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

-Dave Barry

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Talking About Golf Is

Dave Barry

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

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

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

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

Megahertz: This Is Really, Really Big Hertz.

Computers Operate On Simple Principles That Can Be Easily Understood By Anybody With Some Common Sense, A Little Imagination, And An Iq Of 750.

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

England Manufactures Most Of The World's Airline Food, As Well As All The Food You Ever Ate In Your Junior-high-school Cafeteria.

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...)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

A Hundred Years Ago, It Could Take You The Better Part Of A Year To Get From New York To California; Whereas Today, Because Of Equipment Problems At O'hare, You Can't Get There At All.

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

You Don't Have To Think Really Hard To Get The Joke. I Think Humor In General Appeals To All People.

The Republicans Have A High Beady-eyed Self-righteous Scary Borderline Loon Quotient, As Evidenced By Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, The Entire State Of Utah, Etc.

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

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

Before Going On A Diet You Should Consult Your Doctor, Or At Least Send Him Some Money.

I Hate Rap Music, Which To Me Sounds Like A Bunch Of Angry Men Shouting, Possibly Because The Person Who Was Supposed To Provide Them With A Melody Never Showed Up.

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

The Easiest Way To Make A Fruitcake Is To Buy A Darkish Cake, Then Pound Some Old, Hard Fruit Into It With A Mallet. Be Sure To Wear Safety Glasses.

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.

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

Miami, You Can Never Run Out Of Material. As Long As You Have Miami Around You, You Will Never, Never Stop Being Amused.

One Night In Tokyo We Watched Two Japanese Businessmen Saying Good-night To Each Other After What Had Clearly Been A Long Night Of Drinking, A Major Participant Sport In Japan. These Men Were Totally Snockered, Having Reached The Stage Of Inebriation Wherein Every Air Molecule That Struck Caused Them To Wobble Slightly, But They Still Managed To Behave More Formally Than Americans Do At Funerals.

...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.

Back Then, The Entire Internet Consisted Of Two Slow, Boxcar-sized Univac Computers About 50 Feet Apart, Connected By A Wire. It Would Take One Of These Computers An Entire Day To Send An Email To The Other One, Which Would Immediately Delete It, Because It Was A Viagra Ad.

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

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

Lobsters Displays All Three Of The Classic Biological Characteristics Of An Insect, Namely: 1. It Has Way More Legs Than Necessary. 2. There Is No Way You Would Ever Pet It. 3. It Does Not Respond To Simple Commands Such As "here, Boy!"

We Kids Feared Many Things In Those Days - Werewolves, Dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - But They All Paled In Comparison With Brussels Sprouts.

If You Want To Give A Man Something Practical, Consider Tires. More Than Once, I Would Have Gladly Traded All The Gifts I Got For A New Set Of Tires.

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.

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

You Know How On The Evening News They Always Tell You That The Stock Market Is Up In Active Trading, Or Off In Moderate Trading, Or Trading In Mixed Activity, Or Whatever. Well, Who Gives A

The Letters In 'brace Beemer' Can Be Arranged To Spell 'embrace Beer.'

There Are Two Distinctive Classes Of People Today, Those Who Have Personal Computers, And Those Who Have Several Thousand Extra Dollars Apiece.

In Fact, When You Get Right Down To It, Almost Every Explanation Man Came Up With For Anything Until About 1926 Was Stupid.

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.

At Least Once Per Year, Some Group Of Scientists Will Become Very Excited And Announce That: •the Universe Is Even Bigger Than They Thought! •there Are Even More Subatomic Particles Than They Thought! •whatever They Announced Last Year About Global Warming Is Wrong.

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

The Trouble Is, You Cannot Grow Just One Zucchini. Minutes After You Plant A Single Seed, Hundreds Of Zucchini Will Barge Out Of The Ground And Sprawl Around The Garden, Menacing The Other Vegetables. At Night, You Will Be Able To Hear The Ground Quake As More And More Zucchinis Erupt.

I Actually Kind Of Like Janet Reno. She Seems Like A Nice Enough Lady. But When You're Basically Going Through The Entire Phone Book Trying To Find Women Lawyers Who Don't Have Maids To Pick The Attorney General Of The United States, How Well Can You Do?

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

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

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.

Trails Need To Be Reconstructed. Please Avoid Building Trails That Go Uphill.

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

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

The Story You Envision As You Start Out Is Always A Great Story; When The Facts Turn Out To Be Different From, Or More Complex Than, What You Expected, Your First Reaction Is Always Disappointment. That's When You Must Fight The Urge To Bend The Story To Your Preconceived Notions. First, It's Dishonest. And Second, In The End, The Truth Is Always The Best Story.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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Greyhound Bus Lines Motto: "we Stop For Some Damn Thing Every 200 Yards."

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

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

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I'm One Of Those People Who Tells My Wife, "no Coaching From The Sidelines."

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

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.

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

I Really Need To Know Where I'm Going With Fiction To Write It In A Way That At Least I'm Happy With. And I Really Think That A Lot Of Fiction Books End Badly Because Terrific Writers Said, "i'll Just Figure It Out" And Plunge In, But Have Created So Many Problems That They Are Kind Of Impossible To Solve. I Mean, I'm Talking Really Good Writers Do This And You Can Tell When They Got To The End They Either Had To Do Something Preposterous Or They Just Don't Really Resolve Things. So For Fiction I Spend A Lot More Time Outlining And For Humor I Really Don't Do Much Of It.

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

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

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

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.... While You Are Destroying Your Mind Watching The Worthless, Brain-rotting Drivel On Tv, We On The Internet Are Exchanging, Freely And Openly, The Most Settings, Uninhibited, Intimate And, Yes, Shocking Details About Our "config.sys."

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

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.

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!

I Can Snap Your Spine Like A Toothpick.

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

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

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.

Remember: What Dad Really Wants Is A Nap. Really.

Funny Fathers Day

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.

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.

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.

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

[there Is] A Breed Of Fashion Models

You Should Be Prepared For Anything During Divorce Proceedings - Even The Truth.

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

The Problem ... Is That We Have Run Out Of Dinosaurs To Form Oil With. Scientists Working For The Department Of Energy Have Tried To Form Oil Using Other Animals; They've Piled Thousands Of Tons Of Sand And Middle Eastern Countries On Top Of Cows, Raccoons, Haddock, Laboratory Rats, Etc., But So Far All They Have Managed To Do Is Run Up An Enormous Bulldozer-rental Bill And Anger A Lot Of Middle Eastern Persons. None Of The Animals Turned Into Oil, Although Most Of The Laboratory Rats Developed Cancer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When I Say 'serve You Better,' I Mean 'increase Our Profits.' We Newspapers Are Very Big On Profits These Days.

Stuffwise We Are Not A Lean Operation. We're The Kind Of People Who, If We Were Deciding What Absolute Minimum Essential Items We'd Need To Carry In Our Backpacks For The Final, Treacherous Ascent To The Summit Of Mount Everest, Would Take Along Aquarium Filters, Just In Case.

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.

Fortunately The Boat We Rented Had A Motor In It You Will Definitely Want This Feature On Your Sailboat Too, Because If You Put Up The Sails, The Boat Tips Way Over, And You Could Spill Your Beer.

Proper Turkey Preparation Is Critical. According To The U.s. Department Of Agriculture, More Americans Die Every Year From Eating Improperly Cooked Turkey Than Were Killed In The Entire Peloponnesian War. This Is Because Turkey Can Contain Salmonella, Which Are Tiny Bacteria That, If They Get In Your Bloodstream, Develop Into Full-grown Salmon, Which Could Come Leaping Out Of Your Mouth During An Important Business Presentation.

Funny Thanksgiving

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

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.

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.

San Francisco Leads The World In The Category Of Most People On The Sidewalk Holding Conversations With Purely Imaginary Companions.

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.

For A While I Got Into The South Pacific Theater Of World War Ii. I Read "american Caesar" By William Manchester, The Biography Of General Macarthur. Because Of That I Ended Up Reading "tales Of The South Pacific" By James Michener And Then Because Of That Reading His "hawaii." That Is What Happens.

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.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

When Preparing Your Return, You Should Be Sure To Avoid Common Mistakes. The Two Most Common Taxpayer Mistakes, States The Irs Booklet, Are (1) "failure To Include A Current Address," And (2) "failure To Be A Large Industry That Gives Humongous Contributions To Key Tax-law-writing Congresspersons."

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

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

I Think Twitter Is Kind Of Fun, It's Not Deep And It Never Will Be, But It's A Great Way To Communicate One-liners And To Sort Of See What People Are Laughing About. It's A Terrific Source Of Misinformation.

A Small Deer Came Into My Camp And Stole My Bag Of Pickles. Is There A Way I Can Get Reimbursed? Please Call.

And What Is The Scientific Community Doing About These Problems, Young People? They're Cloning Sheep. Great! Just What We Need! Sheep That Look More Alike Than They Already Do! Thanks A Lot, Scientific Community!

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

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.

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Is Gossip.

Although A Science Fair Can Seem Like A Big "pain" It Can Help You Understand Important Scientific Principles, Such As Newton's First Law Of Inertia, Which States: "a Body At Rest Will Remain At Rest Until 8:45 P.m. The Night Before The Science Fair Project Is Due, At Which Point The Body Will Come Rushing To The Body's Parents, Who Are Already In Their Pajamas, And Shout, 'i Just Remembered The Science Fair Is Tomorrow And We Gotta Go To The Store Right Now!'"

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

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

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

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.

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

I Guess Libertarianism Is Always Considered So Weird And Fringe That People Assume That You're In The Closet If You Don't Go Around Talking About It.

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

Leonard Aster Thanked Fighting Prawn And The Mollusk Tribe For Their Hospitality. “you Mean,” Said Fighting Prawn, “for Not Killing You?” “yes,” Said Leonard. “it Was Very Gracious Of You.” “do You,” Said Leonard, “i Mean, Does You Tribe, Shake Hands?” “no,” Said Fighting Prawn. “we Kiss On The Lips.” “oh,” Said Leonard, Looking Very Alarmed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many Things Have Been Written, Including By Me, Linking Humor And Pain. Mostly, In My Case, The Humor Part Keeps Me Sane. If I Spent All My Hours Writing Things Like "fatal Distraction," I'd Become A Brooding, Erratic Melancholic. I'd Be Raskolnikov.

The Japanese, Implementing A Complex, Long-term, And Ultimately Successful Strategy To Dominate The U S Consumer-electronics Market, Attacked Pearl Harbor.

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.

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

The 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

By The Eighties, A Lot Of Radio Stations Had Started Playing "sixties" Music. They Called It "classic Rock," Because They Knew We'd Be Upset If They Came Right Out And Called It What It Is, Namely "middle-aged-person Nostalgia Music.

It Was You Readers Who Really Came Through, Proving Once Again That When The American People Decide To "get Involved" In A Problem, It Is Best Not To Let Them Have Any Sharp Implements.

Reflectors Need To Be Placed On Trees Every 50 Feet So People Can Hike At Night With Flashlights.

Nobody Understands How Hard It Is, Being A Captain.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

For Most Celebrities, The Biggest Meal Of The Day Is Toothpaste (they Use Reduced-fat Crest).

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

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?'

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

A 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

This Ball Was So Crowded That It Took Me - A Trained Professional Journalist With Vast Experience In This Area - Forty Five Minutes To Get A Beer.

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

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

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

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.

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

Violence And Smut Are Of Course Everywhere On The Airwaves. You Cannot Turn On Your Television Without Seeing Them, Although Sometimes You Have To Hunt Around.

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.

European Toilet Paper Is Made From The Same Material That Americans Use For Roofing, Which Is Why Europeans Tend To Remain Standing Throughout Soccer Matches.

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.

This Is An Especially Good Time For You Vacationers Who Plan To Fly, Because The Reagan Administration, As Part Of The Same Policy Under Which It Recently Sold Yellowstone National Park To Wayne Newton, Has "deregulated" The Airline Industry. What This Means For You, The Consumer, Is That The Airlines Are No Longer Required To Follow Any Rules Whatsoever. They Can Show Snuff Movies. They Can Charge For Oxygen. They Can Hire Pilots Right Out Of Vending Machine Refill Person School.

I Become Faint And Nauseous During Even Very Minor Medical Procedures, Such As Making An Appointment By Phone.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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