As your face gets scruffier, you may become overwhelmed with the urge to drink Starbucks or buy a McIntosh computer. This is a natural side effect of a bohemian lifestyle, and should be avoided at all costs.

I'd always thought of wine as something a Frenchman drank to forget about his wife's hairy armpits.

When did toothbrushes morph into frightening mutant creatures? Most modern toothbrushes have handles bigger than a Schwinn's, which is unfortunate unless you have a bicycle rack in your bathroom.

In New England, they have strict regulations for drivers — you must have a valid driver's license, proof of insurance, and a large, styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup in your hand at all times.

In Hollywood, good ideas are like oil — they're becoming harder to find, more expensive to produce, and all the good stuff has been coming in from overseas.

On TV, groundhogs are happy little weather forecasters who pop up once a year, on February 2nd. In real life, they're more like Al Roker at a buffet.

Email is a wonderful thing — when it doesn't contain computer viruses. So before opening a message, you need to be a computer expert, like me, who knows not to open suspicious messages from strangers.

My souffléed hopes suddenly fell. A statement like that could only mean I wasn't going to get any womanly attentions during this date.

There're a reason why young creatures are generally cute and squishy looking. Cuteness is part of Darwin's theory. Babies are cute, therefore they get pampered and cared for. Imagine if every puppy looked like Ernest Borgnine or Lyle Lovett — dogs would die off pretty quickly.

Last year, I tried to get away with itemizing my tax payment as a charitable donation. That turned out like Casino Night at a Baptist Fundraiser. No dice.

If my car starts making a funny noise, I have a special trick called "turning up the radio". That works until the car starts smoking, which is why I keep an emergency supply of Nicorette in the glove box.

Frustrated cavemen would pace circles around their Ikea living room sets and tear at their expensively coiffed hair, scanning through credit card statements and asking their wives the most important of all financial questions: "Ugga mahlugga?"

This week, our nation celebrates Presidents Day, a federal holiday set aside for honoring our country's leaders, enjoying mid-winter recess at school, and reducing last year's model inventory at car dealerships.

An alert reader from Cape Town notified me this weekend that an author going by Desmond Tladinyane has been plagiarizing articles from StolenSoap.com and publishing them in Johannesburg, South Africa, through Johnnic Communication's "Reporter.co.za" news site.

Heck, a week ago, an old woman with a creepy hump-back cut in front of me at the grocery store checkout line, and despite my clinically diagnosed fear of hump-backed old ladies, you better believe this manly, virile, daring man didn't let her get away with it.

They say you can't fight City Hall, but fortunately the Sewer Department is a long way from City Hall. If you've ever smelled them, you know why.

So you'll understand if I skip the part about how exactly I proposed, because I can't possibly say another word about that sprinkled trail of rose petals, those hundred white candles, or how quickly rose petals can go up in romantic flames, or the fire department's timely arrival.

I wonder if all this happened because of that crazy old lady who sneezed on me at the grocery store last week. Maybe I caught old age from her? If nothing else, that would explain why I bought so much prune juice and Kasha…

Leaf peeping is when all 14.2 million residents of New England simultaneously flood the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They inch along in bumper to bumper traffic, looking at shedding trees until they go so crazy they're compelled to buy "REAL MAPLE SYRUP" from ramshackle stores that can't afford all the letters in their names, such as "Hole N th' Wall" and "This'n That Shop".

Nature insists that we fatten up in winter. As I write this sentence, I see a squirrel gathering nuts in my yard. He knows he'll survive all winter without anybody noticing how chubby he's getting. He'll change into his fat-squirrel pants (taken out of storage each October) and chow down on those fattening nuts as soon as the snow starts falling. Underneath those gaudy Christmas sweaters, who cares if a squirrel's the size of Dom DeLouise?

Our dog is a happy, frisky, three-month old Boston Terrier named Caesar. The best trait about Boston Terriers is they are very friendly, they love people, and they almost seem to look guilty when your foot comes down on the poop they hid next to the door and waited all day for you to step in.

The stress of discovering that nearly all of his relatives are bald will make Andy drink too much, resulting in at least one awkward, hung-over morning when Andy will wake up with his 72 year old bio-physics professor who compliments Andy's tenure. And she'll still give him a D on the final.

Once upon a time, a sturdy bra could serve as a protective barrier to the advances of teenage boys, but in those days they were called corsets. Now a brassiere's entire defensive strategy consists of a befuddling snap and the word "brassiere".

If owning a home is part of the American Dream, then it's that part of the Dream where you show up at school naked.

Do not see any play whose marquee proudly displays the name of a former sitcom actor. If Joey wasn't funny after Friends, then he sure as heck won't be funny in A Streetcar Named Desire.

If you really want to accomplish something, you need to set excessively impossible goals. Maybe you won't actually wind up honeymooning in the Tropics with Salma Hayek, but at least you'll have a great story to tell when they let you out of prison.

I have a few "classic" pairs of underwear that have been with me for years. They're battle hardened soldiers, waiting in the back of my drawer for that day when I run out of laundry and call them up for active duty. To paraphrase Macarthur: old underpants never die, they just fade away.

They say that money can't buy happiness, but it sure can buy a lot of crazy stuff on the Internet.

When I was 9 years old, I devised a plan to make the lovely, if gangly, Carlene McGriffith fall desperately in love with me. I knew I needed a really good plan, because even if love is blind, Carlene wasn't.

I know what it's like to be embarrassed when your phone rings at awkward times — in a movie theater, at a restaurant, or while sneaking up on ninjas — but this guy wasn't the least bit bothered by committing such a horrible bathroom faux pas.

Stupid rules are a fact of life, like "No Gum Allowed In Gym Class." In the history of the world, no one has ever fallen while running and choked on chewing gum, except for that fat piece of crap Jason Quarters who ruined it for everyone else.

I would live the typical poet's life. I envisioned riding down the highway on my Harley, tattoos of Shakespeare, Yeats, and the Mud Flap Girl on my arms, ready at any point to doff a black turtleneck for smoky, back room readings.

The only thing Jen knows about the Super Bowl is that it involves dried, brown pigskin — one for the football, and one for Janet Jackson's nipple.

Guys, throw away that $50 bottle of Kiehl's Facial Moisturizer and put your Igia Ionizing Twin Turbo Jet Hair Dryer up on eBay. Sure, it'll be painful to part with your Strawberry-Papaya Facial Scrub, but the days of the primping, preening "metrosexual" are numbered.

During my college years, I went through scores of roommates. Thanks to a few "accidents" involving my gap-y, flap-y bathrobe, most of the roommates quickly fled. But you guys stuck around and became my closest friends, and I hope you accept my sincerest apologies.

I'd always thought of wine as something a Frenchman drank to forget about his wife's hairy armpits.

So far so good, I thought, but what does any of this have to do with Salma Hayek?

Have you ever been pulled over for zipping through a red light? With an extra second of yellow, that cop wouldn't have noticed you, let alone arrested you for driving without pants.

Seriously, the Communists must have invented self-checkout.

I’ve never had much of an appreciation for mountain climbing. There’s really no reason to hang out on a mountain, or so my reasoning has gone, unless you’re a goat or perhaps bear a strong resemblance to a ski lodge.

Raising a daughter scares me to death; I'm unmarried and have no children, so I consider myself an expert on family life. And I know having a teenage daughter would fill me with enough stress to kill a water buffalo.

When the Food Logo Actor's Guild (FLAG) goes on strike, the Jolly Green Giant discovers what he's lost.

If you secretly crave the humiliation and debasement that comes from being a contestant on a Fox reality show, but want even tougher odds of winning, then you should skip the television audition and just try to eat healthy foods.

A jogger ran past me a few weeks ago, wearing a t-shirt featuring an orange ticket and the slogan “Welcome to Boston”. Five minutes later I found a similar ticket on my car. The city is a lot like my Uncle John, who asks for money every time you see him; parking tickets are Boston’s way of keeping in touch.