the Super Bowl?”

“North Texas.”

Good news is that weather reports predict temps in the 50s on Super Bowl Sunday. I’d say that’s cool. Maybe not South Florida warm, but it’ll do.

I haven’t seen Texas Stadium except while driving on I-20 to my hometown of Fort Worth. My seven-year-old has (camp field trip), my cousin from New York has (Cowboys – Giants game). I just don’t pass that way often and when I do, I’m on my way to hang out with my family in Fort Worth. I did catch a Cowboy game at the old stadium. Neat experience. TV works just fine for me especially with the high priced tickets and parking.

A memorable Super Bowl: I was 11 days from my due date with my oldest child when the Cowboys won the Super Bowl in 1994. Boy, it took a lot of energy not to jump up and down. Folks were surprised I didn’t go in labor during the game.

Brain food…

• 10 Ways to Make Editors Fall in Love with Your Work: Michelle Rafter shares advice from Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) editors.
• Four reasons why the sales growth of e-books will be slower than industry executives think: Michael Hyatt is one of the most reliable resources on the publishing industry.
• The Problem with Memoirs: Harsh, but lots of truths. [Link: Rachelle Gardner]
• Yes Virginia, You Can Over-promote: Sometimes I’m perplexed. I’ve seen folks like the person described in Lori Widmer’s article. Yet, they’re getting results. I aim to help others, get to know ‘em and occasionally point to my work. I think results could be better, but I’d never promote myself like this. And I’ve unsubscribed to newsletters from people who send too much stuff.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Typography Art: Darth Vader and Typographic Maps. [Links: Bitrebels]
• Browser History Timeline: Eric Meyer updated the timeline. I remember my first browser: Mosaic from Internet in a Box.
• United States of Awesome and United States of Shame: Texas rocks wind power, but fails high school.
• Intel’s Thrilling Chase Movie: How long did it take to create this extremely creative film?
• 7 Videogame Characters Made out of Bottle Caps: Starring Blinky and Mario.
• Gamer Wedding Cakes: Glad we stuck with a traditional one even if we liked playing games. These are cute, though, especially “Game Over.”

The follow jaw-dropping (seriously — that’s what I did while reading it) email apparated in my inbox:

My name is[deleted] and I am the online editor at [deleted]. I, along with the rest of the writing staff, write expert advice for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We have written for Entrepreneur.com, SCORE, American Express OPEN and many others.

Are you currently accepting contributors for Digital Web Magazine? I see you are the editor on that site. What’s involved and how can we get started? Please let me know what information you need on my end.

Before I tell you what’s wrong with this email, take a close look at the home page of said magazine. Here’s a screen shot as of this writing:

Click to view larger in a new window.

Figure it out? Publication shut down. Last update was 2008. Person writing latest post is Nick Finck. The site also has a contact page. Yet, the sender emailed me. My name appears on the site, but I don’t stand out from the many contributors.

The slogan does a good job of giving you an instant idea of who the publication targets. The email says the staff writes articles for small businesses and entrepreneurs. While web professionals can certainly fall in those categories — a smart writer would provide a more detailed topic instead of a high level one that could apply to many careers.

Smart writers and editors research a publication first. Experienced editors get these emails and would know better than to submit an irrelevant query. People have sent me emails offering to write content that has nothing to do with the publication’s topic.

It’s more time consuming to contact a bunch of publications with a generic email like this than to read a publication and send a targeted, personalized email to the right publication and the right person behind it. Taking the former approach leads to zero results and aggravates a lot of editors who will put the person and company on their garbage list. I’ve saved the email so I can be sure to avoid the person and company.

What else should writers do before contacting publications?

Gary Rosenthal Menorah

Congrats, Kathlin Sickel for winning a copy of Andy Hayes’ ebook. No matter how you spell it, Hanukkah is a minor Jewish holiday that grew because of Christmas. However, at least it’s fun — you can’t say that about many Jewish holidays.

Please vote for your top 25 books on writing.

Brain food…

• 7 Traits of a Good Twitter Friend: Could not have said it better and agree with it wholeheartedly.
• 7 Reasons Editors (Might) Toss a Submission (Plus Prompt): Does your book pass submission muster?
• Quit While You’re Behind: Why You Shouldn’t Be A Writer: Not listening… gonna keep on making a living writing… yes, siree. [Link: Guy L. Gonzalez]
• 11 Sources of Free or Low-Cost Training: If you’re unemployed, try to find networking groups in your area. They might know of programs that subsidize training.
• Questions for Small Business Owners to Consider Before Writing a Book: You may have a great idea for a book, but is it enough to forge ahead?

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hanukkah: There’s gambling in Hanukkah. It’s called the dreidel game.
• How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell: In honor of all my web designer friends.
• A Doggy Christmas Surprise: And mine just sits there looking at me like I’m nuts.
• My Parents Were Awesome: Look at the kids now. Can you imagine them being mature adults? Look at the parents… can you imagine them acting like the kids?