#3 - Helicopter

He slid out of the helicopter door, ducked under the rotors, and headed straight for me at a trot. "You're a bastard," he said, and then punched me in the nose.
He punched me in the nose, hard. I tasted blood.
The helicopter swept in low and hard, then abruptly rose and turned to cut airspeed, finally settling back to the ground in a gentle landing.
My helicopter is green.
The green helicopter rose abruptly and turned, heading south through the mountain pass.
He stepped out of the helicopter, ramrod-straight. Ugh.
Cliché after cliché.
The CN Tower in Toronto is the worlds' tallest building.
The CN Tower in Toronto stands taller than any other building in the world.
The helicopters buzzed around the CN Tower, searching in vain for the assassin.
The assassin! Oh my god, there's an assassin here? How cliché!
The assassin secretly replaced the emir's Mission Macaroni and Cheese with a similar-looking bowl of Kraft Cheese 'n' Macaroni. He smirked, knowing his task would soon be accomplished.
I secretly replaced the clean water in the toilet bowl with a replacement mixture of urine, feces, and unused vitamins.
The helicopter shook violently in the wind. "Never leave me!" she cried. "I expect to see you here at noon three days from now!"

#2 - T-Shirt

He walked by wearing a red t-shirt that said "Casualty is on the way."
His red t-shirt read "Casualty is on the way."
I guess you can't do a whole lot with t-shirts, can you?
His t-shirt screamed. No.
His t-shirt proclaimed. No.
T-shirts are not animate objects; they can not be active players, they can not DO things.
You can say:
The t-shirt fell off the rack. The t-shirt fell.
The t-shirt hung limply around his skinny torso. The t-shirt hung.
The t-shirt draped loosely across the chair. The t-shirt draped.
I draped the t-shirt loosely across the chair. This time it is I who do the draping. The t-shirt is the object of the draping.
He looked uncomfortable in his skin. He wore a red t-shirt that said in big black letters "Casualty is on the way." I wondered what that meant. I suppose Casualty was the name of his band, it was too specific and negative to be related to some travelling Christian group. In the past we had "Visualize Todd." Visualize Casualty was too much of a stretch.
What did he want? He wanted to get to work on time. He worked at Dobado Software in Seattle, a leading maker of graphics software.
He worked at Dobado Software in Seattle as a tester for their PhotoReality software, the world leader in digitial photo manipulation.
His trade was quality assurance. No one says that.
He worked as a tester in the quality assurance group at Dobado Software.
He tested digital photo software at Dobado, a big software firm in Seattle.

#1 - Teapot

The teapot hummed.
The teapot hummed in the kitchen.
In the kitchen, the teapot hummed quietly.
Announcing the imminent completion of its task, the teapot began to hum (hah!)
I heard the teapot hum.
In the background, I heard the teapot begin to hum.
As if on cue, the teapot began to hum.
The teapot hissed, the water almost ready to boil.
The teapot hummed, the water inside almost ready to boil.
We both heard the teapot begin to rattle, neither realizing that it would become a metaphor for our sizzling passion (hah!)
Our passions spilled over like an over-full teapot. (hah!)
My boss is like a teapot. He goes off at predictable intervals.
My hands blistered, my face scorched, I promised myself I would never drop a hissing teapot on the counter ever again.
I'm a little teapot, short and stout. This is my handle, this is my spout.
He threw an old iron teapot at her, cracking her left tibia and causing her to cry out in pain.
He threw a heavy ceramic teapot at her, cracking her left tibia. She cried out in pain.
He cried out in pain when the teapot bounced off his head.
Not seeing the teapot coming, he had no idea that he was about to lose his sight. (ugh)
The teapot was red.
The red teapot stood solidly on the surface of the stove. (ugh)
On the stove's surface sat a ceramic teapot.