Oh dear, that's good...can't believe I've missed that...though I'm really more of a Foxtrot and Get Fuzzy kinda guy these days...
I am subscribed to the Dilbert Newsletter, which comes out about 4 times a year. That Scott Adams guy is really funny and I thought some of you here might enjoy reading it.
**********************************
Dilbert Newsletter 50.0
"A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine"
******************************************
****** SPECIAL WEASEL EDITION ************
******************************************
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class -DNRC-
From: Scott Adams [email protected]
Date: September 2003
DNRC Status
-----------
There are 697,303 members of DNRC. Each of you is so brilliant that you already know how this sentence will end before ...oh, right, never mind.
Non-members, the so-called in-duh-viduals, will someday be our domestic servants when Dogbert conquers the world. During that era you might hear phrases never before uttered, such as, "He's the Ambassador from France AND my towel boy!"
Quotes From Induhviduals
-------------------------
Observant DNRC members continue to send me true quotes of Induhviduals. After staring at the list for a while I realized that if I put them together they make an excellent story:
Excellent Story:
We were sitting on our hands, twiddling our thumbs, when suddenly the door opened. It made the hair on my back stand on end. He was smoking like a fish and swearing like a stuck pig. I could tell from his shifty eyes that he might try to pull the fox over my leg.
"Do you have a pen?" he asked. "I need to make a mental note."
I didn't want him to stick my pen into his ear, but I also didn't think it would be a good idea to rattle the barrel because the monkeys might shoot the fish. So I offered my pen.
"Do you seriously think I came up the river on a banana tree?" he growled before slapping the pen from my hand.
I wanted to fight him, but I already had too many hands in the fire. Still, you have to kill the stone with the bird while you can. He was slow as Moses. I kicked him where the moon don't shine. I didn't want to beat a dead bush, so I waited for his next move. The ball was in his camp now. He didn't look like he had both oars in his basket, but maybe I was trying too hard to read between the tea leaves.
The End
-----------------
I Hate My Clothes
-----------------
Today I donated another never-worn shirt to charity. When I say "never" worn, I'm not counting the twenty-five times I put it on, looked in the mirror and asked myself what-the-%$%#*&-was-I-thinking when I bought it? According to the label it's exactly my size, yet inexplicably, the puffy sleeves have enough room to smuggle Al Quaeda cells to remote mountain hideouts.
Whenever I tried on the shirt I experienced a unique blend of anger, self-loathing, and mostly: curiosity. Did the makers of this shirt ever see it worn by a human being? And if so, did that human have ordinary arms or appendages that looked like hippos trying to swallow pigs? And how did I fail to notice any of this when I tried it on in the store?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME????
Yes, I could have returned the shirt. Maybe it's a guy thing, but to me, returning a product is admitting you made a mistake. I can't take the pressure. And realistically, if I returned everything that disappointed me after I got it home, I'd be sitting in an empty house, naked, and starving. I'm a bad shopper, but I have high standards. It's a nasty combination.
My biggest clothing horror involves work-out shorts. I've noticed at the gym that you can deduce the exact age of any man by measuring the length of his shorts. The teens wear gigantic ankle-length shorts. The twenty-somethings wear their shorts below the knee. As you escalate through the age groups, the shorts continue to get more economical. One guy at my gym is 90 and he wears shorts so tiny that when he uses a certain machine you can tell the temperature in a way too horrible to mention.
It's a dilemma. I can buy the Speedo-sized shorts worn by everyone else my age, or I can try to be more stylish and come off looking like a guy who doesn't know how old he is. Apparently the fashion industry has decided it's a waste of fabric to make fashionable clothes for men my age because - and here I'm putting words into their mouths -- it's like adding a sprig of parsley to road kill.
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 that take advantage of the fact that people only listen to the first part of what you say.
"You're not out of shape... because technically a circle is a shape."
"My respect for you knows no bounds... on the low end."
"I can tell that you're a renaissance man... and by that I mean a sissy."
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.
--
My older sister was ranting about something and I commented, "You're acting pretty stupid, ya know?" Her defense? "I'm not acting!!!"
---
During a discussion of requirements for a new system we are developing, my manager stated that he wants "24 x 7 availability, 5 days a week!"
---
About a month ago, I was unable to avoid listening to a coworker in the next cube. He was on the phone talking to his wife about their son, and I heard, "He hit you? No, don't take that at all. Smack him if he hits you again." I wonder where his son learned how to resolve problems? Today I heard him talking to his wife about their daughter being in a fistfight. The mystery deepens.
---
In class, the teacher told us to answer questions one and two. A quick-thinking student needed more clarity and asked, "Is that one AND two, or one THROUGH two?"
---
We recently interviewed a job candidate who told us that the thing she liked least about her previous jobs was that she was "always getting written up." Her explanation for the write-ups included fighting with co-workers, being late, and making mistakes. I hope this was just a practice interview because she needs it!
---
In my high school biology class we somehow got on the topic of birth and the teacher mentioned that his father was the first premature baby in the state to have used an incubator. One Induhvidual raised his hand and asked, "Did he survive?"
---
While I was working my boss came up to me and asked "How much ink will it take for me to scan this into my computer?" I replied that I didn't know and that he should scan it in and see.
---
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ October 20, 2003 03:00 PM: Message edited by: Gem F ]</font>
Oh dear, that's good...can't believe I've missed that...though I'm really more of a Foxtrot and Get Fuzzy kinda guy these days...
CALVIN AND HOBBES!!
*Makes headbanging motion*
Foxtrot is easily the best cartoon out there today and will probably enter that high echelon with Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side and Bloom County.
When you're right, Rich...you're right... [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
Wow, Foxtrot is the best? What do you see in it? (not being sarcastic)
I just don't get excited by that one at all.
I just got my latest Dilbert Newsletter. I'll post it after this.
Dilbert Newsletter 51.0
"A Little Ray of Bitter Sunshine"
To: Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC)
From: Scott Adams ([email protected])
Date: October 2003
DNRC Status
-----------
There are 699,614 members of DNRC. Each of you is so smart you can communicate telepathically with plants, which explains why you rarely go outside.
Non-members, the so-called in-duh-viduals, will someday be our domestic servants when Dogbert conquers the world. And that means dryer-warmed underpants every morning.
Important Muscles
-----------------
One of the most popular machines at my gym is a bizarre-looking contraption designed to strengthen your gluteus maximus. It might seem like a frivolous California vanity thing to you, but it's more practical than you think. For example, if your spouse hogs all the bed covers, just clench the sheet with your butt muscles and hold on. Your spouse will be grunting and tugging while you appear to be sleeping peacefully, never letting on that there's a struggle going on below the surface.
Or suppose you were kidnapped and your hands and feet were tied, but you were smart enough to wear stretch pants. Your butt, properly trained, can be a fierce fighting machine. With a little practice you can learn to disarm a knife-wielding ASSailant.
A huge, muscular butt can also make you appear taller when you're seated. That's a big advantage at business meetings. No one will be the wiser until you stand up and butt-slap the overhead projector against the wall when you turn to leave.
I started using the butt machine myself, with the ultimate goal of making it easier to hold tools for home repairs. If you have only two hands, and you're already holding a flashlight and a screwdriver, you need at least one more set of opposable cheeks to keep the pliers nearby. As a bonus, I figure it will discourage my neighbor from borrowing my tools.
Quotes From Induhviduals
-------------------------
Observant DNRC members continue to send me true quotes of Induhviduals. Once again I have put them together to make an excellent story:
"Allow me to throw precaution to the wind," the pointy-haired boss began, "and speak from the seat of my pants. Sometimes I can't talk my way out of a wet paper bag. I'm still burned from my sunless tanning lotion, but I don't mind because it was only one step in a very large pie. Around here, one hand shoots the other unless you have all your ducks crossed. I didn't want to throw a wrinkle in the puzzle, because that's not my cup of beeswax. I prefer to nip it in the bucket. Sometimes the best you can do is some excremental improvement, and even then you need to watch people like a sponge."
The End
Mystery Cartoonists
-------------------
Speaking of weasels, I convinced five top cartoonists to do my work for the week of October 20-25, so I could get paid for doing nothing. Amazingly, they fell for my story about the "creative challenge" and even acted happy about it. I almost sprained my arm patting myself on the back for this one.
Each mystery guest cartoonist left clues to his or her identity, but to check your guesses, go to http://www.dilbert.com the day of the strip's publication.
Results of Dilbert's 2003 Weasel Awards
---------------------------------------
The second annual exuberantly non-scientific Weasel Poll results are in. 35,874 people voted. I'll be spending the next few weeks publicly embarrassing the winners. They are...
Tally Weaseliest Organization
------ ----------------------------------------
7950 Recording Industry Association of America
6322 White House
4470 Democratic Party
3989 ACLU
3859 Organized religion
3039 Fox News Corporation
3008 Republican Party
1860 Congress
1323 New York Times
Tally Weaseliest Country
------ ------------------
12739 France
10761 USA
5845 Saudi Arabia
4668 North Korea
801 Iran
509 Canada
219 Germany
Tally Weaseliest Company
------ ------------------
12854 Microsoft
7645 Halliburton
7220 MCI WorldCom
2425 Kmart
1313 Merrill Lynch
1173 HealthSouth
1017 Freddie Mac
970 Salomon Smith Barney
Tally Weaseliest Profession
------ ---------------------
10309 Politicians
7854 Lawyers
6234 News media
6059 Tobacco executives
4217 Oil executives
1043 Accountants
Tally Weaseliest Individual
------ ---------------------
13959 George W. Bush
5104 Michael Moore
3057 Yasser Arafat
2820 Jacques Chirac
2141 Saddam Hussein
1883 Tom Daschle
1105 Arnold Schwarzenegger
1095 Al Franken
1023 Ariel Sharon
932 Bill O'Reilly
695 Ann Coulter
483 Charles Schumer
400 Sean Penn
383 Jayson Blair
230 Richard Grasso
195 Gerhardt Schroeder
188 Bill Bennett
146 Jack Grubman
Tally Weaseliest Behavior
------ -------------------
18877 Blaming fast food restaurants for making you fat
5748 Religious extremism
4688 Creating computer worms/viruses because no one will date you
3997 Driving a Hummer
1487 Using cell phones in restaurants
1077 Using speaker phone in cubicle
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.
---
Management started having meetings to plan what the new organization would look like after the upcoming layoffs. Our pointy-haired boss was invited to the first two meetings but suddenly the invitations stopped. A day before the layoff announcements he said, "I'm sure that the layoffs won't concern our division because they haven't asked me for any names yet. In fact, they don't even invite me to the meetings anymore!" (Guess who was on top of the list?)
---
My co-worker went to get her driver's license renewed at the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles. The line was long, as always, and she took out her cell phone to make a call. The clerk called out to her and the other people in line, "You cannot use your cell phone in here; it makes our computers run very slow!"
---
I work for a government contractor and was recently in a meeting with a bureaucrat who was explaining a new IT system. Describing how useful it was, he claimed that it would meet our needs "99.9 times out of a thousand."
---
I was at a high school football game when an induhvidual nearby asked, "How many quarters are there in the game?"
---
My principal was interviewing a candidate for a job as guidance counselor and said, "Your references are so glowing it looks like you can walk on water." The candidate was a paraplegic in a wheelchair.
---
I worked with a woman who had a nose job. She said, "I wonder if my baby will have my new nose or my old nose?"
---
I overheard two students emerging from an "Introduction to Social Work" class. One said, "I can't stand this class. All the teacher ever talks about is her family. I hate hearing other people's problems!"
************************************
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ October 20, 2003 03:10 PM: Message edited by: Gem F ]</font>
<font size="2" face="Comic sans ms, Helvetica, sans-serif">Foxtrot is the Calvin and Hobbes of the late 90's. Was it as smart as C&H? Nope. But it's just as funny and it is so because it appeals to the geek in everyone...pop culture skewering and everything to go with it...Originally posted by Gem F:
Wow, Foxtrot is the best? What do you see in it? (not being sarcastic)
I just don't get excited by that one at all.
My opinion in any case...
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks