Having recently completed finalizing a Mission, Vision, and Value statement for my company, I’m pretty sensitive to how these things work.  And I can safely say that the ones for the Transportation Security Administration pretty much suck:

Really?  Innovation, Integrity, Intensity, and Imagination?

I’m okay with Integrity. But don’t the rest of these pretty much scare the hell out of you?

Innovation: “The x-ray machine is broken. Rather than have all of us wait around until it’s fixed, can you please come over here and dump out your bag and also take off all your clothes?  Don’t worry, it’s completely okay to do this--one of the TSAs values is ‘Innovation.’”

Intensity: “Sir, can you please open your bag for me? And do it RIGHT NOW?  BEFORE I FRICKIN’ RAM YOUR HEAD OPEN WITH THIS STEEL BAR?”

Imagination: Just to provide some more color around this one, the actual value statement reads: ‘I am the frontline of defense, drawing on my imagination to creatively protect America from harm.’ So how would this work, exactly? “Don’t worry as you go through the x-ray, my friends--I stand at the ready with Neal, my trusty unicorn, to protect us from terrorists!”

Remind me to take the bus.

25 things about me:

1. In junior high I sent a fan letter to Missy Gold, the child star of the sit-com Benson. It was heartfelt and sincere. In return, I received an 8x10 glossy from her publicist.  I considered this a pretty good deal.

2. I like the word “apoplexy,” but I am not very fond of “uvula.”

3. I have a really good beginning and ending for a novel, and I wish someone would write the middle for me.

4. I feel very at peace with the fact that Tony Danza has finally fallen off the pop culture radar.

5. I am terrible dancer for someone who loves music so much.

6. I think that garbanzo beans are criminally underrated in terms of their overall contribution to salad excellence.

7. I sealed my record at age 18.  It contained two crimes.  The first: a speeding ticket.  The second: being arrested at age 16 for getting drunk in public with two friends.

8. It wasn’t really in public; it was behind a supermarket. But the cops apparently patrolled there.  It was a small town and they had nothing better to do.  Ingrates.

9. I am almost guaranteed to like any song in a minor key.  It’s not that I’m a sad person; I just think minor key music sounds more beautiful.

10. I type around 120 words a minute, mostly because I learned on a computer when I was around 11.

11. If I had to choose, I’d rather be a zombie than a vampire, because vampires are all with the faux aura of sophistication and lame accents, whereas zombies are more straightforward and direct about their needs.

12. I don’t care whether the medium is a novel, a movie, a comic book, or a company brochure--I love great stories in any form.

13. I like spending time with my niece, although when she crawls on top of me for several hours, I end up with “niecehead"--a condition that resembles hathead.

14. My friend Meredith told me to say in this list that I furrow my eyebrows a lot.

15. I probably wouldn’t do this if the world would wise up and agree with me a lot more than it does.

16. I picked up my love of science-fiction from my father, my appreciation of a good bowl of oatmeal topped with raisins and nuts from my mother, and my fondness for The Doors from my brother. They are all great people.

17. However, I also picked up their habit of going to bed relatively early, which has annoyed various friends of mine for years.

18. I average three cups of coffee a day.  Any fewer makes me sluggish; any more makes me as a hair-trigger as an rookie cop in Oakland.

19. I usually listen to Talking Heads’s “Stop Making Sense” CD on or around my birthday every year.

20. If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing for a living, I’d like to be the guy who names all those paint colors, like “Crimson Millennium” and “Custard Magnificence.”

21. I have a real weakness for hot dogs.

22. In fact, I’ve eaten so many that they won’t need to embalm me when I die.  My loved ones will peer into my open casket and say “Yeah, that’s pretty much what he looked like.”

23. I am prepared to watch an episode or two of Buffy with you so you can understand why it is the apex of quality television.

24. I’m trying to be a better listener.

25. What did you say again?