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And To You Taxpayers Out There, Let Me Say This: Make Sure You File Your Tax Return On Time! And Remember That, Even Though Income Taxes Can Be A 'pain In The Neck,' The Folks At The Irs Are Regular People Just Like You, Except That They Can Destroy Your Life

-Dave Barry

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And To You Taxpayers

Dave Barry

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And To You Taxpayers Out There, Let Me Say This: Make Sure You File Your Tax Return On Time! And Remember That, Even Though Income Taxes Can Be A 'pain In The Neck,' The Folks At The Irs Are Regular People Just Like You, Except That They Can Destroy Your Life

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Fishing Is Boring, Unless You Catch An Actual Fish, And Then It Is Disgusting.

The Method (of Learning Japanese) Recommended By Experts Is To Be Born As A Japanese Baby And Raised By A Japanese Family, In Japan. And Even Then It's Not Easy.

For The Benefit Of Those Of You Who Have Real Jobs And Are Not Involved In The News Business, I Should First Explain That . . .

But My Point Is That Competitive Eating Is A Real Sport, And I Considered Taking It Up. But When I Thought About What This Would Mean Sitting Around For Hours, Stuffing My Face With Unhealthy Food I Realized It Was Basically The Same Thing As Journalism.

You Kids Have Fun, And Be Home By Thanksgiving!" Our Parents Would Call To Us On Halloween Night, As We Staggered Out The Front Door, Weighed Down By Hundreds Of Pounds Of Concealed Vandalism Supplies, Including Enough Raw Eggs To Feed Somalia For Decades. By Morning, Thanks To Our Efforts, The Entire Neighborhood Would Be Covered With A Layer Of Congealed Shaving Cream And Toilet Paper That, Around Certain Unpopular Neighbors' Homes, Was Hundreds Of Feet Thick. This Is How The Appalachian Mountains Were Formed.

I Have Seen Women Walk Right Past A Tv Set With A Football Game On And - This Always Amazes Me - Not Stop To Watch, Even If The Tv Is Showing Replays Of What We Call A "good Hit," Which Is A Tackle That Causes At Least One Major Internal Organ To Actually Fly Out Of A Player's Body.

You Might Have Mentioned This To Me Molly,” Said Leonard. “the Fact That There Are Hostile Natives On The Island.” “i Forgot,” Said Molly. “you Forgot?” Said Leonard. “there’s Been A Lot Happening,” Said Molly.

People Don't Think Of Writers As Sex Objects. The Women Who Write To Me And Suggest That We Ought To Have Sex Usually Turn Out To Be, Like, Eighty. And Their Letters Always End With, "just Joking."

If A Woman Has To Choose Between Catching A Fly Ball And Saving An Infant's Life, She Will Choose To Save The Infant's Life Without Even Considering If There Are Men On Base.

I Tried Sniffing Coke Once, But The Ice Cubes Got Stuck In My Nose.

The Only Really Good Place To Buy Lumber Is At A Store Where The Lumber Has Already Been Cut And Attached Together In The Form Of Furniture Finished And Put Inside Boxes.

What I Need Is A Search Engine That, No Matter What I Type In, Comes Back With Go Back To Work.

What A Crock. I Could Easily Overemphasize The Importance Of Good Grammar. For Example, I Could Say: Bad Grammar Is The Leading Cause Of Slow, Painful Death In North America, Or Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

To An Adolescent, There Is Nothing In The World More Embarrassing Than A Parent.

Never Board A Commercial Aircraft If The Pilot Is Wearing A Tank Top.

'i'm Sorry,' Guys Are Always Telling Women, 'but I'm Just Not Ready To Make A Commitment.' Guys Are In A Permanent State Of Nonreadiness. If Guys Were Turkey Breasts, You Could Put Them In A 350-degree Oven On July Fourth, And They Still Wouldn't Be Done In Time For Thanksgiving.

I Guess Nobody Assumes Anybody Is A Libertarian. It's A More Complex Political Discussion Than Most People Are Used To, To Explain Why You Think The Way You Do About Public Education Or Drug Laws, And Why It's Not As Simple As Being For Or Against Something.

Trails Need To Be Wider So People Can Walk While Holding Hands.

I Read Warren Zevon's Bizarre Biography, "i'll Sleep When I'm Dead." His Wife, Crystal Zevon, Posthumously Published A Journal He Wrote And Some Interviews With Ex-band Members. Like [keith] Richards's Book "life," It's Brutally Honest.

The Greatest Electrical Pioneer Of Them All Was Thomas Edison Edison's First Major Invention, In 1877, Was The Phonograph, Which Could Soon Be Found In Thousands Of American Homes, Where It Basically Sat Until 1923, When The Record Was Invented.

Microsoft Has A New Version Out, Windows Xp, Which According To Everybody Is The 'most Reliable Windows Ever.' To Me, This Is Like Saying That Asparagus Is 'the Most Articulate Vegetable Ever.'

Scientists Tell Us That The Fastest Animal In The World, With A Speed Of 120 Mph, Is A Cow Dropped Out Of A Helicopter.

On Behalf Of The Newspaper Industry I Wish To Announce Some Changes We're Making To Serve You Better. When I Say 'serve You Better,'' I Mean 'increase Our Profits.' We Newspapers Are Very Big On Profits These Days. We're A Business, Just Like Any Other Business, Except That We Employ English Majors.

If Everybody Were A Guy, The Human Race Could Easily Get By On Less Than One Twentieth The Current Number Of Shoes.

People Are Afraid To Own Their Own Homes. People Are Afraid Their Own Government Will Catch Them Fixing Their Houses.

Note That Both Of These Papers [the New York Post And The New York Daily News] Are Big Sellers In A City Whose Residents Like To Go Around Saying They'd Never Live Anyplace Else On Account Of They'd Miss The Opera.

Alan Zweibel Is The Funniest Writer In The World. He Might Be Even Funnier When He's Naked, But I'm Afraid To Find Out.

The Other Major Kind Of Computer Is The "apple," Which I Do Not Recommend, Because It Is A Wuss-o-rama New-age Computer You Basically Just Plug In And Use.

Instead Of A Permit System Or Regulations, The Forest Service Needs To Reduce Worldwide Population Growth To Limit The Number Of Visitors To Wilderness.

Dogs Need To Sniff The Ground; It's How They Keep Abreast Of Current Events. The Ground Is A Giant Dog Newspaper, Containing All Kinds Of Late-breaking Dog News Items, Which, If They Are Especially Urgent, Are Often Continued In The Next Yard.

Sign At A New England Church: Will The Last Person To Leave Please See That The Perpetual Light Is Extinguished?

I've Never Been Struck By Lightning As Far As I Know, So The Higher Power Is Treating Me As Well As Even Those People Who Love Him Very Much.

Here's A Man Who Was Twice Elected To The Most Powerful Position On Earth Despite Needing A Teleprompter To Correctly Identify What Year It Was.

Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'but A Tank Costs Several Million Dollars, Not Including Floor Mats. I Don't Have That Kind Of Money.' Don't Be Silly. You're A Consumer, Right? You Have Credit Cards, Right? Perhaps You Are Thinking: 'yes, But How Am I Going To Pay The Credit-card Company?' Don't Be Silly. You Have A Tank, Right?

I Think I Became Funny Because I Grew Up In The Bronx. I Was Small And Weak And Jewish Instead Of Large And Fierce And Puerto Rican. You Need Something.

I Actually Like South Florida. I Never Lived In A More Interesting Place Than This. I've Never Met A Wider Range Of People. I Guess When I Came Here I Thought There Were Cubans And Then There Were People From New York And That Was Miami. Now I Know That It's Cubans, People From New York, And Some People From New Jersey.

With Humor You Have So Many Options With Topics And Length, I Mean I Can Write Humor Essays In Books Now And They Can Be As Long As I Want Them To Be.

When Doctors Describe Pain As Experiencing "discomfort," It's Like Saying Hiroshima Experienced "urban Renewal".

One I'm Deeply Into Is Doris Kearns Goodwin's "team Of Rivals." I Was The Only Person In The Us Who Hadn't Read It.

Your Digestive System Is Your Body's Fun House, Whereby Food Goes On A Long, Dark, Scary Ride, Taking All Kinds Of Unexpected Twists And Turns, Being Attacked By Vicious Secretions Along The Way, And Not Knowing Until The Last Minute Whether It Will Be Turned Into A Useful Body Part Or Ejected Into The Dark Hole By Mister Sphincter.

You And Teacher,” Said Molly. “yes,” Said Peter. “she’s Very Clever. You’ll Like Her.” “i’m Sure,” Said Molly.

Software: These Programs Give Instruction To The Cpu, Which Processes Billions Of Tiny Facts Called Bytes, And Within A Fraction Of A Second It Sends You An Error Message That Requires You To Call The Customer-support Hot Line And Be Placed On Hold For Approximately The Life-span Of A Caribou.

I've Been Checking With People Back In South Florida To See If Hurricane Dennis Is Going To Whack My House, And The Consensus Of The Experts Seems To Be: No, It Will Not, Unless It Does, In Which Case, Yes. So I'm Feeling Really Calm Over Here In London.

Eventually Everyone Has To Die, Except Elvis.

If Peter Was Nine, And A New Boy Came To St. Norbert’s Home For Wayward Boys Who Said He Was Ten, Why, Then, Peter Would Declare Himself Eleven. Also, He Could Spit The Farthest. That Made Him The Undisputed Leader.

Common Criticism Of The Internet Is That It Is Dominated By The Crude, The Uninformed, The Immature, The Smug, The Untalented, The Repetitious, The Pathetic, The Hostile, The Deluded, The Sefl-righteous, And The Shrill. This Criticism Overlooks The Fact That The Internet Also Offers - For The Savvy Individual Who Knows Where To Look - The Tasteless And Borderline Insane.

I Would Say That The Single Most Important Conclusion I Reached, After Traveling Through Japan, As Well As Countless Hours Reading, Studying, And Analyzing This Fascinating Culture, Is That You Should Always Tighten The Cap On The Shampoo Bottle Before You Put It In Your Suitcase.

This (america) Is A Land Of Rich Diversity, From The Towering Skyscrapers Of Manhatan All The Way To The Towering Mounds Of Garbage Piled Up Next To The Towering Skyscrapers Of Manhattan.

Today, You're 50. Now We Can Round Your Age Up To 100! Happy 50th Birthday!

But If I Hadn't Shoved You Off The Boat Back There,you'd Be Lost At Sea Now,wouldn't You? We'd All Be Lost! So Thanks To Me You're All Standing On Land." (pirates, Its A Good Thing They're Idiots)

The Mollusks—generous Hosts When They Weren’t Trying To Kill You.

The Simple Truth Is That Balding African-american Men Look Cool When They Shave Their Heads, Whereas Balding White Men Look Like Giant Thumbs.

Many People Have Trouble Sticking To Their Resolutions, And There Is A Simple Scientific Explanation For This. In 1987, A Team Of Psychologists Conducted A Study In Which They Monitored The New Year's Resolutions Of 275 People. After One Week The Psychologists Found That 92 Percent Of The People Were Keeping Their Resolutions; After Two Weeks We Have No Idea What Happened Because The Psychologists Had Quit Monitoring.

When I Write My Annual Tax Column, Some Ex-irs Agent Will Complain, "there You Go Irs Bashing Again." They're Always Saying That They're Just Doing Their Job. Someone I Know Once Said, "you Could Get Another Job."

People Who Want To Share Their Religious Views With You Almost Never Want You To Share Yours With Them.

The Hawaiian Islands Were Discovered By Hardy Polynesian Sailors, Who Crossed Thousands Of Miles Of Open Ocean In Primitive Canoes, Braving Violent Storm-tossed Seas For Months At A Time. My Family And I Arrived By Modern Commercial Aviation, Which Was Infinitely Worse.

Reporters Aren't Stupid. We Were Standing Around Talking About Which Of The 900 Health-care Proposals That Nobody's Going To Accept Is That Day's Hot News. They Know How Silly That Is. But That's What They Do.

The French Are Not Rude. They Just Happen To Hate You. But That Is No Reason To Bypass This Beautiful Country, Whose Master Chefs Have A Well-deserved Worldwide Reputation For Trying To Trick People Into Eating Snails. Nobody Is Sure How This Got Started. Probably A Couple Of French Master Chefs Were Standing Around One Day, And They Found A Snail, And One Of Them Said: 'i Bet That If We Called This Something Like `escargot,' Tourists Would Eat It.' Then They Had Hearty Laugh, Because 'escargot' Is The French Word For 'fat Crawling Bag Of Phlegm.'

A Perfect Parent Is A Person With Excellent Child-rearing Theories And No Actual Children.

Perfect Parents

My Current Computer, In Addition To 'dos,' Has 'windows,' Which Is Another Invention Of Bill Gates, Designed As A Security Measure To Thwart Those Users Who Are Somehow Able To Get Past Dos.

The Doctor Looked At My Cardiogram And Made That "hmmmm" Noise That Doctors Are Taught In Medical School So They Won't Come Right Out And Say "uh-oh!"

The Sixties Are Now Considered A Historical Period, Just Like The Roman Empire.

I Now Realize That The Small Hills You See On Ski Slopes Are Formed Around The Bodies Of Forty-seven-year-olds Who Tried To Learn Snowboarding.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

...hell, Which As Every Frequent Traveler Knows, Is In Concourse D Of O'hare Airport.

Sharks Are As Tough As Those Football Fans Who Take Their Shirts Off During Games In Chicago In January, Only More Intelligent.

The Whole Thing About Whether You Smoke Marijuana Or Not Is So Ridiculous. That And Whether You Protested The Vietnam War. Give Me A Break. Especially The Marijuana Thing.

See, When The Government Spends Money, It Creates Jobs; Whereas When The Money Is Left In The Hands Of Taxpayers, God Only Knows What They Do With It. Bake It Into Pies, Probably. Anything To Avoid Creating Jobs.

We Don't Shoot Somebody Soon, I'm Gonna Forget How

People - Just Weird People Are Attracted To Miami. And They Come There Not For Serious Reasons, Usually.

I Do Not Mean To Be The Slightest Bit Critical Of Tv Newspeople, Who Do A Superb Job, Considering That They Operate Under Severe Time Constraints And Have The Intellectual Depth Of Hamsters. But Tv News Can Only Present The "bare Bones" Of A Story; It Takes A Newspaper, With Its Capability To Present Vast Amounts Of Information, To Render The Story Truly Boring.

Epcot Center Also Features Pavilions Built By Various Foreign Nations, Where You Can Experience An Extremely Realistic Simulation Of What Life In These Nations Would Be Like If They Consisted Almost Entirely Of Restaurants And Souvenir Stores.

Crabgrass Can Grow On Bowling Balls In Airless Rooms, And There Is No Known Way To Kill It That Does Not Involve Nuclear Weapons.

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

France: As A Professional Journalist, I Like The Idea Of A Society Where It Is Considered An Acceptable Occupation To Basically Sit Around And Drink.

We Believe That Electricity Exists, Because The Electric Company Keeps Sending Us Bills For It, But We Cannot Figure Out How It Travels Inside Wires.

You Can Only Be Young Once. But You Can Always Be Immature.

I Believe That We Parents Must Encourage Our Children To Become Educated, So They Can Get Into A Good College That We Cannot Afford.

Cyrus Pembridge, The Never Land’s Captain, Was Widely Regarded As The Most Incompetent Man To Comman A Ship Since The Formation Of Water. “who In The Name Of Common Sense Would Put To Sea On That Ship With That Man In Charge?” Wondered Mack. “well,” Alf Answered, “we Are.” “true,” Mack Said.

You Can Be The Smartest Person In The World - Which Bill Clinton Is, And If He's Not, His Wife Is - And Care More Than Anybody Else In The World - Which He Does, I Don't Doubt That For A Minute. And You Can Care So Much That You're Willing To Be Dishonest - You Can Tell People One Thing But Do Another Because You Really Know It's For Their Own Good. And You'll Still Screw It All Up. Because The Whole Premise Of What You're Doing Is Wrong!

We Are Talking About Mutated Women, The Result Of Cruel Genetic Experiments Performed By Fashion Designers So Lacking In Any Sense Of Human Decency That They Think Nothing Of Putting Their Initials On Your Eyeglass Lenses. The Leading Cause Of Death Among Fashion Models Is Falling Through Street Grates. If A Normal Woman Puts On Clothing Designed For These Unfortunate People, She Is Quite Naturally Going To Look Like Revenge Of The Pork Person.

Sign At A Tennessee Highway: When This Sign Is Under Water, This Road Is Impassable.

You Should Never Say Anything To A Woman That Even Remotely Suggests That You Think She's Pregnant Unless You Can See An Actual Baby Emerging From Her At That Moment.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

If There Really Is A God Who Created The Entire Universe With All Of Its Glories, And He Decides To Deliver A Message To Humanity, He Will Not Use, As His Messenger, A Person On Cable Tv With A Bad Hairstyle.

Guys Care About Sports Teams. I'm Not Talking About Simply Rooting; I'm Talking About A Relationship That Guys Develop, A Commitment To A Sport Team That Guys Take Way More Seriously Than, For Example, Wedding Vows.

You Can't Have A Bad Time At Disney World. It's Not Allowed. They Have Hidden Electronic Surveillance Cameras Everywhere, And If They Catch You Failing To Laugh With Childlike Wonder, They Lock You Inside A Costume Representing A Beloved Disney Character Such As Goofy And Make You Walk About In The Florida Heat Getting Grabbed And Leaped On By Violently Excited Children Until You Have Learned Your Lesson.

I've Come To Realize That You're Going To Get Criticized No Matter What. Somebody Will Always Hate What You Write, Especially If You Write Humor For A Fairly Broad Audience. Somebody Will Always Find It Not Funny And Declare You're Not Funny Anymore. And Sometimes People Are Just Crazy.

When I'm Writing Columns, It's - All I'm Thinking About Is Jokes, Joke, Joke, Joke, Setup, Punch Line, Joke, Joke, Joke. And I Really Don't Care Where It Goes.

In Fact, Just About All The Major Natural Attractions You Find In The West- The Grand Canyon, The Badlands, The Goodlands, The Mediocrelands, The Rocky Mountains And Robert Redford- Were Caused By Erosion.

You Can, Legally, Possibly Hit And Kill A Fellow Golfer With A Ball, And There Will Not Be A Lot Of Trouble Because The Other Golfers Will Refuse To Stop And Be Witnesses Because They Will Want To Keep Playing.

Computers Are Getting Smarter All The Time. Scientists Tell Us That Soon They Will Be Able To Talk To Us. (and By 'they', I Mean 'computers'. I Doubt Scientists Will Ever Be Able To Talk To Us.)

The Irs Wants You To Use This Form Because It Gets To Keep Most Of Your Money. So Unless You Have Pond Silt For Brains, You Want The Long Form.

This Nation Is So Friendly That The Leading Cause Of Injury Is Getting Passionately Embraced By Strangers.

The Word User Is The Word Used By The Computer Professional When They Mean Idiot.

Dogsled-riding Is A Sport That Is Relaxing As Well As Fragrant.

Talking About Golf Is Always Boring. Playing Golf Can Be Interesting, But Not The Part Where You Try To Hit The Little Ball; Only The Part Where You Drive The Cart.

I Read "remembrance Of Things Past" In The Original French. I Never Start The Day Without Reading Me Some [marcel] Proust.

One Of The Issues That We Professional Newspaper Columnists Are Required By Union Regulations To Voice Grave Concern About Is The Federal Budget Deficit, Which We Refer To As The "mounting" Deficit, Because Every Extra Word Helps When You Have To Produce A Certain Number Of Gravely Concerned Newsprint Inches.

One Key Lesson Of History Is That Virtually Anything, Including Afternoon Or Evening Thundershowers, Causes Germany To Invade Belgium.

The Japanese Tend To Be Far More Co-operative And Docile And Group-oriented. It Would Be Easier To Get The Entire Population Of Tokyo To Wear Matching Outfits Than To Get Any Two Randomly Selected Americans To Agree On Pizza Toppings.

Never Under Any Circumstances Take A Sleeping Pill And A Laxative On The Same Night.

We Have Always Had Dogs, And They Have Faithfully Performed Many Valuable Services For Us, Such As: 1. Peeing On Everything. 2. When We're Driving In Our Car, Alerting Us That We Have Passed Another Dog By Barking Real Loud In Our Ears For The Next 114 Miles. 3. Trying To Kill The Avon Lady.

At The Height Of Rush Hour, People On The London Underground Actually Say "excuse Me." Imagine What Would Happen If You Tried An Insane Stunt Like That On The New York City Subway. The Other Passengers Would Take It As A Sign Of Weakness, And There'd Be A Fight Over Who Got To Keep Your Ears As A Trophy.

All These People Helped Make This Book Possible. But Let Me Make One Thing Clear: If There Are Any Errors Or Omissions In This Book, These People Are Not Responsible. In The End, There Is Only One Person Responsible For What I Write, And That Person, Of Course, Is: Donald Trump.

Dogs Make Good Pets Because They Are Very Loyal

Seriously? You Won’t Help Me?” “help Yourself Get Killed? No, I Won’t.

Bill Gates Is A Very Rich Man Today... And Do You Want To Know Why? The Answer Is One Word: Versions.

I've Always Found Relationships, Men And Women, The Fact That They Are So Radically Different, And It Manifests Itself In So Many Different Ways, And Yet Somehow We Still Try To Live Together And Be Friends. I Find That Endlessly Valuable As A Source Of Material For Humor. Generally Dogs Are Always Funny In My Opinion. And The Federal Government - Just A Relentlessly Productive Source Of Humor.

Don't Emphasise Money If You Don't Have Much; Be Happy

Until I Became A Parent, I Thought Children Just Naturally Knew How To Catch A Ball, That Catching Was An Instinctive Biological Reflex That All Children Are Born With, Like Knowing How To Operate A Remote Control Or Getting High Fevers In Distant Airports.

Puns Are Little "plays On Words" That A Certain Breed Of Person Loves To Spring On You And Then Look At You In A Certain Self-satisfied Way To Indicate That He Thinks That You Must Think That He Is By Far The Cleverest Person On Earth Now That Benjamin Franklin Is Dead, When In Fact What You Are Thinking Is That If This Person Ever Ends Up In A Lifeboat, The Other Passengers Will Hurl Him Overboard By The End Of The First Day Even If They Have Plenty Of Food And Water.

All The Shopping Malls And Restaurants And Airports Are Riddled With Low-fidelity Loudspeakers, Which Apparently Have Developed The Ability To Reproduce By Themselves; These Are All Connected To A Special Programming Service Called Music That Nobody Really Likes, And You Cannot Get Away From It.

It Is Inhumane, In My Opinion, To Force People Who Have A Genuine Medical Need For Coffee To Wait In Line Behind People Who Apparently View It As Some Kind Of Recreational Activity.

Just Get On Any Major Highway, And Eventually It Will Dead-end In A Disney Parking Area Large Enough To Have Its Own Climate, Populated By Large Nomadic Families Who Have Been Trying To Find Their Cars Since The Carter Administration.

The Problem With Writing About Religion Is That You Run The Risk Of Offending Sincerely Religious People, And Then They Come After You With Machetes.

Derangement Is The Only Possible Explanation For Owning A Cat, An Animal Whose Preferred Mode Of Communication Is To Sink Its Claws Three-quarters Of An Inch Into Your Flesh.

Always Remember That If Editors Were So Damned Smart, They Would Know How To Dress.

All Of Us Are Born With A Set Of Instinctive Fears - Of Falling, Of The Dark, Of Lobsters, Of Falling On Lobsters In The Dark, Of Speaking Before A Rotary Club, And Of The Words "some Assembly Required".

Yet Another Spunky Li'l Nasa Robot Lands And Begins Transmitting Back Photographs Of Rocks That Appear Virtually Identical To The Rock Photos Beamed Back By All The Other Spunky Li'l Nasa Robots, Thus Confirming Suspicions That The Universe Has A Lot Of Rocks In It.

I Am Absolutely Sick Unto Death Of Hearing People Say - They All Say This; It Must Be Item One On The Curriculum In Trend College - "i Just Hate To Talk To A Machine!" They Say This As Though It Is A Major Philosophical Position, As Opposed To A Description Of A Minor Neurosis. My Feeling Is, If You Have A Problem Like This, You Shouldn't Go Around Trumpeting It; You Should Stay Home And Practice Talking To A Machine You Can Feel Comfortable With, Such As Your Water Pik, Until You Are Ready To Assume Your Place In Modern Society.

Editorials Are Written By People Who Have Agreed To Have Several Strong Opinions A Day And To Write Them Down, Provided They Do Not Have To Sign Their Names.

I Have A Friend Named Doris Who Argues, On Good Authority, That The Single Biggest Cause Of Global Warming Is Menopause.

When I Say "dogs", I'm Talking About Dogs, Which Are Large, Bounding, Salivating Animals, Usually With Bad Breath. I Am Not Talking About Those Little Squeaky Things You Can Hold On Your Lap And Carry Around. Zoologically Speaking, These Are Not Dogs At All; They Are Members Of The Pillow Family.

There Are A Number Of People Without Whom I Could Not Have Written This Book, But I Hope You Don't Hold That Against Them. They Are All Fine People, And They Had No Idea How It Would Turn Out.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World, And I Am One Of Them.

Smee! Raise The Ladies!

Guys Are Simple... Women Are Not Simple And They Always Assume That Men Must Be Just As Complicated As They Are, Only Way More Mysterious. The Whole Point Is Guys Are Not Thinking Much. They Are Just What They Appear To Be. Tragically.

The Thing I Have Learned, Especially In The Internet Age, Probably The Easiest Thing In The World Is To Declare That Something Is Not Funny. I Mean It's Not Actually Humor To Say Something Is Not Funny, But It Is Viewed By A Lot Of People - And By That I Mean Mainly Snarky Young Internet Men - As A Kind Of Humor In And Of Itself Is Putting Down Other People's Efforts At Humor. And I Don't Care That Much Anymore About That Because I Know How Easy That Is To Do.

Elsewhere In Italy Is The Lovely City Of Venice, Which Each Year Attracts Millions Of Visitors Despite The Fact That It Is Basically An Enormous Open Sewer.

Rembrandt's First Name Was Beauregard, Which Is Why He Never Used It.

If You Have A Big Enough Dictionary, Just About Everything Is A Word.

Sometimes You Panic And Find Yourself Emitting Remarks So Profoundly Inane That You Would Be Embarrassed To Say Them To Your Dog. Your Dog Would Look At You And Think To Itself, 'i May Lick Myself In Public, But I'd Never Say Anything As Stupid As That.'

The Ultimate Camping Trip Was The Lewis And Clark Expedition.

You Must Prepare Yourselves, Young People, Because Uncle Dave's Generation Is Getting Old. We Are Almost Ready To Go To The Retirement Home To Spend The Rest Of Our Days Tapping Our Bedpans Rhythmically In Time To "easy Listening" Rock 'n' Roll. We Must Pass The Torch On To You, And You Must Grasp It, Ideally By The End That Is Not On Fire.

Thus The Metric System Did Not Really Catch On In The States, Unless You Count The Increasing Popularity Of The Nine-millimeter Bullet.

Never Lick A Steak Knife.

Americans Who Travel Abroad For The First Time Are Often Shocked To Discover That, Despite All The Progress That Has Been Made In The Last 30 Years, Many Foreign People Still Speak In Foreign Languages

Inspirational Life

Real Cars Were Made Here In America: Fords, Chevys, Plymouths. These Were Large Chunks Of Detroit Iron - Cars That Had The Size, Weight, And Handling Characteristics Of Aircraft Carriers But Worse Fuel Efficiency.

The Best Time To Go To Disney World, If You Want To Avoid Huge Crowds, Is 1962.

Infiniti Ads Are Part Of An Exciting New Trend Called "advertising Whose Sole Purpose Is To Irritate You."

I Don't Think The Press Has Done A Very Good Job Dealing With Government Spending.the Defense Department With The $9,500 Toilet Seat, That's Not The Problem Anymore. Medicare And Medicaid And Social Security Are The Problem. That's Us. That's Our Generation. There The Press Never Says A Word.

I've Gained A Few Pounds Around The Middle. The Only Lower Body Garments I Own That Still Fit Me Comfortably Are Towels.

I Say We Scrap The Current System And Replace It With A System Wherein You Add Your Name To The Bottom Of A List, And Then You Send Some Money To The Person At The Top Of The List, And Then You... Oh, Wait, That Is Our Current System.

Once Again, We Come To The Holiday Season, A Deeply Religious Time That Each Of Us Observes, In His Own Way, By Going To The Mall Of His Choice.

Headbangers' Are People Who Like Heavy-metal Music, Which Is Performed By Skinny Men With Huge Hair Who Stomp Around The Stage, Striking Their Instruments And Shrieking Angrily, Apparently Because Somebody Has Stolen All Their Shirts.

Most Guys Believe That They're Supposed To Know How To Fix Things. This Is A Responsibility That Guys Have Historically Taken Upon Themselves To Compensate For The Fact That They Never Clean The Bathroom. A Guy Can Walk Into A Bathroom Containing A Colony Of Commode Fungus So Advanced That It Is Registered To Vote, But The Guy Would Never Dream Of Cleaning It, Because He Has To Keep Himself Rested In Case A Mechanical Emergency Breaks Out.

Winter's Here, And You Feel Lousy: You're Coughing And Sneezing; Your Muscles Ache; Your Nose Is An Active Mucus Volcano. These Symptoms -- So Familiar At This Time Of Year -- Can Mean Only One Thing: Tiny Fanged Snails Are Eating Your Brain.

There's Tremendous Pressure, If You're In That [goverment] System, To Be Involved And Be Interested And To Care About It. There's No Room To Say, "this Is Stupid."

How Do These Celebrities Stay So Impossibly Thin? Simple: They Have Full-time Personal Trainers, Who Advise Them On Nutrition, Give Them Pep Talks, And Shoot Them With Tranquilizer Darts Whenever They Try To Crawl, On Hunger-weakened Limbs, Toward The Packet Of Rice Cakes That Constitutes The Entire Food Supply In Their 37,000-square-foot Mansions. For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

Professional Marriage Counselors Agree That The Most Productive And Mature Way To Deal With Marital Anger Is To Stomp Dramatically From The Room. You Want To Make Your Move Before The Opponent Does, Because The First Person To Stomp From The Room Receives Valuable Argument Points That Can Be Redeemed For Exciting Merchandise At The Marital Prize Redemption Center.

Ask Any Real Estate Broker To Name The Three Most Important Factors In Buying A Property, And He'll Say: "location, Location, Location." Now Ask Him To Name The Chief Justice Of The United States Supreme Court, And He'll Say: "location, Location, Location." This Tells Us That We Should Not Necessarily Be Paying A Whole Lot Of Attention To Real Estate Brokers.

Palestinian And Israeli Leaders Finally Recover The Road Map To Peace, Only To Discover That, While They Were Looking For It, The Lug Nuts Of Mutual Interest Came Off The Front Left Wheel Of Accommodation, Causing The Sport Utility Vehicle Of Progress To Crash Into The Ditch Of Despair.

Mutual Interest

A Sense Of Humor Is A Measurement Of The Extent To Which We Realize That We Are Trapped In A World Almost Totally Devoid Of Reason. Laughter Is How We Express The Anxiety We Feel At This Knowledge.

What Was Life Like In The Colonies? Probably The Best Word To Describe It Would Be "colonial".

This Was Years Ago, I Think During The Early [ronald] Reagan Years. I Came Up With A Plan That Everybody Just Pay $8.95 In Taxes. Cheating Would Be Allowed. But The Incentive To Cheat Wouldn't Be Nearly As Great If You Only Had To Pay The $8.95. There Were A Few People Who Would Have To Pay Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Under This Plan. I Think It Was Mark Goodson And Bill Todman, The Guys Who Do The Quiz Shows. But Almost Everybody Else Would Be Off Really Cheap.

The Problem With Winter Sports Is That - Follow Me Closely Here - They Generally Take Place In Winter.

In More Than 20 Years Of Opening Beers With Guys, I Have Never Seen The Swedish Bikini Team Show Up. Almost Always, The Teams That Show Up In Beer Drinking Situations Consist Of Guys Who Have Been Playing League Softball And Smell Like Bus Seats.

In The Bowling Alley Of Tomorrow, There Will Even Be Machines That Wear Rental Shoes And Throw The Ball For You. Your Sole Function Will Be To Drink Beer.

Unlike Cats Dogs Never Scratch You When You Wash Them. They Just Become Very Sad And Try To Figure Out What They Did Wrong.

There's Only One Way Kids Will Wear Helmets, And That's If Their Parents Are Nagging Them To. They Will Never Wear Helmets Because Some State Passes A Law Requiring It.

Dna Is An Abbreviation For Deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, A Complex String Of Syllables.

As A Taxpayer, You Are Required To Be Fully In Compliance With The United States Tax Code, Which Is Currently The Size And Weight Of The Budweiser Clydesdales.

When Your Super Bowl Guests Arrive, They Should Find A Mound Of Potato Chips Large Enough To Conceal A Pony Sitting In Front Of The Television. For Nutritional Balance, You Should Also Put Out A Bowl Of Carrot Sticks. If You Have No Carrot Sticks, You Can Use Pinecones, Or Used Electrical Fuses, Because Nobody Will Eat Them Anyway. This Is No Time For Nutritional Balance: This Is The Super Bowl, For God's Sake.

If, When You Talk To People, They Keep Backing Away From You, It's Because You're Too Close, Alright? So Don't Keep Advancing On Them Like A Human Glacier.

The Great Thing About Golf - And This Is The Reason Why A Lot Of Health Experts Like Me Recommend It - You Can Drink Beer And Ride In A Cart While You Play.

Are We Ever Going To Have A Federal Tax System That Regular People Can Understand?

First, A Few Words About This Title. It Isn't Easy, Coming Up With Book Titles. A Lot Of The Really Good Ones Are Taken. Thin Thighs In 30 Days, For Example. Also The Bible.

Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

This Is True; Virtually All Edible Substances, And Many Automotive Products, Are Now Marketed As Being Low-fat Or Fat-free. Americans Are Obsessed With Fat Content.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

As A Professional Journalist, I Am Always Looking For New Ways To Get Paid For Being Motionless.

The Most Valuable Function Performed By The Federal Government Is Entertainment.

I Think I've Learned Over The Years, Because You'd Have To Be Stupid Not To, That When A Book Publisher Gives You A Deadline They're Just Kidding For The Most Part. I Don't Know What They Do With It, It's Like You Send Them Your Book And They Just Hold It In Their Hands For Like Six Months And I Don't Know Why, And You Realize You Probably Had More Time.

Stache’s Attack Was Perfectly Timed, Thanks To His Veteran-pirate Grasp Tactics—and A Big Piece If Luck.

Found A Smoldering Cigarette Left By A Horse.

Life Is Anything That Dies When You Stomp On It.

I Don't Know What You Can Possibly Do For Less Than $50 To Have Somebody Come In Your House.

I Wrote About Why I Didn't Think Libertarians Are Really Doing This Kind Of Thing So That They Can Have Sex With Dogs. I Discussed Some Of The Reasons That A Person Might Want To Live Out Of The Control Of Our Federal, State, Local, And Every Other Form Of Government. Actually, I Don't Think I Even Called Myself A Libertarian. I Think Tom Shroder Identified Me As One.

The United States Tried, By Depressing The Clutch Of Diplomacy And Downshifting The Gearshift Lever Of Rhetoric, To Remain Neutral, But It Became Increasingly Obvious That The Nation Was Going To Get Into A War, Especially Since It Was Almost 1812.

You Can Use The Internet To Find Out, From Anywhere On The Planet: Exactly How Much Coffee Is In A Certain Coffee Machine At Cambridge University In England; Exactly How Many Sodas Are Available In Certain Vending Machines At Certain Major Universities; And Much, Much More.

Cambridge University

Mousse Was A Labrador Retriever, Which Is A Large Enthusiastic Bulletproof Species Of Dog Made Entirely From Synthetic Materials. This Is The Kind Of Dog That, If It Takes An Interest In Your Personal Regions (which Of Course It Does) You Cannot Fend It Off With A Blowtorch.

All The Big Corporations Depreciate Their Possessions, And You Can, Too, Provided You Use Them For Business Purposes. For Example, If You Subscribe To The Wall Street Journal, A Business-related Newspaper, You Can Deduct The Cost Of Your House, Because, In The Words Of U.s. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger In A Landmark 1979 Tax Decision: Where Else Are You Going To Read The Paper? Outside? What If It Rains?

I Always Assumed That At Some Point I Would Have To Quit Making Jokes, Get A Real Job And Do Something Meaningful And Productive That Would Actually Benefit Society. Fortunately This Never Happened.

There Comes A Time When You Should Stop Expecting Other People To Make A Big Deal About Your Birthday. That Time Is Age 11.

There Comes A Time

What Gets Me Is, I Waited In Line For An Hour To Do This. I Could Have Experienced Essentially The Same Level Of Enjoyment Merely By Sticking My Finger Down My Throat.

You Should Not Confuse Your Career With Your Life.

Skiing Combines Outdoor Fun With Knocking Down Trees With Your Face.

Within Less Than An Hour, Chuck And I Easily Located What Could Well Be The Correct Platform, Where We Pass The Time By Perspiring Freely Until The Train Storms In, Colorfully Decorated, As Is The Tradition In New York, With The Spray-painted Initials Of All The People It Has Run Over.

It Is An Inconvenience, Being Located In A City Where Taxes Are Ludicrously High, Where You Pay Twice Your Annual Income To Rent An Apartment That Could Easily Be Carried On A Commercial Airline Flight.

When You Say You Don't Think We Should Have Public Schools, They Can't Believe You Mean That. You Must Mean That They Should Be Smaller. But You Can't Really Mean No Public Schools.

Warning: This Is Assuming Your Spouse's Name Is Margaret.

It Is A Scientific Fact That Your Body Will Not Absorb Cholesterol If You Take It From Another Person's Plate.

Far Too Often, We Fathers Avoid The Subject Because It's So Awkward. The Subject I Am Referring To Is: Buying Gifts For Women. This Is An Area Where Many Men Do Not Have A Clue. Exhibit A Was My Father, Who Was A Very Thoughtful Man, But Who Once Gave My Mother, On Their Anniversary, The Following Token Of His Love, His Commitment, And-yes-his Passion For Her: An Electric Blanket.

I Want To Gag Sometimes When I See Who "we" Are Recommending That People Vote For, And Not Just As A Libertarian.

Reading... A Vacation For The Mind.

I Read A Lot Of Lot Non-demanding Fiction.

Technically, Windows Is An "operating System," Which Means That It Supplies Your Computer With The Basic Commands That It Needs To Suddenly, With No Warning Whatsoever, Stop Operating.

I Recently Had My Annual Physical Examination, Which I Get Once Every Seven Years, And When The Nurse Weighed Me, I Was Shocked To Discover How Much Stronger The Earth's Gravitational Pull Has Become Since 1990.

I Was A Middle-of-the-road Democrat More Than Anything Else. I Know I Voted For Carter. Watergate Taught Me How Bad The Republicans Were.

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