[130] in Dilbert Redistribution
Dilbert Newsletter 60.0
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (DNRC-newsletter@unitedmedia.com)
Tue Apr 12 13:12:36 2005
From: "DNRC-newsletter@unitedmedia.com" <DNRC-newsletter@unitedmedia.com>
To: null null <dilbert-redist@mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 10:40:35 -0400
Dilbert Newsletter 60.0
"A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine"
April 2005
Click this link to see the newsletter in all of its majestic HTML beauty on the Web:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/dnrc/html/newsletter60.html
DNRC UPDATE
===========
Dogbert's New Ruling Class boasts 464,000 members. Each of you has so much magnetic personality that iron-rich meteorites from distant galaxies are being pulled toward the earth, ensuring the total annihilation of future generations who, I think you'll agree, have it coming.
STRANGE THOUGHT OF THE DAY
==========================
Sometimes my brain ties together things that are better left alone. Here are three things I've thought about recently:
- Microchip designers often embed microscopic messages on the surface of the chip as a way of signing their work.
- DNA has a lot of "junk" parts that don't seem to have any function.
- A lot of people think evolution is obviously "designed" by someone.
I wonder if any cryptographers have looked at that junk DNA to see if it's a message from the designer. I'm guessing that it's a code that says something like, "I am Kaloopah, from the star system Nebulon IV. I have sent this evolution program into space as my eighth grade science project."
I imagine that a few thousand years from now, when scientists have learned to manipulate DNA, we'll be launching evolution programs into the cosmos, programmed to seek any planet that has the right environment. The rocket will land and spill its primordial goo, programmed with evolutionary preferences such as gender, eyeballs, limbs, mobility, and the urge to sit in cubicles while complaining about coworkers.
Evolution on that new planet would be programmed to develop over a few billion years to resemble us, obviously, because we're spectacularly vain, so we'd write the DNA program to turn out that way. There'd be no point in going to all that trouble just to create the Giant Chipmunk Planet.
This doesn't answer the question of who created the original aliens. But I suspect that the only way time can be infinite is if the past connects to the future like some huge Mobius strip-wormhole kind of deal. All you need to make this hypothetical system work is people like us who evolve and create new planets, who in turn evolve and create more new planets, until time loops back to our past and we get created again. In other words, we'd HAVE to evolve to the point where we could create a new planet or else we wouldn't exist in the present. Freaky, huh?
UNFIT
=====
If you like warped comics that aren't burdened by all the annoying "art," - and because you read Dilbert, I think you do - check out a new one by Mike Belkin, called UNFIT. It's about a personal trainer at a gym, surrounded by gullible misfits. Go to www.Dilbert.com and click the link. I think it's the funniest new comic since Pearls Before Swine. Let me know what you think, but give it a month or two to develop. You'll find that its look and attitude grows on you.
WHO'S DRAWING DILBERT LATELY?
=============================
Alert readers have noticed that Dilbert looks different lately, almost as if someone else is drawing it. Well, it's still me, but here's what's happening: I lost the use of my right hand for drawing, thanks to overuse. Technically, it's called a focal dystonia. It's essentially a brain-mapping problem caused by overusing the hand. The hand is structurally healthy and perfectly fine for every possible use EXCEPT drawing. It's very specific. My brain essentially removed from me the ability to do the thing that was hurting it.
One way I can confirm that it's a brain issue is that when I try to draw with my LEFT hand, my RIGHT hand spasms immediately. Some part of my brain doesn't want me drawing because that's what caused all the discomfort.
For a few weeks I worked left-handed. I'm not quite ambidextrous, but if I work slowly, it looks about the same. Some of the lefty ones have a "L.H." on them to tip you off.
Left-hand drawing was too slow, so I looked for, and found, a technical solution. Wacom has a product that allows you to draw directly onto a special flat computer screen that tilts and turns just like paper on a drawing board. It's called the Cintiq 21UX, and I've been using it for the past several weeks, with much success. It will take a while for my characters to look the same as old, but I'm closing in on it.
The reason I can draw on the computer, but not on paper, is because now I work at a different scale (larger), and the feel of the stylus on the screen is so different from pen-on-paper that my brain doesn't think I'm drawing, so it doesn't trigger the hand spasms.
Brains are funny.
INDUHVIDUAL QUOTES
==================
Here now, some quotes from Induhviduals, submitted by DNRC field operatives. Apparently the most confusing concepts for Induhviduals are anything involving body parts, beverages, food, or animals.
"There's more than one way to cut the cheese."
"I know these streets like the back of my head."
"When push comes to shove, that's when the dollar meets the road."
"Tomorrow at this time…it will be Wednesday."
"I would like a pie-in-the-eye estimate."
"The smell of indifference was deafening."
"Oh, that will be a cake in the woods."
"She'll chew you up and down, and spit you out like a bad habit."
"He's living off the fat of my sweat!"
"I heard that out of the corner of my eye."
"Even a blind beaver falls off a log once in awhile."
"I threw down the carrot and he picked it up and ran with it."
"It's like a monkey on the back of the elephant in the room."
"I don't mean to throw a wrench, I mean a monkey, into the tools."
"I got under your goat."
"You heat it until it doubles to about three times its size."
"When it comes to nut-cutting time, the cream will rise to the top."
"Is it hot in me or what?"
"Don't you hate it when you lock your keys out of your car?"
"It's like watching paint grow."
"The winds of change aren't what they used to be."
"The system is humming like a clam."
"You need to take the bull by the balls and run with him."
"Two cats out of the bag are worth more in the nest."
"Anything worth doing is a lot more difficult than it's worth."
"Not to toot my own horse, but......"
"We do things by the pants of our ass!"
GOD'S DEBRIS DISCUSSION FORUM
=============================
You asked for it. A reader named Ethan made it - a God's Debris Discussion Forum
http://s6.invisionfree.com/Gods_Debris/index.php?http://s6.invisionfree.com/Gods_Debris/
LATEST DILBERT BOOK
===================
My latest Dilbert book, called It's Not Funny if I Have to Explain It, includes my handwritten notes in the margins. It's my personal picks of the best Dilbert strips since the beginning. That makes it, in my opinion, the best Dilbert book ever.
Here's the link for it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0740746588/unitedmedia
TRUE TALES OF INDUHVIDUALS
==========================
Here are some more true tales of Induhviduals, as reported by vigilant DNRC operatives in the field.
=
My teacher remarked that he'd lived in Africa for several years, prompting a student to ask, "Dude, do you speak African-American?"
=
My father, brother, and I had just finished fixing appetizers, and were putting toothpicks into the little morsels, when mom asked us not to use so many toothpicks because, "They don't grow on trees you know."
=
We had copious notes on the conference room board that we wanted to keep, so we highlighted a box and printed in big letters to notify the cleaning crew, "DON'T ERASE THIS." When we came back the next day, there was nothing on the board except a highlighted box saying "DON'T ERASE THIS." Good help is hard to find.
=
My dad asked my mom a very simple question the other day: "Which is faster, light or sound?" Mom replied, "Light." My dad thought this was very good, until my mom explained why she chose light. "Because it's lighter," she said.
I heard this story and decided to ask my wife the same question. Her answer was that sound was faster. I asked her why she thought that sound was faster than light. Her response was "Because you hear something first and then you look around and see it."
=
One of the secretaries at our office made a copy of a document and put the original through the shredder. When I questioned this, she explained that the client did not need the document, and the file only needed a copy, so there was no need to keep the original document. She couldn't understand my amusement.
=
While trying to exit a gas station onto a busy highway, I was evaluating the oncoming traffic and I asked my wife how it looked on her side. She replied, "Its all clear," so I started to pull out. She continued, "Not a cloud in the sky!"
=
My nephew, a freshman in college, attended a meeting in his dorm in which everyone introduced themselves and shared some personal information to get acquainted. My nephew introduced himself and mentioned that he has two moms. An Induhvidual looked at him and said, in all seriousness, "So… does this mean that one of them is a lesbian?"
=
We don't have cable, so I get tasked with adjusting the antenna when reception isn't good. The other day, my wife called me from another room and asked me to fix the reception on a program that she had recorded earlier in the day.
=
In history class, we were having a discussing about current events, specifically rebuilding Afghanistan. I mentioned that improving its economy would be hard because it has no natural resources and little industry. One of my classmates asked, "Well, why don't they, like, build a giant water park or something there to get tourism?" Stunned silence followed. Surprisingly, this took place in an AP level class.
=
A few months back, the people in my office were talking about Mel Gibson's new movie, The Passion of the Christ.
One of my coworkers, a young 20 year old secretary, mentioned that she wasn't sure if she was going to go see it because it would be too sad. That's when I jokingly told her that "It's okay; he comes back in the end. I read the Book." At which point she says, "There's a book?"
Ask Dogbert
============
Dogbert answers tough questions with tough love.
Dear Dogbert,
My boss keeps imagining conversations that we never had, about supposed work I was to do for him. How can I get him to stop this without calling him delusional and getting fired?
Jeffrey
Dear Jiffy,
You asked me that same question last time and I already answered. Are you crazy or something?
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert
My skinflint boss gets a big kick out of cheating me out of my paid vacation time. About the only way I can get a day off is to call in sick. I can't plan a vacation because he'll torpedo it at the last minute. What can I do, short of quitting or faking a work-related accident, to get my vacation?
Martin
Dear Fartin,
There's no reason to fake a work-related accident when the real thing is so much more convincing. Examine your lifestyle and decide if there are any major organs or limbs that you haven't used in the past six months. For example, have you gone anyplace that you couldn't get to by hopping? Perhaps you don't have a home theatre system, so listening with both ears is unnecessary because there is no stereo sound anyway. Or perhaps you don't date. If you are honest with yourself, there are many parts of your body that you don't really need, whereas vacations are important.
The hard part is finding a way to impale your worthless parts without damaging the "good stuff." But that's mostly trial and error.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert:
My brain is feeling run down and used up, can I get a transplant? One that speaks French would be great.
Al
Dear Owl,
You are practically begging me to make a joke about French brains, but I will not take that bait. Instead, allow me to recommend monkey brains. They have 98% of the DNA of human brains, plus the knowledge of tree-climbing, feces hurling, and separating your lips about a yard from your gums, which can come in handy when flossing.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
I have been assigned to a committee. The leader of the committee doesn't lead, so no one follows. There will be no consequences if I am kicked off the committee. How can I maximize my enjoyment and get myself expelled at the same time?
Dennis
Dear Dense,
At the start of every meeting, make a motion that your committee be designated a Tiger Team. Failing in that, continue to suggest other creatures, in descending order of ferociousness, until you get to Vole Team.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
What should I do about an old friend who has stopped sending me Christmas cards?
Gail
Dear Frail,
Either your friend hates you or she died and no one has detected the smell of rotting flesh. Either way, it's time to think about getting a new friend.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
I am losing the meaning of my life. I don't feel like waking up in the morning. The only thing that gets me going is the fact that I have a cool car, but that's nothing to be proud of. Is there anything I can do to get me up and going again?
Sincerely
Manny
Dear Fanny,
Sometimes when your car isn't cool enough to fill the gaping whole in your soul, you need to trick it out. I recommend hubcaps that keep spinning after the car has stopped. Chicks love those.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
What happens if you are a bad kid, but you actually want to receive coal for Christmas?
Minh
Dear Minnow,
You still get coal, but it's burning.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
Often times I come back from the bathroom and I find one of my
coworkers "looking for supplies" in my cubicle. It's annoying. How do I make her stop?
Melody
Dear Muleody,
Tell your coworker that you don't wash your hands after using the bathroom. That should keep her from touching your possessions.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Dear Dogbert,
I am competing for a promotion with a woman of ill repute. She will probably get the position because she is better than me, and she is a woman of ill repute. Is it unethical to try to work the ill repute thing to my advantage?
Kevin
Dear Craven,
I recommend telling her that your boss relies on you to recommend who gets promoted. At that point, the ill repute thing will definitely work to your advantage.
Sincerely,
Dogbert
==
Do you have questions about office politics, meeting etiquette, romancing your boss, the meaning of life, or anything else? Send your questions to scottadams@aol.com and Dogbert will provide answers in the next Dilbert Newsletter.
Dilbert Fodder
---------------
What's bugging you about your job? Let me know and you might see it in a Dilbert comic or newsletter. The best comic fodder involves workplace peeves, devious strategies, frustrations of dealing with others, conflicting objectives, unintended management
consequences, and of course my favorite - idiot bosses.
And I love True Tales of Induhviduals and true quotes.
And if you're seeing any new management trends that need to be mocked, I can help. Send your (brief) suggestions to me at:
scottadams@aol.com.
IMPORTANT: Put "Dilbert" at the end
of your subject line so my spam filter
won't bounce it back.
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