When my generation was your age, we took crazy risks. The wildest thing was - prepare to be shocked - we deliberately ingested carbohydrates!

Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you're told.

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

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

Washington is nicknamed "The Evergreen State" because it sounds better than "The Incessant Nagging Drizzle State."

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!

Spreadsheet: a kind of program that lets you sit at your desk and ask all kinds of neat "what if?" questions and generate thousands of numbers instead of actually working.