There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

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.

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.

Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

Never try to put all the chemicals in the entire world in your body at the same time.

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 hope I don't sound like an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, but when I hear about people making vast fortunes without doing any productive work or contributing anything to society, my reaction is: “How can I get in on that?