The prince and the toddler: It's a doll world after all
Hi! How are you? Good! Here is my column! It has short words today. Why? Because I am spending a lot of time with my daughter. Her name is Sophie. She is 3! My wife is a sportswriter. She went to, Paris, France, to write about tennis. She left me as the lone parent. With a 3-year-old! For 16 days! That makes 384 hours. Or 23,040 minutes. But who is counting? Ha ha!
( DAVE BARRY, 07/20/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

One man's close shave with facial destiny
Attention, consumers with bodily hair: The razor industry has news for you! You will never in a million years guess what this news is, unless your IQ is higher than zero, in which case you're already thinking: ``Not another blade! Don't tell me they're adding another blade!!''
( DAVE BARRY, 07/13/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Florida journalism: It's a wild, wild life
People always ask me: ``Is it hard to be a professional writer like you and Joyce Carol Oates?'' Yes. Very hard. Here is a true example of the kind of difficulties we face:
( DAVE BARRY, 07/06/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Not 2 fast, and definitely not 2 furious
So the other day I was waiting at a stoplight in my car, which is nice, but, like most cars today, boring. For example, when you turn the key, it starts. Every time! It has one of those modern, quiet, dependable engines. At least I assume it has an engine: I've never had a reason to look under the hood. For all I know, there's a small alien spacecraft in there, or Vice President Cheney.
( DAVE BARRY, 06/29/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Right or wrong, we're journalists
We are worried, here in the newspaper business (motto: ``What, YOU never make misstakes?''). We're hearing that you readers have lost your faith in us. Polls show that, in terms of public trust, the news media now rank lower than used-car salespeople, kidnappers, tapeworms, Hitler and airline flight announcements. (We are still slightly ahead of lawyers.)
( DAVE BARRY, 06/22/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Seeking refuge in sport
Every now and then, you stumble across a story that is so wonderful you say to yourself: ``If this story were made into a movie, Roger Ebert would deliberately expose himself to mutating radiation so he could grow additional thumbs and point them up.''
( Dave Barry, 06/15/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Words to the wise: Synergy is key
It is time once again for Ask Mister Language Person, the column that provides you with the grammar, punctuation and vocabulary skills you need to verbally crush your opponents like seedless grapes under a hammer.
( 06/08/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Prez Dave? Run for your lives!
Every day, literally hundreds of ordinary Americans -- people just like you, except that they are imaginary -- ask me: ''Dave, are you running for president again?''
( DAVE BARRY, 06/01/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

A relaxing vacation? Yeah, right
Summer vacation season is almost here, and if you have kids, you know what that means! It's time to put them up for adoption. No, sorry. I mean it's time to start planning your family summer vacation. This is your chance to escape ''the daily grind'' and spend quality time with your children, finding out what's new in their lives, what's on their minds, whether they have been arrested, etc. At night, after they fall asleep, you can check them for tattoos.
( DAVE BARRY, 05/25/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

That's not a trash bag -- it's art!
It's time for an update on the British art world, which, as far as I can tell, exists mainly to provide me with material. As regular readers of this column are aware, British art institutions have taken to paying large sums of money for works of art that can only be described as extremely innovative (I am using ''innovative'' in the sense of ``stupid''). Here are two examples that I've written about:
( DAVE BARRY, 05/18/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Real war heroes eat pork
It is time to sing about some unsung heroes of the recent war in Iraq. These heroes were not, personally, in Iraq, but they were serving in a place that is just as foreign and threatening to the average American: The United States Senate.
( DAVE BARRY, 05/11/2003 03:01 AM EDT)

Florida's fire ants headed for trouble
Almost the first thing that happened to me when I moved to South Florida was that I got attacked by a fire ant. This was my own stupid fault: I sat on my lawn.
( DAVE BARRY, 05/04/2003 03:01 AM EDT)