Background Image

...

The Thing I Have Learned, Especially In The Internet Age, Probably The Easiest Thing In The World Is To Declare That Something Is Not Funny. I Mean It's Not Actually Humor To Say Something Is Not Funny, But It Is Viewed By A Lot Of People - And By That I Mean Mainly Snarky Young Internet Men - As A Kind Of Humor In And Of Itself Is Putting Down Other People's Efforts At Humor. And I Don't Care That Much Anymore About That Because I Know How Easy That Is To Do.

-Dave Barry

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Thing I Have

Dave Barry

...

The Thing I Have Learned, Especially In The Internet Age, Probably The Easiest Thing In The World Is To Declare That Something Is Not Funny. I Mean It's Not Actually Humor To Say Something Is Not Funny, But It Is Viewed By A Lot Of People - And By That I Mean Mainly Snarky Young Internet Men - As A Kind Of Humor In And Of Itself Is Putting Down Other People's Efforts At Humor. And I Don't Care That Much Anymore About That Because I Know How Easy That Is To Do.

Views: 86210

Topic

More From Dave Barry

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

When I Say "dogs", I'm Talking About Dogs, Which Are Large, Bounding, Salivating Animals, Usually With Bad Breath. I Am Not Talking About Those Little Squeaky Things You Can Hold On Your Lap And Carry Around. Zoologically Speaking, These Are Not Dogs At All; They Are Members Of The Pillow Family.

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

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 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.

Why Else Do We Have Miami, If Not To Give Me Material?

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

Falling In Love

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.

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

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

I Believe It Was Shakespeare, Or Possibly Howard Cosell, Who First Observed That Marriage Is Very Much Like A Birthday Candle, In That 'the Flames Of Passion Burn Brightest When The Wick Of Intimacy Is First Ignited By The Disposable Butane Lighter Of Physical Attraction, But Sooner Or Later The Heat Of Familiarity Causes The Wax Of Boredom To Drip All Over The Vanilla Frosting Of Novelty And The Shredded Coconut Of Romance.' I Could Not Have Phrased It Better Myself.

The Thing I Have Learned, Especially In The Internet Age, Probably The Easiest Thing In The World Is To Declare That Something Is Not Funny. I Mean It's Not Actually Humor To Say Something Is Not Funny, But It Is Viewed By A Lot Of People - And By That I Mean Mainly Snarky Young Internet Men - As A Kind Of Humor In And Of Itself Is Putting Down Other People's Efforts At Humor. And I Don't Care That Much Anymore About That Because I Know How Easy That Is To Do.

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

I’ve Noticed That One Thing About Parents Is That No Matter What Stage Your Child Is In, The Parents Who Have Older Children Always Tell You The Next Stage Is Worse.

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

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.

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

The Voice Belonged To Mr. Pzyrbovich, An Algebra Teacher Who Was Always Called Mr. P, For Obvious Reasons. He Has A Heavy Accent, Which A Lot Of Kids Said Made Him Hard To Understand, Although To Be Fair Some Of These Kids Would Have Never Understood Algebra Anyway.

When I Read That I Had To Go To Gettysburg.

People Don't Like It When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity. When You Make Fun Of A Celebrity, You'll Hear From Really Loyal Fans Of That Celebrity.

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.

France: As A Professional Journalist, I Like The Idea Of A Society Where It Is Considered An Acceptable Occupation To Basically Sit Around And Drink.

Here's A Man Who Was Twice Elected To The Most Powerful Position On Earth Despite Needing A Teleprompter To Correctly Identify What Year It Was.

Scientists Tell Us That The Fastest Animal In The World, With A Speed Of 120 Mph, Is A Cow Dropped Out Of A Helicopter.

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.

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.

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine. Better Probably, Because You Haven't Had Four Beers.

The Democrats Seem To Be Basically Nicer People, But They Have Demonstrated Time And Again That They Have The Management Skills Of Celery.

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.

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 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.

If A Woman Has To Choose Between Catching A Fly Ball And Saving An Infant's Life, She Will Choose To Save The Infant's Life Without Even Considering If There Are Men On Base.

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

Actually, There Are People From All Ove - Not Just Latin America, Certainly Not Just Cuba, But All Over Europe, All Over The United States. I Like That. I Like Knowing A Lot Of Different Types Of People. And I Can Afford To Live In A Relatively Safe Part Of Miami.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Recently Had My Annual Physical Examination, Which I Get Once Every Seven Years, And When The Nurse Weighed Me, I Was Shocked To Discover How Much Stronger The Earth's Gravitational Pull Has Become Since 1990.

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.

You've Read Newspaper Stories About Elderly Widows Who Die And Leave Their Entire Estates To Their Pet Cats, Right? Well, Your Cat Reads Those Stories Too, And Has Spent Most Of Its Skulking, Devious Little Life Dreaming About Inheriting All Your Money.

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.

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

What I Need Is A Search Engine That, No Matter What I Type In, Comes Back With Go Back To Work.

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.

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."

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.

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.

When Doctors Describe Pain As Experiencing "discomfort," It's Like Saying Hiroshima Experienced "urban Renewal".

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.

The Reason It's Called "grape Nuts" Is That It Contains "dextrose," Which Is Also Sometimes Called "grape Sugar," And Also Because "grape Nuts" Is Catchier, In Terms Of Marketing, Than "a Cross Between Gerbil Food And Gravel," Which Is What It Tastes Like.

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

I Never Stop Running. I'm Not One Of The Weenies Who Drop Out Just Because The Electoral College Votes. I'm Still In The Race. I'm An Extremely Corrupt Candidate And I Stress That In Case Anybody In Our Reading Audience Is Interested In Sending Me Money.

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

There Was Nowhere To Sit Except The Bunk, Which Was Covered With Rotting Food, And A Wooden Stool, Upon Which Sat A Large Fur-covered Lump—an Old Cheese, Perhaps, Or A Dead Cat.

Headbangers' Are People Who Like Heavy-metal Music, Which Is Performed By Skinny Men With Huge Hair Who Stomp Around The Stage, Striking Their Instruments And Shrieking Angrily, Apparently Because Somebody Has Stolen All Their Shirts.

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

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

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

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

I Care About Our Young People, And I Wish Them Great Success, Because They Are Our Hope For The Future, And Some Day, When My Generation Retires, They Will Have To Pay Us Trillions Of Dollars In Social Security

Hardware: This Is The Part Of The Computer That Stops Working When You Spill Beer On It.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Only Really Good Place To Buy Lumber Is At A Store Where The Lumber Has Already Been Cut And Attached Together In The Form Of Furniture Finished And Put Inside Boxes.

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

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.

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.

[there Is] A Breed Of Fashion Models

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.

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.

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

I Am Not A Violent Person. I Am A Product Of The Flower Power '60s. I Have Actually Worn Bell-bottomed Jeans.

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.

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

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

Thanks To My Solid Academic Training, Today I Can Write Hundreds Of Words On Virtually Any Topic Without Possessing A Shred Of Information Which Is How I Got A Good Job In Journalism.

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.

The Best Way To Understand This Whole Issue Is To Look At What The Government Does: It Takes Money From Some People, Keeps A Bunch Of It, And Gives The Rest To Other People.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Here In Miami, On Weekends, Amusement-seekers Will Come To The Marina, Set Up Folding Chairs, And Spend A Highly Entertaining Day Watching Boat Owners Perform Comical Maneuvers Such As Forgetting To Set Their Parking Brakes And Having Their Cars Roll Down The Ramp And Disappear, Burbling Gaily, Below The Surface.

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

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 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.)

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

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.

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.

You Can Say Any Fool Thing To A Dog And The Dog Will Just Give You This Look That Says, 'my Gosh, You're Right! I Never Would've Thought Of That!

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

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.

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

Don't Emphasise Money If You Don't Have Much; Be Happy

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

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

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.

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.

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

Editorials Are Written By People Who Have Agreed To Have Several Strong Opinions A Day And To Write Them Down, Provided They Do Not Have To Sign Their Names.

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

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

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

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When Prince Charles Speaks, Everybody Pretends To Be Fascinated, Even Though He Has Never Said Anything Interesting Except In That Intercepted Telephone Conversation Wherein He Expressed The Desire To Be A Feminine Hygeine Product.

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.

The Ultimate Camping Trip Was The Lewis And Clark Expedition.

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.

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.

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.

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?

It Would Be Hard To Conceive Of Any Activity More Useless Than Stamp Collecting.

Stamp Collecting

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.

If You Explain So Clearly That Nobody Can Misunderstand, Somebody Will. If You're Right 90% Of The Time, Why Quibble About The Remaining 3%? In Africa Some Of The Native Tribes Have A Custom Of Beating The Ground With Clubs And Uttering Spine Chilling Cries. Anthropologists Call This A Form Of Primitive Self-expression. In America We Call It Golf.

Most Guys Believe That They're Supposed To Know How To Fix Things. This Is A Responsibility That Guys Have Historically Taken Upon Themselves To Compensate For The Fact That They Never Clean The Bathroom. A Guy Can Walk Into A Bathroom Containing A Colony Of Commode Fungus So Advanced That It Is Registered To Vote, But The Guy Would Never Dream Of Cleaning It, Because He Has To Keep Himself Rested In Case A Mechanical Emergency Breaks Out.

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.

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.

I Do Not Mean To Be The Slightest Bit Critical Of Tv Newspeople, Who Do A Superb Job, Considering That They Operate Under Severe Time Constraints And Have The Intellectual Depth Of Hamsters. But Tv News Can Only Present The "bare Bones" Of A Story; It Takes A Newspaper, With Its Capability To Present Vast Amounts Of Information, To Render The Story Truly Boring.

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.

I Read "remembrance Of Things Past" In The Original French. I Never Start The Day Without Reading Me Some [marcel] Proust.

The Spanish Government, Having Run Completely Out Of Money, Secretly Sold The Pyrenees To China, And Is Now Separated From France Only By Traffic Cones.

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.

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

You Should Never Say Anything To A Woman That Even Remotely Suggests That You Think She's Pregnant Unless You Can See An Actual Baby Emerging From Her At That Moment.

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 Places Where Trails Do Not Exist Are Not Well Marked.

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.

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

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.

'escargot' Is French For 'fat Crawling Bag Of Phlegm'.

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

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.

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.

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

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?"

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.

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

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe Is Gossip.

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.

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

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

I Had No Shoes And I Pitied Myself. Then I Met A Man Who Had No Feet, So I Took His Shoes.

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

The Hardest Thing About Being A Guy Is That Women Don't Accept That You Really Are Just A Simple, Pathetic, Labrador Retriever-like Creature. That We Live In A World Were Women Actually Expect You To Think Thoughtful Thoughts, And Have Real Emotions, Which We Don't Have. Having To Try To Live Up To The Imaginary Ideal That Women Have Of What Men Are, Instead Of Just Being What You Are, Which Is Just A Pathetic Creature, But Still.

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!"

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

My Therapist Told Me The Way To Achieve True Inner Peace Is To Finish What I Start. So Far Today, I Have Finished 2 Bags Of M&m's And A Chocolate Cake. I Feel Better Already.

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

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.

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.

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

What I Want To Know Is: Why Is It Important To Have Visible Stomach Muscles? I Grew Up In An Era (the Paleolithic) When People Kept Their Stomach Muscles Discreetly Out Of Sight.

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

Dogs Need To Sniff The Ground; It's How They Keep Abreast Of Current Events. The Ground Is A Giant Dog Newspaper, Containing All Kinds Of Late-breaking Dog News Items, Which, If They Are Especially Urgent, Are Often Continued In The Next Yard.

The One Thing That Unites All Human Beings, Regardless Of Age, Gender, Religion Or Ethnic Background, Is That We All Believe We Are Above-average Drivers.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

Never Trust Anything You Read In A Travel Article.

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.

You Can Use The Internet To Find Out, From Anywhere On The Planet: Exactly How Much Coffee Is In A Certain Coffee Machine At Cambridge University In England; Exactly How Many Sodas Are Available In Certain Vending Machines At Certain Major Universities; And Much, Much More.

Cambridge University

People Are Afraid To Own Their Own Homes. People Are Afraid Their Own Government Will Catch Them Fixing Their Houses.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.)

Trending Author

Allison Pearson

Jonathan Carroll

Category