Hard Choices Puns

He was operating a late night train and fell asleep at the controls. He ended up failing to recognise a stop sign and as a result his train hit a person and killed them immediately. He was tried for manslaughter and sentenced to the electric chair. Just before being put in the chair, he was given the choice of final meal and chose a single banana, oddly. His time came and he was placed into the chair, the room vacated and then the switch was thrown.

But... Nothing. No sparks, no burning, nothing. They checked the machine and it was working fine, it just seemed not to harm him. The state law meant that, legally, his sentence had been carried out and he was free to go. He walked away a free man, and actually got another job as a train driver.

Sadly, almost exactly the same thing happened again. This time his negligence killed two kids playing around on the tracks when again he'd fallen asleep and failed to stop the train in time. Hauled before the courts again, he got exactly the same sentence - the electric chair. He was asked again for his final meal, chose two bananas this time, and his sentence was carried out again.

And yet again, he didn't die. In fact, he was entirely unharmed. The state law remained the same, so he was let out again, where - somehow - he got another job with another train company. I guess it was the only job he was trained for (pardon the pun). Anyway, this time he did much better and worked hard to stay awake during his late shifts. But sure enough, eventually he slipped back in to old habits and this time killed five people - a family trying to free their dog stuck in the tracks.

Once again he faced a jury, once again they found him guilty and a judge sentenced him to the electric chair. This time he asked for 5 bananas, but the guard was wiley - he has read about this man and how he always had bananas before his sentence was carried out, and so this time (with a grin, it's said) he brought the train driver 5 apples instead. The guilty man plead and begged for bananas, but the guard claimed it was an honest mistake but too late to change now.

The man was lead for a third time to the electric chair. His head was wetted, his arms strapped in, and the guard eyed him with something between wonder and fear. Finally the room was vacated and the switch thrown. Surely this time the machine would do its job? With the process finished, the guard ran back into the room, only to find the man still alive and looking entirely healthy. "I do

They are surrounded by dozens of the fierce blood thirsty warriors armed with clubs and spears. The leader of the warriors approaches the two friends and informs them they are trespassing on sacred land and unless they can prove they are descendants of the Gods they will be killed and eaten.

Bob and Frank realize they have little choice but agree they will attempt any test to try to save their lives.

The chief warrior brings them a bowl full of angry fire ants and drops one small seed into the bowl. He informs them they must put their lips in the bowl and suck as hard as they can. If they manage to suck up only the seed without sucking up an ant then the tribe would know they must be sent from the Gods.

Bob looks wearily at Frank but knowing they have no other options he puts his lips in the bowl and sucks hard. He immediately gets a mouth full of ants and screams in pain as they bite away at the inside of his mouth. Frank now even more nervous takes his turn and to his dismay also receives a nasty mouthful of the viscous buggers.

The warriors leap to their feet and surround the friends, “Now you must die” declares the chieftain. Just as the first spear is raised to Franks throat he screams “Tria-Gan!” The warriors stop dead in their tracks. “What did you say” asked the chief. “Tria-Gan” yelled frank again. Immediately the chief and his warriors turned and fled into the forest.

“Holy shit” said Bob “What did you just say and how did you know it would work?”

“Well” said Frank, “my Mother always told me if at first you don’t suck seed try Tria-Gan.”

In the not too distant future, web censorship is pervasive; speech and freedom are strangers to one another; while pirates sail the seas with impunity, digital pirates are incarcerated by the busload.

Anyone who speaks out against this ban on open-dialogue or the free-sharing-of-ideas is ground down and hidden away, and the resistance is loosing its will.

A small group of contributors to reddit, huddled together in a bunker beneath barely-waving flags of Snoo, worked tirelessly to repost new ideas from around the internet, to release ideas from their chains, and make speech free ... again!

But it was not to be - a gang of the governments anti-piracy enforcers descended on this, the last bastion of humankind's will to share-freely. Arriving in an armored bus, ten shock-troopers breached the bunker and it looked like the day was lost.

Fortunately for us all, one brave redditor led the collective out a back entrance and they circled to the driveway. This leader told the other redditors to wait in the bushes while he overpowered the one soldier left guarding the transport. There was a flash of movement, a crack from a fallen branch as it struck the guard, and then, stolen keys in hand, the hero revved the engine and told the redditors to pile in.

He had to will himself ignore the gas gauge as he floored the accelerator on the 25,000 pound ticket to freedom - there was only survival or defeat, and nothing in between. Sirens came alive behind him as he rushed for the border to the promised land, to the Free-North.

As the engine begins to cough, the titanic weight of the transport cleaves the barricades asunder and the pursuing vehichles have to hard-brake to avoid skidding beyond their corrupt jurisdiction. Both exhausted and elated, the redditors follow their hero to the freedom promised by their new surroundings ... but their peril is not yet passed.

Though most of the pirate-hunters glower from the south-side of the border, one special agent has crossed over and is speaking with the border guards. The tension is thick. A long-faced guard turns to the newcomers, clearly troubled by what he must do.

"Folks," he says, a pained look on his kindly face, "I'm sorry, to do this, don't cha' know, but I got no choice, eh!"

Confused, the redditors look to one another, and tremble as they notice the agent's smug expression, greedy eyes fixed on the leader of the exodus.

"Look here, now, you are all welcome here, of course, and since speech is free here, we are

When I worked for a design agency, I had two adamant higher-ups. There was a brand identity project for a new company, and I was in charge of typography, but those two disagreed with my choice of font.

The first one was this stony-looking Peruvian-American man named Esteban Ferrero, but since that's Spanish for Steven Smith, and our company had a rule that everyone has to call each other using nicknames instead of last names, everyone, including himself, just called him Steve. The second one was a Dutch woman with a sharp glare named Evelien van der Berg. She was famous for giving designers a hard time convincing her that their design choices work better than hers. In accordance with the company rules, we called her Eve.

Anyway, I showed Steve my first draft, and he wasn't convinced that I chose LinoLetter as the main font, and told me that I should use a sans-serif font. But I stood by my position that serifs add legibility to printed and digital material, that it fits the company's identity as an organic store, and that it is hard to stand out with a sans-serif. It took a lot of debate, but in the end, Steve was convinced that LinoLetter was acceptable.

A few days later, I showed Eve a more elaborated version, as for the sizes and styles of the font, and the pairing of LinoLetter with Century as the headline font. She insisted that I should have used a sans-serif font for the headline. I expressed my view that LinoLetter is a font with composed and legible shape, and Century, while it is also legible, has flair at larger sizes. She kept disagreeing with me, saying I should use something bolder and more contrasting, like Tungsten. It felt like hours had passed before the conversation went anywhere, so I had to give up and look for a sans-serif font that goes with LinoLetter.

So it goes to show that the one who gave me a hard time was adamant Eve, not adamant Steve.

Here is a small selection of my dad's choice dadjokes.

Me - "Dad, hold on."

"I don't have an on to hold!"

Me - "Hey!"

Dad - "Oats!" or on occasion, in response to 'hey!' "...is for horses!"

Makes me roll my eyes so hard every time.