Earnest is our dog. She senses instantly that something is wrong, and guided by that timeless and unerring nurturing instinct that all female dogs have, she tries to lick my ears off.

Several months ago, out of the blue, a company named "Cingular" started sending me bills. I had never heard of Cingular, and I honestly did not know what these bills were for, so I put them in the pile where I keep documents that I intend to scrutinize more carefully later on, after my death. Then I started seeing TV commercials for Cingular, but of course they did not make it clear what Cingular is, because the First Rule of Modern Advertising is: "Never reveal what you are advertising."

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.

The letters in 'Brace Beemer' can be arranged to spell 'Embrace Beer.'

We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.

Socially prominent people are very fond of disease, because it gives them a chance to have these really elaborate charity functions, and the newspaper headlines say 'EVENING IN PARIS BALL RAISES MONEY TO FIGHT GOUT' instead of 'RICH PEOPLE AMUSE THEMSELVES'.

Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the 'most reliable Windows ever.' To me, this is like saying that asparagus is 'the most articulate vegetable ever.'