or, he turned 40. about 20 years ago! jeesh, I didn’t realize it had been so long.

as usual, Dave Barry had me laughing out loud on and off the entire time, and yet.

I don’t read the paper anymore, and I hardly ever read Barry’s column online (though sometimes gems are sent my way), so it had been years since I'd read anything much of his. and I realized reading through it now that his humor works because he is, in his own words, his own description of his humor here, “irresponsible and vicious”. and it was funny but it was way too true sometimes to be really funny, you know? so I had mixed feelings all the way through.

Barry is not always just making jokes, and there is a short section of the book in which he is deadly serious, and makes a brutal point, and I’m glad he did that; what he said was important. but it lead me even further into this strange melancholy.

what a strange creature I am if I get depressed reading Dave Barry. I think it is a sign of how detached I’ve become from my “own” culture…

What can I say? I'm past 40 now so I probaby ought to read his book about turning 50!

This is funny, but not side-splitting stuff. ( )

I lived in a three-story apartment building when I read this book. I cannot think of another book that literally made me laugh out loud so uproarously or for so long. I couldn't put it down so kept reading far into the night, cackling and screaming throughout the entire Saturday night. The neighbors above, below, and on each side thereafter looked at me dubiously, wondering, I could tell, just *what* had been going in my apartment that night. ( )

This was a really difficult book to read. It's difficult to see when tears are streaming out of your eyes from all the laughter. I'd be trying to read quietly at night and my sides would split from trying to hold in the laughs! It is seriously ROTFLOL funny. Thanks, Dave! ( )