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The Doctor Looked At My Cardiogram And Made That "hmmmm" Noise That Doctors Are Taught In Medical School So They Won't Come Right Out And Say "uh-oh!"

-Dave Barry

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The Doctor Looked At

Dave Barry

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The Doctor Looked At My Cardiogram And Made That "hmmmm" Noise That Doctors Are Taught In Medical School So They Won't Come Right Out And Say "uh-oh!"

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The Other Major Kind Of Computer Is The "apple," Which I Do Not Recommend, Because It Is A Wuss-o-rama New-age Computer You Basically Just Plug In And Use.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

To People Who Make Moving Ads That Block The View Of Websites: Not Only Will We Not Buy From You, But We Want Shrews To Eat Your Liver.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Love Halloween. It Reminds Me Of My Happy Childhood Days As A Student At Wampus Elementary School In Armonk, N.y., When We Youngsters Used To Celebrate Halloween By Making Decorations Out Of Construction Paper And That White Paste That You Could Eat.

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

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

I Still Think Of Myself As A Newspaper Guy And You Live By Deadlines In The Newspaper World, So, They Don't Really Give You Any Excuses. At The Paper They Never Say, "well, We Just Won't Have Tuesday's Paper Come Out, We'll Just Bring Tuesday's Paper Out On Wednesday, So Go Ahead, Take All The Time You Need." They Come Out With That Paper Regardless.

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.

It Always Rains On Tents. Rainstorms Will Travel Thousands Of Miles, Against Prevailing Winds For The Opportunity To Rain On A Tent.

Experts Agree That The Best Type Of Computer For Your Individual Needs Is One That Comes On The Market About Two Days After You Actually Purchase Some Other Computer.

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.'

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

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

You Should Definitely Have A Travel Agent. Why Go Through All The Hassle Of Dealing With Airlines, Hotels, And Rental-car Agencies Yourself, Only To See The Arrangements Get All Screwed Up, When With Just A Single Phone Call You Can Have A Trained Professional Screw Them Up For You?

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.

He Could Even Think About How Fast He Was Thinking About Things.

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

It Is A Scientific Fact That Your Body Will Not Absorb Cholesterol If You Take It From Another Person's Plate.

I, Alone, Could Never Have Produced This Book. I Say This Mainly In Case There Are Lawsuits.

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.

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."

We Decide To Start With The Best-known Sight Of All, The One That, More Than Any Other, Exemplifies What The Big Apple Is All About: The Islip Garbage Barge.

Spiders So Large They Appear To Be Wearing The Pelts Of Small Mammals.

My Point Here, Young Couples, Is That Baby-having Is Extremely Serious Business, And You Probably Don't Have The Vaguest Idea What You're Doing, As Is Evidenced By The Fact That You're Reading A Very Sloppy And Poorly Researched Book.

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.

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

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.

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.

How Can You Be Afraid Of Women?” “those Ain’t Normal Women.

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.

Instead Of A Permit System Or Regulations, The Forest Service Needs To Reduce Worldwide Population Growth To Limit The Number Of Visitors To Wilderness.

Do Not Spit Gum In The Drinking Fountains.

I Bought Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1415926, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows Rsvp, The Best Of Windows, Windows Strikes Back, Windows Does Dallas, And Windows Let's All Buy Bill Gates A House The Size Of Vermont.

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.

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

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

We Idolized The Beatles, Except For Those Of Us Who Idolized The Rolling Stones, Who In Those Days Still Had Many Of Their Original Teeth.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

When To Arrive At The Airport?: You Should Be At The Airport Already.

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

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

Your Hand And Your Mouth Agreed Many Years Ago That, As Far As Chocolate Is Concerned, There Is No Need To Involve Your Brain.

I Feel Like I Have More Experience With Publishing Humor Than Pretty Much Any Editor I'm Going To Be Dealing With So Sometimes I'll Get A Little Bit Nuts If I Write Something I Know Is Good A Certain Way, And Some Editor Because Of Some Restriction He Has And Wants To Change It That I Know Is Going To Make It Less Funny That'll Piss Me Off And Then I'm Inclined To Go, "well, Hey I've Been Doing This A Long Time, Maybe You Should..." That Doesn't Happen That Often, But I'm More Likely To Say That Now Than I Would Have Been A Long Time Ago. Because Dammit, I'm Infallible!

Panicky Despair Is An Underrated Element Of Writing.

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.

Everyone Has A Right To Be Stupid. Some Just Abuse The Privilege.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Can Snap Your Spine Like A Toothpick.

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

Cats Are Independent, By Which I Mean Smart.

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

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.

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.

The One Thing I'm Terrified Of Trying To Write About Is Sex. I Mean My God, My Wife Might Read It Or My Daughter Might Read It Or My Son Might Read It, So No, I've Never Really Written About Eroticism At All.

We Have Been Flooded With Postal Cards From All Over The United States And Several Parallel Universes. Just A Quick Glance Though These Cards Is Enough To Remind You Why This Great Nation, Despite All The Talk Of Decline, Still Leads The World In Tranquilizer Consumption.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Will Vote For The First Candidate Who Promises To Use Nuclear Missiles Against Linkedin.

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.

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."

It's Income Tax Time Again, Americans: Time To Gather Up Those Receipts, Get Out Those Tax Forms, Sharpen Up That Pencil, And Stab Yourself In The Aorta

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

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

Derangement Is The Only Possible Explanation For Owning A Cat, An Animal Whose Preferred Mode Of Communication Is To Sink Its Claws Three-quarters Of An Inch Into Your Flesh.

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.

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

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.

My Problem With Chess Was That All My Pieces Wanted To End The Game As Soon As Possible.

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

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

Every Year I Write A Tax Advice Column And I Used To Always Make Fun Of That. One Year, One Of My Favorite Irs Commissioners, I Think His Name Was Roscoe Somebody, Wrote That One Of The Most Often-asked Questions By Taxpayers Was, "how Can I Contribute More?" Well, I Tell Ya, Ol' Roscoe's Really Been Doing Situps Under Parked Cars Again. I've Heard A Lot Of People Ask A Lot Of Questions About Taxes, But I Never Heard Anybody Say, "how Can I, The Ordinary Person, Send More Money For No Reason?"

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Because Of Some Defect In My Motor Skill, I Can Never Completely Wrap [gifts]....if I Had Been An Ancient Egyptian In The Field Of Mummies, The Lower Half Of The Pharaoh's Body Would Be Covered Only By Scotch Tape.

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

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

One Of The Major Hobbies In South Florida Is Keeping Animals That No Sane Person Would Want To Keep. One Of Those Is Snakes. They Usually Get Them When They're Small, And When They Get Too Big, They Let Them Go. But There Are Also People With Monkeys, Lions, Tigers. And They All Get Away, Eventually.

The World Is Full Of Strange Phenomena That Cannot Be Explained By The Laws Of Logic Or Science. Dennis Rodman Is Only One Example.

And, Of Course, You Have The Commercials Where Savvy Businesspeople Get Ahead By Using Their Macintosh Computers To Create The Ultimate American Business Product: A Really Sharp-looking Report.

The Nuclear Generator Of Brain Sludge Is Television.

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

If Women Were In Charge Of All The World's Nations, There Would Be Sincerely Believe This - No Military Conflicts, And When There Was A Military Conflict, Everybody Involved Would Feel Just Awful And There Would Soon Be A High-level Exchange Of Notes Written On Greeting Cards With Flowers On The Front, Followed By A Peace Luncheon

One I'm Deeply Into Is Doris Kearns Goodwin's "team Of Rivals." I Was The Only Person In The Us Who Hadn't Read It.

Meetings Are Places Where Dead Ideas Rise From Their Graves And Eat The Brains Of The Living.

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

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

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

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

At Certain Times Each Year, We Journalists Do Almost Nothing Except Apply For The Pulitzers And Several Dozen Other Major Prizes. During These Times You Could Walk Right Into Most Newsrooms And Commit A Multiple Axe Murder Naked, And It Wouldn't Get Reported In The Paper Because The Reporters And Editors Would All Be Too Busy Filling Out Prize Applications.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If You Look At Any List Of Great Modern Writers Such As Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, And F. Scott Fitzgerald, You'll Notice Two Things About Them: 1. They All Had Editors. 2. They Are All Dead. Thus We Can Draw The Scientific Conclusion That Editors Are Fatal.

Scott Fitzgerald

Electricity Is Actually Made Up Of Extremely Tiny Particles Called Electrons, That You Cannot See With The Naked Eye Unless You Have Been Drinking.

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

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

Most Recently I Read Michael Lewis "boomerang." The Other Guy I Love Is Bill Bryson.

If You Had To Identify, In One Word, The Reason Why The Human Race Has Not Achieved, And Never Will Achieve, Its Full Potential, That Word Would Be 'meetings.'

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

She Goes To Frederick's Of Hollywood At The Mall And Purchases An Explicit Lingerie Outfit So Sheer That You Could Read An Appliance Warranty Through It In An Unlit Closet.

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

For People Who Like Peace And Quiet: A Phoneless Cord.

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.)

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

Cyrus Pembridge, The Never Land’s Captain, Was Widely Regarded As The Most Incompetent Man To Comman A Ship Since The Formation Of Water. “who In The Name Of Common Sense Would Put To Sea On That Ship With That Man In Charge?” Wondered Mack. “well,” Alf Answered, “we Are.” “true,” Mack Said.

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.

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

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

Turbulence.” This Is What Pilots Announce That You Have Encountered When Your Plane Strikes An Object In Midair. You'll Be Flying Along, And There Will Be An Enormous, Shuddering Whump, And Clearly The Plane Has Rammed Into An Airborne Object At Least The Size Of A Water Buffalo, And The Pilot Will Say, “folks, We're Encountering A Little Turbulence.” Meanwhile They Are Up There In The Cockpit Trying Desperately To Clean Water-buffalo Organs Off The Windshield.

People Don't Think Of Writers As Sex Objects. The Women Who Write To Me And Suggest That We Ought To Have Sex Usually Turn Out To Be, Like, Eighty. And Their Letters Always End With, "just Joking."

Sign At A Kentucky Appliance Store: Don't Kill Your Wife. Let Our Washing Machine Do The Dirty Work.

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.

This (america) Is A Land Of Rich Diversity, From The Towering Skyscrapers Of Manhatan All The Way To The Towering Mounds Of Garbage Piled Up Next To The Towering Skyscrapers Of Manhattan.

Why Can't Americans Do Their Own Taxes? Because The Federal Tax Code Is Out Of Control, That's Why. It's Gigantic And Insanely Complex, And It Gets Worse All The Time. Nobody Has Ever Read The Whole Thing. Irs Workers Are Afraid To Go Into The Same Room With It.

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).

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."

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.

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.

[there Is] A Breed Of Fashion Models

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.

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.

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

I Can Win An Argument On Any Topic, Against Any Opponent. People Know This, And Steer Clear Of Me At Parties. Often, As A Sign Of Their Great Respect, They Don't Even Invite Me.

Funny Inspirational

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Guys Are Simple... Women Are Not Simple And They Always Assume That Men Must Be Just As Complicated As They Are, Only Way More Mysterious. The Whole Point Is Guys Are Not Thinking Much. They Are Just What They Appear To Be. Tragically.

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

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

Your Federal Government Needs Your Money So That It Can Perform Vital Services For You That You Would Not Think Up Yourself In A Million Years.

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.

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

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

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

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

Some Archeologists Believe That Stonehenge - The Mysterious Arrangement Of Enormous Elongated Stones In England - Is Actually A Crude Effort By The Druids To Build A Computing Device.

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.

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

There Comes A Time When You Should Stop Expecting Other People To Make A Big Deal About Your Birthday. That Time Is Age 11.

There Comes A Time

I Say We Scrap The Current System And Replace It With A System Wherein You Add Your Name To The Bottom Of A List, And Then You Send Some Money To The Person At The Top Of The List, And Then You... Oh, Wait, That Is Our Current System.

It's Very Slow For Me To Create Humor. It Takes Me A Long Time To Write A Humor Piece. It Takes Days.

Orangutan Are Very Weird Animals But They Look Very Soulful.

Mousse Was A Labrador Retriever, Which Is A Large Enthusiastic Bulletproof Species Of Dog Made Entirely From Synthetic Materials. This Is The Kind Of Dog That, If It Takes An Interest In Your Personal Regions (which Of Course It Does) You Cannot Fend It Off With A Blowtorch.

The Irs Spends God Knows How Much Of Your Tax Money On These Toll-free Information Hot Lines Staffed By Irs Employees, Whose Idea Of A Dynamite Tax Tip Is That You Should Print Neatly. If You Ask Them A Real Tax Question, Such As How You Can Cheat, They're Useless. So, For Guidance, You Want To Look To Big Business. Big Business Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes, According To Ralph Nader, Who Represents A Big Consumer Organization That Never Pays A Nickel In Taxes. . . .

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

During The Warm Season (august 8 And 9), Maine Is A True Vacation Paradise, Offering Visitors A Chance To Jump Into Crystal-clear Mountain Lakes And See If They Can Get Back Out Again Before Their Bodily Tissue Is Frozen As Solid As A Supermarket Turkey.

Take Out The Fortune Before You Eat The Cookie.

The Ultimate Camping Trip Was The Lewis And Clark Expedition.

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

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

Miami Drivers Will Attempt To Pass You Inside A Car Wash.

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.

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.

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 Is A Very Fine Line Between Hobby And Mental Illness.

Classical Music Gradually Lost Popularity Because It Is Too Complicated: You Need Twenty-five Or Thirty Skilled Musicians Just To Hum It Properly. So People Began To Develop Regular Music.

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

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

If God Had Wanted Us To Spend All Our Time Fretting About The Problems Of Home Ownership, He Would Never Have Created Beer. This Is Not To Say That I Am Recommending That You Totally Ignore Your Responsibilities As A Homeowner And Just Sit Around All Day With A Can Of Beer In Your Hand. No Indeed, I Have Long Been A Believer In Purchasing Bottled Beer, And Pouring It Into A Chilled Glass.

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