the revised devil's dictionary 

checklist n. A facile and usually quixotic listing of related items, often with some sort of haphazard precedence thrown in the general direction of perceived and arbitrary progress. Quite popular with media-lite magazines like Reader’s Digest, Grit and The Midnight Star. One important common denominator of checklists besides brevity is simplicity, such as in the following example checklist, which comes from the noted new age publication: Home, Health and Hemorrhoids:

The Seven Warning Signs of Death

1: Partial or complete loss of hearing.
2: Extreme stiffness in the joints.
3: Difficulty with complex verbal concepts such as pronouns or verbs.
4: Difficulty in breathing.
5: Loss of appetite.
6: Loss of verbal skills involving the vocal chords or tongue.
7: Difficulty in making decisions.

If you or anyone you know answers yes or sometimes to four or more of these questions, the advice and services of a mortician are indicated.

New Jersey n. 1. One of the thirteen original colonies which consequently became one of the original thirteen states of the union. Known as The Garden State because only one garden has ever been known to exist there. The current location of that garden is considered a state secret. 2. Home of the News Jersey Times Best Seller list. The list of the last years is as follows:

The New Jersey Times Best Seller’s List

 Non-Fiction

1: Seppuku for Dummies
2: The Cholesterol Diet
3: Women Who Run With Wolves and the Men Who Shear Them
4: Zen and the Art of Terrorism
5: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From 1311 Sycamore Street
6: Bill Gates: The Ethics of Geek Greed
7: It Takes A Village and $373, 291.38
8: How to Make a Million Pushing Things that Don’t Exist
9:  Everything I Needed to Know I Learned at MIT
10: What Color Is Your Anchor?

Fiction