A couple of days ago I read on The Dilbert Blog that Scott Adams used the Google Alerts service to keep tabs on what people are writing about him.

I'm familiar with the service. I use it myself. Basically, you tell Google what text to watch for, then when the service finds that text, it emails you with a link.

I use it to looks for my own name, my domain name, and the names of some people who are important to me. Scott Adams uses it to look for the words "Scott Adams Dilbert."

The cool thing is, that by typing that last sentence, I've triggered an email to be sent to Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. Rich and famous Scott Adams.

That's the cool thing. The fucking cool thing is that, as Scott admits in his own blog, he carries his Blackberry in his pocket.

So, by typing that sentence up there a couple of paragraphs ago, there's a good chance that I've startled Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, and caused him to derail from whatever train of thought he might have been on.

Maybe he was thinking up his next comic. Maybe I messed that up. Maybe, because of me, it won't be nearly as funny as it would have been.

Or maybe, maybe I jolted him from an idea that was sort of funny to one that's absolutely fucking hilarious.

Maybe he'll be so grateful that he'll start paying me to derail his thought train every now and then.

So what if that lottery thing hasn't worked out? I've got a new retirement plan now.