View As Puns

But I can see where you are coming from.

"I loview!"

"Objects may be closer than they appear."

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

The team unearthed a layer of rock tessellations resembling a violin as viewed from behind.

As of yet they have no name for this strata variance.

.. and he's wearing an expensive, expertly tailored black suit. The mortician asks the deceased's wife how she would like the body dressed, pointing out that the man does look good in the black suit he is already wearing. The widow, however, says that she always thought her husband looked his best in blue, and that she wants him in a blue suit. She gives the mortician a blank check and says, 'I don't care what it costs, but please have my husband in a blue suit for the viewing.' The woman returns the next day and to her delight, she finds her husband dressed in a gorgeous blue suit with a subtle chalk stripe; the suit fits him perfectly. She says to the mortician, 'Whatever this cost, I'm very satisfied.. You did an excellent job and I'm very grateful. How much did you spend?' To her astonishment, the mortician presents her with the blank check, 'There's no charge.' 'No, really, I must compensate you for the cost of that exquisite blue suit,' she says. 'Honestly, ma'am,' the mortician says, 'it cost nothing. You see, a deceased gentleman of about your husband's size was brought in shortly after you left yesterday, and he was wearing an attractive blue suit. I asked his wife if she minded him going to his grave wearing a black suit instead, and she said it made no difference as long as he looked nice.' 'So I just switched the heads.'

So a bus conductor in America was doing his job one day, happily printing and checking tickets all day long, enjoying the country views and feeling good about life.

A young lad gets on, chewing gum and being as loud and rude as all teenage lads are. There’s no-one else on the bus, so the conductor takes his ticket machine and bops the lad over the head, killing him. As expected, the Police arrest him. He goes through the legal process, a trial and admits his guilt, however the judge decides that they’re making an example of him and give him the sentence of death by the electric chair.

On Death row, he requests 5lbs of bananas for his last meal, which is duly brought and consumed. As he finishes, the guards arrive to escort him to the chair. As the executioner flicks the switch, nothing happens. All of the equipment is checked and works, but has no effect on the bus conductor. Under the law, this counts as a reprieve and he is released.

He gets his job back and puts the whole incident behind him. Until one day, a little old lady gets on the bus and starts to pay for a ticket in one cent coins. After about 10 minutes of fiddling with change, the conductor runs out of patience and bops the old lady on the head, killing her. As expected, the Police arrest him. He goes through the legal process, a trial and admits his guilt, however the judge decides that they’re making an example of him and give him the sentence of death by the electric chair.

On Death row, he requests 5lbs of bananas for his last meal, which is duly brought and consumed. As he finishes, the guards arrive to escort him to the chair. As the executioner flicks the switch, nothing happens. All of the equipment is checked and works, but has no effect on the bus conductor. Under the law, this counts as a reprieve and he is released.

After getting his job back again, life seems to go well for the conductor, until one day a young lady gets on the bus, casually putting her feet on the seat opposite. By now, the conductor is a little less lenient than in years gone by, so he takes his ticket machine and bops her over the head with it, killing her. As expected, the Police arrest him. He goes through the legal process, a trial and admits his guilt, however the judge decides that they’re making an example of him and give him the sentence of death by the electric chair.

On Death row, he requests 5lbs of bananas for his last meal, which is duly brought and consumed. As he finishes, the guards ar

Despite her efforts, others still viewed her as a fish out of water

...he has a drink, flirts, then vanishes, with a poof.

^(I’m gay and personally found this hilarious, but many do still view the term “poof” as somewhat offensive, so my apologies if this isn’t in good taste.)

I visited Detroit yesterday and walked to the riverwalk (which Canada is right across the water). As my wife and I are taking in the view I hear behind us:

random dad: "Oh... Canada"

family: ...

rd; "you know, they should make a song like that."

family: ...

rd: "actually with those exact words; Oh Canada....."

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.

Once upon a time, when I was a wee lad, still in Boy Scouts, I went on a camping trip to Montana with my troop. It was going to be a great time, enjoying the cool weather and scenic views of the evergreen forests. However, we did have one issue: Montana is pretty notorious for having lots of bears. We weren't scared though, since our park ranger guide told us that bears can be scared off by making lots of noise, like yelling or hitting sticks on trees. Anyway, me and one of my friends, we'll call him Frank, were out exploring in the woods. We were doing what we were told to scare off the bears, but we were still a little antsy.

After a while, we got hungry, so we decided to sit down and eat our packed lunch. We found a nice log to sit on and rest our feet, and we put down our packs and started to sit. But then, Frank let out the BIGGEST scream I've ever heard! Then, he took off running, fast as a cheetah. I thought, "Uh, oh! Frank must've seen a bear!", so I took off after him. Frank was running so fast, we must have run for miles at breakneck speed. Eventually, he started to tire, and as I got closer, I saw why Frank screamed and started running. He had sat on a bear trap, and it was stuck fast to his rear end! We had a good laugh about it, but the bear trap really did leave its mark.

It's been a long time since that happened, and Frank hasn't run in while, but I like to tell this story because it explains why Frank's only half-fast now.

(If you don't get the joke, say the last sentence out loud)

I was doing some stargazing with my telescope Saturday night, since it was a good time to view Uranus. When I was done, I carried my telescope inside and my brother says "What were you looking for?" I made a point to say it like 'Ur-uh-nus'.

Dad walks into the room as I am leaving and asks my brother what I was looking for. Inevitably, my brother replies 'Ur-ay-nus'.

Dad quips to me down the hall: "Leave your brother alone and look for your own!"

So mom and dad have my wife and my kid along with my sister's kid out whale watching and sent us a photo of orcas they saw. This followed...

Me: killer view!
Siss: killer view!
Me: are you thinking the same as me OR CAn you not think of anything unique and are copying me on porpoise
Me: I mean I’m having a whale of a time
Me: Did you FINish?
Me: Does your boat have a motor anD/OR SAIL?
Mom (probably dad's joke tho): You are on a roll
Me: Not sure I have many lines left actually
Me: Actually I’m beginning to waver on that statement
Me: Though it seems siss has bowed out of the conversation.
Me: Maybe she’ll come up with something after I’m done
Me: have you guys SEAn (sic) anything other than orcas?
Mom: Humpback
Me: good day for that!
Wife: Very cool!
Me: Definitely looks chilly
Wife: 20 texts... Wow
Me: Definitely an imPORTant thread to watch
Me: like how i cap-size my text to make the joke obvious?
Me: siss’ silence is fishy tho
Mom: You definitely LANDed them
Me: They just come to me and I let em sail
Me: To admit some are a bit ridockulous
Me: Which can make them tough to catch
Me: but I’ll keep tossing them out there anyway for the few that land
Me: I think we lost the point of the conversation though
Me: Let's coral it back
Me: I'm being far too shellfish by uslurping it like this
Me: But Siss did have the gull to keep repeating me
Me: Buoy that one was bad

edit: formatting

Guy goes to a bar that he's never been to before, to see what it's about. It's a bit noisy, and he mentions this to the bartender. Bartender tells him there's an upper level, quieter, but with some weird locals.

Guy goes upstairs and finds the place completely empty except for the upstairs bartender and one other man drinking. He sits down beside the other man and orders a beer.

The other man says "You ever been here before?"

"Nope. What's it like?"

"Well, the view is nice up here. But what's really great are the wind patterns."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, see this window right here? If you jump out the window, the wind will spin you around and push you back in. Here, I'll demonstrate."

At this the other man opens the window and jumps out. He spins around in the air and falls back in.

"Now you try it!"

Guy jumps out the window as well, but falls splat on the ground.

Bartender looks at the other man and says "Superman, you're really mean when you're drunk, you know that?"

My sister was questioning me on why I didn't eat all the mushrooms on my plate, and she asked me if I liked mushrooms. When I replied with "sure", she asked

"What does that mean? Do you not like them? Are you crazy about them?"

"No, I view them more as a friend"

Even my Dad was non-plussed.