'Titanic' tugs at emotions

(CNN) -- I'll be perfectly honest.  Going in, the main reason 
I was happy to finally be seeing "Titanic," director James 
Cameron's much-ballyhooed $200 million epic, was because it 
meant that I wouldn't have to watch that damn trailer 
anymore.  When two studios get together and make a movie that 
costs more than their own privately funded South American 
guerrilla war, you have to figure they're going to make dead 
certain that the world feels it has to attend when 
they're done blowing all that dough.  So, obviously, the 
first question that needs to be answered is, is the end 
result really worth all that money?

The answer is a resounding "yes," but with philosophical 
qualifiers.  The money, as they say, is on the screen, but, 
happily, there's a lot more to it than that.  Quite 
surprisingly, when you consider that he's usually more 
concerned with The Terminator theatrically pulling drunken 
bikers' arms out of their sockets, Cameron has devised a 
tender love story between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio 
that serves as the main focus of "Titanic's" storyline, and 
it works beautifully.

I've been saying since the day that I heard Cameron was going 
to film the story that it was doomed to failure because the 
only thing anybody is interested in concerning the Titanic is 
that it took a dive.  Incredibly, though, I got so caught up 
in his star-crossed lovers while watching the movie, I was 
actually surprised when that iceberg approached out of the 
darkness.  This is the equivalent of watching "Star Wars" and 
getting immersed in the Han Solo/Princess Leia story while 
forgetting all about the Death Star.

The film opens with a brief prologue in which Bill Paxton, as 
a modern-day treasure hunter, explores the wreckage of the 
real-life Titanic far beneath the Atlantic Ocean.  Cameron 
actually took his camera 2 1/2 miles down to see the real 
thing, and the results are hauntingly impressive, with 
decaying railings and smashed bedframes reminding us that 
this was an actual tragedy, not a figment of some 
screenwriter's imagination.  Paxton's character is looking 
for a huge diamond that was supposed to have been stored 
onboard the ship when it went down.  His exploits are 
reported on television, and this brings him into contact with 
a 100-year-old woman (nicely played by 87-year-old 
whippersnapper Gloria Stuart) who claims to have been on the 
ship and in possession of the diamond at the time of the 
disaster.

As Stuart tells her story, a shot of the rotting wreckage 
morphs back in time to 1912 and the movie-proper begins.  
Rose is now a beautiful 17-year-old played by Kate Winslet, 
who isn't 17 but has the beautiful part down cold.  She's 
boarding the ship for its maiden (and, of course, only) 
voyage with her super-wealthy, uber-snooty fianc&#233;e, Cal 
Hockley.  Hockley is played by Billy Zane, and he's easily 
the weak link in the film.  Cal is the only character that's 
poorly written, and Zane telegraphs his villainous line 
readings (and wiggles his eyebrows) like he's about to tie 
Tom Mix's girlfriend to the railroad tracks.  

DiCaprio plays Jack, a free-spirited young artist who's so 
suddenly won a ticket on the voyage in a card game that he 
hops onboard with just minutes to spare.  It doesn't take 
long before DiCaprio (understandably) starts salivating over 
the heavenly Winslet, and a Romeo and Juliet-type love story 
ensues.  Except that Juliet is a rich dame with ritzy 
cross-Atlantic digs.  Romeo is down below with the riffraff, 
but he's cute as a shiny new dime and his hair hangs in his 
eyes when he draws pictures.  Doncha just want 'em to kiss?

Well, yes, you do.  There's an honest sweetness to the love 
story.  This is no scoop, but the two leads make for an 
attractive couple, and, though their dialogue is sometimes a 
little too junior high school love diary to be completely 
effective, Winslet and DiCaprio display a great deal of 
gee-whiz chemistry.  For once, DiCaprio's boyishness works in 
his favor.  Jack is less cocky than he is fun-loving.  He 
revels in the elegance and spontaneity of his journey back 
home to the States, and the splendor of production designer 
Peter Lamont's letter-perfect sets is enough to turn 
anybody's head.  The production as a whole is exquisite, a 
seamless re-creation of what was, until now, a 
once-in-a-lifetime journey.

Then everything smacks into a bunch of ice and sinks.  I 
really can't believe it came to this, but (for about 15 
minutes, anyway) the movie actually slows down when 
the ship starts filling up with water.  It's ironic that the 
actual Titanic went down on April 15, considering how taxing 
Cameron's depiction of the event gets in its early stages.  
Zane's character, who's been doing an Edgar Kennedy slow-burn 
while his (previously miserable) fiancée happily cavorts 
around the ship with Mr. Cutie-Pie, goes through all kinds of 
histrionics trying to pry the two apart while the entire set 
gradually starts to tilt.  This display includes handcuffing 
DiCaprio to a heating pipe, which forces Winslet to make like 
an action movie heroine, running through waist-deep water 
while waving an ax.  Her lipstick never smudges, though, and 
her eyes remain blue.

However, once the compartments start exploding with H2O and 
everyone commences to clawing their way into the few 
lifeboats that were available, things pick up considerably.  
The sight of this magnificent vessel pointing several stories 
up in the night air and splitting in half is truly 
staggering.  Cameron pauses periodically to insert moments of 
real poetry during the ordeal, most memorably when he dwells 
on a beautiful woman who's diaphanous gown swirls in the 
water above her after she's drowned. The hull's final moments 
as it slides into the water are astounding.  There's also a 
magnificent shot of several hundred passengers floating in 
the icy ocean after the ship has made its final descent.  
It's a peerless intermingling of believable terror and movie 
spectacle.

Now for those philosophical qualifiers.  I don't think it's 
even open to debate as to whether there are better things to 
do with $200 million than to make one movie.  By 
that, I don't mean that the studios need to be spending their 
bucks on medical research.  The industry is painting itself 
into a corner by upping the ante every time an effects 
director like Cameron steps behind the camera, and, since 
"Titanic" looks like it's going to be a hit, the end is not 
yet in sight.  There are a lot of young directors out there 
struggling to make their voices heard above the mutli-zillion 
dollar glub-glub, and it won't be long before each and every 
one of them will have to abandon ship for the more forgiving 
waters of independent filmmaking.  

"Titanic" is an unbelievable voyage, but not all big-bucks 
gambles pay off like this one has, with a formidable piece of 
popular art.  Artistically and financially "Titanic" will 
probably win in the final tally, but (if the movies of the 
past several years teach us anything) it's a "Waterworld" 
after all.  To have to be re-taught that at even one dollar, 
more than 200 million will be a hard lesson indeed.

Remember how much you liked the first "Rocky" movie, how 
delicate, exciting, and ultimately inspiring it was?  
Allowing for inflation, that movie today would cost 5 million 
bucks.

"Titanic" is one swell ride.  The gradually building 
intensity of the plunge could scare young children, although 
my 9-year-old nephew who watched the movie with me loved it.  
Surprisingly, considering its rating, Winslet's bare breasts 
are in full view as DiCaprio sketches her.  There's a 
God-awful Celine Dion song over the end credits for those of 
you who like that kind of thing.  Everyone else will be 
forced to make a face.  PG-13.  207 minutes, but they zip by.

                                                                              
 How to remove a dead whale                                                     
                                                                                
 The Farside comes to life in Oregon.                                           
                                                                                
 I am absolutely not making this incident up; in fact I have it all on          
 videotape.  The tape is from a local TV news show in Oregon, which sent        
 a reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale that    
 washed up on the beach.  The responsibility for getting rid of the carcass     
 was placed on the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory      
 that highways and whales are very similar in the sense of being large objects. 
 So anyway, the highway engineers hit upon the plan--remember, I am not making  
 this up--of blowing up the whale with dynamite. The thinking is that the       
 whale would be blown into small pieces, which would be eaten by seagulls,      
 and that would be that.  A textbook whale removal.                             
                                                                                
 So they moved the spectators back up the beach, put a half-ton of dynamite     
 next to the whale and set it off.  I am probably not guilty of                 
 understatement when I say that what follows, on the videotape, is the most     
 wonderful event in the history of the universe. First you see the whale        
 carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame. Then you hear the happy  
 spectators shouting "Yayy!" and "Whee!" Then, suddenly, the crowd's tone       
 changes. You hear a new sound like "splud."  You hear a woman's voice          
 shouting "Here come pieces of...MY GOD!" Something smears the camera lens.     
                                                                                
 Later, the reporter explains: "The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave 
 way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere."    
 One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter of a mile      
 away. Remaining on the beach were several rotting whale sectors the size of    
 condominium units.  There was no sign of the seagulls who had no doubt         
 permanently relocated to Brazil.                                               
                                                                                
 This is a very sobering videotape.  Here at the institute we watch it often,   
 especially at parties. But this is no time for gaiety.  This is a time to      
 get hold of the folks at the Oregon State Highway Division and ask them,       
 when they get done cleaning up the beaches, to give us an estimate on the      
 US Capitol.                                                                    
               

    DAVE BARRY ON COLLEGE

 Many of you young persons out there are seriously thinking about going
 to college.  (That is, of course, a lie.)  College is basically a
 bunch of rooms where you sit for roughly two thousand hours and try to
 memorize things.  The two thousand hours are spread out over four
 years; you spend the rest of the time sleeping and trying to get
 dates.

 Basically, you learn two kinds of things in college:

         1.  Things you will need to know in later life (two hours).
         2.  Things you will not need to know in later life (1,998
 hours).  These are the things you learn in classes whose names end in
 -ology, - -osophy, -istry, -ics, and so on.  The idea is, you memorize
 these things, then write them down in little exam books, then forget
 them.  If you fail to forget them, you become a professor and have to
 stay in college for the rest of your life.

 It's very difficult to forget everything.  For example, when I was in
 college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three
 metaphysical poets other than John Donne.  I have managed to forget
 one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named
 Vaughan and Crashaw.  Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something
 important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or
 tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind,
 right there in the supermarket.  It's a terrible waste of brain cells.

 After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to
 choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget
 the most things about.  Here is a very important piece of advice: Be
 sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right
 Answers.  This means you must not major in mathematics, physics,
 biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts.
 If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into
 class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer
 of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result
 to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with exactly the
 answer the professor has in mind, you fail.  The same is true of
 chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen
 combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you.  He wants you to
 come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed
 on.  Scientists are extremely snotty about this.

 So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology,
 and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what
 anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual
 facts.  I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a
 quick overview of each:

 ENGLISH: This involves writing papers about long books you have read
 little snippets of just before class.  Here is a tip on how to get
 good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book
 that anybody with any common sense would say.  For example, suppose
 you are studying Moby-Dick.  Anybody with any common sense would say
 that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book
 refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times.  So in
 your paper, you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland.
 Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked
 Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative.  If you can
 regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you
 should major in English.

 PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding
 there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch.  You should
 major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs.

 PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams.
 Psychologists are obsessed with rats and dreams.  I once spent an
 entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain
 sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing.  The rat
 learned much faster.  My roommate is now a doctor.  If you like rats
 or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in
 psychology.

 SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and
 away the number one subject.  I sat through hundreds of hours of
 sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never
 once heard or read a coherent statement.  This is because sociologists
 want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time
 translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding
 code.  If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do
 the same thing.  For example, suppose you have observed that children
 cry when they fall down.  You should write: "Methodological
 observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated
 isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between
 groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If
 you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large
 government grant.
 

Relationships (by Dave Barry)
 
CONTRARY to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.
 
Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing
anybody else.
 
And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: ''Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?''
 
And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.
 
And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.
 
And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we
are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to
keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading  toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?
 
And Roger is thinking: . . . so that means it was . . . let's see . .
. 
February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . . Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.
 
And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed --even before I sensed it -- that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.
 
And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.
 
And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too.
God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.
 
And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.
 
And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly
do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.
 
And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their . . .
 
''Roger,'' Elaine says aloud.
 
''What?'' says Roger, startled.
 
''Please don't torture yourself like this,'' she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. ''Maybe I should never have . . . Oh God, I feel so. . . ''
 
(She breaks down, sobbing.)
 
''What?'' says Roger.
 
''I'm such a fool,'' Elaine sobs. ''I mean, I know there's no knight.  I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse.''
 
''There's no horse?'' says Roger.
 
''You think I'm a fool, don't you?'' Elaine says.
 
''No!'' says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
 
''It's just that . . . It's that I . . . I need some time,'' Elaine
says.
 
(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
 
''Yes,'' he says.
 
(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
 
''Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?'' she says.
 
''What way?'' says Roger.
 
''That way about time,'' says Elaine.
 
''Oh,'' says Roger. ''Yes.''
 
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)
 
''Thank you, Roger,'' she says.
 
''Thank you,'' says Roger.
 
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Rogger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heardof. A
tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he
doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)
 
The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.
 
Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say:
 
''Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?''
 


 December 7, 1997, in the Miami Herald
 Decaf Poopacino
 BY DAVE BARRY

 I have exciting news for anybody who would like to pay a lot of money for coffee
 that has passed all the way through an animal's digestive tract.

 And you just know there are plenty of people who would. Specialty coffees are
 very popular these days, attracting millions of consumers, every single one of
 whom is standing in line ahead of me whenever I go to the coffee place at the
 airport to grab a quick cup on my way to catch a plane. These consumers are
 always ordering mutant beverages with names like ``mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette
 lattespressacino,'' beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and
 complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy
 products, and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor.

 Meanwhile, back in the line, there is growing impatience among those of us who
 just want a plain old cup of coffee so that our brains will start working and we
 can remember what our full names are and why we are catching an airplane. We want
 to strike the lattespressacino people with our carry-on baggage and scream ``GET
 OUT OF OUR WAY, YOU TREND GEEKS, AND LET US HAVE OUR COFFEE!'' But of course we
 couldn't do anything that active until we've had our coffee.

 It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need
 for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of
 recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin
 addicts. I bet that when serious heroin addicts go to purchase their heroin, they
 do not tolerate waiting in line whilesome dilettante in front of them orders a
 hazelnut smack-a-cino with cinnamon sprinkles.

 The reason some of us need coffee is that it contains caffeine, which makes us
 alert. Of course it is very important to remember that caffeine is a drug, and,
 like any drug, it is a lot of fun.

 No! Wait! What I meant to say is: Like any drug, caffeine can have serious side
 effects if we ingest too much. This fact was first noticed in ancient Egypt when
 a group of workers, who were supposed to be making a birdbath, began drinking
 Egyptian coffee, which is very strong, and wound up constructing the pyramids.

 I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s, when, as a "cub" reporter
 for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., I had to stay awake while writing
 phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a
 vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three
 liquids squirted out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But
 I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I've
 had several cups. (I can't do anything useful afterward, either; that's why I'm a
 columnist.)

 But here's my point: This specialty-coffee craze has gone too far. I say this in
 light of a letter I got recently from alert reader Bo Bishop. He sent me an
 invitation he received from a local company to a "private tasting of the highly
 prized Luwak coffee,'' which "at $300 a pound . . . is one of the most expensive
 drinks in the world.'' The invitation states that this coffee is named for the
 luwak, a "member of the weasel family'' that lives on the Island of Java and eats
 coffee berries; as the berries pass through the luwak, a "natural fermentation"
 takes place, and the berry seeds -- the coffee beans -- come out of the luwak
 intact. The beans are then gathered, washed, roasted, and sold to coffee
 connoisseurs.

 The invitation states: "We wish to pass along this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
 to taste such a rarity.''

 Or, as Bo Bishop put it: "They're selling processed weasel doodoo for $300 a
 pound."

 I first thought this was a clever hoax designed to ridicule the coffee craze.
 Tragically, it is not. There really is a Luwak coffee. I know because I bought
 some from a specialty-coffee company in Atlanta. I paid $37.50 for two ounces of
 beans. I was expecting the beans to look exotic, considering where they'd been,
 but they looked like regular coffee beans. In fact, for a moment I was afraid
 that they were just regular beans, and that I was being ripped off.

 Then I thought: What kind of world is this when you worry that people might be
 ripping you off by selling you coffee that was NOT pooped out by a weasel?

 So anyway, I ground the beans up and brewed the coffee and drank some. You know
 how sometimes, when you're really skeptical about something, but then you finally
 try it, you discover that it's really good, way better than you would have
 thought possible? This is not the case with Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee, in my
 opinion, tastes like somebody washed a dead cat in it.

 But I predict it's going to be popular anyway, because it's expensive. One of
 these days, the people in front of me at the airport coffee place are going to be
 ordering decaf poopacino. I'm thinking of switching to heroin.




                  WHY DO GUYS ACT MACHO?  SMILE WHEN YOU SAY THAT!!
                                 (by Dave Barry)


 Our topic today, in our continuing series on guys, is:  Why Guys Act Macho.

 One recent morning, I was driving in Miami on Interstate 95, which should have
 a sign that says:  WARNING!  HIGH TESTOSTERONE LEVELS NEXT 15 MILES.  In the
 left lane, one behind the other, were two well-dressed middle-age men, both
 driving luxury telephone-equipped German automobiles.  They looked like
 responsible business executives, probably named Roger, with good jobs and nice
 families and male pattern baldness, the kind of guys whose most violent
 physical
 activity, on an average day, is stapling.  They were driving normally, except
 that the guy in front, Roger One, was thoughtlessly going only about 65 miles
 an hour, which in Miami is the speed limit normally observed inside car
 washes.
 So Roger Two pulled up behind until the two cars were approximately one electr
 on apart, and honked his horn.

 Of course, Roger One was not about to stand for THAT. You let a guy honk at
 you,
 and you are basically admitting that he has a bigger stapler.  So Roger One
 stomped on his brakes, forcing Roger Two to swerve onto the shoulder, where,
 showing amazing presence of mind in an emergency, he was able to make obscene
 gestures WITH BOTH HANDS.

 At this point, both Rogers accelerated to approximately 147 miles per hour and
 began weaving violently from lane to lane through dense rush-hour traffic,
 each
 risking numerous lives in an effort to get in front of the other, screaming
 and
 getting spit all over their walnut dashboards.  I quickly lost sight of them,
 but I bet neither one backed down.  Their coworkers probably wondered what
 happened to them.  "Where the heck is Roger?"  they probably said later that
 morning, unaware that even as they spoke, the dueling Rogers, still only
 inches
 apart, were approaching the Canadian border.

 This is not unusual guy behavior.  One time, in a Washington, D.C. traffic
 jam,
 I saw two guys, also driving nice cars, reach a point where their lanes were
 supposed to merge.  But neither one would yield, so they very slowly -- we are
 talking maybe 1 mile an hour -- DROVE INTO EACH OTHER.

 Other examples of pointlessly destructive or hurtful macho guy behavior
 include:

        - Guys at sporting events getting into shoving matches and occasionally
          sustaining fatal heart attacks over such issues as who was next in
          line for pretzels.
        - Guys on the street making mouth noises at women.
        - Boxing.
        - Foreign Policy.

 Why do guys do these things?  One possible explanation is that they believe
 women are impressed.  In fact, however, most women have the opposite reaction
 to macho behavior.  You rarely hear women say things like, "Norm, when that
 vending machine failed to give you a Three Musketeers bar and you punched it
 so hard that you broke your hand and we had to go to the hospital instead of
 to my best friend's daughter's wedding, I became so filled with lust for you
 that I nearly tore off all my clothes right there in the emergency room."  No,
 women are far more likely to say:  "Norm, you have the brains of an Odor
 Eater."

 But the real explanation for macho behavior is not that guys are stupid.  The
 real explanation is that because of complex and subtle hormone-based chemical
 reactions occurring in their brains, guys frequently ACT stupid.  This is true
 throughout the animal kingdom, where you have examples such as male elks, who,
 instead of simply flipping a coin, will bang their heads against each other
 for
 hours to see who gets to mate with the female elk, who is on the sidelines,
 filing her nails and wondering how she ever got hooked up with such a moron
 species, until eventually she gets bored and wanders off to bed.

 Meanwhile, the guy elks keep banging into each other until one of them finally
 "wins", although at this point his brain, which was not exactly a steel trap
 to begin with, is so badly damaged that, in his confusion, he will mate with
 the first object he encounters, including shrubbery, which is why you see so
 few baby elks around.

 Another example of macho animal behavior is guy dogs, who are so dumb they
 make
 elks look like Rhodes scholars.  Every male dog firmly believes that if he
 makes
 wee-wee in enough places, he will be declared Dominant Male Dog of the Entire
 Earth and receive a plaque plus valuable dog prizes, such as a bag of chicken
 heads.  Of course, since there are several billion dogs in the competition,
 everybody is extremely busy trying to stay ahead of everybody else.

 One time I took a hike on a mountain with two male dogs named Rubio and Moo
 Shu.
 Every three minutes Rubio would carefully select a spot and establish his
 dominance over it; then Moo Shu would come sprinting from as far as a mile
 away
 so that, despite having the entire mountain to choose from, he could establish
 His dominance over the same four square inches previously dominated by Rubio,
 who by now was several hundred yards away, dominating a new spot, which Moo
 Shu
 would then frantically sprint toward, and so on all day long, with each dog
 absolutely convinced that he was the Baddest Hombre on the planet.

 Ha ha!  At least we human males don't do THAT.  We don't need to. We have
 tanks.



                        Are You a Real Guy?
               
 
   Take This Scientific Quiz to Determine Your Guyness Quotient
                        ( by Dave Berry )
 
 
1. Alien beings from a highly advanced society visit the Earth,
   and you are the first human they encounter. As a token of
   intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but
   incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of curing all
   disease, providing an infinite supply of clean energy, wiping out
   hunger and poverty, and permanently eliminating oppression and
   violence all over the entire Earth. You decide to:
 
a. Present it to the president of the United States.
b. Present it to the secretary general of the United Nations.
c. Take it apart.
 
 
2. As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life do
   you miss the most?
 
a. Innocence.
b. Idealism.
c. Cherry bombs.
 
 
3. When is it okay to kiss another male?
 
a. When you wish to display simple and pure affection without
   regard for narrow-minded social conventions.
b. When he is the pope. (Not on the lips.)
c. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this is the
   only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business
   reasons, you have to have him killed.
 
 
4. What about hugging another male?
 
a. If he's your father and at least one of you has a fatal disease.
b. If you're performing the Heimlich maneuver. (And even in this
   case, you should repeatedly shout: "I am just dislodging food
   trapped in this male's trachea! I am not in any way aroused!")
c. If you're a professional baseball player and a teammate hits
   a home run to win the World Series, you may hug him provided that
   (1) He is legally within the basepath, (2) Both of you are wear-
   ing protective cups, and (3) You also pound him fraternally with
   your fist hard enough to cause fractures.
 
 
5. Complete this sentence: A funeral is a good time to...
 
a. ...remember the deceased and console his loved ones.
b. ...reflect upon the fleeting transience of earthly life.
c. ...tell the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer's disease and
      cancer.
 
 
6. In your opinion, the ideal pet is:
 
a. A cat.
b. A dog.
c. A dog that eats cats.
 
 
7. You have been seeing a woman for several years. She's
   attractive and intelligent, and you always enjoy being with her.
   One leisurely Sunday afternoon the two of you are taking it
   easy-- you're watching a football game; she's reading the
   papers--when she suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, tells you
   that she thinks she really loves you, but she can no longer bear
   the uncertainty of not knowing where your relationship is going.
   She says she's not asking whether you want to get married; only
   whether you believe that you have some kind of future together.
   What do you say?
 
a. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future,
   but you don't want to rush it.
b. That although you also have strong feelings for her, you
   cannot honestly say that you'll be ready anytime soon to make a
   lasting commitment, and you don't want to hurt her by holding out
   false hope.
c. That you cannot believe the Jets called a draw play on third
   and seventeen.
 
 
8. Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you
   want to spend the rest of your life with her-sharing the joys and
   the sorrows, the triumphs and the tragedies, and all the
   adventures and opportunities that the world has to offer, come
   what may. How do you tell her?
 
a. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner.
b. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her
   name, and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing her
   hair and the stars in her eyes, you tell her.
c. Tell her what?
 
 
9. One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks
   you to get your three children ready for school. Your first
   question to her is:
 
a. "Do they need to eat or anything?"
b. "They're in school already?"
c. "There are three of them?"
 
 
10. When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear?
 
a. When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new
   holes so large that you're not sure which ones were originally
   intended for your legs.
b. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules
   and has to be handled with tweezers.
c. It is never okay to throw away veteran underwear. A real guy
   checks the garbage regularly in case somebody--and we are not
   naming names, but this would be his wife--is quietly trying to
   discard his underwear, which she is frankly jealous of, because
   the guy seems to have a more intimate relationship with it than
   with her.
 
 
11. What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for
   the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for
   forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land?
 
a. He was being tested.
b. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when
   they finally got there.
c. He refused to ask directions.
 
 
12. What is the human race's single greatest achievement?
 
a. Democracy.
b. Religion.
c. Remote control.
 
 
How to Score: Give yourself one point for every time you picked
answer "c."  A real guy would score at least 10 on this test.  In
fact, a real guy would score at least 15, because he would get
the special five-point bonus for knowing the joke about the guy
who has Alzheimer's disease and cancer.


 A Brief History of Time

 3050 B.C.- A Sumerian invents the wheel. Within the week, the idea is stolen
and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby establishing the business ethic for
all times.

 2900 B.C.-Wondering why the Egyptians call that new thing a Sphinx becomes
the first of the world's Seven Great Wonders.

 1850 B.C.-Britons proclaim Operation Stonehenge a success. They've finally
gotten those boulders arrange in a sufficiently meaningless pattern to confuse
the hell out of scientists for centuries.

 1785 B.C.-The first calendar, composed of a year with 354 days, is introduced
by Babylonian scientists.

 1768 B.C.-Babylonians realize something is wrong when winter begins in June.

 776 B.C.-The world's first known money appears in Persia, immediately causing
the world's first known counterfeiter to appear in Persia the next day.

 525 B.C.-The first Olympics are held, and prove similar to the modern games,
except that the Russians don't try to enter a six-footer with a mustache in the
women's shot put. However, the Egyptians do!

 410 B.C.-Rome ends the practice of throwing debtors into slavery, thus
removing the biggest single obstacle to the development of the credit card.

 404 B.C.-The Peloponnesian war has been going on for 27 years now because
neither side can find a treaty writer who knows how to spell Peloponnesian.

 214 B.C.-Tens of thousands of Chinese labor for a generation to build the
1,500 mile long Great Wall of China. And after all that, it still doesn't keep
the neighbor's dog out.

 1 B.C.-Calendar manufacturers find themselves in total disagreement over what
to call next year.

 79 A.D.- Buying property in Pompeii turns out to have been a lousy real estate
investment.

 432- St. Patrick introduces Christianity to Ireland, thereby giving the
natives something interesting to fight about for the rest of their recorded
history.

 1000-Leif Ericsson discovers America, but decides it's not worth mentioning.

 1043-Lady Godiva finds a means of demonstrating against high taxes that
mmediately makes everyone forget what she is demonstrating against.

 1125-Arabic numerals are introduced to Europe, enabling peasants to sole
the most baffling problem that confronts them: How much tax do you owe on
MMMDCCCLX Lira when you're in the XXXVI percent bracket?

 1233-The Inquisition is set up to torture and kill anyone who disagrees with
the Law of the Church. However, the practice is so un-Christian that it is
permitted to continue for only 600 years.

 1297-The world's first stock exchange opens, but no one has the foresight
to buy IBM or Xerox.

 1433- Portugal launches the African slave trade, which just proves what a
small, ambitious country can do with a little bit of ingenuity and a whole lot
of evil!

 1456-An English judge reviews Joan of Arc's case and cancels her death
sentence. Unfortunately for her, she was put to death in 1431.

 1492- Columbus proves how lost he really is by landing in the Bahamas, naming
the place San Salvador, and calling the people who live there Indians.

 1497-Amerigo Vespucci becomes the 7th or 8th explorer to become the new world,
but the first to think of naming it in honor of himself...the United States of
Vespuccia!

 1508-Michelangelo finally agrees to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
but he still refuses to wash the windows.

 1513-Ponce de Leon claims he found the Fountain of youth, but dies of old age
trying to remember where it was he found it.

 1522-Scientists, who know the world is flat, conclude that Magellan made it
all the way around by crawling across the bottom.

 1568-Saddened over the slander of his good name, Ivan the Terrible kills
another 100,000 peasants to make them stop calling him Ivan the Terrible.

 1607-The Indians laugh themselves silly as the first European tourist to visit
Virginia tries to register as "John Smith".

 1618-Future Generations are doomed as the English execute Sir Walter Raleigh,
but allow his tobacco plants to live.

 1642-Nine students receive the first Bachelor of Arts degrees conferred in
America, and immediately discover there are no jobs open for a kid with a
liberal arts education.

 1670-The pilgrims are too busy burning false witches to observe the golden
anniversary of their winning religious freedom.

 1755-Samuel Johnson issues the first English Dictionary, at last providing
young children with a book they can look up dirty words in.

 1758- New Jersey is chosen as the site of America's first Indian reservation,
which should give Indians an idea of the kind of shabby living conditions they
can expect from here on out.

 1763-The French and Indian War ends. The French and Indians both lost.

 1770-The shooting of three people in the Boston Massacre touches off the
Revolution. 200 Years later, three shootings in Boston will be considered just
about average for a Saturday Night.

 1773-Colonists dump tea into Boston Harbor. British call the act "barbaric",
noting that no one added cream.

 1776-Napoleon decides to maintain a position of neutrality in the American
Revolution, primarily because he is only seven years old.

 1779-John Paul Jones notifies the British, "I have just begun to fight!" and
then feels pretty foolish when he discovers that his ship is sinking.

 1793- "Let them eat cake!" becomes the most famous thing Marie Antoinette
ever said. Also, the least diplomatic thing she ever said. Also, the last thing
she ever said.

 1799-Translation of the Rosetta Stone finally enables scholars to learn that
Egyptian hieroglyphics don't say anything important. "Dear Ramses,  How are you?
I am fine."

 1805-Robert Fulton invents the torpedo.

 1807-Robert Fulton invents the steamship so he has something to blow up with
his torpedo.

 1815-Post Office policy is established as Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of
New Orleans a month after he should have received the letter telling him the War
of 1812 is over.

 1840-William Henry Harrison is elected president in a landslide, proving that
the campaign motto, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" is so meaningless that very few
can disagree with it.

 1850-Henry Clay announces, "I'd rather be right than president," which gets
quite a laugh, coming from a guy who has run for president five times without
winning.

 1859- Charles Darwin writes "Origin of the Species". It has the same general
plot as "Planet of the Apes", but fails to gross as much money.

 1865-Union Soldiers face their greatest challenge of the war: getting General
Grant sober enough to accept Lee's surrender.

 1894-Thomas Edison displays the first motion picture, and everybody likes it
except the movie critics.

 1903- The opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway enables passengers from Moscow
to reach Vladivostok in eight days, which is a lot sooner than most
of them want to get there.

 1910- The founding of the Boy Scouts of America comes as bad news to old
ladies who would rather cross the street by themselves.

 1911-Roald Amundsen discovers the South Pole and confirms what he's suspected
all along: It looks a helluva lot like the North Pole!

 1912-People with Reservations for the voyage of the Titanic get their money
back.

 1920-The 18th Amendment to the Constitution makes drinking illegal in the
U.S. so everyone stops. Except for the 40 million who don't stop!

 1924-Hitler is released from prison four years early, after convincing the
parole board that he is a changed man who won't cause any more trouble.

 1928- Herbert Hoover promises "a chicken in every pot and a car in every
garage," but he neglects to add that most Americans will soon be without pots
and garages.

 1930- Pluto is discovered. Not the dog, stupid; the planet. The dog wasn't
discovered until 1938.

 1933- German housewives begin to realize why that crazy wallpaper hanger with
the mustache never came back to finish his work.

 1933-Hitler establishes the Third Reich, and announces that it will last for a
thousand years. As matters develop, he is only 988 years off.

 1934- John Dillinger is gunned down by police as he leaves a Chicago movie
theater. And just to make the evening a complete washout, he didn't enjoy the
movie either.

 1934-As if the Great Depression weren't giving businessmen enough headaches,
Ralph Nader is born.

 1938-Great Britain and Germany sign a peace treaty, thereby averting all
possibility of WWII.

 1944-Hitler's promise of Volkswagens for all Germans as soon as they've won
the war doesn't prove to be as strong an incentive as he had hoped.

 A little boy opened the big and old family Bible with
fascination, and looked at the old pages as he turned
them. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible,
and he picked it up and looked at it closely. It was
an old leaf from a tree that had been pressed in
between the pages. "Momma, look what I found," the
boy called out. "What have you got there, dear?" his
mother asked. With astonishment in the young boy's
voice, he answered: "I think it's Adam's suit!"

The preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike,
and as he preached, he moved briskly about the
platform, jerking the mike cord as he went. Then he
moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and
nearly tripping before jerking it again. After
several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third
pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, "If he
gets loose, will he hurt us?"

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother Joel
were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang,
and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had
enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in
church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See
those two men standing by the door? They're hushers."

The kindergarten teacher was showing her class an
encyclopedia page picturing several national flags.
She pointed to the American flag and asked, "What flag
is this?" A little girl called out, "That's the flag of
our country." "Very good," the teacher said. "And
what is the name of our country?" 'Tis of thee," the
girl said confidently.

After putting her children to bed, a mother changed
into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to
wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more
and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. At last
she threw a towel around her head and stormed into
their room, putting them back to bed with stern
warnings. As she left the room, she heard her
three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was
that?"

Two little boys were visiting their grandfather, and
he took them to a restaurant for lunch. They couldn't
make up their minds about what they wanted to eat.
Finally the grandfather grinned at the server and
said, "Just bring them bread and water." One of the
little boys looked up and quavered, "Can I have
ketchup on it?"

A new neighbor asked the little girl next door if she
had any brothers and sisters. She replied, "No, I'm
the lonely child."

A mother was telling her little girl what her own
childhood was like: "We used to skate outside on a
pond. I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a
tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked
wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was
wide-eyed, taking this in. At last she said, "I sure
wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

My grandson was visiting one day when he asked,
"Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I
mentally polished my halo while I asked, "No, how are
we alike?" "You're both old," he replied.

A little girl was diligently pounding away on her
father's word processor. She told him she was writing
a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know,"
she replied. "I can't read." 
I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her
colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point
out something and ask what color it was. She would
tell me, and always she was correct. But it was fun
for me, so I continued. At last she headed for the
door, saying sagely, "Grandma, I think you should try
to figure out some of these yourself!"

A ten-year-old, under the tutelage of her grandmother,
was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Then
one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which
Virgin was the mother of Jesus: the Virgin Mary or the
King James Virgin?"

A Sunday school class was studying the Ten
Commandments. They were ready to discuss the last one.
The teacher asked if anyone could tell her what it
was. Susie raised her hand, stood tall, and quoted,
"Thou shall not take the covers off the neighbor's
wife."

   How To Tell Where a Driver is From:
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on horn: Chicago
  
   One hand on wheel, one finger out window: New York
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on newspaper, foot solidly
   on  accelerator:  Boston
  
   One hand on wheel, cradling cell phone, brick on
   accelerator: California. With gun in lap: LA
  
   Both hands on wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake,
   quivering in terror: Ohio, but driving in California.
  
   Both hands in air, gesturing, both feet on accelerator,
   head turned to talk to someone in back seat: Italy
  
   One hand on latte, one knee on wheel, cradling cell
   phone, foot on brake, mind on game: Seattle
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand on hunting rifle,alternating
   between both feet being on the accelerator and both on
   the  brake, throwing a McDonald's bag out the window:
   Alabama
  
   One hand on wheel, one hand hanging out the window,
   keeping  speed steadily at 70 mph, driving down the center
   of the road unless coming around a blind curve, in which
   case they are on the left side of the road: Kentucky
  
   One hand constantly refocusing the rearview mirror to
   show different angles of the BIG hair, one hand going
   between mousse, brush, and rattail comb to keep the helmet
   hair going, both feet on the accelerator pedal steering
   the car, chrome .38 revolver with mother of pearl inlaid handle
    in the glove compartment:   Texas (female)
  
   Four wheel drive pickup truck, shotgun mounted in rear
   window, beer cans on floor, squirrel tails attached to
   antenna: West Virginia
  
   Two hands gripping wheel, blue hair barely visible
   above window level, driving 35 on the interstate in the
   left lane with the left blinker on: Florida

  Origins:  Life in the 1500's:
 
   Most people got married in June because they
 took their yearly
   bath in May and were still smelling pretty good
 by June.  However,
   they were starting to smell, so brides carried
 a bouquet of
   flowers to hide the b.o.
 
   Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water.
 The man of the
   house had the privilege of the nice clean
 water, then all the other
   sons and men, then the women and finally the
 children.
   Last of all the babies. By then the water was
 so dirty you could
   actually loose someone in it.  Hence the
 saying, "Don't throw the
   baby out with the bath water".
 
   Houses had thatched roofs.  Thick straw, piled
 high, with no wood
   underneath. It was the only place for animals
 to get warm, so all
   the pets...dogs, cats and other small animals,
 mice, rats, bugs
   lived in the roof.  When it rained it became
 slippery and sometimes
   the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
   Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs,"
 
   There was nothing to stop things from falling
 into the house. This
   posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
 and other droppings
   could really mess up your nice clean bed.  So,
 they found if they
   made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over
 the top, it
   addressed that problem.  Hence those beautiful
 big 4 poster beds
   with canopies.
 
   The floor was dirt.  Only the wealthy had
 something other than
   dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor".  The
 wealthy had slate floors
   which would get slippery in the winter when
 wet. So they spread
   thresh on the floor to help keep their footing.
  As the winter
   wore on they kept adding more thresh until when
 you opened the
   door it would all start slipping outside. A
 piece of wood was
   placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh hold".
 
   They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that
 always hung over the
   fire. Every day they lit the fire and added
 things to the pot.  They
   mostly ate vegetables and didn't get much meat.
  They would eat the
   stew for dinner leaving leftovers in the pot to
 get cold overnight
   and then start over the next day.  Sometimes
 the stew had food in
   it that had been in there for a month.  Hence
 the rhyme: peas
   porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge
 in the pot nine
   days old."  Sometimes they could obtain pork
 and would
   feel really special when that happened. When
 company came over,
   they would bring out some bacon and hang it to
 show it off.
   It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could
 really bring
   home the bacon." They would cut off a little to
 share with
   guests and would all sit around and "chew the
 fat."
 
   Those with money had plates made of pewter.
 Food with a high acid
   content caused some of the lead to leach onto
 the food. This happened
   most often with tomatoes, so they stopped
 eating tomatoes... for 400
   years.
 
   Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had
 trenchers - a
   piece of wood with the middle scooped out like
 a bowl. Trencher
   were never washed and a lot of times worms got
 into the wood.
   After eating off wormy trenchers, they would
 get "trench mouth."
 
   Bread was divided according to status. Workers
 got the burnt bottom
   of the loaf, the family got the middle, and
 guests got the top, or
   the "upper crust".
 
   Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.
 The combination would
   sometimes knock them out for a couple of days.
 Someone walking
   along the road would take them for dead and
 prepare them for burial.
   They were laid out on the kitchen table for a
 couple of days and the
   family would gather around and eat and drink
 and wait and see if
   they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding
 a "wake".
 
   England is old and small and they started
 running out of places to
   bury people.  So, they would dig up coffins and
 would take their
   bones to a house  and re-use the grave.  In
 reopening these coffins,
   one out of 25 coffins were found to have
 scratch marks on the inside
   and they realized they had been  burying people
 alive.  So they
   thought they would tie a string on their wrist
 and lead it through
   the coffin and up through the ground and tie it
 to a bell.
   Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard
 all night to
   listen for the bell.  Hence on the "graveyard
 shift" they would
   know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he
 was a "dead ringer".


 Andy Rooney Blurbs

 Ads In Bills: Have you ever noticed that they put
 advertisements in with
 your bills now? Like bills aren't distasteful enough,
 they have to stuff
 junk mail in there with them. I get back at them. I
 put garbage in with
 my check when I mail it in. Coffee grinds, banana
 peels...I write,
 "Could you throw this away for me? Thank You."

 Fabric Softener: My wife uses fabric softener. I
 never knew what that
 stuff was for. Then I noticed women coming up to me
 (sniff) 'Married'
 (walk off). That's how they mark their territory. You
 can take off the
 ring, but it's hard to get that April fresh scent out
 of your clothes.

 Cripes: My wife's from the Mid-west. Very nice people
 there. Very
 wholesome. They use words like 'Cripes'. 'For Cripe's
 sake.' Who would
 that be, Jesus Cripe's? The son of 'Gosh' of the
 church of 'Holy Moly'?
 I'm not making fun of it. You think I wanna burn in
 'Heck'?

 Morning Differences: Men and women are different in
 the morning. The men
 wake up aroused in the morning. We can't help it. We
 just wake up and we
 want you. And the women are thinking, 'How can he
 want me the way I look
 in the morning?' It's because we can't see you. We
 have no blood
 anywhere near our optic nerve.

 Pregnancy: It's weird when pregnant women feel the
 baby kicking. They
 say, 'Oh my god. He's kicking. Do you wanna feel it?'
 I always feel
 awkward reaching over there. Come on! It's weird to
 ask someone to feel
 your stomach. I don't do that when I have gas. "Oh my
 god...give me your
 hand...It won't be long now..."

 Grandma: My grandmother has a bumper sticker on her
 car that says,
 'Sexy Senior Citizen'. You don't want to think of
 your grandmother that
 way, do you? Out entering wet shawl contests. Makes
 you wonder where she
 got that dollar she gave you for your birthday.

 Prisons: Did you know that it costs forty thousand
 dollars a year to
 house each prisoner? Jeez, for forty thousand bucks a
 piece I'll take a
 few prisoners into my house. I live in Los Angeles. I
 already have bars
 on the windows. I don't think we should give free
 room and board to
 criminals. I think they should have to run twelve
 hours a day on a
 treadmill and generate electricity. And if they don't
 want to run, they
 can rest in the chair that's hooked up to the
 generator.

 Award Shows: Can you believe how many award shows
 they have now? They
 have awards for commercials. The Cleo Awards, a whole
 show full of
 commercials. I taped it and then I fast-forwarded
 through the whole
 thing.

 Phone-In-Polls: You know those shows where people
 call in and vote on
 different issues? Did you ever notice there's always
 like 18% that say
 "I don't know". It costs 90 cents to call up and
 vote...They're voting
 "I don't know." "Honey, I feel very strongly about
 this. Give me the
 phone. (Into Phone) I DON'T KNOW!" (Hangs up looking
 proud.) "Sometimes
 you have to stand up for what you believe you're not
 sure about." This
 guy probably calls up phone sex girls for $2.95 to
 say "I'm not in the
 mood."

 Answering Machine	: Did you ever hear one of these
 corny, positive
 messages on someone's answering machine? "Hi, it's a
 great day and I'm
 out enjoying it right now. I hope you are too. The
 thought for the day
 is 'Share the love.' Beep." "Uh, yeah...this is the
 VD clinic
 calling.... Speaking of being positive, your test is
 back. Stop sharing
 the love."


