Black Water Puns

If you want it cold, you have to add the AC.

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

I have a bunch of stupid baseball questions. I know most of the rules, I just want to make sure I have all my bases covered.

• Imagine there’s a fan of the team that is currently fielding in the stands, and that said fan has a prosthetic arm. The batter hits a pitch and sends it on a home-run trajectory into the stands. If the fan in the stands throws his arm at the ball and diverts it back in the field of play, can they rightfully say that they were just “lending the team a hand” by stopping the home run?

• Consider the exact opposite situation - the fan’s team is at bat and the batter hits a fly ball to the outfield. If Elastagirl from the Incredibles just happened to be the fan in question, can she spring into action and catch the ball before the outfielder has the chance to?

• Now, imagine I smuggled a water gun into the stadium on a particularly hot day, and I managed to squirt sticky black liquid onto the batter. Does that mean he can take a walk since he was “hit by pitch”?

• Consider the freak circumstance where a ball in motion collides with a bird, causing it to spiral in its descent and eventually collide in turn with an umpire. Can the player responsible for the ball’s motion be ejected from the game due to repeatedly flipping the bird at an umpire?

• Can a losing team sub out their man on the mound with a large quantity of beer to prolong the game? There’d still be a pitcher on the mound!

• If a pitcher throws a slider into the strike zone and the batter doesn’t swing, should the umpire consider it a strike, a ball, or the catcher’s dinner?

Years ago I used to use a LexisNexis database of companies that would give corporate information like name, address, and general business description. While most of them were pretty bland, there were a bunch of them with some really cheesy puns, and over a few years I built quite a collection.

Today I share with you "NEXIS IS RIDICULOUS.txt":

• Bucyrus International caters to those who mine their own business.
• It would be logical for Mr. Spock to boldly go to Vulcan International for rubber products. He might even live long and prosper -- in comfortable shoes.
• What do manufacturer Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and 1970s band Grand Funk Railroad have in common? They both want you to do the locomotion!
• Peter Piper can pick more than a peck of peppers or pickles from B&G Foods.
• Toray Plastics America could sing "foam, foam on the range, where the polyester and polypropylene materials are made" all day.
• Break out the Tums, because things are awfully gassy over at Air Liquide America.
• If a tree falls in a Weyerhaeuser forest, someone is there to hear it -- and he has a chainsaw.
• Although not a pushover, you can walk all over Wilsonart International.
• Here's a HEICO haiku: HEICO companies/ Providing for jet engines/ In flight or on land.
• American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) uses its noodle in many different ways.
• The golf industry doesn't mind when Aldila gives it the shaft.
• Rat-a-tat-tat and a ringa-ding-ding. What's that? Answer: The sounds emanating from Pearl, one of the world's foremost makers of drums and other percussion and musical instruments.
• Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics deals powders and crystal, but there's no need to call the cops.
• Pamida Stores Operating Company offers more small-town values than a bandwagon of Republicans on the campaign trail.
• Like a tight end, offshore drilling contractor Transocean dreams of going deep but doesn't mind eating a little mud.
• Rittal me this, Batman!
• Utility Trailer Manufacturing is spreading its own brand of reefer madness.
• Who is the Fresh Prince of Sullair?
• If GrafTech International were a bard, it could wax poetic in an ode to the electrode.
• When it comes to adhesives and vibration control products, LORD knows.
• You might say that Deere & Company enjoys its customers going to seed.
• Pfizer pfabricates pfarmaceuticals pfor quite a pfew inpfirmities.
• Stripping is OK at Spraylat.
• Don't think Seton is

So, my table was ordering their drinks and the father of the table ordered by saying, "I'll have a coffee and a water. Black please." I responded, "we don't have black water here, sir." I am still ashamed.

Me: "What's that big black spot out on the water?" Mom: "I think that's a flock of ducks grouped together." Dad: "The technical name is an iceburd."