Background Image

...

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

-Dave Barry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

One Of The Issues

Dave Barry

...

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

Views: 2742

Topic

More From Dave Barry

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.

Long, Long Ago, Before Eruptions Were Invented, The Molten Lava Had To Be Carried Down The Mountainside, Bucket By Bucket, And Poured Over The Sleeping Villagers. This Took Time.

Magnetism, As You Recall From Physics Class, Is A Powerful Force That Causes Certain Items To Be Attracted To Refrigerators.

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

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

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.

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

We Constantly See Surveys That Reveal This Ignorance, Especially Among Our High School Students,78 Percent Of Whom, In A Recent Nationwide Multiple-choice Test, Identified Abraham Lincoln As 'a Kind Of Lobster.' That's Right: More Than Three Quarters Of Our Nation's Youth Could Not Correctly Identify The Man Who Invented The Telephone.

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.

Your Modern Teenager Is Not About To Listen To Advice From An Old Person, Defined As A Person Who Remembers When There Was No Velcro.

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

The Leading Cause Of Death Among Fashion Models Is Falling Through Street Grates.

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

Your First Job Is To Prepare The Soil. The Best Tool For This Is Your Neighbor's Garden Tiller. If Your Neighbor Does Not Own A Garden Tiller, Suggest That He Buy One.

I Love The Resource Of The Internet. I Use It All The Time. Anything I'm Writing - For Example, If I'm Writing A Scene About Washington D.c. And I Want To Know Where This Monument Is, I Can Find It Right Away, I Can Get A Picture Of The Monument, It Just Makes Your Life So Much Easier, Especially If You're Writing Fiction. You Can Check Stuff So Much Quicker, And I Think That's All Great For Writers.

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.

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.'

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

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

In 1765, Parliament Passed The Stamp Act, Which, As Any American High School Student Can Tell You, Was An Act That Apparently Had Something To Do With Stamps.

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.

Take Out The Fortune Before You Eat The Cookie.

Take The Folks At Coca-cola. For Many Years, They Were Content To Sit Back And Make The Same Old Carbonated Beverage. It Was A Good Beverage, No Question About It; Generations Of People Had Grown Up Drinking It And Doing The Experiment In Sixth Grade Where You Put A Nail Into A Glass Of Coke And After A Couple Of Days The Nail Dissolves And The Teacher Says: Imagine What It Does To Your Teeth! So Coca-cola Was Solidly Entrenched In The Market, And The Management Saw No Need To Improve.

Entire New Continent Can Emerge From The Ocean In The Time It Takes For A Web Page To Show Up On Your Screen. Contrary To What You May Have Heard, The Internet Does Not Operate At The Speed Of Light; It Operates At The Speed Of The Dmv.

Although It Was Constructed In 1536, The New York Subway System Boasts An Annual Maintenance Budget Of Nearly $8, Currently Stolen, And It Does A Remarkable Job Of Getting New Yorkers From Point A To An Indeterminate Location Somewhere In The Tunnel Leading To Point B.

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.

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.

I Have Read That, On The Average, The Japanese Are Getting Taller, But At The Moment They Seem To Be About The Same Height As American Junior-high-school Students, Only With Fewer Guns.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

What I Think Is That The F-word Is Basically Just A Convenient Nasty-sounding Word That We Tend To Use When We Would Really Like To Come Up With A Terrific-ally Witty Insult, The Kind Winston Churchill Always Came Up With When Enormous Women Asked Him Stupid Questions At Parties.

With A Novel, You Have To Have A Story. It's Much More Important To Have It Matter To The Reader What Happens To People, And It Has To Make Sense And End In A Way That Is Satisfying. So I Spend A Lot More Time Thinking About That. Then The Writing Itself Usually Is Easier For Me, Because I Know Where It's Going.

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

I Don't Want To Dis Anybody, But Someone Like Robert Parker. I First Read A Spenser Book Maybe 20 Years Ago And Then Read Every One That Came Out. I Did That With Tony Hillerman Too.

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

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.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

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

Reading... A Vacation For The Mind.

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.

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

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

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.

Never Have A Dog. Let's Not Beat Around The Bush Here: Dogs Are Morons.

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

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."

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

Another Foreign-policy Triumph For Reagan Was His 1984 Visit To China, Where He Met For More Than Three Hours With Mao Zedong Before Realizing That Mao Was Dead.

I Got A Lot Of Mail From Organizations Concerned With Bike Safety. Then I Got A Couple From People Who Wanted My Support For Mandatory Helmet Laws. I Can't Support That. If You Pass A Law Like That You'll Do More Harm Than Good, Because You'll Make People Think They've Done Something About The Problem When They Haven't.

I Want A Pit Crew... I Hate The Procedure I Currently Have To Go Through When I Have Car Problems.

If It Weren't For Marriage, Men And Women Would Have To Fight With Total Strangers.

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

Falling In Love

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

The Planes Are Crowded And Noisy And Late, And Everybody Hates Everybody. If Armed Terrorists Had Tried To Hijack Any Of The Flights I've Been On Lately, We Passengers Would Have Swiftly Beaten Them To Death With Those Hard Rolls You Get With Your In-flight Meals.

The Old System Of Having A Baby Was Much Better Than The New System, The Old System Being Characterized By The Fact That The Man Didn't Have To Watch.

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.

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

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

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.

We're Deep Into The Holiday Gift-giving Season, As You Can Tell From The Fact That Everywhere You Look, You See Jolly Old St. Nick Urging You To Purchase Things, To The Point Where You Want To Slug Him Right In His Bowl Full Of Jelly.

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.

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

In Those Days, Most People Read Newspapers, Whereas Today, Most People Do Not. What Caused This Change? One Big Factor, Of Course, Is That People Are A Lot Stupider Than They Used To Be, Although We Here In The Newspaper Industry Would Never Say So In Print.

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

Be Advised That There Is No Parking In Europe.

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

Most American Homes Have Alternating Current, Which Means That The Electricty Goes In One Direction For A While, Then Goes In The Other Direction. This Prevents Harmful Electron Buildup In The Wires.

...terry Jackson, Who Is The Miami Herald's Automotive Writer And Tv Critic. That's Correct: This Man Gets Paid To Drive New Cars And Watch Television. If He Ever Dies And Goes To Heaven, It's Going To Be A Big Let Down.

I Was A Young Person Once, Shortly After The Polar Ice Caps Retreated, And I Distinctly Recall Believing That Virtually All Adults Were Clueless Goobers.

I'm A Humorist. A Guy Like Paul Simon Just Makes My Life So Much Simpler. When I Was There, He Had A Hearing Against Hate. Steven Spielberg Came And Testified Against Hate. Paul Simon Said Hate Was Bad. Orrin Hatch Was There, And He Was Against Hate Too. Everyone Was Opposed To Hate. Is This Really A Wonderful Way To Spend Our Tax Dollars, To Have These Men Drone Away About How Against Hate They Are?

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

Although Humans Tend To View Sex As Mainly A Fun Recreational Activity Sometimes Resulting In Death, In Nature It Is A Far More Serious Matter.

Sign Outside A Country Shop: We Buy Junk And Sell Antiques.

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

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

Of Course God Enjoys A Good Prank As Much As The Next Infallible Deity.

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.

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.

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.

The Japanese Eat, Sleep, And Breathe Golf; The Only Thing They Don't Do Is Actually Play It, Because To Get On A Course, You Have To Make A Reservation Roughly 137 Years In Advance, Which Means That By The Time You Actually Get To The First Tee You Are Deceased. Of Course, In Golf This Is Not Really A Handicap.

I Don't Like Anything Unsigned In A Newspaper That Purports To Be The Opinion Of Some Group If We Don't Know Who The Group Is. It's Laughable To Say That The Miami Herald's Editorials Or Any Newspaper's Editorials Represent Any Views Other Than Those Of The People Writing Them, So Why Don't We Tell Everybody Who They Are?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

As Sensitive And Broad-minded Humans, We Must Never Allow Ourselves To Be In Any Way Judgmental Of The Religious Practices Of Other People, Even When These People Clearly Are Raving Space Loons.

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

Black Stache Had No Love For The Queen, No Love For Women Of Any Sort, Except For His Ma. He Had A Real Soft Spot For His Ma, And Was Truly Sorry For The Time He’d Marooned Her.

Japan Has A Low Crime Rate, Unless You Count The Fact That Approximately Every Fifteen Minutes The Entire Cabinet Gets Indicted For Taking Bribes.

Some [soccer] Players Suffer Four Or Five Fatal Injuries Per Game. That's How Tough They Are.

Most Married Couples, Even Though They Love Each Other Very Much In Theory, Tend To View Each Other In Practice As Large Teeming Flaw Colonies, The Result Of Being That They Get On Each Other's Nerves And Regularly Erupt Into Vicious Emotional Shouting Matches Over Such Issues As Toaster Settings.

I'm Always Writing New Books So I Don't Dwell On The Ones I've Already Done. I Think That's A Habit From Being A Newspaper Guy Because You're Always Writing Columns And You Can't Reflect On The Ones You've Already Done.

Karate Is A Form Of Martial Arts In Which People Who Have Had Years And Years Of Training Can, Using Only Their Hands And Feet, Make Some Of The Worst Movies In The History Of The World.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Was Really Bummed When I Got To The Last One Of Tony Hillerman Navajo Detective Books.

Harry Is Heavily Into Camping, And Every Year In The Late Fall, He Makes Us All Go To Assateague, Which Is An Island On The Atlantic Ocean Famous For Its Wild Horses. I Realize That The Concept Of Wild Horses Probably Stirs Romantic Notions In Many Of You, But This Is Because You Have Never Met Any Wild Horses In Person. In Person, They Are Like Enormous Hooved Rats. They Amble Up To Your Camp Site, And Their Attitude Is: 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.

I Would Not Know How I Am Supposed To Feel About Many Stories If Not For The Fact That The Tv News Personalities Make Sad Faces For Sad Stories And Happy Faces For Happy Stories.

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

Millions Of Americans Own Dogs, Because They Are Good-natured, Simple, And Easily Amused. I Am Referring Here To The Americans. The Dogs Are Not Exactly Mensa Members Either, But They Definitely Make Better Pets Than Tropical Fish.

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!

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.

Dogs Do Not Grasp The Concept Of House Cleaning.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Have Been A Gigantic Rolling Stones Fan Since Approximately The Spanish-american War.

Modern Cyberspace Is A Deadly Festering Swamp, Teeming With Dangerous Programs Such As 'viruses,' 'worms,' 'trojan Horses' And 'licensed Microsoft Software' That Can Take Over Your Computer And Render It Useless.

Newspaper Readership Is Declining Like Crazy. In Fact, There's A Good Chance That Nobody Is Reading My Column.

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

Life Is Anything That Dies When You Stomp On It.

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

Murphy's Golden Rule: Whoever Has The Gold, Makes The Rules.

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.

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.

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

Land!” Shouted Thomas. “is There Food?” Asked Tubby Ted.

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

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.

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.

Not All Chemicals Are Bad. Without Chemicals Such As Hydrogen And Oxygen, For Example, There Would Be No Way To Make Water, A Vital Ingredient In Beer.

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 Never Had The Vaguest Idea Whether Any Of It Had Anything To Do With Me, Especially Being A Sixth Grader. When I Got Older And Traveled, I'd Read About The History Of Where I Was Going. I'd Be Like, "oh, History Is Kind Of Interesting."

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

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.

I Shared This Insight With Some Other Boat Owners, And They All Agreed That, Definitely, Putting Your Boar Into The Water Is Asking For Trouble. Most Of Them Have Had Their Boats Sitting In Their Driveways Long Enough To Be Registered Historical Landmarks.

Childbirth, As A Strictly Physical Phenomenon, Is Comparable To Driving A United Parcel Truck Through An Inner Tube.

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.

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

There Is A Breed Of Fashion Models Who Weigh No More Than An Abridged Dictionary.

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

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

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.

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.

Eating Rice Cakes Is Like Chewing On A Foam Coffee Cup, Only Less Filling.

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 Four Building Blocks Of The Universe Are Fire, Water, Gravel And Vinyl.

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.

All Other Nations Are Drinking Ray Charles Beer And We Are Drinking Barry Manilow.

Sat Tests Are Designed By Huge Panels Of Experts In Education And Psychology Who Work For Years To Design Tests In Which Not One Single Question Measures Any Bit Of Knowledge That Anyone Might Actually Need In The Real World. We Should Applaud Kids For Getting Lower Scores.

Motto Of The U.s. Airline Industry - "we're Hoping To Have A Motto Announcement In About An Hour."

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.

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

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

Aarp Is A Large And Powerful Organization, Similar To The Mafia But More Concerned About Dietary Fiber.

If Mozart Had Power Tools, There's No Telling How Great His Music Might Have Been.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You. Ask Whether Your Country Has Been Inhaling Paint-thinner Fumes.

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

Today's Beauty Ideal, Strictly Enforced By The Media, Is A Person With The Same Level Of Body Fat As A Paper Clip.

Hobbies Of Any Kind Are Boring Except To People Who Have The Same Hobby. This Is Also True Of Religion, Although You Will Not Find Me Saying So In Print.

His Body Rigid With Terror As He Waited For The Savages To Something Horrible To Him—bash His Head With Clubs, Or Stab Him With Spears, Or… …or Tap Him On The Shoulder.

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.

A Full-grown Manatee, Which Can Weigh More Than 1,000 Pounds, Looks Like The Result Of A Genetic Experiment Involving A Walrus And The Goodyear Blimp.

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

I Have Never Had A Point In My Life To Make. I'm Just Trying To Entertain The Reader.

No Man Had Ever Knocked Little Richard Down. But Of Course Ammm Was Not A Man.

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.

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

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.

The Democrats Believe That If God Did Not Want Them To Raise Taxes, He Would Not Have Created The Internal Revenue Service.

That Is The Wasp, Yes. But It Was Captured By Black Stache, And He’s Coming For This Ship Now.” “and How Do You Know That?” Asked Slank. “did A Seagull Tell You?” This Brought Chuckles From The Crew. Something Like That, Thought Peter.

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

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.

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

The Ford Falcon Holds The Proud Title Of Slowest Car Ever Built. In Certain Areas Of The Country You Can Go To A Stoplight And Find Falcon Drivers Who Pressed Down On Their Accelerators In 1963 And Are Still Waiting For Their Cars To Move.

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?"

My Wife, Like Many Women, Actually Likes Wrapping Things. If She Gives You A Gift That Requires Batteries, She Wraps The Batteries Separately, Which To Me Is Very Close To Being A Symptom Of Mental Illness.

Funny Christmas

He's A Boating Enthusiast, Although That Phrase Seems Too Weak To Describe The Level Of His Interest, Kind Of Like Describing Someone As A Heroin Fancier.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

If You're Like Most Members Of The Baby Boom Generation, You Decided Somewhere Along The Line, Probably After About Four Margaritas, To Have Children. This Was Inevitable. Mother Nature, In Her Infinite Wisdom, Has Instilled Within Each Of Us A Powerful Biological Instinct To Reproduce; This Is Her Way Of Assuring That The Human Race, Come What May, Will Never Have Any Disposable Income.

Trending Author

Camilla Lackberg

Guillaume Apollinaire

Category