Country of origin Puns

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

I say Middle Eastern cuz I honestly forget if he's Iraqi or Iranian. We were getting to know each other, and I asked him to tell me a fable from his country of origin. It went like this:

Ali: In (the town he grew up in), there is a tower. A very very tall tower, many stories high, with only stairs. And legend says that if you climb all the way to the very top...

(pause)

Me: What happens?

Ali: completely straight face You will get very dizzy.

That was it. I thought it was hilarious.

One day at a US immigration office, a man walked in seeking citizenship. The desk clerk began the usual questioning: "name, occupation, country of origin"? The man replied, " Juan Martinez, illusionist, Mexico".

During the process Juan made small talk and displayed his talent as an illusionist. The clerk found him to be a charming, funny, and charismatic man, which put the normally grouchy clerk in a great mood!

The clerk was so enamored by Juan, he let him skip the formalities and allowed him straight into the US.

After Juan left, a coworker asked the clerk why he would allow a man to just walk in to the US. To which the clerk responded...

"For once in my long career working in immigration, I was truly amazed and entertained by a potential citizen, so I decided to waive a magic Juan"!

John started working in a color pigment company which specialises in mixing and editing different color pigments according to their customers's demands. Once the color pigments were done, they would be mailed out to the customers with a detailed note commenting on the properties of the produced color pigments. John was placed in the 'Pink Pigment' department which was incidentally between the 'Red Pigment' and 'White Pigment' departments. He was really good at his job and was constantly praised for the great work he produced.

However after a month or so, John found that a number of his work was being duplicated and mailed to almost all of his customers. Worse of all, instead of a proper note commenting on the color pigment properties, these duplicated products were accompanied with rather bad puns and jokes. One repeating joke which irritated him the most was: 'What do you call a country with only pink cars? A pink car-nation.'

Upset, he went to his manager to complain about the problem. After listening to John, his manager said, "Oh boy, looks like I need to talk to the manager of the 'Red Pigment' department again. This is not the first time that it has happened. Those Red-editors in that department love to copy and repost other people's original work as their own."
John then asked, "How are you so sure that it was them who are responsible?"
His manager replied, "Well, you can be certain that it is them as they always love jokes or puns especially in the comment section."