Yeah, I went to MIT

Did you know you could audit MIT courses for free?

Find the Candidate that is Right for You!

This neat little quiz will help you find which candidate is closest to your positions on key issues. I admit I was skeptical at first, but the results were pretty much in line with what I thought. I am a McCain man, with a 28 percent match. Mike Huckabee was in the top third, but no front runner. Giuliani was way down the list. I had the least in common with John Edwards, I am happy to report.

The big surprise was Ron Paul, who I thought I aligned with pretty closely. He was about fifth from the bottom (and there are quite a few candidates listed). Oh well Ron--you and me, it just wasn't meant to be.

Sinking

Generally, my dreams don't make sense. I'm not the kind of guy to have epiphanies mid-slumber, and when I wake up in the morning I am never inspired by my brain's midnight opus (much to its chagrin):

7:30 in the morning
Brain: Soooo, what'd you think?
Me: About what?
Brain: Last night! Good show, huh?
Me: Eh, it was all right.
Brain: All right?
Me: Not your best work.
Brain: What are you talking about?? Didn't you get the underlying themes, the internal conflict??
Me: I don't know, it felt contrived. Honestly, a blind bull in a video store could do a better job putting together a show.
Brain: That was my Last Supper, my David. You've just pissed on David.
Me: Well, it could only improve it.
Brain: Jerk.

Chagrin is a fun word. It should come up more often. So anyway, I generally don't remember my dreams, and if I do it is because some de ja vu moment comes up where I perform the same action I did in a dream. As cool as that might sound, it is always a mundane action like sharpening my pencil.

Yeah, I'm that exciting.

But two nights ago I had an interesting dream. I was in a rowboat that was sinking. And no matter how hard I was bailing, the water just kept rising. This stuck in my mind, I think, because I distinctly remember using a hand-driven bilge pump (works like a bicycle pump). I am inwardly fascinated with flowing liquid for some odd reason. Even the simple act of filling a bucket intrigues me. If you ever watch me pump gas you would swear I am catatonic because I will sit there and just think about the gas flowing into the tank. I don't know why, but I'm sure it can't be a good thing. I'm full of lovely quirks like that.

Anyway, there I was in my rowboat pumping water, but not pumping fast enough. I don't know what happened to me in this dream, but I don't think that was important.

It is kind of funny, because at work lately I've noticed myself slipping on certain benchmarks. For one, my email inbox is inexorably increasing. Not a month ago I could empty my inbox every day, but now I have things that sit there, waiting for me to get around to them. I hate this. I could always turn around tasks in about a day, but now, even though I am working harder than I ever have, things are piling up. I take this personally, because my inaction or decreased ability to anticipate invariably costs the government, and the taxpayer, more money. At the end of the day, in addition to feeling overwhelmed, I feel like crap because I didn't do as well as I know I can.

My boss referred me to the Irish prayer that says something like "May God give me the courage to change what I can, the patience to cope with what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference." With all due respect (and I mean, with all due respect), I think this is crap. If I can't fix something, then, according to my own personal convictions, I've failed. But then again, maybe I am just a fool in a sinking rowboat.

Helping out my neighbors in mini mansions

Well, looks like we get to bail out our neighbors who sprung for the five-bedroom, 4,000 sq. ft. homes.

A year ago I could have gotten an ARM. I could have bought a $300,000 home for under 4%. I could have been living the good life in a beautiful neighborhood with a fountain in my private lake. I could have pretended that I didn't know my mortgage rate would reset, and I could have cried for help when my mortgage payment doubled.

But I didn't. Because I'm not an idiot.

A year ago I took out a traditional mortgage on my reasonably priced townhouse. I make my payments on time and I know that my payments (minus taxes) will remain the same for the life of my mortgage. This is security that I owed my family. This is a responsibility that I had to you.

Because I didn't want to screw you over. Why should I get into a situation where I couldn't make my payment and where I would go into foreclosure? My foreclosed property would be sold for loss by my bank, effectively screwing my neighbors with an immediate drop in property values.

And now, the collective million homeowners out there with these jumbo super-duper ARMs are screwing us all. Honest homeowners cannot sell their properties in many areas without taking a loss, due to the number of cheap, foreclosed properties on the market. And now, President Bush wants to freeze the rates on some of these ARMs. Our idiot neighbors are practically stealing from their banks, and in return the banks will raise the interest rates on new traditional mortgages to offset the expected losses.

So when you are paying 9% on your next mortgage, you know who to thank.

The Continuing, Continuing Resolution

Congress and I have a fairly simple relationship. I work for the federal government as a "value-added" employee, saving more money than I expend, and in return, Congress gives me the money I need to do my job.

Ideally, Congress would pass a budget over the summer. Worst case, by September 30. But this year, like last year, we are going to make it to Christmas without any actual authority to spend money.

This is called a "Continuing Resolution," in which Congress is kind enough to give us just enough money to pay our employees (well, most of them) and to keep the lights on (well, some of them). We can't spend money on any new programs. Right now, there is a two feet by two feet hole in the side of the building, and I can't fix it, because it was not an existing condition last year.

This is the only thing Congress absolutely is required to do every year, for Pete's sake. I don't care about minor changes to tax codes giving medium-to-large businesses a tax break for promising to think about energy conservation. Pass a budget!

Obviously, this is fiscal irresponsibility on the macro level, but, at least in this case, macroeconomic failures mimic those on a more familiar, microeconomic level.

Me: Dude, you got your share of the rent yet?
Congress: Wha?
Me: The rent. It was due, like, two months ago.
Congress: Can't it wait til this show is over?
Me: You're watching Dora the Explorer.
Congress: I know! Immigration is big now. I'm staying informed.
Me: It's a kid show.
Congress: Kids are our future.
Me: What does that have to do with this?
Congress: With what?
Me: The rent.
Congress: What rent?
Me: Are you kidding me?! The money you owe to allow you to continue to exist in your current degenerative state.
Congress: Whoa, calm down. No sense bringing my state into this. Besides, didn't I pay you, like, a couple months ago?
Me: It's due every month.
Congress: Seriously?
Me: Seriously.
Congress: My financial situation is kinda fuzzy right now. Can you float me for a couple months?
Me: Come on! You can't just sit around here and produce excrement! You have to honor your financial--
(Lights go out)
Congress: Dora! No!!
Me: Jesus! Did you pay the power bill?
Congress: Hey, neither God nor His children have any place in this conversation. Of course I paid the bill.
Me: What's that?
Congress: Beer bottles. But you don't want to drink that. I was watching the game and the bathroom was awfully-
Me: No, under the bottle...is that the electric bill?
Congress: No, of course not. That's the second notice for the electric bill. I haven't seen the electric bill.
Me: But you paid it?
Congress: Well, I hadn't saw it in a while, so I assumed I paid it.
Me: I am going to stab you with a pencil.

Another Brilliant Idea

Along the same vein as that PostSecret blog, Sasha Cagen has released a book based on her To-Do List blog, a website that posts the actual, honest-to-God to-do lists of ordinary people like you and me.

That is brilliant. Once again, someone is getting rich by letting other people do work for her. And people apparently find these to-do lists fascinating, presumably because it gives candid insight into the minds of the authors of these lists. Indeed, perhaps history would have been different if we could have just glimpsed at the to-do lists of notable figures throughout the years.

Hitler's To-Do List:

1. Go to the grocery and buy a dozen eggs.
2. Placate the west.
3. Pay the power bill.
4. Place a flaming bag of poo on the doorstep of Jew neighbor.
5. Write nasty letter to art school.
6. Invade Poland.

Ah, had we only known!

John Hinckley Jr's To-Do List

1. Write letter to Jody Foster.
2. Make list of Ways to Impress Jody Foster.
3. Buy gun.
4. Paste photo of me on picture of Jody Foster.
5. Book a room at the Hilton Hotel.
6. Shoot leader of the free world.
7. Pick up Jody when she falls for me.

Problem-Solving When Idiots Are Involved

It routinely amazes me how much time and money is wasted trying to fix things that someone is actively breaking. If this person is knowingly screwing up stuff, he is a jerk and should be savagely beaten. However, most of the time the idiot is unaware of his/her consequences and only merits a whiffle bat beating.

When I can't find an easy answer to a problem, I usually look at the people in the vicinity of the problem and search their eyes for that vacant look. You know the one I'm talking about. That empty expression is nature's way of letting the rest of us know not to trust them with anything bigger than a paperclip. Anyway, when I find that person I usually find the source of the problem. More often than not, it is one of our paperclip people that was wrongly entrusted with something larger and/or smarter than a paperclip. Like a coffee maker.

More on this later. I'm sure this method of problem-solving is not original, but I think I'm the first person to write it down in a cool way. So I pretty much own it. (Oh, this is all copyright 2007 by me. Pretend there is that little C-in-a-circle right here.)

Bryan's Economy of Problem-Solving

If a given problem cannot be rationally answered by a simple and practical solution, attention to increasingly complex and expensive solutions should be deferred until it can be established, to a high degree of confidence, that an idiot is not causing the problem.

Parallel:

An idiot is at least as likely to be the cause of a given problem as the scenarios that can be anticipated.

Maxim:

Find the idiot, find the problem.

Pretty graph that really hits the point home:

*Graph not based on any empirical evidence.

As you can clearly see, idiots cause problems. In fact, even when you are still looking at simple solutions idiots will be at the crux of the matter 30% of the time. I thoroughly researched this. I promise. In fact, if you are even thinking about a solution that has more than one "if" in it (as in, "if this and this and this happened, then maybe...) without first considering whether there might be an idiot involved, you are wasting your time.

For instance, consider the following:

A mysterious dark stain is developing on the side of a brick building below the second floor window. No one is quite sure what it is or where it comes from. It is determined not to be mold or sort of growth. The rest of the building is unaffected.

Now, would you:

a) Examine the stain and look for signs of leaching, and carefully go over the window frame for signs of corrosion or paint residue.

b) Or would you find the idiot who has been pouring his old coffee out the window every morning for the past couple months.

Now I bet you know which one we did first. And if it wasn't for someone actually observing this lazy fool in the act, we probably would still be looking for the source of that stain.

So remember, folks, when you are problem-solving always start with the problem...and smack the crap out of him with a whiffle bat.

Mandatory Bathroom Fixtures

I am absolutely terrified of walking into a women's restroom by mistake. I am not sure where this particular irrational fear (I have a few) came from. I don't have any vivid memories of walking into a girls' bathroom, and I don't think I can blame this one on my parents (unlike my irrational fear of drawing blood--Dad). I think it may stem from my own recognition and acceptance of my absent-minded tendencies. In other words, I'm the kind of guy who would walk into a women's restroom unawares.

When I go into a restroom I compulsively check the door and the walls for any signs that might indicate what gender should enter. If there is less than two such signs present, I am content to wait for further verification that it is indeed the restroom for individuals similarly equipped like myself (that's a nice way of saying penis). A smart ass might change one sign, but smart asses are generally too lazy to switch them both. Once again, I depend on the laziness of idiots. This additional verification is usually an alert and otherwise non perverted-looking gentlemen entering or exiting my destination restroom.

Once in the bathroom, I look for the telltale sign of male presence...the urinal. There should be a building code mandating at least one urinal in every multiple occupancy male restroom. If I walk into a restroom full of stalls, I will walk out of that restroom and look at the signs again. I might even take my business elsewhere. While I firmly believe there are few things more important than bodily functions, the specter of imminent embarrassment is one of them.

If you can't give me a urinal, at least put a poster of one. Paint a urinal mural. Show me a urinal in the abstract. I don't care. Just let me know that I am where I belong. Peeing in a stall is horribly unsanitary. I'm from the "If you tinkle and you sprinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat" school of thought, but I know some of my fellow firemen are not. It is also unnerving--hearing the cascade of urine echo off the tile is ethereal, to say it best. (Oh, I've resolved to stop using "to say the least." Saying the least is what slackers do. I'm a winner, so I say it best.)

I could really do without that fifteen seconds of terror followed by two minutes of confusion as I go in and out of the restroom door several times trying to find the answer that I already know.

There really should be a support group.

Iowa Tax Makes Return of Great Pumpkin Unlikely

A recent decision by the state of Iowa to tax pumpkins may spell the end for the fabled Great Pumpkin.

The Great Pumpkin, often characterized as a third-tier holiday figure, has long struggled for legitimacy in an arena dominated by perennial heavyweights Santa Claus and Easter Bunny. His critics say his orange-skinned persona and lack of identifiable facial features prevents him from connecting to his target audience. And, the pundits add, the Great Pumpkin may never be able to overcome the "vegetable stigma" on a holiday celebrated for candy goodness.



Despite these setbacks, the popularity of the Great Pumpkin (known as G.P. by his close circle of friends) continues to increase, baffling even the most dedicated pumpkin enthusiast. So what is driving this jolly gourd?

Sources close to G.P. say that, despite his tendency to rot and attract flies the second week of November, the ability to, quite literally, start "from the ground up" every year allows him to keep a positive outlook.


Says supporter Linus van Pelt, "Every year, it is a new Great Pumpkin. The suspense adds a level of excitement to the holiday. You can just feel it in the air each Halloween."


Van Pelt can be found every year in a local pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear. Asked if he had ever seen the Great Pumpkin, the prematurely balding youth became agitated and asked if this blogger had ever scene a million dollars. After responding in the negative, Van Pelt replied, "You don't have to see something to know that it exists."

When asked if he was aware he just plagiarized a scene from The Santa Clause, a popular movie featuring the Great Pumpkin's chief rival, Van Pelt made a disparaging comment about this blogger's mother and curled into the fetal position, clutching a grungy blue blanket.


For those who have seen the Great Pumpkin the experience has clearly enriched their lives, an astonishing feat considering that no one is quite sure what the Great Pumpkin actually does or how he does it. But could this be the last year for the gourd that could?


It took two hundred years, but the good folks in Iowa's tax department have caught on that no one actually eats pumpkins, instead using the durable rind to carve out hideous visages that nominally look like political figures. It is widely believed that the winner of the Iowa Republican primary is always the candidate with the most carvable pumpkin face. Beginning in September Iowa will revoke the pumpkin's tax-exempt status as a food item when the implied usage is decoration in nature. If residents actually want to eat their pumpkins, they can fill out a form to get a tax refund.

However, this could spell disaster for the Great Pumpkin, who bases his operations just outside of Des Moines. In this year of drought, the market is paying premium prices for pumpkin poundage, and the addition of a sales tax will only inflate the amount the Great Pumpkin will end up paying for himself. The overhead woes do not stop there--the Great Pumpkin relies heavily on merchandising to fund his charities, and his bestselling mini Great Pumpkin action figures (which, conveniently, are remarkably similar to normal pumpkins) will see dramatic reductions in profit margins as a result of this new tax.

It has been a hard year, even for the major players--Mr. Claus, faced with the very real possibility that there won't be a North Pole in a couple years, has been in negotiations with the Russians for land in Siberia. In such a crowded market, will the Great Pumpkin ever again have room to grow?

The Great Pumpkin has junk in his trunk.

The Mosul Dam - Why Iraq Needs a Noah

Someone had better build an ark in Iraq—and fast. An earthen damn in Iraq, often been described as “ginormous” in Congressional PowerPoint presentations, is in danger of collapsing. And, like most everything else that is wrong with Iraq, no one is close to even thinking about maybe fixing it.

The vast majority of what I know about dams comes from my youthful experiences with streams and storm drains, which, for whatever reason, are absolute kid magnets. My first thought whenever I saw flowing water was, “I have to pee!” But my second thought, after taking care of Number 1 (ha ha!), was, “I have to put a rock in there!” And I did. There is some kind of power involved in diverting the natural flow of water, and when you are eight years old you take whatever power you can get. But the most important lesson I learned was if you want to stop water, you gotta put something heavy in front of it.

Now, as a licensed honest-to-God civil engineer, I do paperwork all day. But, theoretically, I could be hired by a company that does dams. And while I have never been included in the design of a dam, I know enough about them that I am absolutely certain that, of all the places on God’s green earth the last place that you will ever find me is standing under that dam.

Here is a short list of bad things about the Mosul Dam:

1. The dam is in Iraq.
2. The dam is built on gypsum, the main ingredient in drywall. If you want to know how gypsum performs in water, ask Katrina.
3. The dam depends on 24 pumps operating continuously to fill the dissolving gypsum with grout.
4. The dam is surrounded by people who believe God wants them to blow stuff up.
5. The first province to flood would be Nineveh, which is like God’s punching bag.

If I were one of the 500,000 residents of Mosul and Baghdad soon to be under 65 feet of water, I would seriously consider investing in a canoe.

A Small Town Called Dave

In my many experiences with bronchitis, upper respiratory infection and sinusitis, I have found there is nary a slumber more peaceful than one induced by half a bottle of cough medicine. However, in my recent illness over the past week, my pervasive and annoying cough was mighty enough to wrench my body from its sleep and force my mind into a state of wakefulness that it clearly had no intention of going.

Though I can never be quite sure, I believe I was dreaming in a conscious state. Though most of the details are lost forever, I think I experienced a state of mind akin to what all the great authors must of went through when hopped up on whatever hallucinogens they were partial to.

But I was on cough medicine, and generic cough medicine at that, so instead of a fanciful, opiate-laced tale like Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland I got A Small Town Called Dave.

Now I can’t tell you much about this small town called Dave, except that it was a quaint rural 1950s village located somewhere in my bedroom. Granted, my addled mind didn’t have much to go on, but I think it was honestly trying to spin a good yarn. Unfortunately, the conscious part of my brain was super-busy debunking any good story my inebriated half could come up with. Kind of like that friend who watches sci-fi movies with you and discredits with an air of arrogance every scientifically inaccurate gizmo in the show. That’s right—my brain is that asshole.

So when I was elected mayor of this small town called Dave, my brain was quick to point out, “You know, I doubt you’ve been here long enough to meet the residency requirement.”

Damn.

Our small town called Dave hosted a strawberry festival.
Brain: “With all the mountains in the distance, this probably isn’t the ideal place to grow strawberries. And the small population of the town probably cannot support the quality of talent you have performing. Carrie Underwood? She was born thirty years after your little story, and even it she were around, I think she would have better things to do.”

This hurt a little.

Brain: “Oh, what kind of a name is Dave for a town, and why do you keep referring to it as a ‘small town called Dave?’ Everyone can see it is a small town.”

Jerk.

By the time I was fully awake, my conscious was getting very agitated. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The town was in your bedroom? I know you’re taking some literary license, but really? Is that the best you could do?” I think it was embarrassed to be seen with me.

So there I was, at 2 a.m., pissed off at myself and nursing a Robitussin headache, thinking that boy, I bet I could get some sleep in (a small town called) Dave.

How Government Jobs Encourage Mediocrity

In the private sector, a job well done earns you bonuses, promotions, and perhaps even a better parking spot.

In the world of government employment, a job well done gets you more work. This is generally because middle management does very little original work, and their job performance is entirely dependent on the performance of their employees. I have spreadsheets that do more work than some managers. Bad employees are a liability to these middle managers, but good employees are championed as a symbol of the superior managerial skills.

Example: Like many military folk, I have a better-than-average work ethic and a dollop of common sense. In the federal workplace, where I mix with scores of civilian employees, this earns me the title of "hard-charger" or "overachiever." But I get things done, and this makes me a valuable resource. Every workday I become a target for unenviable tasks from senior management, and I try vainly to deflect the added responsibility.

The most recent task that I was targeted for was the Combined Federal Campaign, a huge fundraising effort that had to be coordinate for the 255 civilian members of our department and our 5 military members. Naturally, they decided to give it to a military member, because you just can't ask civilians to do more work than what they are paid to do. I turned down the job three times, in a manner as clearly as possible:

Not-My-Boss-But-Can-Still-Tell-Me-What-To-Do: Are you our CFC volunteer?
Me: Not a chance.

Assistant Big Boss: Hey Bryan, did you volunteer for the CFC?
Me: No. Maybe a civilian could do it.

Big Boss: Hey, do you want to spearhead the CFC drive?
Me: No!
Big Boss: You must have been asked about this before.

As you might have guessed, I ended up being the coordinator anyway. Because, as self-sufficient as I am, I still need the bosses to sign forms, and my Little Big Boss used a travel request to get me.

Little Big Boss (as he is reading the travel request): So how do you feel about volunteering for the CFC?
Me (knowing defeat was at hand): I would rather not, but if you absolutely need someone.
Little Big Boss: Consider yourself volunteered.

I've spent about seven hours over the course of three days on this cursed campaign so far, despised by everyone because I am essentially hitting them all up for money. And my normal workload hasn't decreased at all. So because I work well, I do more work.

But hey, I think if I collect enough money a get a t-shirt or a mug or something.

The Smartest Person I Hate

Sometimes I find it difficult not to despise sheer brilliance. The latest object of my shameful hatred is Frank Warren, the author of PostSecret. He seems like one of those guys who will Google his own name, so Frank, just to be clear, I don't hate you. I just hate the fact that you discovered an innocuous way to get other people to write bestselling books for you.

Mr. Warren's latest PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets, is currently climbing the Amazon Bestseller List. Last time I checked he was #49.

If you are unfamiliar with the business plan at work here, let me run through the genius that is Frank Warren's PostSecret. In exchange for letting you anonymously post secrets on his website (which you do by sending him a regular, snail-mail post card), Frank acquires all the rights to your secrets. His website is completely advertisement-free, and his hit count is over 100,000,000. (My hit count, currently, is at 7). Frank publishes your secrets periodically in bestselling books. Frank is quite wealthy because instead of talking to your pets like most normal people, you went and mailed him a post card with your personal thoughts. Amazing. This is why I hate Frank, although I admire the heck out of him.

Oh, and regarding my hit count, I am fully aware that I get about ten hits a month, and eight of them are me trying to inflate my hit count. But I was always told to write to your intended audience, and I intend that one day people might read this. That is why I ask rhetorical questions in these posts, even though I realize that, for eighty percent of my hits, I am asking myself.

Blackwater

Why do people seem to be surprised by the Blackwater reports? Of course they fired first. Of course they used over-the-top tactics. It is as if people think there could be other reasons why the most powerful army in the force would supplement its own highly trained numbers with paramilitary forces.

Blackwater USA offers what it calls Global Stability Solutions, a service that provides "superior advisory support to government agencies and private organizations" and offers "solutions that are practical, economical, timely, and effective." Their motto: "When failure is not an option and hope is not enough." The US Government has doled out nearly $1 billion for these "volume security teams," a polite term for mercenaries.

Each Blackwater "consultant" is paid nearly half a million dollars per year for their services in Iraq, which, even by government standards is excessive. When your average U.S. Army soldier can be had for less than 1/10th of that sum, why use Blackwater at all?

U.S. soldiers are beholden to their rules of engagement, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the various laws of armed conflict that attempt to civilize the politically sanctioned act of killing. Blackwater does not technically fall under these guidelines.

Before an American soldier can raise his weapon, there must (or should) be a clear and immediate threat of deadly force. Blackwater can shoot first without consequence. They are not under our laws, and Order 17 passed early on in the war (thanks Paul Bremer) ensured Blackwater is also insulated from Iraqi law.

I cannot pretend to understand the decision to put Blackwater in Iraq, but then again, there are many things about our conflict in Iraq I don't understand.

Scariest Stadium

When asked to describe LSU, I firmly believe that any graduate, regardless of age or affiliation, could accurately respond, without hesitation, "Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium."

Anticipate Incompetence

A long time ago, way back in 1991 when I was in the first grade, a motivational speaker came to the school. I remember him well because he told us to call him Dan, and when you're six you love to call grown ups by their first name. Anyway, at an assembly Dan told us to "Expect Excellence." I was totally into alliteration back then, so I latched on to this neat phrase. Then in the second grade, our principal came to our class and wrote this same phrase on the chalkboard.

"Huh," my little naive mind thought. "Maybe he knows Dan."

But of course "Expect Excellence" is one of those catch phrases popular with managers and educators everywhere. Because, apparently, you can't get excellence unless you expect it. This is why you never hear "Accept Mediocrity," even though it is just as catchy and probably more accurate in our lives. If everyone was excellent then we would all be mediocre.

But this won't stop people from expecting excellence. A Google search for "expect excellence" turns up over 90,000 results. But let's face it, if you are expecting excellence from coworkers there is a good chance you're unemployed or about to be. Excellence is the bright blue light that draws you in before reality zaps the crap out of you and leaves your dried carcass clinging to a metal cage. I'm not saying you are dumber than a moth if you expect excellence from the people you work with--just more gullible.

I prefer the contrapuntal theme, "Expect Incompetence." A Google search for this phrase yields slightly more than 500 entries. Most of them refer to the Bush administration. However, if you go around the office espousing this decidedly negative phrase, you'll be labeled as a loner, a demotivational antagonist who saps energy from the workplace. You'll be fired faster than your chipper "Expect Excellence" coworkers.

What's the workaround? Anticipate incompetence. Know exactly when your coworkers will screw you and beat them to it. You are still expecting incompetence, but now you are proactive about it.

For instance, I work at a base that has a Pass Office staffed mostly by people who decided to work for the government because they lacked the attention span to complete an application at Wendy's. They will only accept pass requests via fax. I had a contractor who called me on Friday saying he needed to get on base on Monday. Okay. I filled out all the necessary paperwork and faxed it (twice to the pass office). I printed out confirmation reports and called the pass office to verify they received the fax. I told the contractor to write down my cell phone number, get to the pass office early, and call me if anything went wrong (you see the anticipation). I brought all the paperwork home with me and left it in the car.

Sure enough, as soon as I was done with PT on Monday morning, the contractor called me and said the pass office didn't have any of the paperwork. I stopped by the pass office on the way into work, gave them the paperwork and the fax confirmation reports, and after establishing my identity twice (I was also in uniform) they gave the contractor a pass.

You may notice that my anticipation shielded the pass office from their own incompetence. This is an unwanted consequence; however, it is unavoidable. If incompetence is the black hole that sucks in everything it touches, then excellence is like an umbrella that protects the incompetent when the Feces o' Failure (yeah, I still like alliteration) hit the fan. You can rarely get away with pointing out the incompetent without seeming petty, but at least you can make the choice not to depend on them.

The goal is that eventually your customers/clients will be so impressed by your work that they fill out a comment card or send an email to your boss that praises you while viciously attacking everyone else. The Mother of All Praise would be something like this: "I was so frustrated by the ineptitude of (your organization) that if it wasn't for (your name)'s help I would have set fire to the building."

This post has gone on long enough. The moral to this post, folks, is that the incompetent expect excellence from coworkers to succeed, and those who succeed anticipate incompetence from coworkers.

More stuff that can kill you

Amoeba Eats Boy's Brain

Holy crap. I will think about this and obsess over it every time I go swimming/take a bath/drink a glass of water. I think we're all hypochondriacs when it comes to things that eat your brain.

The thing that scares me most is that this isn't even a parasite. It is just regular ol' amoeba swimming around eating algae until you go into his house and stir shit up. Now you got a pissed off amoeba, and apparently when you eat algae all day, a bowl of grey matter looks extra yummy.

It reminds me of that old schoolyard joke:

You (as you are rubbing the victim's scalp): Guess what this is?
Victim: What?
You: A brain-eating amoeba. Guess what it's doing?
Victim: What?
You: Starving
Victim: You butt-face.

Oh well, better dumb than dead, I suppose.

Atlantic City, Day Two

Endowed with an incredible talent that allows me to rise before eight no matter how late I stay up, I awoke on Day Two in the AC long before my buddies had any intention of getting up.

After a rousing Continental breakfast of mini bagels and corn flakes, I sat around and watched Legion of Super Friends while I waited for everyone to get up. The last statement would have embarrassed me, but Superfriends is actually a cartoon with some pretty good production values. I recommend it to any eight-year old.

We spent the day at Caesar's Palace, Bally's, the Tropicana, and the Hilton. I avoided the table games because $15 was the minimum bet, and I watched one guy lose six hands of blackjack in about the time it took him to reach in his wallet and pull out another 100. $15 can buy me two and a half burritos. I guess you have to realize what really makes you happy.

When I wasn't watching crazy Asians dropping $1000 on a table and losing it all, I was wandering around the casinos. At one point I watched a young girl throw a quarter into a fountain. Her mother promptly puller her away and told her not to waste her money. I doubt that little girl had ever heard of irony, but the look on her face said "You have got to be kidding me." The odds of a wishing well has got to be better than an Atlantic City slot machine.

The Happy Dark Side of Cold Medicine

My God, I think I'm drunk at work.

My head is bobbing like a cork, I'm dizzy, and I cannot for the life of me focus on anything that is not exactly 14 inches from my face. A Far Side cartoon I saved from January 15 is giving me the giggles. Hee hee.

How did this happen? Was it the bottle of Jack Daniels in my desk drawer? No, not quite. I have a slight head cold that is not severe enough to keep me home but just mischievous enough to be an incessant pain in the ass. I took some Tylenol this morning before I left for work, then I took some cold/sinus pills when I got in, and I just recently took a liberal swig of some truly excellent Navy Exchange brand coff--coff? my God, my drug-addled brain spells fonetically--cough medicine.

Thank God it is lunch break. I can sit here quietly and pray fervently that no one asks me to do anything thought-intensive, like blinking. I should be worried about this, but, to be honest, nothing really bothers me right now. I could be missing a foot and I wouldn't notice for at least forty-five minutes. Ahh, acetaminophen dreams and menthol wishes... At least I'm not coughing.

I'm going to go now and concentrate on not embarrassing myself over the course of the next hour. I'll be back when I'm sober.

Atlantic City, Day One

Day One of our little excursion to the AC consisted mainly of driving. Fortunately, I didn't have to drive. Unfortunately, I had nothing to do for the six-hour trip. The Northeast is fascinating for its population density of six thousand people per square foot but its total lack of decent roads. We didn't drive on one mile of interstate highway but we drove on three dozen Main Streets, passed seventeen general stores and waited through 4,539 red lights. It is amazing. I can drive from Los Angeles to Louisiana on one road for free, but to drive three hundred miles to Atlantic City costs $18.00 and the speed limit rarely exceeds 50 mph.

Upon our arrival in the AC we checked into our hotel. At the bargain basement rate of $112.00 (including military discount) we got a bed that was only 50% covered in hooker spit. A good deal, according to AAA and most reputable travel magazines. We immediately called a cab and departed for the boardwalk, which, is like The Strip, but...not.

We spent the evening at the Trump Taj Mahal. It was actually a little disappointing. Not your Bellagio. I'm all about the fountain show. And they skimped on free drinks, even though I got an official Trump One card and sat at a slot machine for an hour (winning, by the way, and impressive $13.25). They had one bar where two girls danced on a platform and a domestic beer costs $6.00. No TVs. That is a load of crap.

At about 2:30 (in the morning...groan) we crawled back into a cab and headed back to the hotel. No one was buzzed because we were all too cheap to drink at that price, everyone was tired, but on the plus side, no one was broke quite yet.

Atlantic City

I am going to Atlantic City tomorrow.

Having gambled a total of $17.50 in my life, I am slightly nervous. The five other guys I am going with have probably lost enough money between them to purchase a small Korean-made vehicle. One guy casually lost $500 in the span of an hour. I can't compete with that.

Until I heard this, my entire plan for the weekend was to sit at the slots, drink free beer, and eat buffets. I might watch a football game and put five dollars on the line. I'm not even sure what "the line" means.

So, the night before I let my hair down I am watching poker and playing online poker while writing about poker. And when I say playing online poker, I say so liberally. I play with fake money. I just flopped sixes over threes with a king kicker (am I saying that right?), but a six-year old got a set of nines on the river. Here is the gist of our conversation:

bryman84: nh
wheelieboy98: thx, I got lucky
bryman84: yeah u did, asshole

I admit the last comment was a little harsh, but the kid was being a little bastard with his aggressive betting, and besides, you can't be nice to kids anywhere lest someone think you are one of those To Catch A Predator-type people. Oh, and in case you didn't know, "nh" means "nice hand." Yeah, I know all the lingo now.

Overall, my half hour of poker playing and forty-five minutes of World Poker Tour should more than qualify me to lose money in Atlantic City. I just hope all the nickel slots aren't taken.

Nine Eleven

Today I am spending September 11 at home, partly because today seems like a bad day to spend on any government installation, but mostly because they screwed me out of a day of leave back in July and today is the only day that I don't have meetings or PT or other nonbreakable commitments for the next seven months. So here I am, at home, while the rest of the world is toiling away. Losers.

Sitting here through Seinfeld reruns it dawned on me. What would have happened if the terrorists crashed their planes on July 11th? 7-11 and the entire Slurpee establishment would have been so screwed...

Professional Sign Spinners

Local news hit its heyday back in the 1970s, back when news channels were still locally owned, civic pride was more than a quaint idea, and the general populace was too naive/stoned to care if the anchors on their favorite channel were blatantly insulting them, as long as they did with a smile and a quirky catch phrase. Think Ron Burgundy.

Nowadays, the local news exists largely in the realm of the obscure, like squirrels outlandishly decked out in this season's patriotic rodent couture or the latest in a series of macaroni sculptures lampooning the most comical-looking, non-minority local political figure.

However, after the nightly Health Watch (pulled directly from msnbc.com) but before the Weather Outlook (also pulled directly from msnbc.com), news outlets, conscious of their affiliation with their multinational parent corporations, attempt to connect with their viewers with a little bit of local color. While this saccharin segment usually features a church play with questionable production values but an identifiable moral theme, every now and then these segments will show a tournament for a minor and until-just-now-unheard-of sport.

Tonight the sport was sign spinning.

You know, those signs people spin on street corners to advertise the latest store liquidation sales? Apparently it has gone competitive. And because these people get paid for spinning signs, it can actually be considered a professional sport.

Until this evening, I sincerely believed that this was a career path generally reserved for, um, the domiciliarily challenged. (Note the Italics. This reflects the sensitivity of the matter. It is akin to the way white people say black people when it is possible that black people could be within the same congressional district at that given moment.)

I don't feel guilty for making this assumption, and you know you have, too. I mean, look at the facts:

1. Stores that advertise with spinning signs, are, often by their own admission, failing. They are going out of business, liquidating inventory, filing for bankruptcy, etc. They obviously don't have that much money to throw around on extra employees. Honestly, what successful business advertises with spinning signs? When have you ever been driving through town and said, "Oh honey! Look at the seductive way that sign is waving. Boy, if an establishment can afford a sign waver that good, they don't even need my business. Adjustable rate mortgages?? With that low introductory rate, how could we lose?!"

2. Homeless people--Italics, for some reason, only apply to the term, domiciliarily challenged. Don't ask me. I don't make the rules--already spend a lot of time outdoors, and already work for the bargain basement rate of one windshield cleaning per Subway coupon. If p, then q....

But, incredulously, sign spinners are professionals (Italics for disbelief, not sensitivity) who get together to compete regularly. And after watching thirty seconds, I am fairly impressed. I kinda want to buy that timeshare in the Shenandoah Valley.

In addition to my new ski lodge (three days a year, nonconsecutive), I came away from the experience with a strong parallel to another "sport" near and dear to my heart: competitive marching band. Because, as every underdeveloped, asthmatic band geek will tell you, the real athletes play at halftime. Right.

But I was in marching band for four years, and sign spinning looks awfully like the band auxiliary. (In band-ese, "auxiliary" is the politically correct term for "flag team," even though, to the astute observer, the "auxiliary" is a team of girls twirling flags. But it is best not to piss off a group of thirty girls because, statistically, there is at least one of them who, on this particular day of the month, will not hesitate to beat you repeatedly and proficiently with an array of blunt objects.)

I am convinced band auxilliaries can do for competitive sign spinning what Jamaican sprinters did for Olympic bobsledding. Namely, generate enormous sponsor revenues and spawn a lucrative Disney movie deal.

However, if that doesn't pan out I know a furniture store looking for some good sign spinners. To qualify, you must be able to manipulate a five-pound laminated, arrow-shaped cardboard sign. Willingness to work for Subway coupons is a plus.

The Downfall of Big Coffee

Well, it is 6:15 a.m., and I am at work. However, this fact alone has established two very important bits of information:

UNIVERSAL TRUTH 1. It is still dark at 6:15 a.m.

UNIVERSAL TRUTH 2. There is no traffic at 6:15 a.m.

I am fairly confident these two truths are related. I think we can draw a third certainty from these two. Heck, let's call it a paradigm:

UNIVERSAL PARADIGM 1. 6:15 a.m is a Godforsaken time to be getting to work, and most people, realizing this, decline to rise before the sun does. Good for them.

Meanwhile, in my God forsaken cubicle in my God forsaken building on my God forsaken installation at this God forsaken time, I am enjoying the peace and quiet reserved for us God forsakers. I bought a new coffee maker, thereby shunning the established coffee mess (we call it Big Coffee) and introducing a fresher, disease-free medium blend into the office.

I had hoped the coffee maker ($8.93 at Wal-Mart) would be slightly more stealthy, but no, as it brews it emits these "Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark" type whispers. It turns out that my coffee maker is not only God forsaken--it is possessed. Strictly following the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in such landmark decisions as Wallace v. Jaffree regarding the separation of Church and State (Ruth Bader Ginsburg specifically mentioned devil-incarnate kitchen appliances in her written opinion), my coffee maker is definitely, definitely not allowed in a government building.

However, until the ACLU inevitably finds out, my satanic coffee maker will continue to whisper sweet, evil nothings in my ear.
I have an unholy urge to support Rudy Giuliani.

The Art of Corporate Grievance (or, How To Get Stuff For Free)

We are a society of consumers. The technical definition of a consumer is--stay with me here--someone who consumes stuff. And we buy lots of it. Thumbtacks, cottage cheese, Hyundais, instructional Yoga DVDs, private islands--these can all be classified as stuff. In the process of buying all this stuff, we are sometimes disappointed with our purchasing experience. People react to this is one of three ways:

1. Get all pissed off and swear off forever the establishment that provided the product and forbid your children and your children's children from ever stepping foot into that store or, so help you God, you will disown them for the rest of your natural life, and Jesus, why would they want to put you through that, given your heart condition most likely caused by your hatred of said establishment.

2. Return to the faulty product's establishment and abuse the acne-covered teenager who was unfortunately assigned to customer service while cudgeling him with the toaster or pork chop or whatever happened to be defective.

3. Calmly return to the establishment, purchase an identical item, and return the defective item in the new item's packaging. This option is self-perpetuating, and pretty soon you have a store full of broken products in new packaging, thereby increasing the risk of consumer-induced homicides.

I used to be a Number 1, and my Dad, on more than one occasion, urged me to go the Number 3 route. However, it seems that, at the individual store level, there is no authority to give you what you really want--an unconditional admission of guilt for providing a crappy product and something for your trouble. To get that level of satisfaction, you have to go up to the corporate level, and, thanks to corporate storefronts on the internet, you can email just about anyone. And they have to answer you, lest they take the risk you will mail them a bomb. You never can tell with people who write letters and emails. They tend to be, as they say in the Old Country, "touched."

So I've become somewhat of an expert at writing these emails, and I'll share a portion of my impressive resume of free crap:

-Free Barq's T-shirt. Sonny Barq's address is on every can. I wrote him and said thanks. He gave me a t-shirt.
-$50 credit for a small dent in a pool table. I ordered a ridiculously cheap ($350) pool table off Walmart.com. It arrived with a miniscule dent (over the course of 10,000 games of pool, it affected our game once).
-New HP Printer (~$80)
-New shaver base cleaner (~$40) I got this after I completely dismantled (and voided the warranty) the old unit trying to fix it. I was horribly unsuccessful.
-USB extension cable for cordless mouse
-New Roomba (~$200)
-$20 Gift Certificate to Carrabba's
-$10 Gift Certificate to BestBuy

All of these achievements followed the same format, which I think is key to my success. Customer Service folks appreciate a calm, courteous customer who won't try to send them a mail bomb. If you ever need to get free stuff in reparation for a minor consumer affront, the following three-paragraph format is gold:

Paragraph 1: Establish your loyalty to the company and the product. Before they give you free stuff, they want to know if it is worth it to keep your business. NEVER THREATEN. The first paragraph is all positive. For example, say I bought a Samsung MP3 player and the headphones stopped working after three months (beyond the warranty period and return period) I didn't give a model number, but you should be as detailed as possible, include model and serial number, if applicable.

"Dear Sir/Madam:

I recently purchased a Samsung mp3 player and have been enjoying it thoroughly. I am an enthusiastic owner of two Samsung TVs and my experience with your quality and workmanship played heavily in my purchase of one of your mp3 players. For the first three months your product has once again exceeded expectations."

Paragraph 2: Bring up the issue, but gently. Sound remorseful that you have to bother them with this issue. Be as detailed as possible to avoid stupid follow-up emails that insult your intelligence. Generally, paragraph 1 should separate you from the crowd, but you have to be aware of stubborn outsourced customer service people. Your goal is to get kicked up the chain to the stateside people, who are able to make these "free stuff" decisions.

"However, only recently the left speaker of my headphones ceased to function. Subsequent examination of the cable revealed no kinks or pinch points, and the plug seems intact. When plugged into another device, the problem repeats. There doesn't seem to be a user-serviceable means to fix it."

Paragraph 3: Close with a reaffirmation of your loyalty, but suggest this will hurt it. You should regret this experience and offer that it is not indicative of the brand. Don't suggest any course of action. They'll do that.

"Your reputation for workmanship and quality closely parallels my previous experience with Samsung, and I am confident that my headphones are not representative of what your brand represents. In the future I hope to be able to consider Samsung for my home electronics needs. Thank you for your time to read and reply to this email, and I appreciate the value Samsung places on its customer service.

Thank you,

Bryan"

One week later, BAM! free headphones. I am pretty sure for a small item like this they wouldn't do any background work, so if you were unethical and in need of headphones this would work. However, be careful with big-ticket items and restaurants. They have a smaller profit margin and will actually look up your receipt.

More good fun on watch. The computer is kind of freaking out with the Java applet, so if this isn't in a right format I'll fix it later.

The Bic Effect

Having been gainfully employed in my current capacity by Uncle Sam for approximately two hundred thirty-six days, thirteen hours and fifty-four minutes I am considered a novice bureaucrat, but with my youthful enthusiasm and naive self-righteousness my frenetic pace allows me to outrun my colleagues like a paranoid squirrel jacked up on Pixie Sticks. I am often told rather condescendingly (what we call “talking down the chain”) that this will change. The Global War on Terror has no room for feelings of self accomplishment.

I am the kind of guy who likes jotting down thoughts and ideas (hence this blog), so I find myself in constant need of something to write with. However, one of the basic tenants of government life is that a humble servant such as me has no hope of keeping a pen from first stroke to its final death scribble. It just doesn’t happen. I frequently leave a small fortune in personal electronics on my desk with no incident, but if I dare leave a ballpoint unguarded it will be gone in seconds. I call this the Bic Effect.

The discovery and documentation of the Bic Effect is perhaps one of my proudest achievements to date. With a cubicle close to both the conference room and the fax machine, I can carefully observe this behavioral science at work. Kind of like a Jane Goodall of GS-13s. In fact, watching your coworkers like hawks is encouraged in government service. I believe the Chief of Naval Operations calls it “Focus on Execution.” (I added this hyperlink to add legitimacy to this post. However, I have not actually read this guidance in detail. If colleague espionage is not covered in the CNO's guidance, please pretend that it does.)

The key to a government worker’s inherent kleptomaniacal habits is the understanding that there is no privacy associated with cubicles. My cubicle is your cubicle is the taxpayer’s cubicle, and all government property inside said cubicle is in the public domain. An individual at the fax machine will have no problem walking into a cubicle of a lesser-ranking coworker (i.e., me) and retrieving a pen to sign a page or to make a note on the fax document. This individual might have every intention of returning the pen, but 64 percent of the time (I am required to tell you that my study has a margin of error of +/- 3 points) the pen is pocketed for later convenient use.

Therein lies the Bic Effect: The likelihood of retaining an unsupervised writing utensil is directly proportional to the relative seniority of the current owner and inversely proportional to the traffic passing within visual observation of the writing utensil. If you can't quite figure out the math in the previous sentence, find the nearest engineer. If you don't work anywhere close to an engineer, you are probably much happier for it.

You can expect a PowerPoint presentation of the Bic Effect shortly. But if you will excuse me, Rich just left his desk, and he has a sweet new UniBall…

The Games Catholics Play

Every Sunday millions of Americans routinely attend their local church service and devoutly turn their attention to sitting as far away from each other as possible. This is particularly true for Catholics, who start feeling crowded unless you could comfortably park an adult rhinoceros (not the pygmy kind, either) in the empty space between parishioners. In fact, your average man would rather a rhinoceros sit on his lap throughout the service if only for the chance they didn't have to shake hands with the other guys sitting nearby. This is the same guy who, if not for his wife dragging him to this goddamn service, would be watching the Redskins' first preseason game with his buddies, high-fiving, chest-bumping, group-hugging and performing other mildly pornographic activities that, in the absence of beer and placekickers, would earn a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.

As a registered Engineer-in-Training, I have it on good authority (read: no authority) that when designing seating arrangements for a Catholic church, architects are required to utilize the following formula released by the Second Vatican Council:

Total Pew Footage = (# of people at Easter who show up because they feel that Catholic guilt)*(the year of the Second Coming)/[Average Length of an Adult Rhinoceros (in cubits)]

Unfortunately, architects, when presented with impossible units like cubits or inches, cross it out and substitute the number 1.618,which they heard about in a Discovery Channel documentary. This is why the average Catholic church, which by the formula should be the size of New Hampshire, is no bigger than your average room at Motel 6.

But nonetheless, Catholics are a resourceful people (see: The Inquisition), and with pesky laws against torturing infidels we have turned to inventing seating patterns to maximize inter-parishioner space. In fact, I have perfected this holy art, and I am routinely the only person in my row. This is a luxury normally reserved for people with infants, those who have slightly ungodly odors and individuals directly affected by the provisions of Jessica's Law.

I like to think my incredible talent is because I am a registered Engineer-in-Training, able to perform, without my direct knowledge or effort, the many calculations necessary to pick that optimal seat.

But just in case, I am changing my deodorant.

This should have come first. . .

Being that I'm new to the whole blog thing, I decided to look into what I should do when starting my blog. There is no dearth of information on the subject. Everyone who blogs (I refuse to use the term "blogger" or "blogosphere") seems to think they are the bees' knees when it comes to dispensing advice. I found a single of information that seem to be reliably linked to happy little blogs.

1. Post an introduction.

Fiddlesticks. I have already messed up the development of my blog-child. Now it is doomed to a life of whore mongering and AA meetings.

Well my name is Bryan. And this is my blog. It is little, but still good. Yeah, still good.

Short Stories

(I wrote this on watch. Please do not assume I have the time and/or energy to write like this often. It would ruin my image.)

I am no literary expert. I mean, I did take a college class once and spent (one and a half) hours every (other) day listening to my professor talk about books (movies). And my professor is a close and personal friend of Stephen Soderbergh (really!), the talented director of "Sex, Lies, Videotape," which empirical evidence gathered by legions of misguided grad students suggests that despite the obvious hurdle of not being a book, would actually do very well in (adult) bookstores. So, I am only two degrees separated from Mr. Soderbergh, which is the same thing as saying that I am only two degrees away from being Mr. Soderbergh, and if I were Mr. Soderbergh I'd be using my "Erin Brockovich" royalties to buy a literary expert instead of pretending to be one. But I almost know Stephen Soderbergh, which should be able to get me on Fox News. Yeah, I'm the real deal.

Just kidding....for now.

Short stories. Right. I find short stories to be the best kind of story to both read and write. I justify this with the following reasons:

1. Short stories are short.

2. If you need a second reason, you obviously did not grasp Reason No. 1. Find the nearest unabridged hardcover copy of A Tale of Two Cities, grasp it firmly in your hands, and promptly drop it on your favorite toe (you know you have one). Perhaps the weight of Reason No. 1 will become apparent to you.

Short stories are the lazy man's novel. And it is a sweet deal for authors, too. Hemingway was perhaps the laziest of them all. Despite the hours you may have spent fervently wishing to toll his bell, you have to admit that Hemingway knew how to write. Instead of working to describe in assiduous detail every moss-covered crack of every stone in every building , Hemingway's minimalist style forced the reader to actually use their imagination while they read. I should probably qualify that I have never actually read a Hemingway novel, but I know people who have. If this doesn't work for you, remember that I (almost) know Stephen Soderbergh, and that can get me on Fox News.

In addition to his novels that I have never read but know the names of, Hemingway also wrote short stories--60 in all. In fact, when asked for the most perfect story, he answered in six words: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never used." Amazing! Hemingway can sell a classified ad as a story.

To be serious, though, these six words evoke powerful emotional questions that hijack your brain and force you to imagine the story that Hemingway didn't tell. Powerful stuff. I feel like trying a couple. I could never match the brevity or power of Hemingway's story, but it seems like a fun way to pass a lonely evening away from home.

Among his possessions they found a diamond ring, size 4.

--Oooh, what is it? A young man who died broken hearted when his petite fiancee returned the token of his affection? Or a drunk midget who liked his "bling?"

In the beggar's coat was a letter, unopened, containing a cashier's check for $50,000.

--Hmmm, did he know about the check? Who wrote the letter? Was it blood money that led him to choose a life in the gutter? Okay, that's two about finding dead people. They seem to be easy to write, but I'll try something else.

She saw the two men, and fear gripped her.

--This isn't really along the same lines. It isn't a complete story in my opinion. I can think of quite a few scenarios that could be played out with this sentence.

Mittens was missing, but the chicken was unusually tender that evening.

--That's not right.