On January 1st, 2006, I am in a better place than I was on January 1st, 2005. That’s really all the reviewing of the past year I have chosen to do - even when I was invited to get paid to review the year. Still, it is often entertaining to see other people’s futile attempts to make sense of it all. Or, in the case of columnist/blogger/sitcom Dave Berry, make nonsense of it all.

“A Year on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” is the oh-so 1988 title of Dave’s 2005 review article, and provides a dire warning of the threats I will be facing in the new year: I nearly had a Very Special coronary episode laughing uncontrollably at the following line…

. . . a federal jury convicts former WorldCom executive Bernie Ebbers in connection with an $11 billion fraud that led to the bankruptcy of the telecom giant. Upon Ebbers’s arrival at the federal prison, nearly $7 billion is recovered during what shaken guards later describe as “the cavity search from Hell.”

Now, I am not saying that Dave Barry’s humor is The Ultimate Weapon, but he has a skill for stringing absurdities together that, once one of them tickles your fancy (or fancies your tickle), carries you along laughing at subsequently less-funny jokes for an embarrassingly long run. The result: somebody asks you “What’s so funny?” and you recite that most recent joke, leaving that somebody shaking his-or-her head with a lowered opinion of both you and Dave Barry.

Another fascinating by-product of Barry’s writing style is its tendency to rub off on the next thing that you write. Which is unfortunate for writers of medical journals, but can provide a welcome improvement to software documentation and political speeches. It also allowed Barry to quit producing a regular column, as 80% of his income now comes from plagiarism lawsuits.

Fortunately, the only thing that kept me from suffering permanent damage from reading this article was the WashingtonPost.com’s practice of breaking up good stuff into multiple slow-and-selectively-loading web pages (And yes, I’ve noticed that none of the article appears until you’ve had a chance to take in all three ads from different credit card issuers).

This practice apparently goes wrong when Page Five of the Five Page article turns out to be longer than the last Harry Potter book, due to the Post.com’s editorial policy of putting anything referring to the identity of Deep Throat on the last page.

But it is still a delight to see the phrase “I am not making this up” repeated 37 times in a single article. I am making that up.

Last year’s running jokes are (apparently) the crimes of Tom DeLay, the jurist allegedly named “John Roberts”, jacking up the deficit, Greta Van Susteren in Aruba and Congressional Democrats doing not much, except for Senator Joe Biden who threatens to speak. Oh yes, and California juries:

“Beloved Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore is killed by Severus Snape, who, moments later, is acquitted by a California jury.”

Although the later convergence of Tom DeLay and the California Jury (that sounds like a Harry Potter title) is mildly whimsical, I would have prefered if he fled to Aruba where Greta Van Susteren is unable to find him. I’m sure he’s saving his Saddam Hussein/California Jury joke for the 2006 Year in Review (which will, no doubt, be named after a foreign film from 1989).

I especially enjoy when Barry deals with local issues, local to him being [chuckle] Florida:

“Hurricane Wilma blasts across Florida, knocking out power to the eight homes that still had electricity after the 17 previous hurricanes to hit the state this year. Critics, noting that Wilma was not a particularly strong storm, ask why Florida Power & Light’s utility poles seem to fall down every time a moth passes gas. FP&L officials attempt to answer these charges in a press conference, but their microphones keep tipping over.”

I must praise Mr. Barry’s incredible self-control in not mentioning Paris Hilton until the penultimate* paragraph, and then only in the following context: “If humanity becomes extinct, there’s a chance that Paris Hilton will, too.” And the entire article contains not a single mention of Tom Cruise, demonstrating clearly that his priorities are, to use a clinical term, “screwed up”.

And that’s my review of Dave Barry’s Review of the Year. If you’ll excuse me, I must dash off a check to Barry’s lawyers for plagiarizing his style.

*I appreciate any opportunity to use the word penultimate.

Thing that makes me go hmmmm… According to a blurb at the end of the article, Dave Barry will be fielding questions and comments Tuesday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline. I see an opportunity for some celebrity harassment, just to get my money’s worth out of what I’ve already paid his lawyers.