Some dave barry columns -- too good.
rajesh mk
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rajesh mk <raje...@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 8, 2006 4:47 AM
Subject: Dave barry
To: Rajesh M K <raje...@cmcltd.com>
DAVE BARRY COLUMN
I'm a big fan of technology. Most guys are. This is why all important
inventions were invented by guys.
For example, millions of years ago, there was no such thing as the
wheel. One day, some primitive guys were watching their wives drag a dead
mastodon to the food-preparation area. It was exhausting work; the guys were
getting tired just WATCHING. Then they noticed some large, smooth, rounded
boulders, and they had an idea: They could sit on the stones and watch! This
was the first in a series of breakthroughs that ultimately led to
television.
So we see that there are vital reasons why guys are interested in
technology, and why women should not give them a hard time about always
wanting to have the "latest gadget." And when I say "women," I mean "my
wife."
For example, as a guy, I feel I need a new computer every time a new
model comes out, which is every 15 minutes. This baffles my wife, who has
had the same computer since the Civil War and refuses to get a new one
because --
get THIS for an excuse -- the one she has works fine. I try to explain that,
when you get a new computer, you get exciting new features. My new computer
has a truly fascinating feature: Whenever I try to turn it off, the
following message, which I am not making up, appears on the screen:
"An exception 0E has occurred at 0028:F000F841 in VxD---. This was
called from 0028:C001D324 in VxD NDIS(01) + 00005AA0. It may be possible to
continue normally."
Clearly, this message is not of human origin. Clearly, my new computer
is receiving this message from space aliens. I don't understand all of it,
but apparently there has been some kind of intergalactic problem that the
aliens want to warn us about. What concerns me is the last sentence, because
if the aliens are telling us that "it may be possible to continue normally,"
they are clearly implying that it may NOT be possible to continue normally.
In other words, the earth may be doomed, and the aliens have chosen ME to
receive this message. If I can figure out exactly what they're saying, I
might be able to save humanity!
Unfortunately, I don't have time, because I'm busy using my new GPS
device. This is an extremely important gadget that every guy in the world
needs. It receives signals from orbiting satellites, and somehow -- I
suspect the "cosine" is involved -- it figures out exactly where on the earth you
are. Let's say you're in the town of Arcola, Ill., but for some reason you
do not realize this. You turn on your GPS, and, after pondering for a few
minutes, it informs you that you are in… Arcola, Ill.! My wife argues that
it's easier to just ASK somebody, but of course you cannot do that, if you
truly are a guy.
I became aware of how useful a GPS can be when I was on a plane trip
with a literary rock band I belong to called the Rock Bottom Remainders,
which has been hailed by critics as having one of the world's highest ratios
of noise to talent. On this trip were two band members whom I will identify
only as "Roger" and "Steve," so that you will not know that they are
actually Roger McGuinn, legendary co-founder of the Byrds; and Stephen King,
legendary legend.
We were flying from Chicago to Boston, and while everybody else was
reading or sleeping, "Roger" and "Steve," who are both fully grown men, were
staring at their GPS devices and periodically informing each other how far
we were from the Boston airport. "Roger" would say, "I'm showing 238 miles,"
and "Steve" would say, "I'm showing 241 miles." Then "Roger" would say, "Now I'm
showing 236 miles," and "Steve" would come back with another figure, and so
on. My wife, who was confident that the airplane pilot did not need help
locating Boston, thought this was the silliest thing she had ever seen.
Whereas I thought: I NEED one of those.
So I got a GPS for Christmas, and I spent the entire day sitting on a
couch, putting it to good use. Like, I figured out exactly where our house
is. My wife told me this was exciting news. I think she was being sarcastic,
but I couldn't be sure, because I had to keep watching the GPS screen, in
case our house moved. I also used my GPS to figure out exactly how far my
couch is from LaGuardia airport (1103 miles). There is NO END to the
usefulness of this device! If you're a guy, you need to get one NOW, so you
can locate yourself on the planet. While we still have one.
-30-
Nuclear Picnic
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine,
Today's culinary topic is: how to light a charcoal fire. Everybody loves a backyard barbecue. For some reason, food just seems to taste better when it has been cooked outdoors, where flies can lay eggs on it. But there's nothing worse than trying to set fire to a pile of balky charcoal.
The average backyard chef, wishing to cook hamburgers, tries to ignite the charcoal via the squirt, light, and wait method, wherein you squirt lighter fluid on a pile of briquettes, light the pile, then wait until they have turned a uniform gray color. When I say "they have turned a uniform gray color," I am referring to the hamburgers. The briquettes will remain as cold and lifeless as Leonard Nimoy. The backyard chef will keep this up -- squirting, lighting, waiting; squirting, lighting, waiting -- until the bacterial level in the side dishes has reached the point where the potato salad rises up from its bowl, Bloblike, and attempts to mate with the corn. This is the signal that it's time to order Chinese food.
The problem is that modern charcoal, manufactured under strict consumer-safety guidelines, is one of the least-flammable substances on Earth. On more than one occasion, quick-thinking individuals have extinguished a raging house fire by throwing charcoal on it. Your backyard chef would be just as successful trying to ignite a pile of rocks.
Is there a solution? Yes. There happens to be a technique that is guaranteed to get your charcoal burning very, very quickly, although you should not attempt this technique unless you meet the following criterion: you are a complete idiot.
I found out about this technique from alert reader George Rasko, who sent me a letter describing something he came across on the World Wide Web, a computer network that you should definitely learn more about, because as you read these words, your 11-year-old is downloading pornography from it.
By hooking into the World Wide Web, you can look at a variety of electronic "pages," consisting of documents, pictures, and videos created by people all over the world. One of these is a guy named (really) George Goble, a computer person in the Purdue University engineering department. Each year, Goble and a bunch of other engineers hold a picnic in West Lafayette, Indiana, at which they cook hamburgers on a big grill. Being engineers, they began looking for practical ways to speed up the charcoal-lighting process.
"We started by blowing the charcoal with a hair dryer," Goble told me in a telephone interview. "Then we figured out that it would light faster if we used a vacuum cleaner."
If you know anything about (1) engineers and (2) guys in general, you know what happened: The purpose of the charcoal-lighting shifted from cooking hamburgers to seeing how fast they could light the charcoal.
From the vacuum cleaner, they escalated to using a propane torch, then an acetylene torch. Then Goble started using compressed pure oxygen, which caused the charcoal to burn much faster, because as you recall from chemistry class, fire is essentially the rapid combination of oxygen with the cosine to form the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (or something along those lines).
By this point, Goble was getting pretty good times. But in the world of competitive charcoal-lighting, "pretty good" does not cut the mustard. Thus, Goble hit upon the idea of using -- get ready -- liquid oxygen. This is the form of oxygen used in rocket engines; it's 295 degrees below zero and 600 times as dense as regular oxygen. In terms of releasing energy, pouring liquid oxygen on charcoal is the equivalent of throwing a live squirrel into a room containing 50 million Labrador retrievers.
On Gobel's World Wide Web page (the address is http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/), you can see actual photographs and a video of Goble using a bucket attached to a 10-foot-long wooden handle to dump 3 gallons of liquid oxygen (not sold in stores) onto a grill containing 60 pounds of charcoal and a lit cigarette for ignition. What follows is the most impressive charcoal-lighting I have ever seen, featuring a large fireball that, according to Goble, reached 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The charcoal was ready for cooking in -- this has to be a world record -- 3 seconds.
There's also a photo of what happened when Goble used the same technique on a flimsy $2.88 discount-store grill. All that's left is a circle of charcoal with a few shreds of metal in it. "Basically, the grill vaporized," said Goble. "We were thinking of returning it to the store for a refund."
Looking at Goble's video and photos, I became, as an American, all choked up with gratitude at the fact that I do not live anywhere near the engineers' picnic site. But also, I was proud of my country for producing guys who can be ready to barbecue in less time than it takes for guys in less-advanced nations, such as France, to spit.
Will the 3-second barrier ever be broken? Will engineers come up with a new, more powerful charcoal-lighting technology? It's something for all of us to ponder this summer as we sit outside, chewing our hamburgers, every now and then glancing in the direction of West Lafayette, Indiana, looking for a mushroom cloud.
Scientific study reveals what worms do best
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
Mutant constipated worms. It's a topic we all THINK about a lot; but what do we really KNOW about it?
The answer, I am pleased to report, is: more every day, thanks to the efforts of a professor named Jim Thomas in the Genetics Department of the University of Washington in Seattle. Thomas has an entire laboratory devoted to studying irregularity in worms. He is the world's leading authority on this topic. I say this with no small amount of pride, because he graduated from my alma mater, Haverford College (motto: "Small, But Weird").
I learned of Thomas' work through one of his alert graduate students, Creg Darby, who sent me a lengthy scientific paper that Thomas had written. In an accompanying letter, Creg wrote: "Notice that Jim was not merely content to describe how worms poop. Oh no. We geneticists are a twisted lot, because we LOVE mutants, so Jim went and zapped worms with nasty chemicals to make MUTANT WORMS THAT ARE CONSTIPATED. Really, it's all there in the paper. I know you can't understand most of it, so I have highlighted the word 'constipated.'"
Creg, who is not afraid to use capitalization for desired emphasis, added that "JIM'S RESEARCH IS FUNDED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT! HE IS SPENDING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO MAKE CONSTIPATED WORMS!!!!!!!!"
Let me state that, as a taxpayer, I would much rather see my tax money spent on mutant constipated worms than on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not that there is such a huge difference.
But as a journalist, I feel a fundamental responsibility to you, the public, to check out stories that involve the use of your tax money for scientific projects in cities that have good microbrewery beer. So I went to Seattle.
Thomas' office is located in the university's Health Sciences Building, which is very scientific. I say this because of the bulletin boards. Back in the '60s, when I was in college, our bulletin boards were covered with announcements of festive social events such as dances, concerts and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Whereas the first bulletin board I saw in the Health Sciences Building had the following announcement posted on it: "A KERATIN 14 MUTATIONAL HOT SPOT FOR EPIDERMOLYSIS BULLOSA SIMPLEX-DOWLING-MEARA."
I wasn't sure that it was medically safe for a layperson to even LOOK at these words, so I scurried on up to Jim Thomas' laboratory. It was cluttered with scientific items such as petri dishes, beakers, test tubes, radioactivity warnings, deadly chemicals and graduate students eating their lunch. I did not immediately see any worms; Professor Thomas explained that the ones he studies, called Caenorhabditis elegans, are only 1 millimeter long. (To give yourself an idea how long that is, hold your thumb and forefinger 1 millimeter apart.)
A LOT of scientists study these worms. They (the scientists) even have their own magazine, and they regularly gather at events such as the West Coast Worm Meeting. One news report begins: "Almost all worm people in Japan assembled in Sendai on 29th November ..."
Jim Thomas loves his worms.
"We think they are the coolest organisms in the world," he told me, and his corps of graduate students nodded in proud agreement."
What makes these worms especially cool for constipation studies is (1) You can see right through them, and (2) They poop every 45 seconds. I know this because I saw them myself. First Thomas showed me a videotape of one of them in action.
"OK, watch this," he said, as the worm contracted itself. "He's getting ready ..."
"POOP!" said Thomas, thrusting his fist forward in a football-fan-like gesture of triumph.
Next Thomas led me to a microscope, where I saw some live worm action. Basically what these worms do all the time is crawl around in dishes full of food, eating, pooping and having sex. It is guy heaven. All they need is tiny TVs with remote controls.
The male worms, by the way, are total sex fiends. They try to do it with everything they bump into, including other males. Sometimes they try to mate with their OWN HEADS (a graduate student told me this is called "wanking").
I also looked at some mutant constipated worms, who were bloated and definitely not as lively. They reminded me of people in laxative commercials.
PHARMACIST WORM: You don't look so good today, Ed. Is it ... irregularity?
CUSTOMER WORM: You said it, Mr. Feemley! I haven't pooped in over 90 seconds!
I asked Jim Thomas if there was any possibility that his research would ever, in a zillion years, have any practical benefits for humans. He couldn't think of any offhand, but he allowed that it might conceivably be possible.
That is good enough for me. I'm glad that we're funding this research. In fact, I would strongly support spending more money in this area, as well as any scientific endeavor that has the potential to benefit mankind. And here I am thinking of the microbreweries.
Solid progress by the Clinton Administration
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
I see by the newspapers that solid progress is being made by the failed Clinton administration, which has finally moved beyond the Bumbling Around Cluelessly Phase and is now deep into the Big Incomprehensible Scandal Phase.
This is good. Under our system of government (called, technically, "The Goober System"), the primary function of the executive branch, aside from frowning sincerely down from helicopters at natural disasters, is to get involved in vast, festering legal messes that affect the legislative process in a manner very similar to what happens when you attempt to flush a dead moose down a commode: Everything gets stopped up. Which is exactly what we want. As the great statesperson John or Samuel Adams once said, "A government engaged in the legislative process is a government that can, at any moment, without warning, decide that it needs to spend $14.3 million on a Bureau of Catfish Safety."
So we need big executive-branch scandals. That's why there's a top-secret, high-tech, self-activating device in the White House attic called the Stupid Ray. I'm sure you have long suspected that there was such a device. You have noticed that we keep sending all these brilliant people to the White House -- dynamic leaders with their 14-point programs and their Bold Visions for America and their dozens of whip-smart National-Honor- Society Phi-Beta-Kappa Rhodes-Scholar aides and lawyers, and the instant they grab hold of the controls of the Ship of State, they become Jerry Lewis starring in "The Nutty Administration."
Take Richard M. "Dick" Nixon. Here is a man with an IQ of 384, a man who every six weeks produces a hard-cover book explaining how we can solve every single problem in the entire world, and look what happened when he got into the White House:
NIXON (to his aides): ... and our first priority must be the implementation of the New Federalism, with the concomitant amalgamation of the structural parameters of the ...
STUPID RAY: Hummmmmmm
NIXON: ... I know! Let's install a tape recorder in here, then discuss a criminal conspiracy!
AIDES: Great idea, sir!
HENRY KISSINGER: Then let's screw in a light bulb!
And it wasn't just Nixon. Jimmy Carter was a nuclear engineer. Do you think a nuclear engineer with an unimpaired brain is going to tell reporters that he was chased by a GIANT SWIMMING RABBIT? No, that was the Stupid Ray, which also caused the massive incomprehensible Iran-Contra scandal that paralyzed both the Bush and Reagan administrations (although for some reason the ray appeared to have no effect whatsoever on President Reagan himself).
And now we have the Clinton administration, loaded with brains, flailing around like a blindfolded mud wrestler, getting itself deeper and deeper into this Whitewater Development scandal, the scope of which has now been expanded to the point where, any day now, there is going to be a Texas School Book Depository angle.
We here in the print medium are working overtime to keep you abreast of this scandal by cranking out long, fact-filled stories. Each of these is carefully reviewed prior to publication by a team of brilliant theoretical physicists headed by Stephen Hawking; if these people have even the faintest clue as to what the story says, we rewrite it to make it more incomprehensible for you, the average citizen.
This is easy for us, because even WE don't understand this scandal. Some days, when we're running a little short, we stick chunks of old Watergate articles in our Whitewater stories to bulk them out. All we know for sure about Whitewater is, it has something to do with -- surprise! -- a failed savings-and-loan. EVERYTHING has to do with a failed savings-and-loan. Hundreds of years from now, historians will look back on the ravaged remains of our society and wonder how come we never used nuclear weapons on the savings-and-loan industry when we had the chance.
Here's what I want to know: Did YOU, personally, ever have any money in a failed savings-and-loan? No, right? Neither did I. Neither did anybody I know. I bet neither did anybody you know. So where the hell are all these failed savings-and-loans coming from? Who put all these billions of dollars into them that we taxpayers are always paying back? Space aliens? Are we bailing out Martians here?
This is only one of the many Whitewater questions now under investigation. And although of course it would be wrong to pass any judgment before all the facts are known, we can safely assume that everybody involved is guilty. The Republicans cannot BELIEVE their good luck, but they are trying to be cool about it. As Senate Minority Leader "Bob" Dole (R-Mister MeanyPants) put it in a recent speech, "We cannot allow work on critical national issues to be halted by a shortsighted partisan obsession with Whitewater Whitewater Whitewater Whitewater Whitewater neener neener neener ha ha ha."
Speaking of issues: There are some other ones, such as the budget deficit, and the fact that you apparently can write "RUSSIAN AGENT" on your Central Intelligence Agency employment application and still get a high-level job, and as concerned citizens we SHOULD be thinking about these things, and demanding better from our leaders, but every time we try to
Hummmmmmmm
Innocents abroad
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
Recently I went to England on a selfless humanitarian mission to sell books. It was a very relaxing trip until about 35 terrorists had been shooting mortar bombs onto the runway. Really. They have political organizations over there that, having apparently received public-relations advice from Charles Manson, believe that the way to garner public support is to bomb and mortar the public. "Hey!" the public is apparently supposed to respond. "Homicidal loons are trying to kill me! I am feeling supportive toward them!"
Shortly after we arrived, there were two more mortar attacks on Heathrow. None of the bombs detonated, but I was starting to wonder about the quality of the airport security. I envisioned squadrons of Scotland Yard detectives wearing Sherlock Holmes hats, crawling on hands and knees, scrutinizing every blade of glass through powerful magnifying glasses, not noticing trucks rumbling past them with large signs that said, "CAUTION! MORTAR BOMBS!"
Don't get me wrong. I live in South Florida, and we have our problems, too. The very week I was in England, a German tourist, checking out of a South Florida hotel, complained about an odor in his room, which turned out to be emanating from -- I am not making this up -- a corpse under the bed. (Apparently he failed to put out the little doorknob sign that says "MAID: PLEASE REMOVE CORPSE.") But we South Floridians pride ourselves on our mortar-free runways, which enable us to guarantee that our tourists will be safe and secure. Unless of course they are foolish enough to actually get off the plane.
Anyway, the mortars were scary, but we had a MUCH scarier experience in England: Somehow -- probably because of another massive screw up at the CIA -- we got invited to dine at the U.S. ambassador's residence. We were the only people on the guest list whose titles were "Mr. and Mrs." Everybody else was something like "The Lord Earl of Gwebbing and Her Worshipfulhood the Viscountess Lady Huffington Prawn-Armature." So when we arrived at the ambassador's residence, which is approximately the size of Wales, but with more bathrooms, we were feeling socially intimidated.
Fortunately the ambassador and his wife were extremely nice, which was reassuring, as was the fact that they had three dogs (one main, two backups) with no sense of etiquette whatsoever ("I know! Let's sniff the viscountess!"). Nevertheless, when it came time to eat dinner, I developed severe Table Manners Paranoia. I estimate that there were 27 forks at my place setting alone. Plus, it turns out that at these formal dinners they have rules about whom you talk to: Before the main course, you're supposed to talk exclusively to the lady on your left as though she is the most fascinating human on the planet, but when the main course arrives, you're supposed to drop her like used chewing gum and talk to the lady on your right. It's amazing to watch the changeover. All heads in the room swivel simultaneously, like synchronized motorized elves in Christmas display.
Of course I didn't know about this, so midway through the dinner I suddenly found myself having an animated conversation with the back of the head of the lady on my left, who, despite having been, only moments earlier, my closest personal friend, no longer seemed to realize that I existed. (To this day, she never calls, and she never writes.)
Speaking of exciting social adventures: Several nights later, we were at a party, and the host came up and said, "I'd like you to meet Salman Rushdie." Really. Apparently Salman has turned into a major party animal. So there I was, chatting with him, trying to appear cool, but in fact wondering if I would have been safer just staying at the airport. "So, Salman!" I wanted to say. "Perhaps we would be more comfortable if we were lying face-down on the floor away from the windows!"
But other than these few anxious moments, we had a wonderful time in England. They were having some highly entertaining government scandals. We Americans tend to have obscure boring complicated financial Whitewater-type scandals that nobody understands; whereas the British have the scandals involving straightforward, clear-cut issues of obvious significance, such as high government officials paying for sex with fish.
Speaking of food: The British are definitely getting better at cooking, and they have discovered the ice cube. Fortunately, however, some things have not changed: They still have the Royal Dysfunctional Family, and it is still a constant source of entertainment. (The day we got there, Prince Charles made the newspapers by asking, on a tour of a cosmetics plant, if anybody wanted to -- I am not making this up -- lick mango butter off his body.)
Also the British still speak in British accents, so that no matter what they say, it sounds really intelligent to Americans; and they still really say things like "bloody" and "smashing." Plus they keep inventing wonderful new expressions. For example, I saw a newspaper front page that had a photograph of a man, with the headline: "MR. CHUCKLETROUSERS." I asked a number of British people about this expression; they had no idea what it meant but they all agreed that they would definitely try to use it a lot. So should we, I think. We should maintain close ties with our friends across the Atlantic. But we should also remain out of mortar range.
Foreign countries
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
If you must go to a foreign country, go to the bathroom before you leave.
When we try to name the one thing that makes America great, we are forced to conclude that the answer is "quality of life," defined as "working toilets." We are blessed with the finest toilet system in the world. When we go to a public place such as a shopping mall or restaurant, we know that we will find public restrooms meeting all the standards of the Federal Interstate Commode Quality Act, including:
Modern soap and paper-towel dispensers designed to conserve our planet's precious resources by always being out of soap and paper towels.
Bad words that have been written on the walls by irresponsible, reprehensible, antisocial, degenerate perverts who can be pretty funny.
A sign that says "EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE LEAVING RESTROOM AND ALSO FOR GOD'S SAKE PLEASE STOP SPITTING INTO THE ENTREES."
A person who has been in a stall for at least two days making noises like walruses mating.
Also, sometimes, if prankish youngsters have not stolen it or attempted to flush a rental security guard down it, there will be a TOILET THAT ACTUALLY WORKS. This is not the case elsewhere in the world. Ask anybody who travels a lot. In foreign countries, you constantly find yourself in scary situations involving plumbing that was built thousands of years ago by the Etruscans, who chose to become extinct rather than try to use it. These facilities are often guarded by very short, very wide, very hostile women who watch you like a hawk and expect you to tip them for tending the mold colonies and making sure the toilet paper is rigid enough to slice luncheon meat.
Perhaps you believe I am overstating the scariness of foreign toilets. Well, perhaps you should dig out your December 1993 issue of the Scottish Medical Journal, a copy of which was sent to me by alert research scientist Elliot Cowan. On page 185, you will find an article entitled "THE COLLAPSE OF TOILETS IN GLASGOW." This article, which I am not making up, describes three cases wherein people were injured "whilst sitting on toilets which unexpectedly collapsed." All three patients had to receive hospital treatment for wounds in the buttocks region. (The buttocks region is located just west of Edinburgh.)
The article describes the collapsing-toilet incidents in clinical scientific terminology, which contrasts nicely with a close-up, full-face photograph, suitable for framing, of a hairy and hefty victim's naked wounded butt, mooning out of the page at you, causing you to think, for reasons that you cannot quite explain, of Pat Buchanan.
"The cause (of the toilet collapses) remains unclear," states the Scottish Medical Journal, "except that all of the toilets were believed to be very old." (The article does not come right out and use the term "Etruscan," but we can read between the lines.)
So my advice is: If you must go to a foreign country, go to the bathroom before you leave. Although I personally would stay right here in the United States, because we could be on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough in the form of -- get ready -- a MICROWAVE TOILET.
I have here the May 26, 1993, issue of the Bloomsburg, Pa., Press-Enterprise, sent in by alert reader David Hill; right on the front page is a story, written by Ellen Condron, about a man named George Welliver, who is hoping to manufacture a toilet that would use microwaves to convert waste to ashes, thereby saving water. The article is accompanied by a stunningly artistic color photograph, taken with the camera tilted at an arty angle, showing Mr. Welliver sitting (fully dressed) on his bathroom commode, holding a microwave oven in his lap. I have been to some of the world's finest museums, and I can honestly say that I have never seen a work of art, photographic or otherwise, that more clearly expresses the classic dual themes of "microwave oven" and "toilet."
The article quotes Welliver as saying that he originally considered a LASER toilet, but decided against it. I think this was a wise decision. I'm sure I speak on behalf of guys everywhere when I say that I would not want to get any closer than about 50 feet from a laser-powered toilet, so accuracy would be a real problem.
But I think the microwave toilet is a great idea. In fact, I can foresee a day in the not-so-distant future when there would be one multipurpose microwave device in your home, which would automatically, at a pre-set time, load a frozen burrito into itself, heat it up to serving temperature, then switch over to Toilet Mode, incinerate the burrito, and whisk the ashes away without any human involvement whatsoever. That is the wonderful thing about this great country: The quality of life is constantly improving in ways that we cannot begin to comprehend without massive doses of Prozac, with each generation producing something new and amazing. And then forgetting to flush.
A Hairy Experience
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
Summer vacation is almost here. Soon it will be time for you parents to pile the kids into the car, show them how to work the ignition key, then watch them roar off down the street, possibly in reverse, as you head back into your house for two weeks of quiet relaxation.
I am pulling your leg, of course. You have to go with them. You also are required, by federal law, to take them to at least one historical or natural site featuring an educational exhibit with a little button that you're supposed to push, except that when you do, nothing happens, because all the little light bulbs, which were supposed to light up in an educational manner and tell The Story Of Moss burned out in 1973. But this does not matter. What matters is that this is a memorable and rewarding and, above all, enjoyable vacation experience that you are providing for your children whether they like it or not.
"DAMMIT YOU KIDS," you might find yourself explaining to them, "IF YOU DON'T TAKE THOSE LEGOS OUT OF YOUR LITTLE BROTHER'S NOSE AND COME LOOK AT THIS EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT THIS INSTANT, I SWEAR I WILL NOT TAKE YOU TO THE OYSTER KINGDOM THEME PARK."
This situation demonstrates why you should never set out on a family summer vacation without a complete set of parental threats. You cannot simply assume that when your children have, for example, locked somebody else's child inside the motel ice machine, you'll be able to come up with a good parental threat right there on the spot. You need to prepare your threats in advance and write them on a wallet card for easy reference.
YOU (sternly): If you kids don't let that child out of the ice machine this instant, I'm going to ... (referring to wallet card) ... DONATE MY ORGANS.
FIRST CHILD: Huh?
SECOND CHILD: He's reading from his driver's license again.
YOU (referring to another wallet card): OK, here we go: I'm going to TAKE AWAY YOUR GAME BOY.
FIRST CHILD: We don't have a Game Boy.
SECOND CHILD: Jason threw it into the Water Whiz ride back at Pez Adventure.
YOU (in a very stern parental voice): All right then, we'll just have to BUY ANOTHER ONE.
Yes, you need strict discipline on a family vacation. You also should have some kind of theme for your trip, and this year the theme that I am recommending is: Hairballs Across America. Your first stop is Garden City, Kan., home of the Finney County Historical Society Museum, which features, according to news reports sent in by many alert readers, the largest known hairball in captivity, not counting members of Congress. This hairball measures 37 inches in diameter and weighs 55 pounds. That is what we in professional journalism call "a big hairball."
I called up the historical society museum director, Mary Warren, who told me that the hairball was graciously donated by a local meat packing plant, which found it inside the stomach of a cow. Cows develop interior hairballs from licking their own coats and swallowing fur, similar to the way cats do, except that cats can get rid of their hairballs by hawking them up onto your face while you sleep. Cows cannot do this, of course; they have no way of getting into your bedroom.
Anyway, the Finney County hairball is larger than the one that recently won a national hairball contest (I am not making any of this up) sponsored by Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Mary Warren told me that another local meat-packing plant had recently offered the historical society an even LARGER hairball, but she turned it down. I think this was wise. You put two hairballs of that magnitude in one place, and crowd control becomes a problem.
Anyway, Warren confirmed that the original hairball will be on display this summer, along with other cow-related exhibits that I am sure will have your kids punching each other in the head with delight. After you tear them away, your next stop will be the nearby Midwestern state of Indiana (motto: "It's Also Pretty Flat"), where you will be visiting the city of Alexandria. This is the historic site where, according to a story written by Sarah Mawhorr for The Anderson (Ind.) Herald Bulletin, it took three men to pull a giant hairball out of a manhole last year.
"We thought we had a goat," a city sewer official was quoted as saying.
Needless to say, this hairball was not caused by a cow. Cows do not fare well in the sewer environment, because of the alligators. This hairball was formed by people taking showers, and having their hairs wash down the drain and clump together in a giant mass that would be a wonderful symbol of the Common Bond That Unites All Humanity if it weren't basically a big disgusting wad of sewage-drenched hair.
Tragically -- and this is yet another argument for stricter federal guidelines -- the giant hairball was left outside, and it disintegrated. But it had already become famous -- it got mentioned in USA Today -- and a replica hairball (I am still not making this up) appeared in Alexandria's annual Christmas parade. So even though there is, technically, nothing to see, I am recommending that you take your children to Alexandria and let them soak up the historic atmosphere.
"Just think, kids!" you should tell them. "Right here in this town, there was a hairball THE SIZE OF A GOAT! Isn't that amazing? Kids? HEY! YOU KIDS COME BACK HERE!"
You should never have left the keys in the car.
Pop! goes the weasel
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
Recently, several alert readers sent me a news item from the Houston Chronicle that struck a responsive chord in the upright piano of my brain. The item begins as follows:
"SAN ANTONIO -- A man fed up with the repetitive strains of 'Pop! Goes the Weasel' from an ice cream truck attacked the hapless 67-year-old driver with an ice cream cone and a pickle jar, police say."
Here we have yet another argument for a mandatory five-day "cooling off" period on the purchase of ice cream. Because in this day and age there is NO EXCUSE for this kind of violent incident. Just because a driver is operating a truck that repeatedly blares an annoying song over a loudspeaker in a public place, that does not mean that we should attack him with dairy products and condiment containers. We should use nuclear weapons.
Forgive me for sounding hostile, but I am getting SICK AND TIRED OF LOUD INTRUSIVE MUSIC IN PUBLIC. It is everywhere. All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low- fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and YOU CANNOT GET AWAY FROM IT. For example, recently I was in a shopping-mall restroom, and suddenly, without warning, the speaker started blaring out the inexplicable 1963 hit song "Dominique," by the Shrieking Nun.
Listen, Mr. or Ms. Shopping Mall Manager: I speak for all humanity when I say that, when I am in your restroom, I AM NOT IN THERE TO LISTEN TO A NUN.
Likewise, Mr. or Ms. Airport Manager, I don't go to your airport to listen to music. I go there for the same reason as millions of other business travelers, which is to be hassled by religious loons and find out that my flight has been canceled.
And as for you, Mr. or Ms. Restaurant Owner: I don't mind if, while I'm eating, there's an actual musician somewhere in the background tinkling softly on a piano. (True story: Many years ago, I was at a party where a person named Walter actually did tinkle on the piano. But that is not germane to this discussion.) But WHY DO RESTAURANTS PLAY MUSIC SO LOUD THAT PEOPLE CANNOT COMMUNICATE?
WAITRESS (shouting): GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS BETTY.
CUSTOMER: DOES THAT COME WITH CLAM SAUCE?
And it's just as bad when you go outside. One afternoon I was at a beach, along with hundreds of other people, all of us enjoying a pleasant afternoon listening to the barely audible "ping" of solar rays ricocheting off of our No. 4.7 Million Sun Block, when some young men arrived with a boombox the size of my first house, and of course it was playing music by Todd Tuneless And His Sounds Of Ugly, and of course it was turned up so loud that the Atlantic Ocean started going backward, with waves rushing out to sea to get away from the noise. You could see that a lot of the people on the beach were annoyed, but nobody dared to say anything. It was like a western movie, when outlaws ride into a small town and use their six-guns to make the terrified townsfolk listen to stupid music. Finally I had had enough. I am not ordinarily a courageous person, but I stood up, brushed the sand off my butt, and decided that, no matter what the personal risk, I was eventually going to write a newspaper column on this topic.
That would have been a perfect situation for an invention conceived of by my dentist, Stanley Krugman. Stanley is always having ideas. He'll be peering into a patient's mouth, trying to figure out if he can cram any more dental appliances in there, or maybe even -- this is what dentists do for fun -- slip in a harmonica, or a zucchini, and suddenly he'll have an idea, and he'll instruct the patient to rinse while he calls me up to tell me about it.
This particular idea involves a small but powerful transmitter that you'd carry around. When a person started playing a loud boombox in your vicinity, or drove up in a car with one of those sound systems emitting bass notes so powerful that they cause big cracks to open up in the road, you'd simply press a button, and the transmitter would send out a signal, and the person's head would explode.
No, that would be wrong. Innocent people could be hurt by the shrapnel. Stanley's actual idea is that the signal would cause the boombox to emit annoying static. Of course there's always the danger that the kind of people who play loud ugly music in public would LIKE annoying static; maybe it would be better if the signal caused the boombox to play "Pop! Goes the Weasel."
Anyway, I think somebody should make a transmitter like this and send me one. I think it should also have a feature whereby, when you're driving, you could point it at a car in front of you and press a button that would cause the car's radio, even if it was turned off, to shout at the driver, in Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's voice: "IF YOU'RE GOING TO DRIVE 38 MILES PER HOUR, GET THE HELL OUT OF THE PASSING LANE, YOU MAGGOT."
Also it should be able to make neighborhood dogs shut up.
Also the U.S. Congress.
You can rinse now.
Flying Fantasies
by Dave BarryThe Boston Globe Magazine
I'm going to start my own airline. Hey, why not? This is America, right? Anybody can have an airline. They even let Donald Trump have one, which he immediately renamed after himself, as is his classy practice despite the fact that "Trump" sounds like the noise emitted by livestock with gastric disorders. ("Stand back, Earl! That cow's starting to Trump!")
Well if he can do it, I can do it. My airline will be called: "Air Dave." All the planes in the Air Dave fleet will utilize state-of-the-art US Defense Department technology, thus rendering them - this is the key selling point - *invisible to radar*. That's right: I'm talking about a *stealth airline*.
Think about it. If you're a frequent flier, you know that the big problem with commercial aviation is that the planes can be easily detected by Air Traffic Control, which is run by severely overstressed people sitting in gloomy rooms drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and staring at little radar-screen dots, each one representing several hundred carefree people drinking Bloody Marys at 35,000 feet. Naturally, the air-traffic controllers become resentful, which is why they routinely order your Boston-to-Pittsburgh flight to circle Mexico city until the captain reports that the entire passenger sector is experiencing Barf Bag Overload.
They won't be able to do that stuff to Air Dave. They won't even be aware that an Air Dave flight is in the vicinity until it screams past the control tower at Mach 2, clearly displaying its laser-guided air-to-tower missiles, and requests permission to land *immediately*.
Air Dave planes will not park at a gate. Air Dave planes will taxi directly to the rental-car counter.
The official Air Dave spokesman will be Sean Penn.
There will be no mutant in-flight "food" served on Air Dave. At mealtime, the pilot will simply land - on an interstate, if necessary - and take everybody to a decent restaurant.
Air Dave will do everything possible to live up to its motto: "Hey, You Only Go Around Once." There will be no in-flight movies. There will be live bands. Every flight will feature a complimentary Petting Zoo Cart. Air Dave will also boast the aviation industry's finest in-flight pranks. For example, just after takeoff, the door to the cockpit might "accidentally" swing open, revealing to the passengers that the sole occupant up there, cheerfully sniffing the altimeter, is a Labrador retriever named "Boomer."
All Air Dave planes will have skywriting capability.
Air Dave pilots will be chosen strictly on the basis of how entertaining their names sound over the public-address system, as in "First Officer LaGrange Weevil" of (ideally) "Captain Deltoid P. Hamsterlicker." Pilots will be encouraged to share their thoughts and feelings with the passengers via regular announcements such as: "What the heck does this thing do?" and "Uh-oh!"
In the event of an emergency, a ceiling panel will open up over each seat and out will pop: Tony Perkins.
I've given a lot of thought to the flight attendants. My original idea was to use mimes, who would go around *pretending* to serve beverages, etc. But then I got to thinking about an opinion voiced a few months back by Al Neuharth, the brain cell behind USA Today ("The Nation's Weather Map"). You may remember this: Mr. Neuharth wrote a column in which he was highly critical of today's flight attendants, whom he described as "aging women" and "flighty young men." And quite frankly I think he has a point, which is why all the flight attendants on Air Dave will be hired on the basis of looking as much as possible like the ultimate human physical specimen: Al Neuharth. Assuming we can find anybody that short.
The Preflight Safety Lecture on Air Dave will consist of five minutes of intensive harmonica instruction. Passengers will also be notified that under Federal Aviation Administration regulation, anyone requesting a "light" beer must be ejected over Utah.
Air Dave pilots will have standing orders to moon the Concorde.
So that's the Air Dave Master Plan. On behalf of Captain Hamsterlicker and the entire crew of Neuharths, let me say that it's been a real pleasure having you read the column today. And remember: Under the Air Dave Frequent Flier program, if you log just 25,000 miles, *we'll let you off the plane*.
Chairman of the bored.
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Chairman of the bored.
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