Background Image

...

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.

-Dave Barry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Problem ... Is

Dave Barry

...

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.

Views: 57427

Topic

More From Dave Barry

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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)

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.

The Beer Sold Here In The United States Is Sweet And Watery And Lacking In Taste And Overcarbonated And Just Generally The Lamest, Wimpiest Beer In The Entire Known World. All The Other Nations Are Drinking Ray Charles Beer, And We Are Drinking Barry Manilow.

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."

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

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.

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.

English History Consists Largely Of Royal People Getting Their Heads Chopped Off...needless To Say, This Brand Of History Was A Hit With Our Son.

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

In Foreign Countries Such As Italy, The Government Puts Strict-looking Speed Limit Signs Everywhere, But Nobody Ever Sees Them Because Light Does Not Travel Fast Enough To Catch The Italian Drivers.

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

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Is Gossip.

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.

Never Board A Commercial Aircraft If The Pilot Is Wearing A Tank Top.

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

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?

Alan Zweibel Is The Funniest Writer In The World. He Might Be Even Funnier When He's Naked, But I'm Afraid To Find Out.

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...)

We Operate Under A Jury System In This Country, And As Much As We Complain About It, We Have To Admit That We Know Of No Better System, Except Possibly Flipping A Coin.

Flipping A Coin

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

... Once You're Safely In The Mall, You Should Tie Your Children To You With Ropes So The Other Shoppers Won't Try To Buy Them. Holiday Shoppers Have Been Whipped Into A Frenzy By Months Of Holiday Advertisements, And They Will Buy Anything Small Enough To Stuff Into A Shopping Bag. If Your Children Object To Being Tied, Threaten To Take Them To See Santa Claus; That Ought To Shut Them Up.

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

Because Of The Level Of My Chess Game, I Was Able - Even Against A Weak Opponent, Such As My Younger Brothers Or The Dog - To Get Myself Checkmated In Under Three Minutes. I Challenge Any Computer To Do It Faster.

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.

Once Again, We Come To The Holiday Season, A Deeply Religious Time That Each Of Us Observes, In His Own Way, By Going To The Mall Of His Choice.

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

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

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

Generally The Pythons Are Better Than Anything Else At Killing.

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.

As Americans We Must Always Remember That We All Have A Common Enemy, An Enemy That Is Dangerous, Powerful, And Relentless. I Refer, Of Course, To The Federal Government.

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.

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."

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

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

I Would Say That The Single Most Important Conclusion I Reached, After Traveling Through Japan, As Well As Countless Hours Reading, Studying, And Analyzing This Fascinating Culture, Is That You Should Always Tighten The Cap On The Shampoo Bottle Before You Put It In Your Suitcase.

Elsewhere In Italy Is The Lovely City Of Venice, Which Each Year Attracts Millions Of Visitors Despite The Fact That It Is Basically An Enormous Open Sewer.

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

I Argue Very Well. Just Ask Any Of My Remaining Friends.

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.

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

Canada, As You Know, Is A Major Important Nation Boasting A Sophisticated, Cosmopolitan Culture That Was Tragically Destroyed Last Week By Beavers.

I Took An Estimated Two Thousand Years Of High School French, And When I Finally Got To France, I Discovered That I Didn't Know One Single Phrase That Was Actually Useful In A Real-life French Situation.

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.

The Japanese Tend To Communicate Via Nuance And Euphemism, Often Leaving Important Things Unsaid; Whereas Americans Tend To Think They're Being Subtle When They Refrain From Grabbing The Listener By The Shirt.

What A Crock. I Could Easily Overemphasize The Importance Of Good Grammar. For Example, I Could Say: Bad Grammar Is The Leading Cause Of Slow, Painful Death In North America, Or Without Good Grammar, The United States Would Have Lost World War Ii.

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.

[american Tax Laws] Are Constantly Changing As Our Elected Representatives Seek New Ways To Ensure That Whatever Tax Advice We Receive Is Incorrect.

Granted, This System Is Insane, But We Must Not Let Sanity Stand In The Way Of Airport Security.

If You Look At Photos Of The Gettysburg Address There's A Guy Off To The Right Who I Think Is Keith Richards.

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

Here's A Simple Experiment That You Might Want To Try If There Is Absolutely Nothing Else Going On In Your Life. All You Need Is A Cork, A Bar Magnet, And A Pail Of Water. Simply Attach Your Magnet To Your Cork, Then Drop It Into The Water, And Voilà (literally, "you Have A Compass")-you Have A Compass. How Does It Work? Simple. Notice That, No Matter Which Way You Turn The Bucket, The Cork Always Floats On Top Of The Water (unless The Magnet Is Too Heavy). Using This Scientific Principle, Early Hardy Mariners Were Able To Tell At A Glance Whether They Were Sinking!

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

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

It Is A Well-documented Fact That Guys Will Not Ask For Directions. This Is A Biological Thing. This Is Why It Takes Several Million Sperm Cells... To Locate A Female Egg, Despite The Fact That The Egg Is, Relative To Them, The Size Of Wisconsin.

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.

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."

The Coyotes Made Too Much Noise Last Night And Kept Me Awake. Please Eradicate These Annoying Animals.

Software Is Usually Accompanied By Documentation In The Form Of Big Fat Scary Manuals That Nobody Ever Reads. In Fact, For The Past Five Years Most Of The Manuals Shipped With Software Products Have Actually Been Copies Of Stephen King's The Stand With New Covers Pasted On.

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.

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

The 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.

Scientists Now Believe That The Primary Biological Function Of Breasts Is To Make Males Stupid.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

You Should Not Use Your Fireplace, Because Scientists Now Believe That, Contrary To Popular Opinion, Fireplaces Actually Remove Heat From Houses. Really, That's What Scientists Believe. In Fact Many Scientists Actually Use Their Fireplaces To Cool Their Houses In The Summer. If You Visit A Scientist's House On A Sultry August Day, You'll Find A Cheerful Fire Roaring On The Hearth And The Scientist Sitting Nearby, Remarking On How Cool He Is And Drinking Heavily.

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

The 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.

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'm Happy To Start On One Topic And End On Another One Entirely, As Long As It's Funny.

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.

Congress Is Thinking About Eliminating A Federal Program Under Which Scientists Broadcast Signals To Alien Beings. This Would Be A Large Mistake. Alien Beings Have Atomic Blaster Death Cannons. You Cannot Cut Off Their Federal Programs As If They Were Merely Poor People.

Nature Is Located Mainly In National Parks, Which Are Vast Tracts Of Wilderness That Have Been Set Aside By The United States Government So Citizens Will Always Have Someplace To Go Where They Can Be Attacked By Bears. And We're Not Talking About Ordinary Civilian Bears, Either: We're Talking About Federal Bears, Which Can Behave However They Want To Because They Are Protected By The Same Union As Postal Clerks.

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.

Today, You're 50. Now We Can Round Your Age Up To 100! Happy 50th Birthday!

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.

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.)

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

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World, And I Am One Of Them.

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.

You Can, Legally, Possibly Hit And Kill A Fellow Golfer With A Ball, And There Will Not Be A Lot Of Trouble Because The Other Golfers Will Refuse To Stop And Be Witnesses Because They Will Want To Keep Playing.

There Are A Number Of People Without Whom I Could Not Have Written This Book, But I Hope You Don't Hold That Against Them. They Are All Fine People, And They Had No Idea How It Would Turn Out.

I Was Very Pleased To Get A Supreme Court Justice Suggesting A Column, So I Went And Did A Column About Beano. I Went With My Wife And Another Guy To A Mexican Restaurant, Which We Thought Would Be The Ultimate Test For An Antiflatulance Product. There's A Reason Most Of Mexico Is Located Out Of Doors. And It Worked. Several Newspapers Refused To Run That Column. But They Did Run Advertisements For Beano.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

There Are No Bad Haircuts In Cyberspace.

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.

Dogsled-riding Is A Sport That Is Relaxing As Well As Fragrant.

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

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

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

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

What I Look Forward To Is Continued Immaturity Followed By Death.

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

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

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.

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.

Any Parent That Relies On Any Law To Help Him Parent Is An Idiot.

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

Nobody Cares If You Can't Dance Well. Just Get Up And Dance.

I Feel That Nasal Spray Is A Wondrous Medical Achievement, Because It Is Supposed To Relieve Nasal Congestion, And By Gadfrey, It Relieves Nasal Congestion. What I'm Saying Is That It Actually Works, Which Is Something You Can Say About Very Few Other Aspects Of The Medical Establishment.

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.

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

And That's The Wonderful Thing About Family Travel: It Provides You With Experiences That Will Remain Locked Forever In The Scar Tissue Of Your Mind.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Without Computers, The Government Would Be Unable To Function At The Level Of Effectiveness And Efficiency That We Have Come To Expect. . . . Today's Government Uses Computers Which Are Capable Of Cranking Out Millions Of Documents Per Day Without Any Regard Whatsoever For Their Content, Thereby Freeing Government Employees For More Important Responsibilities, Such As Not Answering Their Phones.

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

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

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

In The Old Days, It Was Not Called The Holiday Season; The Christians Called It "christmas" And Went To Church; The Jews Called It "hanukka" And Went To Synagogue; The Atheists Went To Parties And Drank. People Passing Each Other On The Street Would Say "merry Christmas!" Or "happy Hanukka!" Or (to The Atheists) "look Out For The Wall!"

9 Saw The First Direct-dialed Long-distance Telephone Call, Between New York And San Francisco. Of Course, Back In That Primitive Era The Parties Had To Speak To Each Other Manually; Today One Or Both Ends Of The Conversation Would Be Carried On By A Machine.

The Hugely Popular Windows 95 Operating System Revolutionized The Software World Thanks To Its Capability Of Accomplishing The Seemingly Impossible Task Of Making Bill Gates Even Richer Than He Already Was.

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.

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.

There Comes A Time In A Man's Life When He Hears The Call Of The Sea. If The Man Has A Brain In His Head, He Will Hang Up The Phone Immediately.

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

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."

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.

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.

I Think I've Learned Over The Years, Because You'd Have To Be Stupid Not To, That When A Book Publisher Gives You A Deadline They're Just Kidding For The Most Part. I Don't Know What They Do With It, It's Like You Send Them Your Book And They Just Hold It In Their Hands For Like Six Months And I Don't Know Why, And You Realize You Probably Had More Time.

Airline Food Is Not Intended For Human Consumption. It's Intended As A Form Of In-flight Entertainment, Wherein The Object Is To Guess What It Is, Starting With Broad Categories Such As "mineral" And "linoleum."

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.

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

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

Dear Hotel People: We Don't Need A Cheeseball Clock-radio. We Need Places To Plug Stuff In. Thank You.

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

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.

You Should Not Confuse Your Career With Your Life.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

Winter's Here, And You Feel Lousy: You're Coughing And Sneezing; Your Muscles Ache; Your Nose Is An Active Mucus Volcano. These Symptoms -- So Familiar At This Time Of Year -- Can Mean Only One Thing: Tiny Fanged Snails Are Eating Your Brain.

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'm A Big Believer In Anesthesia. I Think It Should Be Used For Every Medical Procedure, Indlucing Routine Physicals.

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.

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

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.

Mother Nature Clearly Intended For Us To Get Our Food From The "patty" Group, Which Includes Hamburgers, Fish Sticks, And Mcnuggets- Foods That Have Had All Of Their Organs Safely Removed.

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. . . .

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.

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.

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

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.

Have You Noticed That Whatever Sport You're Trying To Learn, Some Earnest Person Is Always Telling You To Keep Your Knees Bent?

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

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.

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

Without Question, The Greatest Invention In The History Of Mankind Is Beer. Oh, I Grant You That The Wheel Was Also A Fine Invention, But The Wheel Does Not Go Nearly As Well With Pizza.

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.

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

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.

Never Allow A Child To Spend All Of His Allowance. Insist That He Set Aside A Certain Amount Of Money Every Week And Put It In A Safe Place, Where You Can Get It If You Need To Buy Beer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Dogs Make Good Pets Because They Are Very Loyal

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.

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

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

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.

The Average Tax Payer Is Not A Big Voluntary Supporter Of The Arts. The Only Art That The Average Taxpayer Buys Voluntarily Either Has A Picture Of Bart Simpson On It Or Little Suction Cups On Its Feet So You Can Stick It Onto A Car Window.

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

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

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.

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."

A Printer Consists Of Three Main Parts: The Case, The Jammed Paper Tray And The Blinking Red Light.

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.

Trending Author

Mayer Hawthorne

Category