Sometimes it's possible to accomplish something important by doing nothing at all. Well, actually, I did do something. I resisted. I think that counts. Here's my story. Many of my friends have been getting pierced and tattooed for years. It's huge. Every neighborhood has at least one bodypiercing/bodyart place. Seems like they outnumber taverns these days. Naturally, they want me in on it. "C'mon Mike," they say. "It's fun! It's addictive! What? Are you afraid of needle...

You hear many endearing phrases in the country. Translating them to English can be complex. Use these handy Field Notes on Country Linguistics to lay the ground-work of effective communication in the hinterland.

Looking up this week from getting a reggae backing to sound like St Ann rather than St Felicity, I spotted the small dark mist in the usual corner behind the left monitor speaker. I have sometimes believed absolutely that this is my best muse, back from a pizza run to the outer starbelt. Or maybe just the golden ring around Uranus. Anyhoo...It seems to bring inspiration in a dark way: more Keith Richards than Cliff Richard, and I feel the urge to write something that involves...

A Tongue-in-Cheek checklist for surviving the first year of college!

Detecting love in a land of donuts?

A group that calls itself humanist terrorists was apprehended by the FBI in a preemptive strike in Miami. The terrorist cell, which claims affiliation with the Middle Atlantic terror group all-Libraries, was infiltrated by an FBI operative. The leader of the group confided to the informant that the members planned to plant explosive books in various locations throughout the United States, including the Sears Tower, a number of FBI buildings, and radical Muslim mosques. The humanist terrorist group had been operating out of the basement of an as yet undisclosed free public library in Miami. The FBI found plentiful evidence of the group?s plans, including many intelligent books generally considered to be easily accessible and therefore highly dangerous.

We decided, at a reader?s request, to write about gossip and, along the way, to note what others have gossiped about it. What might a gossip say under the influence of a confessional potion if asked, ?Why do you always talk about other people?? ?Apparently, because I have nothing much to say about myself.? Or as one Amanda Lear quipped, ?I hate to spread rumors, but what else can you do with them??

The reason for Russia's risky stance is as obvious as the red power tie we often see dangling from Vladimir Putin's neck. Iran buys weapons from Russia and will now buy enriched uranium, too. What Lenin once said about capitalists apparently also applies to reformed communists: they would sell you the rope to hang them with.

I've lived my entire adult life with "dumb blonde" jokes. Whoever started them, probably spawned by pornographers allured by Marylyn Monroe types (probably with dyed hair), should be locked up in a room with a hundred blonde professional women on a month-long sabbatical from bad bosses. Think he'd make it out alive? I think he (or she) definitely be a changed creature after that month. He'd gain a new understanding of blondes, that's for sure.

Why are stand up comediennes the most popular performer at special occasions.