Archive for August 7th, 2007
Introductions
Text of my intro mail at ZenZui:
Intros are hard to write; I’ll make it link-heavy and you can choose your own degree of reading. I’m a blogging firearms, photography, and explosives enthusiast from Indiana. My cat and I live in Kirkland (for now). I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I have a 50BMG rifle that you’re all welcome to try out sometime; I enjoy taking co-workers to the range. My three kids live in Moscow, Idaho with my ex-wife. Once a year I’m the assistant director for the Boomershoot (opening fireballs are popular). Recently, a picture and a pithy quote of mine were published recently; previously, a quote made it into a book you may have read. Feel free to stop by; I have a copy of Armed America on my desk if you’d like to thumb through it.
Excerpt from a follow-up email:
He’s sitting across from So and So over in the disarmed wing of the office, come by and introduce yourself!
From a follow-up to that:
I wasn’t aware this was the “disarmed wing”, the bag that carries my arsenal of kites says, “Weapons for the Uprising.”
As reference material
For some reason I keep losing this, so here’s to not losing it again.
I’m in Dilbert Principle
Check it out. Page 284, upper half. Here’s the letter from Scott:
From rjones M10-on-23 19:21:46 1995
Subject: Re: FW: Question from Scott Adams
To: ScottAdams@aol.com
Date: Mon, 10-23-1995 19:21:46 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <951023215438_52502431@emout05.mail.aol.com from “ScottAdams@aol.com”
10-at-23, 95 09:54:41 pm
1. Yes
Ry Jones
I’m writing a book tentatively titled THE DILBERT PRINCIPLE that will be published
next year by HarperCollins. It’s part cartoons, part witty text and part “best of”
stories and quotes from e-mail.
I’d like your permission to include your previous message to me, anonymously, edited
as shown at the bottom of this message. It would be WITHOUT attribution, indicating
only that it came to me by e-mail. I edited some peoples’ messages to conceal the
names of organizations and other contextual clues.
Your permission would include use in all media in addition to the book, including
publicity, advertising, body tattoos, graffiti, online media, Movie of the Week, CD
Rom, serialization, cereal, foreign languages, hieroglyphics, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Your permission would also indicate that you’re the author of the e-mail message and
it’s not copyrighted by somebody else.
I’m on deadline and handling bunches of these, so the only responses I can use are:
1. Yes 2. No 3. Yes, as revised by you
Please copy back this entire e-mail message in your response so I can keep it all
straight. And please include your name in your message.
Thank you very much for your time. I’ve gotten over 50,000 e-mail messages, so the
few I’ve selected as candidates for the book are true gems and very much appreciated.
With your permission, others will get to enjoy them too.
—— Text of your original [edited] message below ——-
At [company], a lot of business is done in the hallway. Getting dragged into these
ad hoc meetings can be a huge time-waster; however, it’s hard to avoid them because
the participants always seem to want everyone’s opinion.
I have taken to either excusing myself to the restroom to get out of them, or carrying
ice back to my office from the kitchen in by hand. That way, when I get caught in
a meeting, I can say “See, this ice is melting and my hand is cold. I must go now.”
They let me out, and nobody seems to question the utility or business case for my
ferrying ice around all day.
Scott Adams
So many fruit to pick
One: the person that called the cops is a moron.
Two: the cops were morons for responding.
Three: the city manager is a moron that is blaming the victims. State agency to investigate shooting after death is called an accident; the short version is a cop took a couple shots at a snake in a bird feeder and killed someone 400 yards beyond. I read about events like this and despair. At the Boomershoot we sweat safety all year and still people argue with us. I might print up copies of this article to have handed out at the sign-in booth for 2008; I’d like to imagine it would end bickering over gun handling, but I’d like to fly when I flap my arms, too.
