Plan Totality Puns

Tom's fans didn't expect this kind of diss appointment.

When an eel bites your hand, And that's not what you planned, That's a moray.

When our habits are strange, And our customs deranged, That's our mores.

When your horse munches straw, And the bales total four, That's some more hay.

When Othello's poor wife Becomes stabbed with a knife, That's a Moor, eh?

When a Japanese knight Uses his sword in a fight, That's Samurai.

When your sheep go to graze In a damp marshy place, That's a moor, eh?

When your boat comes home fine And you tie up her line, That's a moor, eh?

When you ace your last tests Like you did all the rest, That's some more "A"s!

In New Zealand you see An aborigine, That's a Maori.

Alley Oop's homeland has A space gun with pizzazz, That's a Moo Ray.

A comedian ham, With the name Amsterdam, That's a Morey.

When your chocolate graham, Is so full and so crammed, That s'more, eh.

When you've had quite enough, Of this dumb rhyming stuff, That's "No more!", eh?

A couple of years ago, one night, I was about to propose to my girlfriend when my roommate Joseph barged into the porch out of nowhere, tripped and fell over, breaking a glass table with his face. Totally ruined the mood. Now, I didn't know Joseph THAT well, don't even remember where he was from, but let' just say I put my plans on hold to help him through his injuries.

Joseph had gotten big glass shard in his eye, making him completely blind in that eye. He was walking around with one of those cotton pads on his eye for a couple of months. Then suddenly, he disappeared, along with my girlfriend

Apparently they'd bonded during the time after his injuries, and eloped together , left me behind without as much as a note. I tried to track them down, but never could.

In conclusion, if it hadn't been for cotton eye Joe, I'd have been married a long time ago. Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from, cotton eye Joe?

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