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As Far As Outlining Is Concerned, I Don't Outline Humor. I Might Right Down A Word Or Two To Remind Myself Of A Punch Line I Thought Of, But The Actual Structure Of A Piece I Really Don't. I Don't Think It Would Really Help Me Because For Me The Process Is Joke, Joke, Joke, Joke.

-Dave Barry

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As Far As Outlining

Dave Barry

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As Far As Outlining Is Concerned, I Don't Outline Humor. I Might Right Down A Word Or Two To Remind Myself Of A Punch Line I Thought Of, But The Actual Structure Of A Piece I Really Don't. I Don't Think It Would Really Help Me Because For Me The Process Is Joke, Joke, Joke, Joke.

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The One Thing That Unites All Human Beings, Regardless Of Age, Gender, Religion Or Ethnic Background, Is That We All Believe We Are Above-average Drivers.

Actually, There Are People From All Ove - Not Just Latin America, Certainly Not Just Cuba, But All Over Europe, All Over The United States. I Like That. I Like Knowing A Lot Of Different Types Of People. And I Can Afford To Live In A Relatively Safe Part Of Miami.

Skiers View Snowboarders As A Menace; Snowboarders View Skiers As Elmer Fudd.

The Question Is, Why Are Politicians So Eager To Be President? What Is It About The Job That Makes It Worth Revealing, On National Television, That You Have The Ethical Standards Of A Slime-coated Piece Of Industrial Waste?

Ethical Standards

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.

There Was Nowhere To Sit Except The Bunk, Which Was Covered With Rotting Food, And A Wooden Stool, Upon Which Sat A Large Fur-covered Lump—an Old Cheese, Perhaps, Or A Dead Cat.

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

Sir,” James Asked, “what Are We Going To Do?” “we’re Going To Look For Water,” Said Alf. “and Food?” Said Tubby Ted. “water First,” Said Alf. “we Can Go Days Without Food.” “we Can What?” Tubby Ted Shouted.

One Popular New Plastic Surgery Technique Is Called Lip Grafting, Or 'fat Recycling,' Wherein Fat Cells Are Removed From One Part Of Your Body That Is Too Large, Such As Your Buttocks, And Injected Into Your Lips. People Will Then Be Literally Kissing Ass.

The Primary Function Of The Government Is - And Here I Am Quoting Directly From The U.s. Constitution - 'to Spew Out Paper.'

What I Want To Know Is: Why Is It Important To Have Visible Stomach Muscles? I Grew Up In An Era (the Paleolithic) When People Kept Their Stomach Muscles Discreetly Out Of Sight.

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.

Washington Is Nicknamed "the Evergreen State" Because It Sounds Better Than "the Incessant Nagging Drizzle State."

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

Mother Nature Clearly Intended For Us To Get Our Food From The "patty" Group, Which Includes Hamburgers, Fish Sticks, And Mcnuggets- Foods That Have Had All Of Their Organs Safely Removed.

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

A Printer Consists Of Three Main Parts: The Case, The Jammed Paper Tray And The Blinking Red Light.

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.

You Can Say Any Fool Thing To A Dog And The Dog Will Just Give You This Look That Says, 'my Gosh, You're Right! I Never Would've Thought Of That!

I Took An Estimated Two Thousand Years Of High School French, And When I Finally Got To France, I Discovered That I Didn't Know One Single Phrase That Was Actually Useful In A Real-life French Situation.

What Happens If A Big Asteroid Hits Earth ? Judging From Realistic Simulations Involving A Sledge Hammer And A Common Laboratory Frog, We Can Assume It Will Be Pretty Bad.

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

Every Year, Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Try Their Hand At This Demanding Profession (humor Columnist). After A Few Months, Almost All Of Them Have Given Up And Gone Back To The Ninth Grade.

There's A Test They Can Do To Determine A Baby's Gender Ahead Of Time; I Think They Insert A Tiny Photo Of Leonardo Dicaprio Into The Uterus, And If The Baby Punches It, It's A Boy.

They Have A Lot Of Trouble With Pronunciation, Because They Can't Move Their Jaw Muscles, Because Of Malnutrition Caused By Wisely Refusing To Eat English Food, Much Of Which Was Designed And Manufactured In Medieval Times During The Reign Of King Walter The Mildly Disturbed.

When Trouble Arises And Things Look Bad, There Is Always One Individual Who Perceives A Solution And Is Willing To Take Command. Very Often, That Individual Is Crazy.

I Realize That I'm Generalizing Here, But As Is Often The Case When I Generalize, I Don't Care.

Of All The Wonderful Things Government Says, That's Always Been Just About My Favorite. As Opposed To If You Get To Keep The Money. Because What You'll Do Is Go Out And Bury It In Your Yard, Anything To Prevent That Money From Creating Jobs. They Never Stop Saying It.we Will Say, "this Is Expected To Create X Number Of Jobs." On The Other Hand, We Never Say That The Money We Removed From Another Part Of The Economy Will Kill Some Jobs.

The Method Preferred By Most Balding Men For Making Themselves Look Silly Is Called The Comb Over.

Weddings Are Crazy. When You Get Right Down To It, A Wedding Is A Party, And Not An Important Party, Really. But For Young People, It Becomes The Biggest Thing In Their Lives. After It's Over, They Realize It Wasn't That Big A Deal.

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.

I Believe Many Harley Guys Spend More Time Revving Their Engines Than Actually Driving Anywhere; I Sometimes Wonder Why They Bother To Have Wheels On Their Motorcycles.

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

More And More Products Are Coming Out In Fiercely Protective Packaging Designed To Prevent Consumers From Consuming Them. These Days You Have To Open Almost Every Consumer Item By Gnawing On The Packaging.

The Weightlifting Competition I Saw Was The Women's 63 Kg Class. I'm Not Sure Whether This Means The Actual Women Weighed 63 Kg Or The Weights They Lifted Weighed 63 Kg. Or Possibly The Temperature In The Weightlifting Hall Was 63 Kg. There's No Way To Know For Sure Without Finding Out What A "kg" Is, And My Belief, As An American, Is That If I Have To Start Understanding The Metric System, Then The Terrorists Have Won.

Smee! Raise The Ladies!

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

The Way This Country Deals With Drugs Is Just Not Funny. What A Waste Of Everyone's Time And Effort. What A Waste Of A Lot Of People's Lives.

Disney Resort And World And Compound, A Place Where Your Dreams Really Do Come True, If You Dream About Having People Wearing Enormous Cartoon-animal Heads Come Around To Your Restaurant Table And Act Whimsical And Refuse To Go Away Until You Laugh With Delight.

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 Do Some Of My Best Reading While Seated In The Bathroom.

If You Were To Open Up A Baby's Head - And I Am Not For A Moment Suggesting That You Should - You Would Find Nothing But An Enormous Drool Gland.

It Was Public Art, Defined As Art That Is Purchased By Experts Who Are Not Spending Their Own Personal Money.

We'll Try To Cooperate Fully With The Irs, Because, As Citizens, We Feel A Strong Patriotic Duty Not To Go To Jail.

I Had Arrived At The Airport One Hour Early So That, In Accordance With Airline Procedures, I Could Stand Around.

Speaking Of Food, English Cuisine Has Received A Lot Of Unfair Criticism Over The Years, But The Truth Is That It Can Be A Very Pleasant Surprise To The Connoisseur Of Severely Overcooked Livestock Organs Served In Lukewarm Puddles Of Congealed Grease. England Manufactures Most Of The World's Airline Food, As Well As All The Food You Ever Ate In Your Junior-high-school Cafeteria.

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

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.

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.

I Guess The Negative Thing That Happens To Me Is That I'm Old Now. They Said There Was A Generation I Was Too Young For And Now Some Will Say There's Probably 10 Generations I'm Too Old For. They'll Say, Isn't He Dead Or Retired Or Whatever? Or It Just Becomes Fashionable To Say "oh He's Not Funny Anymore," Which, I Don't Know, Maybe To Them I'm Not. I'm More Likely To Hear That Now Than I Am To Hear That I'm Unacceptably Risqué.

Those Who Can't Laugh At Themselves Leave The Job To Others.

I'm Happy To Start On One Topic And End On Another One Entirely, As Long As It's Funny.

There Are No Bad Haircuts In Cyberspace.

In Modern America, Food Is Abundant Everywhere Except Aboard Commercial Airplanes.

You Should Not Use Your Fireplace, Because Scientists Now Believe That, Contrary To Popular Opinion, Fireplaces Actually Remove Heat From Houses. Really, That's What Scientists Believe. In Fact Many Scientists Actually Use Their Fireplaces To Cool Their Houses In The Summer. If You Visit A Scientist's House On A Sultry August Day, You'll Find A Cheerful Fire Roaring On The Hearth And The Scientist Sitting Nearby, Remarking On How Cool He Is And Drinking Heavily.

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

Spreadsheet: A Kind Of Program That Lets You Sit At Your Desk And Ask All Kinds Of Neat "what If?" Questions And Generate Thousands Of Numbers Instead Of Actually Working.

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.'

9 Saw The First Direct-dialed Long-distance Telephone Call, Between New York And San Francisco. Of Course, Back In That Primitive Era The Parties Had To Speak To Each Other Manually; Today One Or Both Ends Of The Conversation Would Be Carried On By A Machine.

Thanks To Modern Medical Advances Such As Antibiotics, Nasal Spray, And Diet Coke, It Has Become Routine For People In The Civilized World To Pass The Age Of 40, Sometimes More Than Once.

Earnest Is Our Dog. She Senses Instantly That Something Is Wrong, And Guided By That Timeless And Unerring Nurturing Instinct That All Female Dogs Have, She Tries To Lick My Ears Off.

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.

Today's Scientific Question Is: What In The World Is Electricity? And Where Does It Go After It Leaves The Toaster?

The More Boring A Newspaper Is, The More It Is Respected. The Most Respected Newspaper In The United States Is The New York Times, Which Has Thousands Of Reporters Constantly Producing Enormous Front-page Stories About Bauxite...the [new York] Post Would Write About Bauxite Only If Famous Celebrites Were Arrested For Snorting It In An Exclusive Manhattan Nightclub.

Here's A Simple Experiment That You Might Want To Try If There Is Absolutely Nothing Else Going On In Your Life. All You Need Is A Cork, A Bar Magnet, And A Pail Of Water. Simply Attach Your Magnet To Your Cork, Then Drop It Into The Water, And Voilà (literally, "you Have A Compass")-you Have A Compass. How Does It Work? Simple. Notice That, No Matter Which Way You Turn The Bucket, The Cork Always Floats On Top Of The Water (unless The Magnet Is Too Heavy). Using This Scientific Principle, Early Hardy Mariners Were Able To Tell At A Glance Whether They Were Sinking!

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.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

Aside From Velcro, Time Is The Most Mysterious Substance In The Universe. You Can't See It Or Touch It, Yet A Plumber Can Charge You Upwards Of Seventy-five Dollars Per Hour For It, Without Necessarily Fixing Anything.

If Charles Lindbergh, Flying With No Instruments Other Than A Bologna Sandwich, Managed To Cross The Atlantic And Land Safely On A Runway Completely Covered With French People, Why Are Today's Airplanes, Which Are Equipped With Radar And Computers And Individualized Liquor Bottles, Unable To Cope With Fog?

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.

I Love The Olympics, Because They Enable People From All Over The World To Come Together And--regardless Of Their Political Or Cultural Differences--accuse Each Other Of Cheating.

Each Year, Millions Of Skiers Come To Colorado To Experience Its Superb Emergency Medical Facilities.

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?

During Bomb Drills, We Students Were Told To Crouch Under Our Desks. Apparently The Desks Used In Classrooms In The Fifties Were Made Of An Exceptionally Missile-resistant Variety Of Wood. During The Cold War Years I Often Wondered Why It Never Occurred To Our Defense Planners To Protect The Entire Nation From Nuclear Attack By Simply Covering It, From Sea To Shining Sea, With A Huge Strategic Classroom Desk.

What Women Want: To Be Loved, To Be Listened To, To Be Desired, To Be Respected, To Be Needed, To Be Trusted, And Sometimes, Just To Be Held. What Men Want: Tickets To The World Series.

U.s. News Organizations Observe The Anniversary Of September 11 With Investigations About The Nation's Continuing Vulnerability To Terrorism. First, The New York Daily News Reports That Two Of Its Reporters Carried Box Cutters, Razor Kinves, And Pepper Spray On Fourteen Commerical Flights Without Getting Caught. Then Abc News Reports That It Smuggled Fifteen Pounds Of Uranium Into New York City. Then Fox News Reports That It Flew Osama Bin Laden To Washington, D.c., And Videotaped Him Touring The White House.

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

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.

Ban Walking Sticks In Wilderness. Hikers That Use Walking Sticks Are More Likely To Chase Animals.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

When I Heated My Home With Oil, I Used An Average Of 800 Gallons A Year. I Have Found That I Can Keep Comfortably Warm For An Entire Winter With Slightly Over Half That Quantity Of Beer.

Several Months Ago, Out Of The Blue, A Company Named "cingular" Started Sending Me Bills. I Had Never Heard Of Cingular, And I Honestly Did Not Know What These Bills Were For, So I Put Them In The Pile Where I Keep Documents That I Intend To Scrutinize More Carefully Later On, After My Death. Then I Started Seeing Tv Commercials For Cingular, But Of Course They Did Not Make It Clear What Cingular Is, Because The First Rule Of Modern Advertising Is: "never Reveal What You Are Advertising."

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.

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.

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

We Americans Live In A Nation Where The Medical-care System Is Second To None In The World, Unless You Count Maybe 25 Or 30 Little Scuzzball Countries Like Scotland That We Could Vaporize In Seconds If We Felt Like It.

Socially Prominent People Are Very Fond Of Disease, Because It Gives Them A Chance To Have These Really Elaborate Charity Functions, And The Newspaper Headlines Say 'evening In Paris Ball Raises Money To Fight Gout' Instead Of 'rich People Amuse Themselves'.

Never Trust Anything You Read In A Travel Article. Travel Articles Appear In Publications That Sell Large, Expensive Advertisements To Tourism-related Industries, And These Industries Do Not Wish To See Articles With Headlines Like: Uruguay: Don't Bother.

Roy Blount, Who Is The Funniest Person I Know, Journeys Deep Into The Dark Heart Of Humor And Brings Back A Wonderfully Insightful, Superbly Crafted Song Of The Soul That Had Me Laughing And Crying Too

The Only Kind Of Seafood I Trust Is The Fish Stick, A Totally Featureless Fish That Doesn't Have Eyeballs Or Fins.

Another Well-known Paris Landmark Is The Arc De Triomphe, A Moving Monument To The Many Brave Women And Men Who Have Died Trying To Visit It.

American Business Long Ago Gave Up On Demanding That Prospective Employees Be Honest And Hardworking. It Has Even Stopped Hoping For Employees Who Are Educated Enough That They Can Tell The Difference Between The Men's Room And The Women's Room Without Having Little Pictures On The Doors.

What's Happened To Marriage? The Wedding-industrial Complex. Brides Get Swept Up In This World Of Obsession - It Has To Be Your Perfect Day.

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.

The Bad News Was That The Yard Contained A Dog. A Very, Very Large Dog, Wide And Hairy, Like A Cross Between A Rottweiler And A Goodyear Blimp.

You Cannot Paint The Exterior Of Your House. You Have To Take The Paint Chip Down To Show The Paint-chip Nazis.

I Would Rather Undergo A Vasectomy Via Weed Whacker Than Attend An Opera.

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.

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.

I Am A World-class Weenie When It Comes To Letting People Stick Needles Into Me. My Subconscious Mind Firmly Believes That If God Had Wanted Us To Have Direct Access To Our Bloodstreams, He Would Have Equipped Our Skin With Small, Clearly Marked Doors.

Babies Are Equipped At Birth With A Number Of Instinctive Reflexes And Behavior Patterns That Cause Them To Spend Their First Several Years Trying To Kill Themselves. If Your Home Contains A Sharp, Toxic Object, Your Baby Will Locate It; If Your Home Contains No Such Object, Your Baby Will Try To Obtain One Via Mail Order.

If You Answered, ''spin The Bottle,'' Then I Frankly Do Not Want To Know Any More About Your Childhood.

I Realize That There Are Certain Hardships That Only Females Must Endure, Such As Childbirth, Waiting In Lines For Public-restroom Stalls, And A Crippling, Psychotic Obsession With Shoe Color. Also, Females Tend To Reach Emotional Maturity Very Quickly, So That By Age 7 They Are No Longer Capable Of Seeing The Humor In Loud Inadvertent Public Blasts Of Flatulence, Whereas Males Can Continue To Derive Vast Enjoyment From This Well Into Their 80s.

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.

Dating Means Doing A Lot Of Fun Things You Will Never Do Again If You Get Married. The Fun Stops With Marriage Because You're Trying To Save Money For When You Split Up Your Property.

Most Of The Presidential Candidates' Economic Packages Involve 'tax Breaks,' Which Is When The Government, Amid Great Fanfare, Generously Decides Not To Take Quite So Much Of Your Income. In Other Words, These Candidates Are Trying To Buy Your Votes With Your Own Money.

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".

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

He Was Distracted By A Giggle, And Turned To See A Rare Sight: A Girl.

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.

I Believe It Was Shakespeare, Or Possibly Howard Cosell, Who First Observed That Marriage Is Very Much Like A Birthday Candle, In That 'the Flames Of Passion Burn Brightest When The Wick Of Intimacy Is First Ignited By The Disposable Butane Lighter Of Physical Attraction, But Sooner Or Later The Heat Of Familiarity Causes The Wax Of Boredom To Drip All Over The Vanilla Frosting Of Novelty And The Shredded Coconut Of Romance.' I Could Not Have Phrased It Better Myself.

If You Explain So Clearly That Nobody Can Misunderstand, Somebody Will. If You're Right 90% Of The Time, Why Quibble About The Remaining 3%? In Africa Some Of The Native Tribes Have A Custom Of Beating The Ground With Clubs And Uttering Spine Chilling Cries. Anthropologists Call This A Form Of Primitive Self-expression. In America We Call It Golf.

Database: The Information You Lose When Your Memory Crashes.

Nevada Has A Very Dynamic Economy, With Gambling Being The Number-one Industry, Followed Closely By Blood Donorship.

The Internet Is The Most Important Single Development In The History Of Human Communication Since The Invention Of Call Waiting.

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

American Consumers Have No Problem With Carcinogens, But They Will Not Purchase Any Product, Including Floor Wax, That Has Fat In It.

It May Be Meaningless, But At Least It's A Gesture.

To Enter Europe, You Must Have A Valid Passport With A Photograph Of Yourself In Which You Look Like You Are Being Booked On Charges Of Soliciting Sheep.

I Don't Even Care What Bill Bryson Writes About Because He Will Make It Interesting. I Love "a Walk In The Woods," About The Appalachian Trail, But His Most Amazing Book Is "a Short History Of Nearly Everything."

Avoid The Traffic By Using One Of The Park's Shuttle Buses And View The Elk Rut With A Park Ranger.

In Los Angeles, The Jury In The Reginald Denny Beating Trial, After Much Thinking, Concludes, That Person A Is Not Necessarily Trying To Kill Person B Just Because Person A Happens To Very Deliberately Bash Person B's Skull In With A Brick. The Verdict Is Applauded By Scientists At The Tobacco Institute.

Men Have No Cause To Criticize Women About The Way They Are About Weddings. Because Men Are Like That About Sports, But It Never Ends. At Least Women, After The Wedding, Say It Wasn't That Big A Deal And They're Never Going To Look At The Dvd Again. Men Never Stop Being Crazy About Sports.

Megahertz: This Is Really, Really Big Hertz.

Many, Many Of You Have Written To Me Asking The Following Question: 'dave, Have Their Been Any New Advancements In The Field Of Artificial Falcon Insemination, And Could These Developments Be Used To Improve The American Electoral Process?'

Sailboats Are The Slowest Form Of Transportation On Earth With The Possible Exeption Of Airline Flights That Go Through O'hare.

Florida's Number Three Industry, Behind Tourism And Skin Cancer, Is Voter Fraud.

Now, Once Again, We Find Ourselves Facing Rising Gas Prices, And The Question Is: This Time, Are We Going To Learn From The Past? Are We Finally Going To Get Serious About Energy Conservation? Of Course Not! We Have The Brains Of Mealworms! So We Need To Get More Oil Somehow. As Far As I Can Figure, There's Only One Practical Way To Do This. That's Right: We Need To Clone More Dinosaurs. We Have The Technology, As Was Shown In Two Blockbuster Scientific Movies, Jurassic Park And Jurassic Park Returns With Exactly The Same Plot. Once We Have The Dinosaurs, All We Need Is An Asteroid.

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.

I Also Saw A Huge Expansion Of The Internet, With Many Major Corporations, Afraid Of Being Left Behind, Spending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Develop World Wide Web Sites In A Frantic Scramble To Reach The Vast New Consumer Market Of Web Use

A Secret Society Within A Secret Society.

A Critical Function That We Journalists Perform At Political Conventions Is To Try To Get Into Parties That We Have Not Been Invited To. There Are Dozens Of These Parties, Sponsored By Large Corporations With A Sincere Public-spirited Desire To Become Larger.

I Haven't Been Able To Slam-dunk The Basketball For The Past Five Years. Or, For The Thirty-eight Years Before That, Either.

As Long As Humanity Has Been Human, It Has Looked Toward The Heavens And Dreamed That Some Day, Some Way, There Would Be Giant Federal Contracts Involved.

A Long Memory Is The Most Subversive Idea In America. A Tautology Is A Thing Which Is Tautological. A Witty Saying Proves Nothing, But Saying Something Pointless Gets People's Attention. If Your Kids Look Like You, It's Hereditory. If They Look Like The Neighbor, It's The Environment. Although Golf Was Originally Restricted To Wealthy, Overweight Protestants, Today It's Open To Anybody Who Owns Hideous Clothing.

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)

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.

There Is A Very Fine Line Between Hobby And Mental Illness.

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

The Average Tax Payer Is Not A Big Voluntary Supporter Of The Arts. The Only Art That The Average Taxpayer Buys Voluntarily Either Has A Picture Of Bart Simpson On It Or Little Suction Cups On Its Feet So You Can Stick It Onto A Car Window.

But That's Kind Of An Easy Stance To Be If You're A Humor Columnist, Because You're Tending To Make Fun Of The Government And The Powerful. I'm Sort Of A Soft-core Libertarian In That My Compass Is Generally Pointing Away From 'let's Let The Government Do This' Does It Matter To Me That It's Democrats Who Think We Need More Elaborate Programs That Involve Shifting Money From One Group To Another Group Or It's Republicans Saying We Need To Take A Harder Look At What Kinds Of Things People Are Watching On Cable Tv? Neither One Of Those Things Strikes Me As A Good Idea.

If You Tell Most People What Libertarians Think, They Immediately Assume That You Cannot Mean It All The Way, That You're Really Just Taking A Position For Argument's Sake.

If Congress Were To Pass A 'flat' Tax, You'd Simply Pay A Fixed Percentage Of Your Income, And You Wouldn't Have To Fill Out Any Complicated Forms, And There Would Be No Loopholes For Politically Connected Groups, And Normal People Would Actually Understand The Tax Laws, And Giant Talking Broccoli Stalks Would Come Around And Mow Your Lawn For Free, Because Congress Is Not Going To Pass A Flat Tax, You Pathetic Fool.

Univac: A Device, Which Contained 20,000 Vacuum Tubes, Occupied 1,500 Square Feet And Weighed 40 Tons; There Was Also A Laptop Version Weighing 27 Tons.

Nature Is Located Mainly In National Parks, Which Are Vast Tracts Of Wilderness That Have Been Set Aside By The United States Government So Citizens Will Always Have Someplace To Go Where They Can Be Attacked By Bears. And We're Not Talking About Ordinary Civilian Bears, Either: We're Talking About Federal Bears, Which Can Behave However They Want To Because They Are Protected By The Same Union As Postal Clerks.

Cigarette Sales Would Drop To Zero Overnight If The Warning Said "cigarettes Contain Fat.

Democracy: In Which You Say What You Like And Do What You're Told.

Although Golf Was Originally Restricted To Wealthy, Overweight Protestants, Today It's Open To Anybody Who Owns Hideous Clothing.

I Regularly Read Internet User Groups Filled With Messages From People Trying To Solve Software Incompatibility Problems That, In Terms Of Complexity, Make The U.s. Tax Code Look Like Dr. Seuss.

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.

Geographically, Ireland Is A Medium-sized Rural Island That Is Slowly But Steadily Being Consumed By Sheep.

Camping Is Nature's Way Of Promoting The Motel Business.

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

Another Important Rule Of Affair-having: Never Be Discreet At The Office.

This (french-kissing) Is A Really Sexy Thing To Do, According To The French People, Although You Should Bear In Mind That They Also Like To Eat Snails.

Congress Shall Also Create A Tax Code Weighing More Than The Combined Poundage Of The Largest Member Of The House And The Largest Member Of The Senate, Plus A Standard Musk Ox.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

...and Suddenly It Hits You: Human Skin Is Actually Made Up Of Billions Of Tiny Units Of Protoplasm, Called "cells"! And What Is Even More Interesting, The Ones On The Outside Are All Dying! This Is A Fact. Your Skin Is Like An Aggressive Modern Corporation, Where The Older Veteran Cells, Who Have Finally Worked Their Way To The Top And Obtained Offices With Nice Views,are Constantly Being Shoved Out The Window Head First, Without So Much As A Pension Plan,by Younger Hotshot Cells Moving Up From Below.

Recently I Began To Feel This Void In My Life, Even After Meals, And I Said To Myself, "dave, All You Do With Your Spare Time Is Sit Around And Drink Beer. You Need A Hobby." So I Got A Hobby. I Make Beer.

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.

Humor Is An Escape, Because You Cannot Think About Your Problems When You Are Trying To Be Funny; So, In Essence, "being A Humorist" Gives You A Valid Excuse To Hide From Your Pain.

Without Question, The Greatest Invention In The History Of Mankind Is Beer. Oh, I Grant You That The Wheel Was Also A Fine Invention, But The Wheel Does Not Go Nearly As Well With Pizza.

Directors Are Always Changing Things At The Last Minute. Actors Will Do A Scene, And The Director Will Say, ‘okay, That Was Perfect, But This Time, Bob, Instead Of Saying “what’s For Dinner?” You Say, “wait A Minute! Benzene Is Actually A Hydrocarbon!” And Say It With A Norwegian Accent. Also, We Think Maybe Your Character Should Have No Arms.

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.

People In The Computer Industry Use The Term 'user,' Which To Them Means 'idiot.'

The Ultimate Camping Trip Was The Lewis And Clark Expedition.

The Olympic Movement Simply Cannot Allow The Russians To Become Estranged, Because Russia Is A Vital Part Of The World Sports Community, In The Sense Of Having Nuclear Missiles.

I Called A Company And Asked To Speak To Bob. The Person Who Answered Said, "bob Is On Vacation. Would You Like To Hold?

I Was Very Pleased To Get A Supreme Court Justice Suggesting A Column, So I Went And Did A Column About Beano. I Went With My Wife And Another Guy To A Mexican Restaurant, Which We Thought Would Be The Ultimate Test For An Antiflatulance Product. There's A Reason Most Of Mexico Is Located Out Of Doors. And It Worked. Several Newspapers Refused To Run That Column. But They Did Run Advertisements For Beano.

I Know That All Over America There's Probably Politicians Sending Out Pictures Of Themselves Signing That Mandatory Helmet Bill, But It's Bullshit. I Say That As A Parent.

Hardware: Where The People In Your Company's Software Section Will Tell You The Problem Is. Software: Where The People In Your Company's Hardware Section Will Tell You The Problem Is.

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

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.

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

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

Famous Designers Think Nothing Of Putting Their Names On Your Clothing, But Would Have The Servants Set The Dogs On You If You Ever Tried To Put Your Name On Their Clothing.

I'm Afraid That, In This Chapter We Must Talk About Sex In A Very Explicit Manner, Because We Want To Expand The Frontiers Of Human Understanding And Also We Want To Sell As Many Books As Possible To Adolescent Boys.

And Now, The Superstore - Unequaled In Size, Unmatched In Variety, Unrivaled Inconvenience.

There's Nothing Wrong With Enjoying Looking At The Surface Of The Ocean Itself, Except That When You Finally See What Goes On Underwater,you Realize That You've Been Missing The Whole Point Of The Ocean. Staying On The Surface All The Time Is Like Going To The Circus And Staring At The Outside Of The Tent.

If Swimming Is So Good For Your Figure, How Do You Explain Whales?

You Have To Be Careful On The Deck, Because Of The "hatches," Which Are Holes Placed Around A Sailboat At Random To Increase The Insurance Rates.

Imagine What Will Happen To This Nation If Large Numbers Of American Women Start Using The Wonderbra. It Will Be Catastrophic. The Male Half Of The Population Will Be Nothing But Mindless Drooling Zombies Of Lust. Granted, This Is Also True Now, But It Will Be Even Worse.

To Better Understand Why You Need A Personal Computer, Let's Take A Look At The Pathetic Mess You Call Your Life.

Babies And Other Hazards Of Sex: How To Make A Tiny Person In Only 9 Months, With Tools You Probably Have Around The Home.

Genes Are Little Items That Are Found In Every Living Thing Except Sen. Alfonse D'amato.

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.

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).

A Gene Can Be Either Dominant Or Recessive, Depending On Which Type Of Gene It Is.

The Best Way To Understand This Whole Issue Is To Look At What The Government Does: It Takes Money From Some People, Keeps A Bunch Of It, And Gives The Rest To Other People.

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

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.

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.

If The Security Personnel Do Their Job Properly, They Just Might Cause You To Miss Your Plane, Thereby Possibly Saving Your Life.

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.

There's An Old Saying Among Scientific Guys: "you Can't Make An Omelet Without Breaking Eggs, Ideally By Dropping A Cement Truck On Them From A Crane."

Dogs Would Make Totally Incompetent Criminals. If You Could Somehow Get A Group Of Dogs To Understand The Concept Of The Kennedy Assassination, They Would All Immediately Confess To It. Whereas You'll Never See A Cat Display Any Kind Of Guilty Behavior, Despite The Fact That Several Cats Were Seen In Dallas On The Grassy Knoll Area, Not That I Wish To Start Rumors.

Your Job Is To Give People A Reason To Keep Reading.

If The People In Europe Are Soooooo Smart, How Come So Many Of Them Can't Seem To Locate The Deodorant, Huh?

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

As Far As Outlining Is Concerned, I Don't Outline Humor. I Might Right Down A Word Or Two To Remind Myself Of A Punch Line I Thought Of, But The Actual Structure Of A Piece I Really Don't. I Don't Think It Would Really Help Me Because For Me The Process Is Joke, Joke, Joke, Joke.

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