Flush from reporting the breaking news that tourists are often confused, the Washington Post breathlessly delivers the scoop that government workers are often bored. Once we were able to get the blood rushing back to our head, we heeded Amy Joyce's tale of Bruce Bartlett's many lost afternoons as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy in the Treasury Department:

boredom occasionally drove him from his cushy Washington office to seek relief at the movie theater. One afternoon, he ran into a friend who was a senior official in another department.

"It was kind of awkward," he said.

Even more awkward? That senior official was Dick Cheney, and the movie was Stuart Little 2. --HOLLY MARTINS

Boredom Numbs the Work World [Washington Post]