New Rule

I’ve been reading Bill Maher’s book The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head up Their Ass and its has had me laughing out loud more than once. Bill cracks me up.

The book is a compilation of the New Rule bit he does on his show Real Time with Bill Maher. Many I recognize from the show but they are still funny the second time plus he has included a bunch of new ones too. He warns you they are “new” by adding this icon at the front of each new segment:

Here’s one for you Bill. New Rule: Don’t put the tacky “new” icon in front of your new stuff. It’s already new to me when I read it for the first time and guess what; some of your other bits that don’t have the “new” icon are still “new” to me because I must have missed that episode.

The problem with reading this book is that your internal thoughts all begin with the words New Rule. Like yesterday as I was biking to town with my son I was thinking to myself  New Rule: Never wear short cotton butt-munching shorts instead of proper bike-riding shorts when you ride a bike – ever again! And New Rule: Don’t agree to ride a bike to town at noon in the middle of July when the temperature is in the mid 30’s and then actually think you have a chance in hell of keeping up to a twenty three year old.

Oh, it went on all day. New Rule: If you decide to have a bowl of lentil and bean soup, don’t expect to be able to do anything afterwards but moan on the couch while your stomach blows up to third tri-semester proportions. New Rule: Never eat lentil and bean soup again.

Ok, here are a couple of Bills New Rules from his book. I especially like how he (or his writers) title each one.

Webby Downer

New Rule: Now that social network Google + has arrived expressly to try to destroy Facebook and Twitter the way Facebook and Twitter blew away MySpace right after MySpace obliterated Friendster…the Internet must admit that it doesn’t really understand the concept of “friendship”.

Incensed

New Rule: You’re not allowed to be shocked that breathing smoke might be bad for you. A new study shows that frequently burning incense might cause cancer. What – did you think you were protected by some kind of magic hippie force field? It comes down to what I always say – if you’re going to burn something and then inhale it, it might as well get you high.

Hybe Casting

New Rule: Now that all news on CNN and Fox News, no matter how old, is being billed as “breaking news” or “happening now,” news that actually is breaking and/or happening now must get its own graphic that says, “No, seriously, guys, we’re not fucking around this time, this is actually happening now.”

Anyway, you get the picture. It’s funny and crass and typical Bill Maher and that’s why I’m enjoying it so much, but New Rule: As soon as you put down Maher’s New Rule book you have to immediately read something else so you don’t think in New Rules all day long…or not.