Call Off the Search Puns

I call the search Off! It's curtains for that quest!

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

If your onion sang hip-hop, would that be a rapscallion?

I used to be an astronaut, but I got tired of eating out of satellite dishes. I wasn't allowed to eat the Milky Way, even though I had to look at it every day. The worst thing was, I never got to visit The Space Bar. Then, when I was visiting the dark side of the moon, I was bitten by a parasite. Now, you might think it's crazy, but the doctor who removed it called it a lunar-tick.

If "womb" is pronounced "woom" and "tomb" is pronounced "toom", shouldn't "bomb" be pronounced "boom"?

China recently tested a new steroid. It basically turns you into The Hulk. The side effect is it could turn you into a crazed zombie that tends to rip the upper extremities from people. People are saying that this could be the zombie apocalypse. In my opinion, lips have nothing to do with it. I call it ARMageddon. The only way to stay safe now is to not let anyone close enough to disarm you.

I recently was going to join the railroad union. I decided against it because it's complicated. If I received instruction on driving the locomotive, would they call it engineering, or training?

I got a sad story about a flower. I don't know who the heck she pissed off, but damn, now she's a Black-Eyed Susan.

I finally figured out what makes leaves angry. Fall. They get so mad they change color. Some are yellow. They're just afraid and run from their problems. The other ones usually just leave.

I went parachuting with my military buddies once. We landed on a department store. I told him I think we're at the wrong coordinates. He said: "Nope. We're right on Target"

I asked a psychologist if Native Americans have strong emotions. He said "Oh yeah, they're intense".

If a psychotic person thought something made sense, would that thought be psychological?

If Matt Damon were searching for a secondhand store, would he be Goodwill Hunting?

My friend is a Marksman for the military. One day, he went to the armory and asked for 3 snipers. They gave him a candy bar. It was a 3 Musketeers.

I want to be there if Dwayne Johnson ever uses a pizza stone. That way I can smell what "The Rock" is cookin'.

Christopher bought a lemon, and the car broke down. Now Christopher Walken.

Have you heard about the latest bank battle on Wall Street? Capital One and Chase got in a fight and Capital One.

You know what a pirate says to his wenches when he sees the shoreline? "LAND HO!"

A man finds a lamp in the desert and dusts it off. Poof! A genie p