When the boomers started to have kids reach adolescence, there was suddenly this feeling that they needed to protect their kids from all the same things they did when they were kids. Which I guess is a natural tendency, but it makes for a less fun society.

Most recently I read Michael Lewis "Boomerang." The other guy I love is Bill Bryson.

It's very slow for me to create humor. It takes me a long time to write a humor piece. It takes days.

Newspaper readership is declining like crazy. In fact, there's a good chance that nobody is reading my column.

By today's beauty standards, of course, Marilyn Monroe was an oil tanker.

The planes are crowded and noisy and late, and everybody hates everybody. If armed terrorists had tried to hijack any of the flights I've been on lately, we passengers would have swiftly beaten them to death with those hard rolls you get with your in-flight meals.

The Japanese tend to be far more co-operative and docile and group-oriented. It would be easier to get the entire population of Tokyo to wear matching outfits than to get any two randomly selected Americans to agree on pizza toppings.