Recently I heard a story about disposable cameras which I'd like to share. This didn't related to underwater photography directly, but it really fits if you think about it.

A teenage boy was shooting photos at the Grand Canyon - probably the most photographed item in Arizona. (Although it is the most difficult to capture on film!) At one of the South Rim lookouts, he took a few photos and then pitched the camera in the trash.

A near-by good samaritan asked why he threw the camera away.

The youth replied: "It's a DISPOSABLE camera!"

Top 10 Ways Scuba would be different if Bill Gates were running it!

1. You would have had to stop diving before January 1, 2000.
2. You could never remove that darn Internet Explorer Icon from your dive computer.
3. This year's new equipment models would eventually be sold two years from now.
4. None of your new gear would be compatible with your old stuff.
5. Bill would get all of the good gear from the other manufacturers and release it ten years later with a different name, but hyped as REVOLUTIONARY.
6. When you called Microscuba to schedule a dive trip, you would be left on hold for a long time. Finally, someone would take your call. You would be given technically correct information about diving in general and other destinations, but nothing about your desired trip.
7. Every dive computer would be from Microscuba and any deaths or illnesses from them would be explained as a "beta version" problem. "Don't worry, that will be fixed on the next release."
8. Every time you got near your dive destination, your boat would unexplainably sink.
9. Your air supply would stop and have to be restarted every couple of minutes and you would accept this an normal, unless you were willing to upgrade to AIR-NT for an extra $289.
10. Equipment dealers would be required to bundle a parachute with every scuba package so that Bill could eventually dominate the sky diving market - a natural tie-in!

The day after a man lost his wife in a scuba diving accident, he was greeted by two grim-faced policemen at his door.

"We're sorry to call on you at this hour, Mr. Wilkens, but we have some information about your wife."

"Well, tell me!" the man said.

The policeman said, "We have some bad news, some good news and some really great news. Which do you want to hear first?"

Fearing the worse, Mr. Wilkens said, "Give me the bad news first."

So the policeman said, "I'm sorry to tell you sir, but this morning we found your wife's body in San Francisco Bay."

"Oh my god!," said Mr. Wilkens, overcome by emotion. Then, remembering what the policeman had said, he asked, "What's the good news?"

"Well," said the policeman, "When we pulled her up she had two five-pound lobsters and a dozen good size Dungeoness crabs on her."

"If that's the good news than what's the great news?!", Mr. Wilkens demanded.

The policeman said, "We're going to put her back and see what we get tomorrow."

Why is this on a scuba diving page?
It came from Micronesian Divers Association in Guam! Here's their entire text:

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I know this has nothing to do with diving, and we don't usually pass on mass mailings, but Steve and Tammy, some of our favorite and kookiest instructors, sent this to us and we couldn't resist passing it on.

Holiday Stress Diet

The following diet is designed to help you cope with the stress that builds up during the holidays.

Breakfast:
1/2 grapefruit
1 slice whole wheat toast
8 oz. skim milk

Lunch:
4 oz. lean broiled chicken breast
1 cup steamed spinach
1 cup herb tea
1 Oreo cookie

Mid-Afternoon snack:
The rest of Oreos in the package
2 pints Rocky Road ice cream nuts, cherries and whipped cream
1 jar hot fudge sauce

Dinner:
2 loaves garlic bread
4 cans or 1 large pitcher Coke
1 large sausage, mushroom and cheese pizza
3 Snickers bars

Late Evening News:
Entire frozen Sara Lee cheesecake (eaten directly from freezer)

RULES FOR THIS DIET:

• If you eat something and no one sees you eat it, it has no calories.
• If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled out by the diet soda.
• When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you do not eat more than they do.
• Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER count, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Sara Lee Cheesecake.
• If you fatten up everyone else around you, then you look thinner.
• Movie related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. Examples: Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Junior Mints, Red Hots and Tootsie Rolls.
• Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking causes calorie leakage.
• Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something.
• Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are: spinach and pistachio ice cream; mushrooms and mashed potatoes.
• Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.
• Anything consumed while standing has no calories. This due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.
• Anything consumed from someone else's plate has no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to his/her plate. (We ALL know how calories like to cling!)

REMEMBER: STRESSED SPELLED BACKWARDS IS DESSERTS

Warning: this contains some crude language! But it was just too funny not to share!

April, 1998

Hi Sis,

Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of shit sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my ass started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened to me.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that hose down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My ass crack was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my ass.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the comm. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he along with 5 other divers were laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make 3 agonizing water stops totaling 35 minutes before I could come to the surface. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell.

When I got on board the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it up my ass when I get in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my asshole was swollen shut. I later found out that this could easily have been prevented if the suction hose was placed on the leeward side of the ship.

Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me. Think about how much worse your day would be if you were to shove a jellyfish up your ass. I hope you have no bad days at the office. But if you do, I hope that thought will make it a little more tolerable.

Take care, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Bob