Lies of Our Times Puns

• "Can't talk, busy camping," replied Tom, intent.
• "The French don't deserve our thanks," said Tom mercilessly.
• "Haven't you heard me singing in church?" Tom inquired.
• "I'll win this tennis game if I get one more point, " Tom deduced.
• "I didn't eat my T-bone tonight," said Tom mistakenly.
• "So you're asking about my mink coat," Tom inferred.
• "I'm wearing a watch around my wrist," said Tom with abandon.
• "I'm the most important salmon vendor," said Tom selfishly.
• "I was correct the first three times, and I am correct now," said Tom forthrightly.
• "Castration is reversible," Tom remembered.
• "I brought the dessert," said Tom piously.
• "I command my own private army," said Tom maliciously.
• "I'll order the same meat as last time," Tom revealed.
• "I've never swum in Egypt's longest river," said Tom in denial.
• "Et tu?" asked Tom brutally.
• "That's women for you," said Tom dismissively.
• "I'll have a bowl of Chinese soup," said Tom wantonly.
• "I eat everything," said Tom in jest.
• "I gave you your freedom, and I can take it away," said Tom deliberately.
• "Maybe if I rub this lamp something good will happen," said Tom ingeniously.
• "I'm never taking an Uber again," Tom derided.
• "That dog is a mongrel," Tom muttered.
• "It's too bad Babe isn't on our team," said Tom ruthlessly.
• "Maybe I should stop using worms to catch fish... or maybe not," Tom debated.
• "Hemingway is my favorite author," said Tom earnestly.
• "This drumming is too easy," said Tom without missing a beat.
• "This is a frozen dessert,” I screamed.
• "Now I have TWO duck feathers", Tom doubled down.
• "She would never answer her phone the first time, you always had to hang up once," Tom recalled.
• "Two plus five is seven,” Tom added.
• "I only have Diamonds, Clubs and Spades," said Tom heartlessly.
• "It's okay, the PlayStation still works," Tom consoled.
• "Capital punishment is mostly used on the lower classes," said Tom with poor execution.
• "Where are all of my old board games?" asked Tom cluelessly.
• "I might be acquitted," said Tom without conviction.
• "I've never dyed my hair red, but I'll try it," said Tom gingerly.
• "Ugh! I need to shave again," Tom bristled.
• "Whale hunting makes me so sad," Tom blubbered.
• "I'll quit smoking marijuana right now!" said Tom bluntly.
• "I like hot dogs more than hamburgers," said Tom frankly.
• "I signed it twice," Tom remarked.
• "I received a letter to take my car in for repair," Tom recalled.
• "I hate pale ale," sai

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

So last night we were brushing our teeth before going to bed, and I ask her "You know why eating a clock is a bad idea?"
She looks at me funny, because she knows what's coming.
"Because it's very time consuming."
She just rolls her eyes, and goes to bed. But because the joke was in English, and English isn't our first language, I think she didn't quite get it.
A minute after she lies down, I hear a loud groan coming out of bed, followed by "that was really, really lame, honey!"

So my girlfriend and I are lying in bed this morning having just woken up. We both took deep breaths and exhaled at the same time and she says, "Oh look, our breathing is in sync". I reply, "I'd prefer if our breath was The Backstreet Boys".

She promptly knocked me out of bed.