Must Read (Better Than Working)

Regular readers (both of you) know that I am a HUGE Dave Barry fan. If there is a better way to start the New Year than his annual "Year in Review"....well, I don't know what it could be.

It starts out with a few classics, like:

How weird a year was it? Here's how weird:

O.J. actually got convicted of something.

Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times.

On several occasions, "Saturday Night Live" was funny.

There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury secretary would be Joe the Plumber.

Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a thing would never happen in the United States-- was neither a Bush nor a Clinton

Then it moves on to a monthly run down that is absolutely hysterical. You. Will. Wet. Your. Pants.

JANUARY . . .

which begins, as it does every four years, with presidential contenders swarming into Iowa and expressing sincerely feigned interest in corn. The Iowa caucuses produce two surprises:

On the Republican side, the winner is Mike Huckabee, folksy former governor of Arkansas, or possibly Oklahoma, who vows to remain in the race until he gets a commentator gig with Fox. His win deals a severe blow to Mitt Romney and his bid to become the first president of the android persuasion. Not competing in Iowa are Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy is to stay out of the race until he is mathematically eliminated, and John McCain, who entered the caucus date incorrectly into his 1996 Palm Pilot.

On the Democratic side, the surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are because they are so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.

Obama's victory comes at the expense of former front-runner Hillary Clinton, who fails to ignite voter passion despite a rip-snorter of a stump speech in which she recites, without notes, all 17 points of her plan to streamline tuition-loan applications.

Now go read the whole thing. You can thank me later.