My blog post for the original posting of this strip was definitely sarcastic, because Corey's "salary range" comment is one I vividly remember (except not vividly enough to have used the words "tax bracket" because I believe those were the actual words he used).

Luckily, said IRL high-salary guy has since become aware that saying things like this will come off as douchey and he's a much more pleasant person to be around now. :D