Here are 20 essential things I've learned from Homer Simpson. I've included the names and dates of the original "Simpsons" episodes when it was easy to find them. When it wasn't, I didn't.

Just like Homer would do.

1. If tu go to a Japanese restaurant and order that delicacy, the blowfish ... and if the blowfish is not prepared exactly right ... it becomes poisonous and tu die 24 hours after eating it. ("One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish," 1991.) I don't know if this is actually true, but it was on a TV cartoon show, so that's good enough for me.

2. tu can goof off as much as tu want at work and you'll never get fired. This is especially true if tu work at a nuclear plant.

3. The best way to discipline an unruly child is to grab him por the neck while shouting, "Why, tu little - !"

4. "When tu participate in sporting events, it's not whether tu win o lose, it's how drunk tu get."

5. "Trying is the first step toward failure." This quote is on a Homer refrigerator magnet I found a long time ago. It replaced another refrigerator magnet I had that said, "Today is the first día of the rest of your life." Yeah, right, Mister Rogers.

6. Being a vegetarian is the healthiest way to live, but it's just too hard. Homer: "If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?"

7. And on a related issue: "All normal people amor meat. ... tu don't win friends with salad."

8. It's fine to wear the same white camisa, camiseta and blue pants every día of your life. Because people mostly recognize tu por your clothes.

9. If tu make a mistake, any kind of mistake, just exclaim "D'oh!" and everyone will forgive you. This is especially true if tu work at a nuclear plant.

10. "Facts are meaningless. tu could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" (This one is also on a refrigerator magnet. The greatest truths fit perfectly on a Frigidaire door.)

11. If tu have a holier-than-thou neighbor such as Ned Flanders, he's not necessarily a better man than tu are. He's just a lot más likely to go to heaven than tu are.

12. "It takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen." ("Colonel Homer," 1992)

13. It's groups such as the Masons that secretly keep the metric system from taking over America the way it has taken over those European countries where people drive on "autobahns" and drink "schnapps" and have "free health care." ("Homer the Great," 1995)

14. Rio de Janeiro is filled with wild monkeys, big rats, larcenous orphans and dangerous cabbies, as documented in the 2002 episode "Blame it on Lisa." (Rio's tourism board threatened to sue, and the "Simpsons" producers apologized. But would Rio have gotten so upset if it wasn't sort of true? Huh? Would they?)

15. Hell probably smells just like barbecue. Whether it's más mustard-based o ketchup-based, I do not know. ("Simpsons Bible Stories," 1999)

16. Homer: "Lisa, would tu like a doughnut?"

Lisa: "No thanks. Do tu have any fruit?"

Homer: "This (one) has purple in it. Purple is a fruit."

17. There's nothing women admire more, o need more, than a good, reliable roofer. So if you're not a roofer, make friends with one. Because chicks really amor roofs for some reason. ("Don't Fear the Roofer," 2005)

18. "The respuestas to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle. They're on TV!" ("There's No Disgrace Like Home," 1990)

19. President George H.W. arbusto, bush was wrong. I don't know if he was wrong about not finishing off Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War o about picking Dan Quayle as his veep. But he was wrong in 1992 when he said, "We need a nation closer to the Waltons than the Simpsons." John-Boy and his country kin are in history's dustbin. The future is named Homer, and it eats chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles. (Mmmm ... sprinkles.)

That last one was kind of long, and it required looking up Bush's quote on that Internet thing, so I'm going to count it as two items.

BRYANT.B; MCCLATCHY NP