[64] in Dilbert Redistribution
Dilbert Newsletter 49.0
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Scott Adams)
Thu Aug 28 16:50:33 2003
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:49:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Scott Adams <dilbertnewsletter@unitedmedia.com>" <dailycomic#2.48880.363837363936.1@ummail3.unitedmedia.com>
To: dilbert-redist@mit.edu
Dilbert Newsletter 49.0
"A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine"
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC)
From: Scott Adams (scottadams@aol.com)
Date: August 2003
DNRC Status
-----------
There are 697,741 members of DNRC. Each one of you has a wit so sharp that you can slice soft cheese at a distance by sending it clever e-mail. Non-members, the so-called in-duh-viduals, will someday be our domestic servants when Dogbert conquers the world.
Ironic Banshees
---------------
You've probably heard the old saying, "She screamed like a banshee." I didn't learn much about banshees in school but I deduce that they are dead people who scream loudly. That seems unpleasant enough. But lately I have been learning more about the bad qualities of banshees. I've overheard these nuggets from people who apparently have detailed banshee knowledge:
"I had to pee like a banshee."
"My head hurt like a banshee."
"I was sweating like a banshee."
It's no wonder that banshees are rarely invited to parties. No one wants to hang around with a screaming, peeing, sweating, dead person with a headache, especially if beer is involved.
I've also learned recently that "ironic" means anything you want it to mean. Example:
Me: "I heard that Bob was killed by a meteor."
Induhvidual: "Wow. That's ironic."
Me: "Why is it ironic? Was he an astronomer?"
Induhvidual: "No, it's ironic because, you know, what are the
odds?"
Me: "So anything unlikely is automatically ironic?"
Induhvidual: "No, it also needs to be bad."
Me: "This conversation is ironic."
Induhvidual: "Shut up! You're making me pee like a banshee!"
DNRC Wise-Ass Encouragement
---------------------------
There are many situations in which you would like to insult an Induhvidual while making it sound like encouragement. Here are some examples sent in by DNRC operatives.
"The key to our success will be your execution."
"You're a minefield of information."
"You're like a snowball gathering steam."
Books and Calendars
-------------------
Treat yourself, or someone you love almost as much as yourself, to one of these masterpieces. To order, follow the links beneath each item.
Dilbert 2004 Calendars
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=newsletter1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0740737236/qid%3D1062083985/sr%3D8-2>
God's Debris (my highly controversial non-Dilbert book)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=newsletter1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0740721909/qid%3D1062095503/sr%3D8-1>
Cubicle Hell box calendar (Induhvidual stories and quotes)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=newsletter1-20&path=tg/detail/-/0740736922/qid%3D1062095552/sr%3D8-1>
Quotes From Induhviduals
-------------------------
Observant DNRC members continue to send me true quotes of
Induhviduals. For your convenience, I organized the boner mots into logical categories.
Quotes that sound painful:
"Can I pick your ear?"
"I've got an ace up my hole."
"It leaves a real bad note in your mouth."
"I don't want to shoot myself in the hip."
"We have to make this deadline. Otherwise, we eat it in the shorts."
Critter-related quotes:
"I've been running around like a chicken with my legs cut off!"
"The monkey is in their court."
"There's more than one way to screw a cat!"
"That really grinds my goat."
Mutated Metaphors:
"There's a school of thumb that believes..."
"The money clock runneth over."
"Yesterday, it worked like a top."
"We'll kill two rocks in one basket."
"You can lead a blind man to water but you can't make him chug it."
"They're so busy they don't have two minutes to rub together."
"The phones were ringing out of their wits."
"Well, that really puts a wrinkle in my ointment."
"That was a real notch in his feather."
"I'm going to watch you like the back of a hawk."
Possibly naughty quotes:
"That guy beats to a different drum!"
"Whatever rubs your boat!"
Hall of Duhhh Quotes:
"I don't get why we're having a war. I mean, if Bush owns Texas, that means he owns all that oil they farm there, right? So why do we need the oil in Arabia? I mean, it probably costs a fortune just to drive the stuff over here, what with the price of gas and all."
My high school gym coach, God help me, once instructed the class to "line up in a straight circle and count off by ones."
How I Almost Conquered the World
---------------------------------
I came up with a brilliant plan that would have allowed me to win the governorship of California and eventually go on to rule the whole world. My plan was that I would announce my candidacy and say that if elected I would let the current governor, Gray Davis, run the state. I would even give him my governor's pay.
Granted, he's hugely unpopular, but the winner of the next election will probably only get 25% of the vote. If you add together the people who want to keep the current governor, and the people who oppose the recall on principal, it's at least 25%.
By now you are probably tingling from the brilliance of this concept. But there's more. I could use the same strategy to run for president after Bush's second term expires. I'd promise that if I won, Bush would be my chief of staff and I'd do whatever he told me to do. Voters would think, "That cartoonist guy did what he said in California, and we'd like a third term of Bush, so why not?" Then after I won, I'd break all my promises and move into the White House. People would whine, but I'd smooth it over with a joke, like "Hey, news flash, people: politicians lie! Ha ha!" Then I'd order the army to attack France, mostly to boost my popularity, but secondly to get more cheese for the DNRC.
I think the plan would have worked. But in the end I decided that ruling the world was too much trouble. So I took a nap instead.
Free Stuff
----------
You can still get your Dilbert comic e-mailed to you every day for free. The Dilbert website, Dilbert.com is free. And the Dilbert Newsletter is free.
In the midst of all this freeness, many of you received my spectacularly unclear message introducing the new e-mail comic subscription service that has a bunch of extra features for $9.95 per year, including:
- Several different comics in one e-mail
- Get the Sunday Dilbert
- Deeper archive of past comics back to the 1990s
- Library to store your favorite comics online
- Horoscopes, columns, more e-cards, Wallpaper, screensavers, etc.
The responses to this offer fell into two categories:
1. I must have it now!
2. You %#$#*@ &$&%*#!!!! I will never buy another Dilbert book or calendar again as long as I live. And if I see anyone else trying to buy one, I will punch him.
Please allow me to clarify: You can still get all the free Dilbert stuff as before. But if you want, you can also get a bunch of extra features and content for a few bucks a year. Please don't punch anyone. To sign up for the free or reasonably priced options, go to https://members.comics.com/members/registration/showDilbertLogin.do?aid=1&r=dnrc49
Induhvidual Tales
----------------------
Here are some inspirational tales of Induhviduals, submitted by
DNRC members. As usual, I suspect that many of them are either urban legend or lifted from past Dilbert Newsletters that I've forgotten. But that doesn't make them less funny.
--
I'm in 10th grade. My teacher once said in class that one should relieve himself before he prays, so he would have a clean body. He compared it to giving a diamond ring to someone in a brown paper bag, i.e. how would the recipient feel? So one of my Induhvidual classmates absorbed all of this and said, "What about a Ziploc bag?"
--
I was passing through a small town called Eldon when we came across a sign for "The Testicle Festival." Every year this town celebrates the castration of the local animals by frying up and EATING said parts. As several yokels said, "That thing is pretty big in these parts." [Editor's note: I went to Eldon once and had a ball.]
--
My wife came home complaining about the haircut she got, that it was too short. She has gotten at least five other haircuts from the same person, and every time complained that it was too short. I asked her, "Why don't you go to someone else?" Her exasperated reply: "I don't know anyone else!"
--
We were having a discussion about the culture in my organization when the head of my department said, "People need more work to do; then they won't have time to complain. A headless chicken is unable to voice an opinion."
He's quite proud of this inspirational thought. He's thinking of putting it on the wall.
--
My teenaged daughter asked if infertility was hereditary.
--
In my history class we were discussing how Japanese kamikaze pilots had a brief memorial service for themselves before they took off on their suicide missions. An induhvidual asked, "So, were they cremated before taking off?"
--
My mom very proudly explained that she never buys Swiss cheese because "with all those holes you don't get as much per pound."
--
I work at a drug store, and one night a girl came up to me and said, "You have an accent," and asked where was it from. I told her. Then she asked, "Did you ever live there?
--
The roof of my office leaks. We have called in for repairs half a dozen times. The repairmen wait until it stops raining before they come to the building. After they do their inspection the result is always the same; they tell us "It's not leaking now."
--
Sitting in the school library researching for a history essay, I overheard a health class discussing the various kinds of contraception available. The teacher told them that abstinence was the best way. A student said, "Wait, I thought that abstinence was only 56% effective."
--
In my physics class, my teacher made it very clear that he would only count each student's best two test scores. A student raised his hand and asked, "Do we get to pick which two are the best ourselves?"
New Airline Idea
----------------
I noticed there are a lot of specialty airlines these days. For example, Hooters has its own airline targeted at horny men, and Virgin has an airline targeted at virgins. My idea is to start Atheist Airlines, targeted at non-believers who want to avoid security delays.
At Atheist Air, prior to boarding, passengers would be required to spout blasphemous remarks at a display of artifacts from all the major religions. This effectively weeds out anyone who has a secret plan to meet the Creator in the next few hours. Blasphemers would be allowed to carry-on pickaxes, blowtorches, chainsaws, nun chucks, whatever, under the theory that atheists generally try to avoid hurting other people in any situation where there isn't a clear escape route.
Vegetarians
-----------
I started a tiny food company, Scott Adams Foods, to make it easier for people to find nutritious food choices, because junky food is the biggest health problem in the industrial world. The giant food companies are trying hard to squash my little enterprise because frankly, good nutrition isn't in their best interest. So far, they're winning, thanks to a variety of Enron-like evil schemes that would take too long to explain here.
My company's main product is called Protein Chef, sold only to foodservice chefs. It's a protein-packed replacement for any recipe that would normally use meat, chicken and fish. It's easier to prepare than soy and has a more satisfying texture. (It's made from wheat.)
If the chefs at your college or business don't offer enough veggie options, please suggest that they try Protein Chef, available through distributors such as US Foodservices.
See http://Dilberito.com for details.
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 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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