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Excellence Is The Trend Of The '80s. Walk Into Any Shopping Mall Bookstore, Go To The Rack Where They Keep The Best-sellers Such As Garfield Gets Spayed, And You'll See A Half-dozen Books Telling You How To Be Excellent: In Search Of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold Of Excellence, Where To Hide Your Excellence At Night So The Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, Etc.

-Dave Barry

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Excellence Is The Trend

Dave Barry

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Excellence Is The Trend Of The '80s. Walk Into Any Shopping Mall Bookstore, Go To The Rack Where They Keep The Best-sellers Such As Garfield Gets Spayed, And You'll See A Half-dozen Books Telling You How To Be Excellent: In Search Of Excellence, Finding Excellence, Grasping Hold Of Excellence, Where To Hide Your Excellence At Night So The Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It, Etc.

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Orangutan Are Very Weird Animals But They Look Very Soulful.

The Nicest Father's Day Surprise Of All For Dad Would Be If You Handed Him A Box, And He Unwrapped It, And There, Inside, Sitting On A Bed Of Folded Tissue, Was The Pair Of His Undershorts That Somebody Threw Away Six Months Ago (without Asking Dad) Because They Had Reached The Stage Where They Were 3 Percent Undershorts And 97 Percent Holes. Dad Misses Those Undershorts. They Were His Faithful Undershorts Companion.

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.

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.

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.'

Basically Ken Is A Very Gentle, Home-loving Person. I Remember When One Of His Stick Insects Had A Knee Infection. He Stayed Up All Night Rubbing It With Germoline And Banging Its Head On The Table.

As A Child, I Was More Afraid Of Tetanus Shots Than, For Example, Dracula.

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.

Here's My Proposal, Which Is Based On The Tv Show Survivor: We Put The Entire Congress On An Island. All The Food On This Island Is Locked Inside A Vault, Which Can Be Opened Only By An Ordinary American Taxpayer Named Bob. Every Day, The Congresspersons Are Given A Section Of The Tax Code, Which They Must Rewrite So That Bob Can Understand It. If He Can, He Lets Them Eat That Day; If He Can't, He Doesn't.

There Shall Be A National Anthem Containing Incomprehensible Words And A High Note That Normal Humans Cannot Hit Without Risk Of Hernia.

Thus The White Men And Native Americans Were Able, Through The Spirit Of Goodwill And Compromise, To Reach The First In What Would Become A Long Series Of Mutually Beneficial, Breached Agreements That Enabled The Two Cultures To Coexist Peacefully For Stretches Of Twenty And Sometimes Even Thirty Days, After Which It Was Usually Necessary To Negotiate New Agreements That Would Be Even More Mutual And Beneficial, Until Eventually The Native Americans Were Able To Perceive The Vast Mutual Benefits Of Living In Rock-strewn Sectors Of South Dakota.

Native American

Gravity Is A Contributing Factor In Nearly 73 Percent Of All Accidents Involving Falling Objects.

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Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

I Read The Whole Jack Reacher Series By Lee Child. They Don't Take Long.

There Are Terrific Tv Shows Now. This Is A Golden Age For Tv Humor, I Think. There's An Actual Market There. Of Course, I Have No Idea How You'd Break In, But There Must Be A Way. They Have All These Shows And They Need Jokes And Somebody Is Writing Them.

Don't You Wish You Had A Job Like Mine? All You Have To Do Is Think Up A Certain Number Of Words! Plus, You Can Repeat Words! And They Don't Even Have To Be True!

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.

I Was Reading This James Bond Book, And Right Away I Realized That, Like Most Books, It Had Too Many Words.

There Are Two Kinds Of Solar-heat Systems: Passive Systems Collect The Sunlight That Hits Your Home, And Active Systems Collect The Sunlight That Hits Your Neighbors' Homes, Too.

I Report As A Machine; I Write As A Person. That Clear Dichotomy Softens The Transition.

2. The Instant The Doors Open, You Want To Push Forward As Hard As Possible, In An Effort To Get Onto The Train Without Letting Anybody Off. This Is Very Important. If Anybody Does Get Off, It Is Legal To Tackle Him And Drag Him Back On.

By Today's Beauty Standards, Of Course, Marilyn Monroe Was An Oil Tanker.

I Bet That If You Actually Read The Entire Vastness Of The U.s. Tax Code, You'd Find At Least One Sex Scene . . .

I Have Come Up With A Sure-fire Concept For A Hit Television Show, Which Would Be Called `a Live Celebrity Gets Eaten By A Shark'.

Men's Magazines Often Feature Pictures Of Naked Women. Women's Magazines Also Feature Pictures Of Naked Women. This Is Because The Female Body Is A Beautiful Work Of Art, While The Male Body Is Lumpy And Hairy And Should Not Be Seen By The Light Of Day. Men Are Turned On At The Sight Of A Naked Woman's Body. Most Naked Men Elicit Laughter From Women.

The Basic Roman Ruin Design Is A Pile Of Rocks With A Little Plaque Saying "roman Ruins" And A Group Of Tourists Frowning At It And Wishing They Were Back At The Hotel Bar.

Spain Travel Tip: If Bathroom Genders Are Indicated By Flamingos, The Boy Flamingo Is The One With A Hat. I Learned This The Hard Way.

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

I Always Wanted To Write When I Was A Kid; It Just Never Occurred To Me That You Could Have A Job That Didn't Involve Any Actual Work.... I Felt It Would Be Fun To Have A Job Like That Where You Could Make Stuff Up And Be Irresponsible And Get Paid For It.

The Objective Is Not So Much To Walk Your Dog, As It Is To Empty Him.

I'm Not Saying That Women Don't Think About Sex Also. I'm Saying That Women Are Capable, For At Least Brief Periods Of Time, Of Not Thinking About Sex, And That Most Guys Are Not.

The Issue We Are Reluctant To Talk About Is Even More Sensitive Than Condoms. The Issue - And I Will Try To Be Tasteful Here - Is That Sometimes It Seems Like Maybe The President Of The United States Is Kind Of Dumb. If You Get What I Mean. What I Mean Is, I Am Not Totally Confident That The President Would Get What I Mean, Unless Several Aides Explained It To Him. And Even Then, He Might Forget.

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As The Saying Goes: "if You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're A Newspaper Columnist."

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.

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

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

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I'm Not Sure You Can Count As History, Was Keith Richards's "life," Which He So Modestly Titled It. I Did Find It A Fascinating Book. Keith's A Pretty Honest Fellow.

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).

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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.

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

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I Never Start A Section Of The Story Without Knowing How It Will End. I Also Consciously Try To Shape The Story As Though It Were A Movie.

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I Really Try To Think Cinematically, Because That's How People Read. They Create A Theater In Their Minds.

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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In My Experience, If You Go To A Hospital For Any Reason Whatsoever, Including To Read The Gas Meter, They Give You A Tetanus Shot.

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The Real Threat To Whales Is Whaling, Which Has Endangered Many Whale Species.

Baby's Room Should Be Close Enough To Your Room So That You Can Hear Baby Cry, Unless You Want To Get Some Sleep, In Which Case Baby's Room Should Be In Peru.

We're Trying To Make Our Current House Look Domestic So That Somebody Will Want To Buy It. We're Making A Lot Of Simple, Obvious Improvements That Never Would Have Occurred To Us To Make While We Actually Lived Here, Because, Tragically, We Both Happen To Be Domestically Impaired. If We Were Birds, Our Nest Would Consist Of A Single Twig With The Eggs Attached Via Scotch Tape.

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

I Liked Making People Laugh, And I Decided I Was An Atheist Early On. My Dad Was All Right With That. We Argued About It All The Time, But It Was Good-natured. He Was The Most Open-minded Human Being I've Ever Known.

We Should Call Editorials What They Are: Columns Written By Committees.

The Internet "browser"... Is The Piece Of Software That Puts A Message On Your Computer Screen Informing You That The Internet Is Currently Busy And You Should Try Again Later.

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Toaster: A Gift That Every Member Of The Family Appreciates. Automatically Burns Toast.

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.

The Irs Spends God Knows How Much Of Your Tax Money On These Toll-free Information Hotlines Staffed By Irs Employees, Whose Idea Of A Dynamite Tax Tip Is That You Should Print Neatly.

The Democrats Seem To Be Basically Nicer People, But They Have Demonstrated Time And Again That They Have The Management Skills Of Celery.

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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.

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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?

We Travel Because, No Matter How Comfortable We Are At Home, There's A Part Of Us That Wants - That Needs - To See New Vistas, Take New Tours, Obtain New Entrees, Introduce New Bacteria Into Our Intestinal Tracts, Learn New Words For "transfusion," And Have All The Other Travel Adventures That Make Us Want To French-kiss Our Doormats When We Finally Get Home.

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.

If You Tell The Reader It's Funny, Then The Audience Is Like An Audience At A Stand-up Comedy Club And They Expect You To Be Funny, And If You're Not, They Notice. Whereas If You Read A Regular Op-ed About Israel Or The Family Or Medicine, You're Not Starting With The Assumption That You're Supposed To Laugh.

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

It Is Important To Be Nice. But Sometimes Niceness Can Be Misconstrued As Weak. Should We Be Nice To Everybody? Should We Be Nice Only When Others Are Nice To Us? Here Are Some Interesting Views About Being Nice. Read These Nice Quotes And Turn On Your Niceness.

Thanks To My Solid Academic Training, Today I Can Write Hundreds Of Words On Virtually Any Topic Without Possessing A Shred Of Information Which Is How I Got A Good Job In Journalism.

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.)

Think, For A Moment, Of The Countless Happy Childhood Hours You Spent With This Amazing Device: Drawing Perfect Horizontals, Drawing Perfect Verticals, Drawing Really Spastic Diagonals, Trying To Scrape Away The Silver Powder From The Window So You Could Look Inside.

In The Words Of A Very Famous Dead Person, 'a Nation That Does Not Know Its History Is Doomed To Do Poorly On The Scholastic Aptitude Test.

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.

The Democrats Seem To Be Basically Nicer People, But They Have Demonstrated Time And Again That They Have The Management Skills Of Celery. They're The Kind Of People Who'd Stop To Help You Change A Flat, But Would Somehow Manage To Set Your Car On Fire. I Would Be Reluctant To Entrust Them With A Cuisinart, Let Alone The Economy. The Republicans, On The Other Hand, Would Know How To Fix Your Tire, But They Wouldn't Bother To Stop Because They'd Want To Be On Time For Ugly Pants Night At The Country Club

If Black Stache Laughed, You Laughed. If He Snarled, You Snarled. If He Breathed In Your Direction, You Ran For Cover.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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."

The President, Apparently, Was So Totally Unaware Of Where His Foreign Policy Was That He Had To Appoint A Distinguished Commission To Help Him Locate It, And When The Commissioners Called Him In To Testify, He Told Them, Essentially, That He Couldn't Remember What It Looked Like. Now, If Richard Nixon Had Claimed Something Like That You Would At Least Have Had The Comfort Of Knowing He Was Lying. You Could Trust Nixon That Way. But With This President, You Have This Nagging Feeling That He's Telling The Truth.

I Am Not One To Generalize, But Cartoonists, As A Group, Exhibit A Level Of Social Sophistication Generally Associated With Pie Fights. In High School, When The Future Lawyers Were Campaigning For Class President, The Future Cartoonists Were Painstakingly Altering Illustrations In Their History Books So That Robert E. Lee Appeared To Be Performing An Illegal Act With His Horse.

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

People Don't Like It When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity. When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity, You'll Hear From Really Loyal Fans Of That Celebrity.

I Don't Have Any Insight Or Understanding On Anything About The Government. All I Think Is That It's Stupid - Which Is The One Perspective That's Almost Completely Lacking In Washington.

Bill Clinton, Who, To His Credit, Has Established A Clear And Consistent Foreign Policy, Which Is As Follows: Whenever The President Of The United States Gets Anywhere Near Any Foreign Head Of State, Living Or Dead, He Gives That Leader A Big Old Hug. This Has Proven To Be An Effective Way To Get Foreign Leaders To Do What We Want: Many Heads Of State Are Willing To Sign Any Random Document That President Clinton Thrusts In Front Of Them, Without Reading It, Just So He Will Stop Embracing Them.

My Mother Told Me, “son, It Is Better To Be Rich And Healthy Than Poor And Sick.” I Have Tried Very Hard To Heed Those Words.

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.

Of Course, The Truth Is That The Congresspersons Are Too Busy Raising Campaign Money To Read The Laws They Pass. The Laws Are Written By Staff Tax Nerds Who Can Put Pretty Much Any Wording They Want In There. I Bet That If You Actually Read The Entire Vastness Of The Us Tax Code, You'd Find At Least One Sex Scene. ("yes, Yes, Yes!" Moaned Vanessa As Lance, His Taut Body Moist With Moisture, Again And Again Depreciated Her Adjusted Gross Rate Of Annualized Fiscal Debenture...)

If You Asked Me To Name The Three Scariest Threats Facing The Human Race, I Would Give The Same Answer That Most People Would: Nuclear War, Global Warming And Windows.

The Internet Is A Giant International Network Of Intelligent, Informed Computer Enthusiasts, By Which I Mean, "people Without Lives." We Don't Care. We Have Each Other.

I Suspect That Laguardia Is An Elaborate Prank, And New York Has A Real Airport Nearby That Only Locals Know About.

...light Overcomes Darkenss. A Tiny Match Can Illuminate The Darkest Room. As Long As There Is Some Light Somewhere In The Universe, [darkness] Can Be Defeated.

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

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.

What May Seem Depressing Or Even Tragic To One Person May Seem Like An Absolute Scream To Another Person, Especially If He Has Had Between Four And Seven Beers.

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

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.

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.

She Wanted To Cry, But She Did Not Want Peter To See Her Cry, And She Especially Did Not Want Teacher, With Her Flowing Hair, To See Her Cry.

Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

Eternal Boyhood Is The Dream Of A Depressing Percentage Of American Males, And The Locker Room Is The Temple Where They Worship Arrested Development.

I Care About Our Young People, And I Wish Them Great Success, Because They Are Our Hope For The Future, And Some Day, When My Generation Retires, They Will Have To Pay Us Trillions Of Dollars In Social Security

Whatever The Needs Of The Public Are, The Government Responds To Those Needs By Getting Larger.

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Is Gossip.

We Journalists Make It A Point To Know Very Little About An Extremely Wide Variety Of Topics; This Is How We Stay Objective.

Found A Smoldering Cigarette Left By A Horse.

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.

You Should Never Pick Up A Newspaper When You're Feeling Good, Because Every Newspaper Has A Special Department, Called The Bummer Desk, Which Is Responsible For Digging Up Depressing Front-page Stories.

You Will Never Find Anybody Who Can Give You A Clear And Compelling Reason Why We Observe Daylight Savings Time.

Compelling Reason

We're Wild Horses. We're Going To Eat Your Food, Knock Down Your Tent And Poop On Your Shoes. We're Protected By Federal Law, Just Like Richard Nixon.

Take Out The Fortune Before You Eat The Cookie.

I Walked Out Of The Movie "lincoln" And Bought The Book [of Doris Kearns Goodwin] At The Bookstore Next Door.

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

It's A Real Smug Self-righteous Punk Kid Saying Nobody Has The Right To Tell Him What To Do And How Dare You Put A Sign Up Saying That I Can't Go On Your Property?

You Men Out There Probably Think You Already Know How To Dress For Success. You Know, For Example, That You Should Not Wear Leisure Suits Or White Plastic Belts And Shoes, Unless You Are Going To A Costume Party Disguised As A Pig Farmer Vacationing At Disney World.

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.

Europeans, Like Some Americans, Drive On The Right Side Of The Road, Except In England, Where They Drive On Both Sides Of The Road; Italy, Where They Drive On The Sidewalk; And France, Where If Necessary They Will Follow You Right Into The Hotel Lobby.

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.

In My Experience, You Run Into Trouble When You Ask A Group Of Beer-drinking Men To Perform Any Task More Complex Than Remembering Not To Light The Filter Ends Of Cigarettes.

I Am Not A Violent Person. I Am A Product Of The Flower Power '60s. I Have Actually Worn Bell-bottomed Jeans.

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.

I Grew Up In The Southwest Bronx. Father An Accountant, Mother A Schoolteacher. Brother Was Six Years Older, Which Explains Why I Gobbled Crystal Meth At 12, Smoked Hashish At 13, And Was Shooting Smack At 17, Which Explains How I Got Hepatitis C, Which Was The Basis Of My First Book, Which Was A Humor Book About Dying.

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.'

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

The Older I Get And The More Fiction I Write, The More I Outline, The More I Think About Plot Before I Dive In And Plunge Too Far.

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

It Is A Well- Known Fact That Although The Public Is Fine When Taken Individually, When It Forms Itself Into Large Groups, It Tends To Act As Though It Has One Partially Consumed Pez Tablet For A Brain.

Beneath Their Surface Differences, There Are A Lot Of Deep, Underlying Differences.

But The Feeling I Have, You Know, Is That I'll Never Come Close To Reading All, Or Even A Thousandth- A Billionth- Of The Books I'd Probably Love If I Ever Got To Them.

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.

The Hardest Thing About Being A Guy Is That Women Don't Accept That You Really Are Just A Simple, Pathetic, Labrador Retriever-like Creature. That We Live In A World Were Women Actually Expect You To Think Thoughtful Thoughts, And Have Real Emotions, Which We Don't Have. Having To Try To Live Up To The Imaginary Ideal That Women Have Of What Men Are, Instead Of Just Being What You Are, Which Is Just A Pathetic Creature, But Still.

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.

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

I Find Myself Having These Conversations Where I Go...you Know, The Guy, In That Place. The Guy In The Place With The Thing, You Know. And It Becomes This Game Of Charades. And Then Finally, We Realize That I Mean The Pope.

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

It Would Be Hard To Conceive Of Any Activity More Useless Than Stamp Collecting.

Stamp Collecting

Buying The Right Computer And Getting It To Work Properly Is No More Complicated Than Building A Nuclear Reactor From Wristwatch Parts In A Darkened Room Using Only Your Teeth.

I Have Always Dressed According To Certain Basic Guy Fashion Rules,including: Both Of Your Socks Should Always Be The Same Color, Or They Should At Least Both Be Fairly Dark.

Big Business Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes, According To Ralph Nader, Who Represents A Big Consumer Organization That Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes.

Several Years Ago We Had An Intern Who Was None Too Swift. One Day He Was Typing And Turned To A Secretary And Said, "i'm Almost Out Of Typing Paper. What Do I Do?" "just Use Copier Machine Paper," She Told Him. With That, The Intern Took His Last Remaining Blank Piece Of Paper, Put It On The Photocopier And Proceeded To Make Five Blank Copies.

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.

The Scrub Sink...is The Place Where Doctors Wash Their Hands After They Operate So That They Won't Get Flecks Of Your Vital Organs On Their Lexus Upholstery.

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.

When The Boomers Started To Have Kids Reach Adolescence, There Was Suddenly This Feeling That They Needed To Protect Their Kids From All The Same Things They Did When They Were Kids. Which I Guess Is A Natural Tendency, But It Makes For A Less Fun Society.

The Porpoises Said Hello To Molly. She Told Them All Her Teeth Were Green.

And So By The Fifteenth Century, On October 8, The Europeans Were Looking For A New Place To Try To Get To, And They Came Up With A New Concept: The West.

We Journalists... Are Also Extremely Impressed With Scientists, And We Will, Frankly, Print Just About Any Wacky Thing They Tell Us, Especially If It Involves Outer Space.

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