7 Zip Puns

But this one day, the computer wouldn't stop talking, so I went out and got a Zip drive.

Did you hear about the Cockatiel that was trying to find a new home for his family? He zipped back and forth everywhere, but couldn't find a good spot anywhere. Then he came across a bear, sleeping flat of his back with his mouth wide open. Not recognizing what it was, he thought the bear's mouth would be the perfect spot for a nest. He gathered his family and they all got to work building a new home for themselves, but then the bear woke up. Realizing what was going on, he politely informed them that he couldn't let them nest in his mouth. He hated to do it, but it was quite the bird den to bear.

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

Why didn't we just zip it in a folder to make it smaller?

I bought a box of zip lock bags and when she asked me if I needed a bag I told her no thanks, I have a hundred right here. She didn't get it.

My Dad just walked into the living room with a Christmas cracker hanging out of the zip in his jeans. I gave him a strange look, to which he replied:

"What? I'm fucking crackers!"

Genius.

So i was ask to post it here from a post in /r/screenshots/ , so i thought i'd add a story to it:

So, my father had asked me to make him a little sign up website, basic HTML format, that he could then copy and paste into a wordpress site that his Go-kart association uses. I made it, put it into a zip file, and e-mail him. I sent him a text to check his e-mail and how to use it. His response was this:

http://imgur.com/gallery/IG7mqVs

A coworker was complaining about nosy people, saying that she was tired of people "buttin' in her business" I sympathetically replied "Yeah, they should really zip it." No laughs were had, only glares.

Yesterday was Opening Day (baseball) at Target Field (Minnesota). The first 10,000 or so fans received a free blue zip-up hoodie with "Twins" emblazoned on the front. It's a damn fine hoodie.

It's also packed on the stadium concourse. 40,123 attendees that day. As my husband and I are making our way through a dense crowd along the right field concourse, an older gentleman stops me in my tracks with this big grin and says, "Wow, that's a great sweatshirt! Where'd you get it?"

He was holding one in his hand.

His other hand was holding that of his wife, who was rolling her eyes pretty hard. I imagine that was neither the first nor last time he'd made that joke yesterday.