I started making YouTube videos to improve everyone's health and well-being through the idea that nutrient-dense animal foods contained key vitamins and minerals that are vital for optimal human health and development. When I discovered this years ago, I literally said to myself, if I do one thing before I leave this planet, it will be to improve the health of it through nutrition. If people are healthy, if people are happy physically and mentally, the world will be in a better state. I see people on the street, my father, my disabled sister. I see how unhappy and how people aren't functioning, how humans are meant to be. And it really hurts me inside. It's part of why I'm so pessimistic. But in order to achieve that goal, I figured that I needed to make as much money as possible, get as famous as possible, and become as influential as possible. That's why I do things like acting, bartending, try to network with people and make YouTube videos. I feel like all of these things are conducive to my end goal. The reason I'm bringing this up is because all of these anti-vegan videos I make and these topics outside of the carnivore diet might not make sense. A lot of you guys say, Frank, why not just focus on the carnivore diet? I didn't make my YouTube channel originally on the carnivore diet. I just started marketing towards the carnivore diet because it made sense. Two and a half, three years ago, when I started my YouTube channel, it was based on the premise of nutrient density. It had nothing to do with the carnivore diet. Then you guys came along and then some people suggested I make anti-vegan videos and I played my cards right. Thankfully, my channel has been growing and growing and growing. I did feel the need to address this vegan gains video today, but I did want to leave that little message at the beginning of this video so you guys understand why I'm here, so to speak. I did a video on water two and a half weeks ago and I haven't seen a more educational video on water on YouTube and it didn't do so well. I'm focusing on popularity, money, income, things like that in the meantime while trickling in some education here and there. But on to the news today, vegan gains' channel has been terminated. As much as I like to believe karma is real, there are people that have done far worse things without suffering and then there are people that have done little to nothing wrong and they have suffered far more than vegan gains. Whether or not he deserved this is not a decision for any of us to make. It's an unfortunate consequence of his actions.  Saying that vegan gains has had a questionable past is putting it nicely. He filmed his grandfather suffering from heart disease in order to say, oh it was meat and he has spoken out negatively against Furious Pete, a very popular YouTuber, on many occasions claiming that the cause of his reoccurring cancer is because of his meat consumption. Vegan gains is not a genuine person. He has no integrity, no respect for himself or other people. I might make videos critiquing vegans that might be a little bit personal, but I do that for the purpose of educating people on the pitfalls of a vegan diet. When vegan gains does it, he would outright insult them, make them look bad and discredit them. The main thing that bothers me is his willingness to lie and deceive people for his own benefit.  It wasn't about educating people, it wasn't about looking at data, it wasn't about having an honest conversation. I'm a very understanding person and I expect some negativity from being exposed to all the vegans on his channel, but the comments on my video from the people he sent were horrendous. It's like he sent an army of vegan broccoli spear warriors to trash talk me and try to discredit me from making future videos.  Someone today just called me a sissy, which I think is hysterical, but some people call me very derogatory terms, from tranny to homosexual. I've even had some people say I'm an Italian n-word. Although I got some negativity before this debate, this is on a whole different level. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem taking criticism or insults when I dish them out myself, especially, but I had no clue the negativity this would bring. In hindsight, I might have prepared for the debate better, went about things a bit more seriously, but overall I'm fairly happy with how my YouTube channel has been going the past few months. It's one thing for me to critique vegans that are lying and deceiving people into the vegan cult. It's another thing for vegan gains to lie, manipulate people, attempting to discredit them and affecting their overall livelihood by tarnishing their reputation.  All of that being said, I would never wish this upon anyone. As someone who has worked very, very hard in my life, I've literally been on hundreds and hundreds of job interviews, and that's not applications, hundreds of interviews. I know how difficult life can be, I know how hard it is to make a living, and I would hate to be in his position. I mean, if I had to, I would step up to the plate and deal with it, maybe get back into bartending, pursue acting a bit more seriously.  Most of the time you can walk it off, but there are some horror stories. The question is though, if he successfully appealed determination, how would he actually go about his channel differently? Whether he knows what resulted in his channel being removed in the first place would be consideration, and it seems like a lot of what he does is fueled by negativity, so I don't really know if he could branch out of that and be successful, but who knows. This is interesting to me because although there are a lot of other vegan channels pushing nonsense, not a lot of them care about the carnivore diet and they certainly aren't attacking as many people as vegan gains is. I was looking forward to the possible debate that was going to happen between Bart Kay and vegan gains, but this seemed to have put a big wrench in the cogwheel of all this vegan versus carnivore drama. I wonder if anyone is going to step up and take its place in this regard?  It's just that he's already taken his position and he's really at a point of no return in regards to his commitment to veganism. Other vegans are literally brainwashed and their knowledge of nutrition compared to someone like vegan gains is abysmal. Although I wouldn't say vegan gains is a biochemist or is honest with his understanding of nutrition, he has that moral and ethical aspect of a vegan diet holding him back. He has a subjective opinion of nutrition. Me, as much as you guys don't want to believe, I have an objective opinion on nutrition in that we should be following indigenous diets. I have nothing against plant foods, although there are problems with modern plant foods. We know that these animal foods have to be present in the diet in order to have optimal health, but when you look at the general education level of most vegans, they just parrot and regurgitate information. Vegan gains at least did a little bit of googling to back up what he was saying. He might have lied and manipulated and deceived people, but compared to what other vegans are doing, they're essentially doing the same thing, except they don't understand as much about it as he does. He's able to do it in a way where he appeals to people that have a slightly higher IQ, and then if your IQ is actually high enough, you would never actually do a vegan diet. But all of that being said, thank you guys for watching. If you guys would like to support the channel, please subscribe and share the video. With that message earlier, one thing I want you guys to keep in mind is anything that you guys do to support me, whether it's sharing a video, leaving a comment, giving me some advice on something. All of this really does help me reach my goal, and I do sincerely appreciate all of you guys who comment, who leave questions, who do all of these things as it's really helped me progress my knowledge and further myself in these few years that I've been on YouTube. If you guys do want to check out my Patreon, I'm doing exclusive videos now, I might share how to raise your testosterone on there after I get some blood work. I updated my Amazon shop, removed a couple things I didn't want on there, so if you guys want to buy some salt or see what products I use every day, check out my Amazon shop. I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram, a lot of great information on my Twitter, Instagram just selfies of me. And if you guys do want to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations with Frankie Boy, you can shoot me an email frankatifano.com or contact me through the form on my website frank-tifano.com. Oh, if you want to look like slick Rick, I'm selling my hair pomade. It's going to be launched next Saturday. You can pre-order the hair pomade with one of the product packages on my website frank-tifano.com. Hopefully I'll be able to sell it separately in the future. But in the meantime, you want to look like slick Rick, check it out on my website. But again, thank you guys for watching and enjoy the rest of your day.


QuickBooks Online 2024. Bank feeds matching receive payment form to bank feed deposit. Get ready some coffee and some trail mix because we're hiking on QuickBooks Online, our audit trail to success. First, a word from our sponsor. Actually, we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers, they don't want to be seen with us.  Like our Accounting Rocks product line. If you're not crunching cords using Excel, you're doing it wrong. I must have product because the fact as everyone knows of accounting being one of the highest forms of artistic expression means accountants have a requirement, the obligation, a duty to share the tools necessary to properly channel the creative muse. And the muse, she rarely speaks more clearly than through the beautiful symmetry of spreadsheets. So get the shirt because the creative muse, she could use a new pair of shoes. If you would like a commercial free experience, consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com. Here we are in our QuickBooks Online bank feed practice file we set up in a prior presentation. Let's open those major financial statement reports like we do every time reports on the left in the favorites. Right-clicking on that balance sheet to open a link in a new tab, right-clicking the P&L or income statement to open a link in a new tab. The same with the trustee TB, the trial balance. If you don't have that trial balance in the favorites, you can search for it. Let's tab to the right. Close the hamburger and change the range. We're going three months this time. 0-1-0-1-2-4-2-0-3-3-1-2-4-tab. Dropping down to see month by month and run it. We'll tab to the right. Repeat the process. Hamburger needs to be closed. Range needs to be changed. 0-1-0-1-2-4-tab. 0-3-3-1-2-4-tab. Drop down. Months. Run it to refresh it. Uno vase mas. One more time. Close the hamburger. Change the range. 0-1-0-1-2-4-tab. Wait a second. K-PASA. 0-1-0-1-2-4-tab. 0-3-3-1-2-4-tab. Select the dropdown. Months. Run it to refresh it. Let's go back to the balance sheet. This time we're going to be thinking about more of an accrual system on our revenue cycle. But we're going to see the matching of the bank feed to the receive payment form. Let's go to our flow chart to analyze this again. This is a desktop flow chart. We're thinking for the online system because we're just looking at the flow of the forms for the revenue, sales, income, cycle, whatever you want to call it. The easiest kind of system we would have that we looked at in the past would be one where you just get paid say by the YouTube and it hits your bank and you record it with a deposit form with the use and help of the bank feeds. Then we might have a cash register situation which often makes it a little bit more difficult, especially if we're going to be receiving cash as well as credit cards because we might have to group that in such a way that it will match what goes through with the bank feeds. We'll talk more about that later. Right now we're thinking about an accrual system where we have to basically invoice the client for the work done, then track the accounts receivable to try to get paid and then we make the deposit. The journal entries involved here would be when we make the invoice after we do the work. That increases accounts receivable. The other side then goes to revenue and you might have inventory impacted as well. Then we need to collect on it and receive the payment. We talked last time about basically a system where you might be able to connect the bank feeds to the invoice, which would be easiest to do if you had even the QuickBooks checking account for the payments. When you send out an email for example, you give them the option to pay you with an electronic transfer directly to the checking account. That would be the easiest way to do it so that you get all your payments in an electronic format and then QuickBooks could even help you to basically record the receipt of the payment. But if you don't have the QuickBooks checking, you could still do that by basically when you invoice someone telling them how to pay you possibly with some form of electronic transfer to your checking account, which would then come through the bank feeds. As long as your bank feeds deposit is matching the invoice, you can use the matching concept to record it, which would then record the received payment and put it into your bank account, lowering accounts receivable, increasing the checking account. Now, what if you can't do that system? You can't possibly do that system. It might not work well if you're going to receive other types of payments such as cash, such as credit cards possibly, and such as having some intermediary platform like a PayPal or like a Stripe or something. Why? Because when you get the payments from the customers, these intermediary platforms like a credit card will typically group those payments, might actually take a fee from the payments, and then put it into your checking account as a lump sum. Therefore, the lump sum payment that goes into your bank feeds is not going to match what is not going to match up to the invoice easily, and that will cause a problem. So if you're in that situation, if you're receiving payments other than electronic transfers and you have any kind of payment where you have this grouping problem, then you probably want your whole system to be one that's the same, meaning you're going to use the received payment form to then deposit into undeposited funds, a clearing account, so that you can then deposit yourself using a deposit form and be able to deposit in such a way that it'll match the bank feeds. Okay, so let me show you what I mean here. If we go on over and let's run a couple scenarios. So let's say we have an invoice, let's make an invoice, and we're going to say this is going to be for customer, let's say customer five again, or let's say six, customer six, new customer, set it up. And we'll say this happens on 0302, 24. So the due date we're going to say is 30 days later. And so then we're going to say let's do the same thing with our more complicated transaction that has tax related to it. So we're going to sell an inventory item again, and we're going to sell one of those. Tax is being calculated. I'm going to adjust the tax to the generic 5%, the generic five for our practice problem. So this is going to be an invoice. What's it going to do? It's going to be increasing the accounts receivable 18375, increased sales 175, increased sales tax payable liability 875, decrease the inventory by 100, not on the form driven by the item, increase cost of goods sold by 100 net impact on net income 175 sales price minus the $100. So our concern here is to receive the payment. So you could the easiest way, like I say is to possibly use the payments for QuickBooks, use their checking account to set that up, and then tell when you email the invoice, have them pay it with an electronic transfer directly to your checking account. That would be kind of like the easiest thing to do. But you can also do that electronic kind of payment system without their checking account. Just say that you tell your clients how you would like to be paid and give them the payment options for you, which would be transfers. But again, if they're going to pay you with something like cash, then or a credit card that could mess up the system. So let's go ahead and say we're going to save this. Let's hit the drop down, save it and close it. Let's look at the transaction balance sheet running it. And we know in the accounts receivable for March, if I go into it, we now have our transaction once again for customer number 618375. And then on the income statement, we recorded the revenue in the sales. So sale of product for the 175. And then back, the difference is on the balance sheet in the sale tax payable and inventory went down, which isn't my major focus, but I'll just show you that the inventory is going down by 100. And the other side's going to cost of goods sold, which is going to be here by the 100. So our concern is tracking the accounts receivable. Now let's go back to the balance sheet. The accounts receivable has a sub ledger breaking out by who owes us the money. Let's go to the tab to the right, right click, duplicate that tab so I can just show you that sub ledger. And so it's in the reports closing the hamburger, scrolling down who owes you. We want to think about and see the customer balance detail. Customer balance detail. Now we have that customer number 6 here that owes us money. The total amount then 238375 should match out to what's on the balance sheet 238375. If we track it internally, go into the tab to the left in the sales center or customer center, we could track it looking at all sales and then track the open invoices. So we have our open invoices here.  And then invoices, we could track it here, which is probably the most common place to track it. And we're looking at the unpaid invoices here. We could track it by customer and look at the open invoices by customer. Now we're going to have to collect on this if I go into the customer, then I can see in the receive payment that the next thing I would do when they pay us would typically be internally received payment, which would then tie out the invoice to the payment that we would receive. Now again, like we did last time, if we got paid directly into our bank account with an electronic transfer for that exact amount, then I could wait till it clears the bank and the bank feed will see the match and it will do that receive payment form for us possibly. But let's imagine that I'm not going, it's not going to work that way because I have either a credit card or a cash payment. So let's imagine, for example, I have another transaction that happens, a plus button and invoice, and we have another invoice. And this will be for customer, let's say number seven, customer seven tab. And we'll say, there's the customer. And we're going to say that that's going to be, I put it into 24 seven customer. Okay. But I'm going to say that that's going to happen on, let's say 32 as well. And let's say this one was just a service item. So we sold services. And let's just say that that was for $60. It's not taxable. We don't have sales tax. This is just going to increase accounts receivable. The other side going to revenue. So we'll say let's say that is save and close. And then if I go to the balance sheet, run it. Now we have in accounts receivable, another, another 60. It's also in the sub ledger. If I go to the sub ledger and run it. So now we have the added 60 as well. And if I go to the internal documentation, go into the customers and look for the open invoices. We have open invoices for both this customer and this customer. Now, when they pay us, let's say that they're going to pay us like cash or credit cards. And the credit card company is going to batch them together before it hits our checking account. Well, in that case, I can't wait till it clears the bank. I'm going to have to say I'm going to receive a payment from customer number six. Let's say it happens on 0304 or let's say 0524. Let's say it's a cash payment. And then it's so I so in this case, I can't put it directly into the checking account. I could because I could put it directly into the checking account here. And again, if the bank feed was that exact amount and the date was close, the bank feed would match it out. But but if I was going to use that method, I might as well match it out to the invoice. So so so what I'm going to do is instead I'm going to put it into the clearing account, which used to be called undeposited funds, which is now called payments to deposit. So what's this going to do? It's a receive payment form. That means it's going to decrease the accounts receivable. The other side goes into a cash account, but not necessarily the checking account. In this case, the clearing account a payment to deposit and it's attached to the invoice that has been paid. Let's say save and close. So now if I if I look at the detail for that particular customer, we can now go into like the customers recently paid. So now it has been recently paid and it was for customer number six. I think customer number six. So if I go into that customer, there's there's the invoice. So if I go into the invoice and look at the trail, it was open then it was paid has not yet been deposited. So we have it in the payments to deposit. And then if I was to look at that invoice and edit it, I can see that it is paid here, paid in full. And then it's been attached to this payment form that we created. I can edit that payment form and once again see that it's tied out to that invoice. And this is a link to the invoice. Everything's kind of linked together, which is nice. Let's do the same thing for the other payment. So I'm going to close this out back to the customers and let's look at the open invoices and imagine we also got paid by this one. And we're going to receive a payment and let's say it was on 040524 cash payment. And then again, I'm putting it into see how the default now is going into the payments to deposit. If you use this account, you probably want to use it with every received payment form so that you're not toggling back and forth between the checking account and the payment to deposit. Because I think that would be an area that can cause errors. This will once again reduce the accounts receivable and record the cash going into the clearing account. Let's save it and close it. If I look at it internally, same kind of thing. The invoice has now opened, paid, not yet deposited. So where did it go? Let's go to the balance sheet. Those two transactions run it, decreased the accounts receivable. So the accounts receivable goes down by, so there's the 183. I'm not sure I picked the right date on the $60 one. What did I put on the date? Let's go internally and say I put it on 4-5. Let's see if I can edit that one. Let's say it was on 3-5, right? That's what we were trying to do here. 3-5, save and close. Okay. Sorry about that. Back to the balance sheet. Run it. Okay. So now in the accounts receivable, we've got these two transactions here decreasing the AR. Accounts receivable should just go up with invoices and down with payments all the time. The subledger should be adjusted so those are removed from it. So the subledger still matches 2002, 2002. The other side of the transaction goes into the payment to deposit account here. So we have in here the 60 and the 183.75. So now let's go back. Okay. So now let's imagine what's going to clear the bank. If we have a credit card that's grouping those payments together, or if we are making the deposit of cash into the checking account, it's going to hit the checking account as one lump sum, not as two amounts. So let's show that by making a bank feed over here. We'll say date, and we'll say this is going to be a amount and description. The date, let's say is on three, what did we say? 524 amount. We're going to say it's for the full amount that's going to hit it 243.75. So 243.75 description is going to be cash deposited. Because we're going to imagine we went and deposited or the credit card. If it was a credit card, it would be a deposit from the credit card on the bank feeds. Let's save that and save it file save as. I'm going to save it as a CSV so we can upload it as though it came through the bank feeds. So I'll save it and close it. And then if I go back to the first tab, we're going to go to the hamburger, transactions, close the hamburger, and then bring this in, upload from file, find that file. There it is, 445. That's the number of the presentation if you want to look it up and use it yourself. If you have access to it, it's going to be the checking account that it's going to go into. And then we're going to say continue. It's yes, one column. That's the format of the date, date, date, description, description, amount, amount. Looks good. Continue. There it is. Let's pull that one in and continue. Yes. And done. All right. So now if we look at that one, so there's the cash deposited. Notice that it didn't just match it up to those two receive payments because the receive payments have two forms that hit our system in one lump sum. So if I go into this one, for example, I could go to my matching and then for some reason it's only showing one of the payments here. But the idea is that I could check them off down here to tie out to the balance. But I don't want to have to do that over here on the deposit side of things. When I'm looking at the bank feeds, it would be easier for me to take care of things internally if I have to deal with something like this. So for example, let's close this out. And then I'm going to record the deposit on our side and then group it properly and then the bank feeds should pick it up. So if I go to the balance sheet over here and I say that at the end of the day I take the money and I deposit into the bank, I'm going to make the transaction of that 243.75 that's going into the bank with the help and use of a deposit form. So if I go to the first tab and I select the drop down and I deposit it instead of waiting until it clears the bank with a deposit form, you can see in here it shows me those two payments. And if I group them together, it's going to be deposited as a lump sum of 243.75. Now if you dealt with a credit card, you might have to check those off and also deal with the fact that the credit card might batch your payments and charge you a fee, which you might have to put an expense down here of a bank fee. And then say that that's going to be like whatever $5 that they charged you $6 so that you get the deposit to tie out to what's actually going to hit your bank account. But we don't have to do that here. I'm going to remove that. Say we deposited 243.75. What's this going to do? Increase the checking account by this amount, 243.75 instead of this and this. And then it's going to decrease the clearing account back down to zeros. Let me change the date first, however, back to March 5th. All right. So then okay, let's do it. Let's go save it and close it. And then if I go to my balance sheet, we're going to say run it. And then in March, we should have a deposit of that amount of 243.75. It's hitting in one lump sum instead of in two amounts. And then the payment to deposit has gone back down to zero. So back down to zero on that one. Okay. So then I'm going to go back. And then if I go to my bank account over here in the transactions for the bank feeds, I'm going to refresh the screen. I didn't even have to refresh it. It picked it up. See now it matches it out. So that's typically the process that we would have. And now it can see it because if I go to find the matches, it's picking up that deposit form easily. So that's how you basically want. So I'm going to, do you want to leave it out saving? I'll say yet. That's how we basically want to do it oftentimes. So the bottom line is if I look at my flow chart, we can possibly match the bank feed deposit to the invoice. If the invoice amount will be the same amount that clears the bank, you could receive the payment manually and then deposit that directly into the checking account and try to match that to the bank feeds. But if you're going to do that, you might as well just do the, you know, match it to the invoice. If you have a system where you have to deal with credit cards or cash payments, then you might have multiple receive payments and even sales receipts were their cash or credit card. And in which case you could try to tie out the bank feed to the receive payment forms. But to do that, you would have to use the matching feature on the bank feeds, which would be difficult and not usually the best way to do it. If you find yourself doing that, then the work around what you need to do typically is use the undeposited funds, meaning you're going to manually record the received payments as well as the sales receipts as we'll see in a future presentation directly into undeposited funds or funds to be deposited. And then use the deposit form, not through the bank feeds, but actual deposit form to properly group the transactions to your checking account in the same format as they will be grouped from the credit card company or when you make cash deposits. So that when you do the bank feeds, you're not actually going to record a transaction. You're just going to match the transaction here. But it will be the easy thing to do on the bank feeds, right? That's going to be the idea. So we match it and there we go. All right, let's just take a look at our trial balance to see where we stand at this point in time. This is where we're at. So if you're following along, then if your numbers tie up to these numbers, great. If not, then it might be a date range issue. You might increase the date and then drill down on the numbers that differ and possibly to the source document and change the date.


Digitalization has transformed the world economy and the postal sector. Posts have grown to offer a wide range of services suitable for the 21st century's digital economy, ranging from mail, parcels and financial services to innovative and inclusive solutions for citizens, business and territories worldwide. To effectively track and monitor the evolving nature of the postal sector around the world, the Universal Postal Union developed the Integrated Index for Postal Development, two IPD, which measures four dimensions of postal development. Reliability, Reach, Relevance, Resilience. Switzerland has retained the first rank for the second year in a row because of its strong balanced performance in reliability, reach, relevance and resilience, the four dimensions of the two IPD. The Swiss Post offers a well-diversified portfolio across all postal segments and Swiss citizens trust their post, positioning it at the heart of their daily life from e-shopping to bill payments, savings and digital identity. The Netherlands has moved up by two places in the ranking compared with the previous release, thanks to its impressive connectivity with international partners and a fast and reliable service. Japan has retained the third place thanks to a strong offering of services, especially financial. However, the strong performance of the top three does not reflect the global trend for the sector, which is being affected by growing gaps in postal development between and within regions. In spite of these challenges, there have been some encouraging results. For example, Poland ranked sixth worldwide, Singapore ranked seventh, Nigeria ranked 51st, Brazil ranked 44th and Tunisia ranked 49th. As a specialised agency of the UN system, the UPU is expected to support its member countries in efforts to measure the contributions of the postal sector to the UN SDGs. With a global network of over 677,000 post offices, 5.3 million staff and physical infrastructure covering 192 countries, the postal sector is a key contributor to national and international infrastructure. It plays an important role in national development and in the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. Research by the UPU shows that postal development goes hand in hand with high performance in the SDGs. The postal sector contributes to the achievement of Goal 8, decent work and economic growth, through the promotion of financial inclusion, often granting banking access to poor and isolated communities. The sector also contributes to Goal 9, industry, innovation and infrastructure, through the promotion of logistics services and advice to build more robust global value chains. When natural disasters put countries on their knees, the postal sector shows considerable resilience, being capable of restarting operations before other elements of physical infrastructure. The Integrated Index for Postal Development relies on the Universal Postal Union's big data, statistics and key surveys. In this sense, it is a unique tool promoting data-driven development. Ministries, regulatory agencies and operators undoubtedly use it to achieve postal excellence in their countries. And this matters, because the postal sector continues to be a key vehicle of socio-economic development and an essential instrument for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.


Dr. Church sat back, grinding a fist into a single bloodshot eye. He was finally done for tonight. He drew in a heavy breath, holding it captive for a long, aching moment before letting it hiss from his lips. And the stale, hot air ruffled the papers on his desk, and he frowned. Carefully he rearranged the product of sixteen hours of work. The thick sheaf still warm from where his hands had been pressed into it. He was finally caught up with work, a rare enough occurrence by itself for Foundation employees. His weary mind mulled over the possible expenditures of his newly found free time, briefly entertaining the idea of going to the cafeteria for his first meal in eighteen hours. He discarded the thought, however, deciding instead on sleep. Even the thought of it made him smile. He'd settled into his chair, thinking back to the last time he had a good night's rest. Let's see, it's four o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, and he hadn't slept yesterday, so Thursday night he'd been in quarantine when that fungus SCP had broken loose, and Wednesday he'd been sleeping on the couch after an argument with the Misses, hadn't slept at all on Tuesday, and Monday he'd stayed late to try and finish the D-Class Allocation Report. Sunday he'd been in the burn ward after another SCP had breached containment. Huh. I come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he had a good night's sleep. Whatever. It's all going to change tonight, he thought triumphantly. He smiled. He remained sitting, letting the quiet of his small office wash over him before he packed up and went home. It was peaceful, an area that was his. To him it was more home than home, a safe place where he could work in peace. He ran a fingertip over a stapler, pulling the device's smooth black outline before going up and tracing the rim of his desk lamp. Both were gifts, given to him by the Foundation when he got his office. Next was his pencil cup, a pale mug labeled number one researcher, also a gift from when he figured out how to make D-Class transportation systems 2% more efficient. His inbox, mercifully empty, followed closely behind by his outbox, obscenely filled with neatly stacked and filed papers. Almost unconsciously, his finger found the handle to his top drawer, and he tugged it open. It was filled with various odds and ends, office supplies, and the occasional rubber band ball. They rattled softly as the drawer slid open, but Church's eyes were drawn to the nine millimeters sitting on the stack of old printer paper. A standard Issue Foundation Beretta M915RD, another gift, distributed among all researchers at Site-19. It was a fairly common firearm as far as handguns went, and he remembered the day they'd signed him on and gave him his office, and there really hadn't been a whole lot of ceremony to it. They just shoved him in, handed him a stapler, gun and name tag, and told him to get to work. I'm not sure what to do with it, he just stuck it in a drawer and tried to forget about it.  It's not a tool of construction, or contribution, nor production. It was a tool of destruction, and there it was, sitting in his desk drawer.  And the smooth machine-wrought curves passed under his fingertips as he examined the thing, the matte finish soaking up light like a hungry maw. There was no part to this weapon that did not have a purpose, he realized. Every sliver of metal, every groove, every nick, every curve fit together, sliding over one another, resisting where resistance was needed and giving where a give was needed. It was fascinating. Dr. Church hefted the lump of metal, appreciating the weight, the coolness, of the steel in his palm, with a flick of his thumb he let the magazine slide free, catching it and placing it on his desk. His attention followed along the carefully planned chain of reactions as the trigger was to press the levers and pins spun, pulling the hammer back. The spring would resist, of course, as was its purpose, but it would give way, allowing the hammer to pull back farther and farther before snap. He manually operated the rest of the sequence, pulling the slide back as the gases expanded the cartridge flying out of the chamber in slow motion in his mind's eye. He let the slide slip forward, knowing it would scoop another round in the chamber as he did so. He sat there for a moment longer, running through the process in his mind's eye, and then he pressed the barrel against his temple. His pulse jumped immediately, and then settled his logic kicked in. It was empty. The magazine was on his desk, he'd just checked the chamber. What he was doing was perfectly safe. Still, a tiny kick of adrenaline at the simple move caught his attention. His breathing was elevated, and a slight tremble had entered his hands that he couldn't wholly attribute to sleep deprivation. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine what it would be like holding a gun to his head, the trigger depressing. The spring creaking as it gave way, the hammer pulling back. He frowned. It wasn't quite right, it didn't feel real. He glanced at the door, and he wet his lips. And then he slid the magazine in. It was still safe, he reasoned. He had the safety on, and even if he did and the chamber was empty, he was just getting a feel for it. The weight of the bullets definitely made it more realistic, made it easier to imagine. He closed his eyes, he replayed the scenario once more, the trigger going down, the hammer coming back, the bullet leaving, the slide rocketing, the casing flying out, yes. He could imagine it perfectly. Almost perfectly. They almost nagged at him, almost perfectly, because there was no bullet in the chamber. And that degree of realism was still removed, he held his breath and listened to his pulse pound through him. He felt on edge, he felt on fire, but he felt alive. If this was as excited as he got without actually being in danger, what would it be like if he pulled the slide back? Still safe, still secure, still... God, everything was in such crystal clear definition, he could see every grain, every nick, every stain on his shitty little office door, every greasy fingerprint on his desk, every fleck of dust that waffed it through the air. His breath came out and ragged gasps, his fingertip trembling on the trigger. And he mentally berated himself, disgusted at his own excitement. And he still had that safety net, that little pin of metal holding the bullet in check. He still had his fingers in the final line he was not going to cross. And yet he was acting like he just ran a marathon. He gulped, wetly, letting the thoughts spin through his mind. He felt oddly detached, almost dizzy even, from the gallons of adrenaline his body was dumping into his veins so high, such excitement, the safety wasn't even turned off. So he flipped the safety. And everything was quiet.   The air whistling down his throat, the soft clatter as the gun shook in his hand. The soft creak in his finger as it tightened, he focused on that. His eyes staring straight ahead, unseemly. He focused on his finger, tightening around the trigger. He knew exactly how far it had to go before the hammer tripped. He squeezed half that distance. His heart was beating a thousand times per second, pouring the barely oxygenated blood into his system. He pulled half the remaining distance. It was hot, just so hot, somewhere in the back of his mind. He knew it was because of the blood pounding just below his skin, pouring his body heat into the room. And that part of him was quickly smothered by the roaring in his ears. He depressed half the remaining distance, just an eighth. Just an eighth of a pull left, such a tiny amount. He pulled half, then half again. A thirty second, pitiful, tiny amount, insignificant, barely larger than a hair.  It was just him, just him, that gun, and a thirty second, no, a sixty fourth of a pull. He could feel it. He could feel the hammer straining, begging the spring to release it, begging to ignite the gunpowder. He pulled back, just the tiniest amount, nearing the point of no return as his finger tightened, the tendons and nerves and muscles pulling the trigger, that last, indivisible amount. And the door opened. Doctor, I know it's late, but I was looking over the 892 report and I thought that maybe assistant researcher Wilts paused at the door, holding a stack of paper and staring at the doctor stupidly. Dr. Church hastily put the gun away, dropping it into the drawer and pushing it shut in, one smooth motion. A moment of awkward silence filled the tiny space as they stared at one another, neither moving a muscle. Doctor, what were?  Just an experiment. His eyes flicked to the thick sheet of paper and he held out a hand. If I may. Wilts clumsily handed him the report, fumbling with the papers as he stammered out. I noticed a few consistent cells in the D block and I thought that if there were a pattern we could be trailed off, gesturing helplessly at his report. Dr. Church flipped through the papers, nodding thoughtfully. Interesting. That could work, but only if the cells didn't change over that period. Could it copy the last 20 iterations? I don't think they were perfectly consistent, but it should give us a control group. He returned to the report, mumbling quietly to himself. Another moment of awkward silence passes. He glances up, noticing Wilts is still there. That'll be all. Doctor, when I walked in, what were? That'll be all, Dr. Wilts. They stared at one another a moment longer. Wilts fidgeted, then nodded respectfully, and slowly turned to exit the office, casting back a final lingering glance. Dr. Church ignored the look and picked up his pen. With a certain tired, methodical pace, he started scribbling notations in the corner, reading through the report carefully. He stifled a yawn and turned to the page. He'd been really hoping he could get some sleep tonight.


and getting ready for dinner tonight. I got the wood stove going over there. Got the Coleman oven on top of the wood stove. Looks like it's heated up a little bit over 300. Tonight, we're gonna have something I've never had before on the ice, or never made before at least on the ice. We're gonna go ahead and make some pizza. There, I like to make them look like a somewhere between a stop and a yield sign. So we're going no utensils tonight, just a knife. When you're camping, you can get away with stuff like this. I washed my hands a couple of days ago. We'll put that in the oven. Hopefully it fits. All right, let's give it a check. Looks pretty good.