Yahoo! News - No Kidding: Miami Herald's Barry to Take Year Off
MIAMI (Reuters) - For many, many readers, this will not seem remotely funny.

Miami Herald humor columnist Dave Barry, who has poked fun at life's more bizarre aspects for 20 years, is giving up his weekly column from next January for at least a year, the paper said on Wednesday.

The Herald quoted Barry as saying he wanted a break to spend more time with his wife and child after a hectic summer and might return after a year.

"Part of the reason for taking a year off is to find out if I just can't stand not being able to write," Barry, 57, told the paper.

Barry's work is carried by about 500 newspapers and he has written some 25 books, including two that were the basis of a television sitcom. He won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1998.

His columns skewer politicians and bureaucrats, trends and gadgets and he often prefaces particularly outrageous "facts," with the phrase "I am not making this up."

Damn. Have fun, Dave.