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The Universe Has Fascinated Mankind For Many, Many Years, Dating Back To The Very Earliest Episodes Of Star Trek, When The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Set Out, Wearing Pajamas, To Explore The Boundless Voids Of Space, Which Turned Out To Be As Densely Populated As Queens, New York. Virtually Every Planet They Found Was Inhabited, Usually By Evil Beings With Cheap Costumes And Russian Accents, So Finally The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Returned To Earth To Gain Weight And Make Movies.

-Dave Barry

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The Universe Has Fascinated

Dave Barry

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The Universe Has Fascinated Mankind For Many, Many Years, Dating Back To The Very Earliest Episodes Of Star Trek, When The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Set Out, Wearing Pajamas, To Explore The Boundless Voids Of Space, Which Turned Out To Be As Densely Populated As Queens, New York. Virtually Every Planet They Found Was Inhabited, Usually By Evil Beings With Cheap Costumes And Russian Accents, So Finally The Brave Crew Of The Enterprise Returned To Earth To Gain Weight And Make Movies.

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In Spain, Attempting To Obtain A Chicken Salad Sandwich, You Wind Up With A Dish Whose Name, When You Look It Up In Your Spanish-english Dictionary, Turns Out To Mean: Eel With Big Abcess.

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

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.

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!"

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

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.

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.

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

At The Time, We Were Mad At Moammar Gadhafi, Which Resulted In Us Bombing All Over Libya And Killing A Bunch Of People, But Not Him. Then Ronald Reagan Gets Up And Says We're Not Trying To Kill Him, We're Just Dropping Bombs. You Can Kill All The Libyans You Want, But Legally You Can't Try To Kill The Leader.

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.

Basically Ken Is A Very Gentle, Home-loving Person. I Remember When One Of His Stick Insects Had A Knee Infection. He Stayed Up All Night Rubbing It With Germoline And Banging Its Head On The Table.

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

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

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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.

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.

I've Been Checking With People Back In South Florida To See If Hurricane Dennis Is Going To Whack My House, And The Consensus Of The Experts Seems To Be: No, It Will Not, Unless It Does, In Which Case, Yes. So I'm Feeling Really Calm Over Here In London.

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."

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

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.

Reporters Aren't Stupid. We Were Standing Around Talking About Which Of The 900 Health-care Proposals That Nobody's Going To Accept Is That Day's Hot News. They Know How Silly That Is. But That's What They Do.

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.

In The Words Of A Very Famous Dead Person, 'a Nation That Does Not Know Its History Is Doomed To Do Poorly On The Scholastic Aptitude Test.

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

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.

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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.

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?

Bill Gates Is A Very Rich Man Today... And Do You Want To Know Why? The Answer Is One Word: Versions.

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.

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You Kids Have Fun, And Be Home By Thanksgiving!" Our Parents Would Call To Us On Halloween Night, As We Staggered Out The Front Door, Weighed Down By Hundreds Of Pounds Of Concealed Vandalism Supplies, Including Enough Raw Eggs To Feed Somalia For Decades. By Morning, Thanks To Our Efforts, The Entire Neighborhood Would Be Covered With A Layer Of Congealed Shaving Cream And Toilet Paper That, Around Certain Unpopular Neighbors' Homes, Was Hundreds Of Feet Thick. This Is How The Appalachian Mountains Were Formed.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

Rembrandt's First Name Was Beauregard, Which Is Why He Never Used It.

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

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

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.

He Was Distracted By A Giggle, And Turned To See A Rare Sight: A Girl.

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.

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

I Don't Have Any Insight Or Understanding On Anything About The Government. All I Think Is That It's Stupid - Which Is The One Perspective That's Almost Completely Lacking In Washington.

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.

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...)

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.

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.

When I'm Writing Columns, It's - All I'm Thinking About Is Jokes, Joke, Joke, Joke, Setup, Punch Line, Joke, Joke, Joke. And I Really Don't Care Where It Goes.

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.

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

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

You And Teacher,” Said Molly. “yes,” Said Peter. “she’s Very Clever. You’ll Like Her.” “i’m Sure,” Said Molly.

By Today's Beauty Standards, Of Course, Marilyn Monroe Was An Oil Tanker.

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.

Like Many Members Of The Uncultured, Cheez-it Consuming Public, I Am Not Good At Grasping Modern Art.

Dna Is An Abbreviation For Deoxyribonucleicantidisestablishmentarianism, A Complex String Of Syllables.

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.

Never Trust Anything You Read In A Travel Article.

A Sense Of Humor Is A Measurement Of The Extent To Which We Realize That We Are Trapped In A World Almost Totally Devoid Of Reason. Laughter Is How We Express The Anxiety We Feel At This Knowledge.

Please Try Not To Be Such A Wiener-head.

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.

At The Height Of Rush Hour, People On The London Underground Actually Say "excuse Me." Imagine What Would Happen If You Tried An Insane Stunt Like That On The New York City Subway. The Other Passengers Would Take It As A Sign Of Weakness, And There'd Be A Fight Over Who Got To Keep Your Ears As A Trophy.

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.

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

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.

On Behalf Of The Newspaper Industry I Wish To Announce Some Changes We're Making To Serve You Better. When I Say 'serve You Better,'' I Mean 'increase Our Profits.' We Newspapers Are Very Big On Profits These Days. We're A Business, Just Like Any Other Business, Except That We Employ English Majors.

What Women Want: To Be Loved, To Be Listened To, To Be Desired, To Be Respected, To Be Needed, To Be Trusted, And Sometimes, Just To Be Held. What Men Want: Tickets To The World Series.

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

I Actually Like South Florida. I Never Lived In A More Interesting Place Than This. I've Never Met A Wider Range Of People. I Guess When I Came Here I Thought There Were Cubans And Then There Were People From New York And That Was Miami. Now I Know That It's Cubans, People From New York, And Some People From New Jersey.

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.

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

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.

Proofread Carefully To See If You Any Words Out.

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.

Don't You Wish You Had A Job Like Mine? All You Have To Do Is Think Up A Certain Number Of Words! Plus, You Can Repeat Words! And They Don't Even Have To Be True!

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

You Should Not Confuse Your Career With Your Life.

The Best Baby-sitters, Of Course, Are The Baby’s Grandparents. You Feel Completely Comfortable Entrusting Your Baby To Them For Long Periods, Which Is Why Most Grandparents Flee To Florida.

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.

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

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

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

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