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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.

-Dave Barry

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I've Been Checking With

Dave Barry

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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.

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Magnetism Is One Of The Six Fundamental Forces Of The Universe, With The Other Five Being Gravity, Duct Tape, Whining, Remote Control, And The Force That Pulls Dogs Toward The Groins Of Strangers.

You're Not Allowed To Park A Truck In Your Driveway. You're Not Allowed To Work On Your House On Sunday. The People Who Enforce These Laws Are Nuts. After I Wrote A Column On This, I Got I Don't Know How Many Letters From Coral Gables Homeowners, Story After Story After Story, Wonderfully Horrible Stories. And The Venom They Felt For Their Own Government!

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

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

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.

I've Never Actually Given Birth To A Child, But I Suspect That Going To A Justin Bieber Concert With A Child Is Close.

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.

Today's Toys Contain Computer Chips, So They Can Move And Talk; This Stimulates The Mind Of Your Child. Notice I Say "your Child." My Child Just Wants To Eat The Toys.

I Played Lead Guitar In A Band Called The Federal Duck, Which Is The Kind Of Name That Was Popular In The '60s As A Result Of Controlled Substances Being In Widespread Use. Back Then, There Were No Restrictions, In Terms Of Talent, On Who Could Make An Album, So We Made One, And It Sounds Like A Group Of People Who Have Been Given Powerful But Unfamiliar Instruments As A Therapy For A Degenerative Nerve Disease.

What I Like Best About The Telephone Is That It Keeps You In Touch With People, Particularly People Who Want To Sell You Magazine Subscriptions In The Middle Of The Night.

Why Don’t You Lift The End?” Said Alf. “it’s Me Back, Alf,” Complained Mack. “you Know How It Troubles Me.” “no More Than Mine Troubles Me,” Said Alf. “but I Said It First,” Said Mack.

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.

The Soviet Union At This Time Was Being Run By The Communists, A Group Of Men Fierce In Their Dedication To Wearing Hilariously Bad Suits. Their Leader Was Josef Stalin (russian For "joey Bananas")

Line Printer Paper Is Strongest At The Perforations.

The Word Aerobics Comes From Two Greek Words: Aero, Meaning “ability To,” And Bics, Meaning “withstand Tremendous Boredom.

Bad Grammar Is The Leading Cause Of Slow, Painful Death In North America.

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.

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.

Congress, After Years Of Stalling, Finally Got Around To Clearing The Way For Informal Discussions That Might Lead To Possible Formal Talks That Could Potentially Produce Some Kind Of Tenative Agreements.

It Is A Good Idea To 'shop Around' Before You Settle On A Doctor. Ask About The Condition Of His Mercedes. Ask About The Competence Of His Mechanic. Don't Be Shy! After All, You're Paying For It.

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.

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.

Nobody Is Excused From The Excellence Trend. Babies Are Not Excused. Starting Right After They Get Out Of The Womb, Modern Babies Are Exposed To Instructional Flashcards Designed To Make Them The Best Babies They Can Possibly Be, So They Can Get Into Today's Competitive Preschools. Your Eighties Baby Sees So Many Flashcards That He Never Gets An Unobstructed View Of His Parents' Faces. As An Adult, He'll Carry Around A Little Wallet Card That Says "7x9=63," Because It Will Remind Him Of Mother.

The Newspaper Industry When I Came Along In The Mid-70s Was Rich And Powerful And Growing And Hungry For Material And Open To New People. None Of That Is True In The Newspaper Industry Today. Print In General Is Pretty Rugged. The Good Thing Is That You Can Gain A Foothold On The Internet Because Everybody Has Access To It, Even Things Like Twitter - I Mean, You Can Get A Reputation For Being Funny Pretty Quickly On Twitter, On A Blog, That Kind Of Thing.

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.

Kids Have *_____ Never* Taken Guidance From Their Parents. If You Could Travel Back In Time And Observe The Original Primate Family In The Original Tree, You Would See The Primate Parents Yelling At The Primate Teenager For Sitting Around And Sulking All Day Instead Of Hunting For Grubs And Berries Like Dad Primate. Then You'd See The Primate Teenager Stomp Up To His Branch And Slam The Leaves.

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.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing As Relaxing As Being Out On The Open Sea, Listening To The Waves And The Wind And The Sails And Voices Downstairs Yelling "how Do You Flush These Toilets?"

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

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.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

I Am A Superior Form Of Human And I Have Absolutely No Quirks Or Irrational Impulses Of Any Kind.

I Hope I Don't Sound Like An Old-fashioned Stick-in-the-mud, But When I Hear About People Making Vast Fortunes Without Doing Any Productive Work Or Contributing Anything To Society, My Reaction Is: “how Can I Get In On That?

Productive Work

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.

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

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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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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.

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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.

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Flipping A Coin

Technology Is Constantly Improving Our Lives. Look At The Cellular Telephone. Just Ten Years Ago, Virtually Nobody Was Able To Get Into A Car Crash Caused By Trying To Steer And Dial At The Same Time; Today, People Do This All The Time.

Like All Writers, My Greatest Inspiration, My Ultimate Muse, Is A Deadline.

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.

In South Florida, We Have Industrial Cockroaches That Have To Be Equipped With Loud Warning Beepers So You Can Get Out Of Their Way When They Back Up.

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.

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

If You Surveyed A Hundred Typical Middle-aged Americans, I Bet You'd Find That Only Two Of Them Could Tell You Their Blood Types, But Every Last One Of Them Would Know The Theme Song From The Beverly Hillbillies.

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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.

The Major Advantage Of Domestic Travel Is That, With A Few Exceptions Such As Miami, Most Domestic Locations Are Conveniently Situated Right Here In The United States.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Term Sat Is A Set Of Initials, Or Autonym, Standing For Scholastic Attitude Treaty Organization.

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

The Fact That Gene Weingarten And I And Bathroom Inventory Are Now Part Of Some Kind Of Matrix Of Poop Strongly Suggests That The Pulitzer Is Not What It Once Was.

Is There A Medical Rule That Requires Doctors-office Personnel To Treat You As Though You Have The Iq Of A Cheeto?

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.

You Should Definitely Visit The Louvre, A World-famous Art Museum Where You Can View, At Close Range, The Backs Of Thousands Of Other Tourists Trying To See The Mona Lisa.

I Like Golf Because You Can Be Really Terrible At It, And Still Not Look Much Dorkier Than Anybody Else.

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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

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.

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.

The Universe Has Fascinated Mankind For Many, Many Years, Dating Back To The Very Earliest Episodes Of Star Trek, When The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Set Out, Wearing Pajamas, To Explore The Boundless Voids Of Space, Which Turned Out To Be As Densely Populated As Queens, New York. Virtually Every Planet They Found Was Inhabited, Usually By Evil Beings With Cheap Costumes And Russian Accents, So Finally The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Returned To Earth To Gain Weight And Make Movies.

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?'

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

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.

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

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.

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

Print Neatly. That's The Kind Of Advice That The Irs Considers A "dynamite" Tax Tip. If You Ask Them A Real Tax Question, Such As How You Can Cheat, They're Useless.

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

I Can't Recall A Story That Played Out Exactly As I'd Expected It To. That's One Of The Thrills Of Journalism - Being Surprised, And Learning New Stuff, But It Also Poses The Biggest Challenge To A Writer's Character.

The Population Of Earth Has Reached 7 Billion People, Every Single One Of Whom Send You Irritating Emails To Join Something Called "linkedin."

Take Out The Fortune Before You Eat The Cookie.

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

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

I Am Much More Likely To Care About Someone Trying To Be Funny And Give Them Some Credit For Whatever He Or She Did That Was Remotely Funny Than I Am To Be Mused By Somebody Declaring This Isn't Funny, That Isn't Funny, This Sucks. If You Want To Write Humor, You're Going To Have To Get Used To That.

The First Animals To Be Successfully Domesticated Were Dogs, Which Were A Big Help Because They Would Bark All Night And Fetch Thrown Sticks, Thereby Freeing Humans From Having To Perform These Tedious Yet Vital Tasks.

The Russians Will Never Be Able To Get Their Missiles Thought The Dense Protective Layer Of Delayed Flights Circling Over The United States In Complex, Puke-inducing Holding Patterns.

The Places Where Trails Do Not Exist Are Not Well Marked.

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

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?

Dogs Love To Go For Rides. A Dog Will Happily Get Into Any Vehicle Going Anywhere.

Dogs Feel Very Strongly That They Should Always Go With You In The Car, In Case The Need Should Arise For Them To Bark Violently At Nothing Right In Your Ear.

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

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.

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.

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.

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

In Spain, Attempting To Obtain A Chicken Salad Sandwich, You Wind Up With A Dish Whose Name, When You Look It Up In Your Spanish-english Dictionary, Turns Out To Mean: Eel With Big Abcess.

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

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.

I Think If You Use Twitter And Social Media As Your Main Source Of Information You Are An Idiot, But I Think Most People Who Use It Know Better, So I Kind Of Enjoy It.

I'm Not The Only Taxpayer Who Has No Idea What He's Sending To The Irs. This Year, Only 28 Percent Of All Americans Will Prepare Their Own Tax Returns, According To A Voice In My Head That Invents Accurate-sounding Statistics.

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.

Ram: This Gives Guys A Way Of Deciding Whose Computer Has The Biggest, Studliest Memory. That's Important, Because The More Memory A Computer Has, The Faster It Can Produce Error Messages.

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!

Playing An Unamplified Electric Guitar Is Like Strumming On A Picnic Table.

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

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.

When I Read That I Had To Go To Gettysburg.

I Do Not Mean To Suggest For A Moment That All It Takes To Be A Top Executive Is A Custom-tailored European Suit. You Also Need The Correct Shirt And Tie.

Too Many Bugs And Leeches And Spiders And Spiderwebs. Please Spray The Wilderness To Rid The Area Of These Pests.

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.

Denmark (also Called Norway) Is Best Known As The Original Home Of The Prune Danish As Well As The Vikings, Who Wore Hats With Horns Sticking Out Of Them, And For A Very Good Reason: They Were Insane.

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

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?

Chair Lifts Need To Be In Some Places So That We Can Get To Wonderful Views Without Having To Hike To Them.

I Watched As An Extremely Nerdy Exhibitor - I'm Talking About A Guy Who Makes Bill Gates Look Like Brad Pitt.

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

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

The Central Point Of This Final Chapter Is That - Follow My Logic Carefully Here - Unless You Die, You Will Continue To Get Older. (it's Insights Like This That Separate The Professional Book Author From The Person With A Real Job.)

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

With A Novel, You Have The Reader With You A Lot Longer, And You Owe Him A Lot More. Obviously You Have To Have A Plot - I Say "obviously," Although I Think A Lot Of Fiction Doesn't, And Nothing Seems To Happen. But To Me, There Should Be Something That Happens, And It Should Be At Least Vaguely Plausible. And Because The Readers Are Going To Be With These Characters For A Long Time, You Have To Get To Know Them And Like Them And Want To Know What Happens To Them.

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

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.

Once Again We Find Ourselves Enmeshed In The Holiday Season, That Very Special Time Of Year When We Join With Our Loved Ones In Sharing Centuries-old Traditions Such As Trying To Find A Parking Space At The Mall. We Traditionally Do This In My Family By Driving Around The Parking Lot Until We See A Shopper Emerge From The Mall, Then We Follow Her, In Very Much The Same Spirit As The Three Wise Men, Who 2,000 Years Ago Followed A Star, Week After Week, Until It Led Them To A Parking Space.

Teenagers Are Bored. By Everything. Show A Teenager An Actual Volcanic Eruption, In Progress, Featuring Giant Billowing Clouds Of Smoke, Hot Rocks Raining From The Sky, Lava Floes Destroying Entire Villages, Etc., And The Teenager, Eyebrows Arched With Sarcasm, Will Look At You And Say, "gee, This Is Swell," Then Return To The Rental Car, Turn On His Portable Cd Player, And Listen To A Band Called Stomach Contents.

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

Can We Move This Conversation Along, I'm Getting Frightfully Tired Of 'hoa'.

It Was Not Easy Victory In The America Cup. Our Boys Spent Years Experimenting With Different Designs For Their Boat Before They Came Up With The Innovative Idea Of Having A Submerged Nuclear Submarine Tow It.

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.

Dinner Special - Turkey $2.35; Chicken Or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00

I've Been To Washington Many Times Over The Years For Stories, And It Always Seems Remarkably The Same. More The Same Than The Rest Of The Country. It's Almost Like They Dress The Same As They Did 20 Years Ago. The Same Old Guys Are Sitting Outside The Same Dirty, Dingy Secret Offices In The Capitol That You're Not Allowed To Go In.

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.

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.

The Obvious And Fair Solution To The Housework Problem Is To Let Men Do The Housework For, Say, The Next Six Thousand Years, To Even Things Up. The Trouble Is That Men, Over The Years, Have Developed An Inflated Notion Of The Importance Of Everything They Do, So That Before Long They Would Turn Housework Into Just As Much Of A Charade As Business Is Now. They Would Hire Secretaries And Buy Computers And Fly Off To Housework Conferences In Bermuda, But They'd Never Clean Anything.

A Child Can Go Only So Far In Life Without Potty Training. It Is Not Mere Coincidence That Six Of The Last Seven Presidents Were Potty Trained, Not To Mention Nearly Half Of The Nation's State Legislators.

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.

If God Had Wanted Us To Be Concerned For The Plight Of The Toads, He Would Have Made Them Cute And Furry.

Meetings Are An Addictive, Highly Self-indulgent Activity That Corporations And Other Large Organizations Habitually Engage In Only Because They Cannot Actually Masturbate.

The Major Parties Could Conduct Live Human Sacrifices On Their Podiums During Prime Time, And I Doubt That Anybody Would Notice.

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

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!

Flying From The United States To Tokyo Takes Approximately As Long As Law School.

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.

If You Have Ever Seen The Movie Night Of The Living Dead, You Have A Rough Idea How Modern Corporations And Organizations Operate, With Projects And Proposals That Everybody Thought Were Killed Constantly Rising From Their Graves To Stagger Back Into Meetings And Eat The Brains Of The Living.

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'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.

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.

I Read A Lot Of Lot Non-demanding Fiction.

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.

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.

What, Exactly, Is The Internet? Basically It Is A Global Network Exchanging Digitized Data In Such A Way That Any Computer, Anywhere, That Is Equipped With A Device Called A 'modem', Can Make A Noise Like A Duck Choking On A Kazoo

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

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

My Son Wouldn't Go Get Heroin. If He Did Or Didn't, It Wouldn't Have Anything To Do With Whether It Was Legal Or Illegal.

When I Was A Kid, I Thought History Was The Most Boring Subject Of All. I Shouldn't Blame My Teachers; I Should Blame Me, But I'll Blame Them.

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.

Dogs Do Not Grasp The Concept Of House Cleaning.

If He (the New York Taxi Driver) Talked To Me, He Might Lose His Concentration, Which Would Be Very Bad Because The Taxi Has Some Kind Of Problem With The Steering, Probably Dead Pedestrians Lodged In The Mechanism, The Result Being That There Is A Delay Of 8 To 10 Seconds Between The Time The Driver Turns The Wheel And The Time The Taxi Actually Changes Direction, A Handicap That The Driver Is Compensating For By Going 175 Miles Per Hour, At Which Velocity We Are Able To Remain Airborne Almost To The Far Rim Of Some Of The Smaller Potholes.

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.

There Are Also A Number Of Humans Living Up There (canada), And In Many Ways They Have A Lifestyle Quite Similar To Ours, Including Such Traditional American Activities As Driving Japanese Cars.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

As A Professional Journalist, I Have Always Been Fascinated By People Who Appear To Have Even More Spare Time Than I Do.

Unless You Live In Indonesia, There Should Be Several Malls Within Five Miles Of Your Home. It Makes No Difference Whatsoever Which One You Go To: Under Federal Law, All Malls In The United States Must Have The Same 42 Chain Stores.

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.

I Think Superman Should Go On The Larry King Show And Announce That He Would Come Back To Life If People In All 50 States Wanted Him To.

The Best Baby-sitters, Of Course, Are The Baby’s Grandparents. You Feel Completely Comfortable Entrusting Your Baby To Them For Long Periods, Which Is Why Most Grandparents Flee To Florida.

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