The Dilbert Blog

Powerball

When I saw the headline “Oklahoma couple claims $105.8M Powerball prize” I wondered about the age and profession of the husband. I also wondered if he would keep his job. And by “wondered” I mean I already knew it would be an older guy in a blue collar job who plans to keep working. Isn’t it always?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11669215/

I don’t want to accuse the Powerball people of fixing these lotteries. But I notice that the people who win are coincidentally the people who would be best for marketing future Powerball lotteries. You know what story you will never hear about a lottery winner? It’s this one:

“Wealthy bachelor neurosurgeon, age 30, wins $300 million in the lottery. The lucky winner, Winston Arbuckle III, says he plans to “Buy another yacht, smoke more weed, and float around the Mediterranean until I die from the clap.” Asked about his neurosurgery practice, Arbuckle quipped, “I never liked sick people.”

No, you will only hear stories about the modest couple with the hard-working husband, usually in his late fifties or early sixties. They will be “thinking about” getting a nicer house. In this latest lottery story, the husband is a long-haul trucker whose truck has recently crapped out. He plans to buy a new (used) truck and keep working. He says there’s only so much time you can spend fishing.

That’s his story. And I believe it. But I can’t help wondering if he had any thoughts along these lines:

“Holy shit. I don’t want to spend more time with my wife. What am I going to do? I know, I’ll say I’m going to keep working. That will make me look like a great guy. But I’ll hire a chauffeur to drive the truck for me. I’ll trick out the trailer part with a beer tap, big screen TV and a sofa. And I’ll only pretend to be transporting air conditioners. I’ll just tell Jeeves to drive me around the country while I sit in the back eating onion rings and farting into the couch. We’ll only stop to refuel and pick up prostitutes. YEE-HAAA!!!”

Did I just accidentally write a script for the next Adam Sandler movie?

Terrorism or Stupidity?

Terrorism is a good strategy in some situations, such as getting rid of foreign occupiers. I suppose it could work whenever the objective is clear and the enemy is capable of making the change desired. In those cases, terrorism is a rational, albeit horrible, strategy.

But how could terrorism wipe out Israel?

The citizens of Israel don’t consider themselves visitors. They can’t “go home.” So how can terrorism ever succeed in that particular case?

Imagine a worst case scenario where terror weapons become so effective that Hamas and Hezbollah can literally make Israel uninhabitable. The residents of Israel pack up and become refugees. The Palestinians go skipping into Israel and settle into their new homes that were, in some cases, their old homes. What happens next?

If you guessed radical ex-Israelis would start using terrorism on the residents of New Palestine, you would be right. It’s a certainty, especially if the tools of terrorism are so good that they are capable of depopulating a country. It wouldn’t require many angry ex-Israelis to once again depopulate the entire country through terror.

Surely any form of terror that is effective enough to cause all Jews to leave Israel would be good enough to cause any future residents to move too. You have to wonder if Hamas has thought it through.

I think Israel’s best strategy would be to label their current conflict a “War on Stupid.” It wouldn’t be a racist thing, because it only applies to the people who think Israel can be wiped out by terror and replaced by Palestinians who would live in peace. By any objective measure, that’s stupid.

Sometimes labels change reality because they change how we think of things. Imagine if the captured terrorists in Israeli prisons were forced to wear dunce caps and write essays on their theory of how terrorism could “wipe out Israel.” After they write the essay, assuming they directly answer the assignment question, they are released without serving any further time. Israel could publish the essays so everyone can get a good chuckle out of them. I think it would make terrorism less glamorous.

Iran

There are two ways the United States can overthrow the government of Iran:

1. Massive military attack
2. Withdraw from Iraq

Inflation in Iran is running at 17%. Lately, Iran is experiencing civil unrest because they don’t have enough refinery capacity to produce gasoline.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19457357/

If America withdraws from Iraq, it will force Iran to spend massive amounts of money to stabilize and influence their dangerous neighbor. I doubt the Iranian economy is strong enough to handle the burden of Iraq. Before long, either the Iranian government will fall or it will have to be nice to the rest of the world to get help. And that means opening the Iranian nuclear facilities to full inspections and dropping support for Hezbollah.

The current Iranian government is unlikely to make those compromises. That’s why the citizens will demand a new one. Iran isn’t a democracy, but it’s the second closest thing in the region, after Israel. The population of Iran is highly skewed toward young people. That alone spells change. I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran ended up staggering toward a more fully democratic process. The systems for democracy in Iran are already in place. All they need to do is remove the Mullah’s control over which candidates can run.

A violent revolution might be unnecessary. If enough people go to the streets, the Mullah’s in charge could decide it’s in their best interest to be more liberal about allowing who runs for office, and not overruling the politicians after they are elected. The people who get elected might find it in their best interest to get along with the United States and Europe. In a hundred years, I could imagine the Mullahs becoming more like the monarchy in Great Britain, with more moral authority than legal authority.

None of this is likely, because I don’t believe the United States will withdraw enough troops from Iraq to make any geopolitical difference to Iran. It’s just interesting to think about unintended consequences, since those seem to be the only kind of consequences we ever see.

Irony Storm

In yesterday’s post I dared to say Paris Hilton entertains me, and I confessed I liked her because she works when she doesn’t need to, she has a sense of humor, and I’ve never heard of her being mean. This caused a Category 5 irony storm in the comments.

My favorite comments came from people who believe Paris Hilton’s television show on E!, The Simple Life, is a reality show about two stupid rich girls who do mean things. I hate to be a spoiler, but it’s a show produced by smart people, starring two rich girls who pretend to be mean and stupid. Their target audience is people who aren’t bright enough to know the show is staged.

And people wonder how I can be entertained by Paris Hilton. Good lord, the woman gives and she gives. This is performance art, and you’re part of the show, even if all you’re doing is strenuously denying its entertainment value and causing me to write this post that you are now reading.

My other favorite comments came from people who angrily point out how wrong it is to be entertained by something as trivial and unimportant as Paris Hilton’s life. This raises an interesting question: What the hell are you doing that’s so important? You’re not only reading The Dilbert Blog, but you’re leaving a frickin’ comment. How can you afford to take time out from your primary activity of performing free heart surgery on poor African babies?

My third favorite comments came from the people who say Paris is a racist. (This might come as a surprise to Lionel Richie.) Yes, I know she used the N-word on tape. I’ll bet she has also called people motherf*ckers without believing they actually have sex with their mothers. Sometimes you pick the most shocking word because it’s the most shocking word. I don’t know what’s in Paris’ heart, but I’m positive you don’t either.

I was also wondering how much economic value Paris has contributed to the world. If you put a price on the advertising budgets that support the media coverage she generates, plus her TV show, her movie roles, her magazine covers, I’ll bet the dollar value of her contribution to the world is in the billions. Those billions generate taxes that go to important social services such as feeding the poor and protecting our soldiers. And don’t get me started about the tens of millions of masturbators who appreciate her. You can’t put a price on that.

Clearly Paris has made some bad judgment calls. When cameras are rolling, you really ought to be more careful about what comes out of your mouth, and what goes into it. But I have to wonder how many of her critics could survive continuous video surveillance and be mistaken for Gandhi. I couldn’t. I don’t like your odds either.

In summary, if you enjoy opera more than you enjoy stories about Paris Hilton, you might believe you are superior. That’s the second clue there’s something seriously wrong with you.

Can’t…Resist…

Well, by now he’s in Paris. I’m referring to Paris Hilton’s boyfriend. Unless you live in a pineapple under the sea, you know that Paris just got out of jail. She’s got some catching up to do.

Paris’s legal problems started last year when she was arrested for driving drunk. In the following months she got stopped twice by officers for driving with a suspended license. The second stop resulted in jail time. My question is why, after leaving jail today, she didn’t do a few shots of tequila in front of reporters, use her prison skills to hotwire a car, and try to swerve home on her own. What was suddenly stopping her?

Instead, Paris let her parents pick her up at the prison in an SUV. I assume their chauffeur was liquored up so Paris would feel at home. Otherwise she’d be sitting in the back seat screaming, “Why is this car moving in a straight line?!! What’s wrong?!!!”

Paris has stated that she will no longer “act dumb,” because that’s “not who I am.” She says she’s worried about all the young girls who view her as a role model.

Speaking of jail, if your daughter is using Paris Hilton as a role model, you probably belong in one.

Tonight, Paris will appear on Larry King, presumably not acting dumb. If you think you can keep me from watching that train wreck, you are mistaken. I’m clearing the calendar. I can’t wait to watch Larry – who is more than 300 years old – ask Paris if she got any girl-on-girl action in the joint. They have the whole hour together and he’s going to run out of innocent questions soon after “Did you enjoy jail?”

If you want to enhance your viewing pleasure, just imagine that Larry is furiously pleasuring himself under the desk as he interviews Paris. It will make the questions sound naughtier:

“So….Did you take showers with the other women?”

I kid, but I have to confess I like Paris. I’ve never heard a report of her being mean. She works when she doesn’t need to. She has a sense of humor. And she knows how to enjoy herself. That’s more than most people have to offer the world. And we’ve all done our share of boneheaded things. If you think about it objectively, her career depends on being fascinating to millions of people. She probably does that better than whatever-the-hell you’re doing and calling a career. I’m glad she’s out of jail so she can go back to the important work of entertaining me.

Champagne Moments

I remember the day I got a call from United Media telling me they wanted to offer me a contract to be a syndicated cartoonist. Yay!

But hold the champagne, I thought. The contract was for what they call a “development deal.” That means you work together for six months, and at the end they decide whether or not to sell your comic to newspapers. About four months into my development deal, United Media informed me they planned to launch Dilbert. Yay!

But hold the champagne. There’s no guarantee that enough newspapers will buy the comic to make it successful. As it turned out, only a few dozen smaller papers picked up Dilbert. You need sales in major markets to really get things rolling. One day, after a few years of limping along toward oblivion, the Boston Globe decided to run Dilbert. Yay!

But hold the champagne. That doesn’t mean the readers of the Boston Globe will like the comic. It got off to a rocky start, but eventually it found an audience and stayed. Yay!

But hold the champagne. One major newspaper isn’t enough. I needed lots more. The new newspaper clients trickled in at nearly the same rate as existing clients cancelled. It was five steps forward and four steps back. My editor at United Media suggested that maybe a publisher would be interested in a Dilbert book, and if successful, perhaps that could get newspapers more interested. Andrews McMeel Publishing agreed to publish my business-themed book, “Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies.” Yay!

But hold the champagne. It takes a long time to write a book and get it published. About 18 months later, the book hit the market. It was a modest success, but didn’t set the world on fire. The book helped newspaper sales a little, and the publisher asked for another book. Yay!

The second book didn’t do as well as the first, although it made money. But at least new sales to newspapers were exceeding cancellations by a better margin. Yay!

And so it went, in ant-sized steps forward. Every pat on the back came with a kick in the nuts. I worked for ten years without a day off. During one particularly busy year, I held a full-time job at the phone company, wrote and drew Dilbert, and wrote a book called “The Dilbert Principle.” I didn’t sleep much that year. It was my first hard cover book. Yay!

The Dilbert Principle found the bottom of the best seller list fairly quickly. Each week it climbed until it hit a wall at #2. Dennis Rodman’s tell-all book held the top spot and refused to let go. You would think that having the #2 best selling non-fiction book would be a good reason to crack open the champagne. But I waited. I hoped. And each week I got the call from my publisher, “You’re number two again.” I was happy about my book’s success, of course, but something was missing.

Finally, I got the call. “You’re number one.” I can’t describe what that felt like. If you’re thinking it feels a lot like being number two, only slightly better, you missed it by a light year. I was home alone when I got the news, and I cried for about two hours. Life changed. Newspapers started snapping up Dilbert. Someone released the media hounds. Dilbert was showing up on the major magazine covers. I was booked on the morning shows. It was several years before I could come up for air.

I still haven’t popped the champagne. I just raise the bar for what would be the right moment, and tell myself how tasty it will be if I ever accomplish something special in my work. Apparently the thing inside me that makes me work so hard is the same thing that keeps me unsatisfied. It’s a package deal. The best you can hope for is a family that understands.

Creative Question

A few years ago I was invited down to DreamWorks to see if there was any potential for collaborating on something non-Dilbert. Nothing ever came of that meeting, but in the process I learned something fascinating that I’ve been puzzling about ever since. Maybe you can help me figure out something.

The problem with creating a G-rated CGI blockbuster, like Shrek, or Cars, is that all the obvious categories have been taken. Kids are interested in only a few things in their movies:

1. Other kids
2. Creatures of any kind
3. Princesses
4. Magic and super powers

Shrek III, for example, has all of those elements. It’s no surprise it’s a huge hit. So here’s your creative question for the day: What subject and setting hasn’t yet been done as a kid-oriented CGI movie?

Here are some that HAVE been done:

Bugs
Monsters
Super heroes
Cars
African animals
Suburban animals
Robots
Toys
Fairy Tale creatures
Fish
Dinosaurs
Ghosts

Pixar has a new movie coming out about a rat that works in a kitchen. I’m sure it’s a fine film and will do well, as all other Pixar movies have. But honestly, my first reaction on seeing the rat in the kitchen trailer was “they ran out of creatures.” It’s no one’s fault. There are only so many types of creatures in the universe.

I’ll get the ball rolling with a few types of creatures that haven’t been in recent kid-oriented CGI blockbusters as far as I know:

Aliens
Birds
Angels

Now it’s your turn. What creatures are left for the next movie?

[Update: Okay, okay. Penguins and Chicken Little and Valiant were birds. See how hard it is to come up with something new?]

Good Stories

It has come to my attention that most people have no good stories. If you ask people to tell their best stories, you get blank stares and then something along the lines of “Well, once I lost my wallet.”

This has long puzzled me because I’m full of stories. How could I have so many, and other people have so few?

My brother made the same observation recently. Like me, he has plenty of stories that would make your jaw drop. And he noticed that other people seem to have none. One theory for this apparent discrepancy is that everyone’s life includes plenty of fascinating events but few people organize them in their memories as stories.

I have the same facility for jokes, which are essentially little stories. If I hear a joke once, I own it forever. Usually I’ll remember some seed of the joke – a key word or concept, and I can reproduce the rest of it by understanding how jokes are constructed. Apparently I have a story-oriented brain.

Now I suppose I owe you a story. Fair enough. I’ll pull one from the bag.

Several years ago, I thought of a patentable idea. It might be my best idea ever. The idea combines electronic calendars, such at Outlook, with advertising. So if, for example, you scheduled on your calendar “paint house,” that information would be sent anonymously to a service where house painters could offer themselves. The vendors – painters in this example – wouldn’t know who you are. All they would know is that someone in your zip code plans to have his house painted on a particular date.

Painters would respond through the system with rates and other information about their service. Most important, they would only respond if they were available to do the work on that day. None of their advertisements would appear on your computer until you clicked to view them. It’s the ultimate form of advertisement: It applies to you specifically, and you don’t need to see it unless you want to.

The system would check your calendar for all sorts of key words, from “vacation” to “birthday” to “graduation,” and match them with vendors that might be of interest. And of course you would have to check a box to “publish” your calendar entry. Nothing personal would be sent to the system.

My idea would have been a “process patent,” involving the system that keeps users anonymous and negotiates which vendors get through the filter. I imagined that vendors would pay to be part of the service.

Anyway, I hired a patent lawyer, searched to make sure no one already had the patent, and submitted my idea. I looked forward to selling the patent to Microsoft for a billion dollars.

A few days later, I went to the gym. I was working out on the resistance machines and noticed that some guy kept staring at me. Eventually he introduced himself. He recognized me as “the Dilbert guy” and wondered if I would be interested in doing something to benefit his start-up company. I asked what his company’s future product would be. A few sentences into his description, I interrupted him. “Hold on,” I said. “I have to stop you there because the service you’re describing – and you won’t believe this – I just submitted for a patent.”

“What?” he asked.

Somehow, in the most ridiculous coincidence of my entire life, we were both working on the same idea at the same time, and ended up talking about it at a gym in San Ramon.  When I described my patent application, he confirmed that it was essentially the same idea as his. Sadly for me, his patent application was in the mail a month or so before mine. Talk about your “oh shit” moments.

A few years later, I got my response from the patent office. They found an existing patent, about five years old, that they thought covered my idea. In my view, the existing patent had no resemblance to my idea, and didn’t explain the service that my patent was designed to accommodate. But the existing patent was so broad it could be construed that way. So I didn’t get my patent, and, I assume, neither did the guy I met at the gym.

Life is 10% effort and 90% lucky timing.

Who Will Kill all the Senior Citizens?

Recently I became immortal. It started a few months ago when I was doing some research on the Internet. And by research, I mean I clicked on a link that led me to another, then another, until I was reading something written by a stranger with no credibility. That’s how I learn.

Anyway, the stranger with no credibility was writing about some research done by another stranger with no credibility who was giving some chemicals to mice and dogs who themselves have no credibility. The chemical was resveratrol, an ingredient found in red wine. Apparently you don’t get enough of it by being a wino. You have to get it in concentrated form. I forget the details, but I think the first mouse that got the concentrated resveratrol lived 30% longer and started having an affair with Maria Shriver. One of the dogs with resveratrol got a bone and dug a hole so far into the earth he now lives with a family in Sumatra. And he’s so strong he can lick any balls he wants. No one dares stop him.

The reporter with no credibility asked the researcher who has no credibility if humans should take resveratrol. He said no. He wasn’t worried that it would cause harm, but there are no studies showing it would work in humans, and there was some doubt about delivering the chemical in pill form before it broke down and became ineffective. Then the reporter with no credibility asked the researcher with no credibility if he takes it himself. He said yes.

About thirty seconds later I found a web site that sells that shit and bought several pallets of it. I bought a brand called Longevinex because some other sources with no credibility said they might have solved the problem of keeping it from breaking down in pill form.

I’ve been taking the resveratrol for a few months. I don’t know if it’s working, but I got rid of my car. Now I go places by taking huge hops. And when people ask me questions I can’t answer, I kill them by squeezing their heads. Most important, I’ll add about thirty years to my life. Thirty years should bring me to the point where medical science can cure just about anything. If my arm falls off, I’ll inject some stem cells into the stump and grow a new one before dinner.

By then, there will be a lot of old people like me who refuse to die. They will also refuse to work. The immortal slackers will want to collect their pensions and Social Security until the sun turns into a cold dark thing about the size of a penny. No one foresaw immortality. Pension funds and Social Security are calculated on the hope that you will live an unhealthy lifestyle and take a dirt nap at 76. There simply won’t be enough money for all of the immortals.

So whose job will it be to kill all the senior citizens? Someone has to do it. You can bet that the people with jobs won’t want to hand over their paychecks to the lazy-ass immortals that do nothing but hop around town and talk about the squirrels on their lawn.

That’s why you should buy stock in life insurance companies. Those bastards will save a ton of money by never paying a claim. You can bet they’ll work some exclusion language into the policy that says something like “Does not include immortals that hop around town talking about squirrels until some guy working in a cubicle decides to take matters into his own hands.”

By the way, I remind you not to get your medical or financial advice from cartoonists.

Nostrildumbass Rides Again

In a previous post, I discussed the possibility of NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg running for president. One of the appealing things about him is his lack of blind party loyalty. He’s been a Democrat. He’s been a Republican. Recently he left the Republican Party. People speculate that it’s a first step toward running for president as an independent.

If he runs, here’s my prediction. I think you’ll see a web-oriented campaign, the likes of which you’ve never seen. I think it will redefine the campaign process. In particular, I predict his web site will do what no political web site has done before: Show both sides of the issues.

Politicians are advocates. They minimize the other side of the argument and exaggerate the wisdom of their own side. This is a fancy way of saying they are liars. That’s how politics works. The best liar wins. As long as our choices are limited to liars, we’ll keep electing them and wondering what went wrong.

Bloomberg strikes me as 80% businessman and 20% politician. A good businessman knows how to bring the opinions of his “customers” into the process. I don’t think he’ll minimize any side of an argument. As a businessman, he’ll highlight the pros and cons (via the website) and then tell you why he picked the side he picked. It will be rational and fact-based government.

Bloomberg could be the first presidential candidate immune from the idiocy of the “flip-flop” accusation. A normal brain is supposed to change opinions if the information or the situation changes. The first candidate to make that case to the voters will seem to be the only sane person running.

I don’t have enough faith in the voters to believe an independent can get elected president. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he finished a strong second to the tall guy with the good hair (Romney).