Month: October 2007

When it comes to selecting my Halloween costume, I ask four questions: 1. Can I wear my glasses?2. Does it cover my legs so I can pretend I’m dancing?3. How difficult is it to take a whiz?4. Does it allow me to be witty? One year I wore a cow…

One of the services I provide to hetero male readers of this blog is teaching you how to obtain sex from women who are too good for you. To that end, I scour the Internet looking for scientific articles that can give you an edge. Recently, I found a doozy….

Did you notice that the The Dilbert Blog archive suspiciously disappeared last spring? A big publisher agreed with your frequent suggestions that I should turn the funnier posts into a book. So I did, and as part of that deal removed the book content from the Internet. The book’s title…

In my area, although the weather is generally good, there are lots of indoor recreation businesses: indoor tennis, bowling, indoor bocce, billiards, ice skating, roller skating, indoor soccer, batting cages, basketball, and so on. One thing they all have in common is that they are empty for more than half…

Researchers have found an area of the brain that gets active when people have religious experiences. http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=434D7C62-E7F2-99DF-37CC9814533B90D7&repost=with_catchy_title [no longer available] I know you’re expecting me to say this proves religion is just an illusion caused by the brain. But I’m not. If God exists, it seems entirely reasonable that he’d…

Until recently, I was a semi-silent investor in two local restaurants: Stacey’s Café and Stacey’s at Waterford. My long-time business partner, Stacey, co-owned and managed them. My duties involved smiling and nodding while pretending to understand what was going on. Eventually Stacey would make a recommendation with implications that I…

There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times about something social scientists call a cascade. It’s a process by which one expert’s wrong opinion spreads to other experts until they all believe it must be true because all the experts say so. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html It makes you wonder if there…

Some years ago I drew a Dilbert comic in which Dilbert invented what he called tubular luggage. Several garage bands e-mailed to ask if they could use the name Tubular Luggage. Apparently “Tubular Luggage” just jumps out as an obvious name for a musical group. I had the same experience…

There’s a guy I know, but not well. He’s polite and friendly. He’s average looking. He means well. As far as I can tell, he’s a good citizen. And yet, every time I see him, I want to beat him to death with a shovel and bury him in a…

Whenever I write about foreign policy, religion, or science, the criticisms I get most often are along the lines of “Leave it to the experts. You don’t know anything about foreign policy/religion/science.” I always chuckle inside when I read that sort of comment. First, it must be noted that I…

If you could vote for a president of the United States who would be excellent in solving one issue, yet only average in every other area, what one issue would you want him/her to solve? Assume the president isn’t magic, so the solution has to be something entirely feasible even…

In the United States, we have freedom of speech, in the sense that the government won’t arrest you for speaking your mind. Yay for freedom! But your fellow citizens will happily ruin your economic life if you say something unpopular in public. Some might say that has nothing to do…

If you love your country, and you wish someone would kill me, vote for Scott Adams as a write-in for president of the United States. If elected, it’s a virtual certainty I’ll get assassinated, but not before I solve every problem in the United States. And by our excellent example,…

When you have a working knowledge of economics, it’s like having a mild super power. For example, I use my knowledge of economics to avoid speeding tickets. I assume the local law enforcement agencies have limited funding and can’t be everywhere at the same time. That tells me, fairly reliably,…