The Baseball Bandwagon

Posted on 8 November 2025 by Larry Russwurm

The Toronto Blue Jays amazing run to the world series (and their almost win!), created some odd new baseball supporters. We would like to showcase some of them today.

There are new fans who are fashionistas who might be a bit off on their terminology. “Yes,” said one, “I really am struggling to understand how runs can be good. In fashion a run is a very bad faux pas where you need to bring in brand new stockings.”

“And I’m wondering about runs batted in,” says a second fashionista. “How can one bat one’s eye and cause even one run? Some of these players are causing multiple runs with one bat of the eye! The carnage in stockings is terrible!”

Then the original fashionista jumps back in, “But home runs make sense. They are the best of all the runs. The run happens at home. So one can easily switch the stockings with that horrible run for good stockings. No one is the wiser.”

We even found some medical workers who were new to the game of baseball. We chatted with some personal support workers (PSWs) about baseball.

“Who thinks that runs are good?” asked one. “They cause a stinky mess that needs to be cleaned, Then again, I’ve heard from a doctor myself, they’re usually not that bad for health as long as the patient stays hydrated.”

“As for runs batted in,” continues the first PSW, “I find it disgusting that someone would play with their own runs. It makes a horrible mess. Who do you think will have to clean it up? Me.”

But their friend has a different take on home runs. “Home runs are really better than normal runs. They happen at home so, I , as an in hospital PSW, do not have to clean it up. In fact, home implies that they might even make it to the toilet for this run. Even my in house PSW friends might not mind this one.”

We talked with a producer at a record label. She said “ I can’t understand how a hit isn’t everything. Sometimes it doesn’t even count on the scoreboard. But for me, a hit means future business. It means a small fortune on its own. It can even mean a good career.”

We also talked with someone who wouldn’t give his occupation. He said, “I always wondered about bats in baseball. Everyone talks about them but they are very rare at a baseball game. I’ve heard of a seagull getting hit but never a bat. But they (and baseball) become more important in October. I was not surprised that they were mentioning bats a lot on Hallowe’en when the Jays and Dodgers played. But I was a bit puzzled why they kept up the talk on the November 1st game. I mean, honestly. Hasn’t everyone moved on to Christmas by that date?”

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Trumpkin the Pumpkin versus Trump

Posted on 1 November 2025 by Larry Russwurm

It’s that time of year, November 1st, when we are overrun by useless Trumpkin the pumpkins (or jack o’ lanterns to some). Trump is much like the Trumpkin the pumpkins in that he, too, is useless on November 1st as he is most days of the year.

Also like Trumpkin the pumpkin, Trump makes sure that he is orange. He makes sure that every last part of his body is sprayed orange as he has a phobia of being any other colour.

Trump has also stolen from Trumpkin the pumpkin, the idea of being rotund. Trump seems to think that McDonald’s (get it – Mc Donald’s – he sure is vain about his name) is the ultimate food purveyor in the world and has many a meal with this fast food giant. But really he just wants to be rotund like Trumpkin the pumpkin.

Trumpkin the pumpkin has no space inside its head for brains. This is a fact that is blatantly visible in a glance at this Hallowe’en essential. While we can’t see inside Trump’s head to see that he is in fact brainless, we can listen to him speak for awhile to ascertain that he, too, has little in the way of brains inside his shell.

Trumpkin the pumpkin is one scary looking dude, especially when he is lit. Trump is one scary dude, also especially when he is lit. If the things he does don’t scare you, then I think you aren’t paying attention too well to all the things he is doing.

But now it is November 1st and we can destroy our Trumpkin the pumpkins. It’s just so satisfying dropping them from at least a second story window onto the pavement. Then if you want, you can pick up the pieces and donate them to a hungry farm animal.

Or we can have fun and play soccer against the wall of a brick building. If Trumpkin the pumpkin doesn’t shatter from the kick, then he can shatter when kicked into the brick wall. As well,when you’re done you can donate the pieces to a hungry farm animal.

It is important to remember that the preceding two paragraphs shouldn’t be done to Trump himself. After all the secret service is known to shoot to kill. However, you can get the word out to any cannibal that Trump is orange because he tastes like pumpkin pie.

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October 2025 Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 18 October 2025 by Larry Russwurm

Wouldn’t you know it, that a rock star like Steven Tyler would sing the line “Life’s a journey not a destination.” That would be a rock star who has spent half his lifetime touring and thus been on a journey. But every journey has its destination. If your life is the journey than the destination can be no other place than death.

I prefer not to say my whole life is a journey. Maybe it’s many little journeys. I can live with that. Then half my destinations are going home which is a lot more comforting than saying my final destination is death. And many of my journeys away from home I’ve enjoyed, too. So I’ve enjoyed more than half my destinations. It sounds like I very well might enjoy my life more than Steven Tyler who is going straight to death.

So I guess my line would be, “Life is journeys, not just one big destination.” Awkward perhaps but still better than Tyler’s line.

*

A month or two ago I saw something on the news that made me think. It was a drug bust where the cops carefully showed the wares they had nabbed.

Some of the drugs were in a package. I was impressed that they tried to make the package inviting. The packages said “Road Runna” as the title. There was a cartoon drawing of a road runner that was a little bit different than Warner Bros.’ Road Runner cartoon.

I laughed at all this. Underground gangs are so scared of copyright law that they will not use the normal road runner on their drug packets. They felt they had to change the name and not completely rip off the art.

I can just see them in prison comparing notes.

“What are you in for?”

“13 Years for drug trafficking. You?”

“I’m in for a couple millennia for violating copyright.”

A hush would descend on them for a couple minutes out of respect for the crime.

*

I would like to make a public service announcement about Artificial Intelligence and how to spot it. From now on, Anything named Al is not to be trusted. No matter how many human tests it passes anything named Al is likely to be A. I. and not a person.

Same with Alan, Allen, Alf, Aladdin, Aiden, Sal and Hal. Note that this last, cutesy, dressed up name was already used for the A. I. in 2001 a space odyssey. You didn’t get it then, until Hal started having ideas of his own. So get it now before the real world substitutes A. I. for humans.

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Attracted by Name

Posted on 4 October 2025 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. People are attracted to professions by their own name. That’s why there are a disproportionate amount of dentists named Dennis, lawyers named Lawrence and judges named Judy.

But I believe it goes even further than this. Your own name attracts you to other things, not just professions,

My favourite author is Larry Niven. His science fiction is riddled with many interesting and mind bending ideas for the future. Heretofore, I believed my liking his stories was an unbiased thing, based totally on merit. Now, I see that I am just a ball of conceit, picking someone with my own name to be my favourite writer.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that my favourite musical artist is Yes. Of course I love the song Roundabout which is their biggest song. But the second song I liked by them was Starship Trooper. Starship Trooper is divided into three sections. i) Lifeseeker, ii) Disillusion and iii) Wurm. Notice that Wurm is spelled like the last half of my surname. I guess I’m still a ball of conceit.

I could have picked Larry Gowan as my favourite musical act. But he only had 3 or 4 songs that were played regularly on the radio. However, when I first got into residence back in the late eighties, someone said I looked like Gowan. Then they asked me my name and I of course said Larry. So I got the nick name of Gowan.

Later, for one of those 3 or 4 songs on the radio, he teamed up with Jon Anderson of Yes for the song Moonlight Desires. So even here, we’re back to Yes.

Now I’m just wondering how I can get the Russ part of my last name involved. But I don’t know any celebrities named Russ.

Maybe I can say that the show Friends is my favourite sitcom because it features a character named Ross. But really its only about my 5th favourite sitcom.

Maybe I can say that my favourite place to live is the Rustbelt. Kitchener, Hamilton and Toronto used to be the three corners of the Golden Triangle which was where half the manufacturing in Canada was done. Yes it rusted for a few years but Toronto survived by being the centre of Canada and surpassed Montreal for being the largest city in Canada. Kitchener used its technology assets to become viable again. I’m not sure of the situation in Hamilton, but I don’t really think Ontario considers itself to be a Rustbelt area anymore.

Maybe I’m being persnickety by not accepting the spellings of Rust and Ross as an adequate substitute for Russ.

Maybe I’ll find a Russ someday and become that perfect ball of conceit that, it seems, I always wanted to become.

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Poop!

Posted on 20 September 2025 by Larry Russwurm

Don’t be surprised if aliens think we want poop.

We take our dogs for a walk just so they can poop in front of us. Then, carefully, we pick it up until we can dispose of it. Then we call dogs “Man’s best friend”. That makes it sound like we’re just angling for more poop.

Then we also take care of poop of other animals. Cats we dutifully change the kitty litter for. Farm animals are cleaned up after by farmers (in the barn that is). Then it is collected and aged and put on the fields. All to allegedly grow more food!

But it is our babies that will make aliens think we want poop. We carefully change them and dispose of the poop. Then we talk about how parenthood has changed us. That we feel such love for our children and have a bond that is oh so strong.

But we stop talking about about such things when our kids are old enough to talk and start to say no to a lot of things we think we are doing for their own good. They may be old enough to talk but that is also about the age they can go potty on their own.

So we reminisce about the good old days when they were a baby. And couldn’t go to the potty on their own.

The common denominator is obvious. We bond with creatures when we can dispose of their poop.

Don’t be surprised when an alien has a dookie right in front of us.

We will get angry and ask it why it did this. They will explain themselves much as I’ve explained it above. “We just want to be loved, as you love other creatures. Now dispose of it!”

Then the humans will explain that we only dispose of the poop of those other creatures because they are imbeciles. Which is a good way of getting that same alien to fling its poop in your face.

“There! I’m an imbecile. Now love me!”

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Elon Musk and His Time Machine

Posted on 13 September 2025 by Larry Russwurm

Elon Musk likes to be in the middle of the latest technology. That’s why he’s involved with Tesla, Space X and Neuralink. But the one he will never tell us about is time travel.

He heard about a time travel startup through his usual channels and sought to buy it and keep it on the down low. He got what he wanted so perhaps now Elon will go to the future and steal their technology for us. Fat chance. Despite his high tech mantra, he is more concerned with the past.

You see, Elon is concerned with babies. He seemingly wants to have as many as possible in his short time here on this earth. That’s why he goes into the past.

Unfortunately for him, his time machine can only go back in time so far. Roughly to the time that vaccines first started to much hoopla. He can bribe all those maidens of the past with gifts the future allows him to give. He may prefer the more recent ladies where all he has to do is write down some lottery winners.

He’ll buy the tickets and say, “If this wins, promise me that you will have my baby and raise it by yourself. Or with the help of your husband.”

Don’t get me wrong. He likes the women of other times as well so he will woo the women of the 50s, 60s, 70s and so on. All for his favourite prize – to have more babies.

It boggles the mind how, in our high tech era, we still don’t seem to have an accurate handle on how autism passes down from generation to generation.

And thus, Elon is stymied. He’s not sure how many times he can make babies in the past to bring the autism rate to its modern level. Oh well. He enjoys the process.

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Money is Time

Posted on 6 September 2025 by Larry Russwurm

The idea that money is time was not lost in science fiction. More than once I’ve seen monetary units be credits or person hours. This simple relationship is a sort of skewering of modern capitalist systems. And somehow it feels more fair.

But what if, in our present day capitalist society, money really did equate with time? All those people simply living paycheque to paycheque would soon die off when something slipped. Because you don’t have any extra money, you wouldn’t have extra time. Where the money comes from for a proper burial is a problem for such a money is time society.

Those of you who have managed to squirrel something away for retirement would live an average length of a life. The more you squirrel away, the longer you live.

If you are an entrepreneur I see three tracks. You lose all of it and thus burn out your life early. Or you do as well as the average and have a nice life. Or you do well above average and live a super long life.

Many would want to be an entrepreneur because of the potential payoff. The burning out early is not so good, but the other two possibilities are nice. Live an average lifespan but be your own boss. Or live a huge lifespan.

I hope Elon Musk isn’t in this society with his current ridiculous amount of wealth. If he lived a super long life, he would just have more and more babies. Children should be a large drain on wealth as they are in our present society. Who is going to pick up after them and send them to school? The parents should have to foot the bill.

Because of his many, many, many, children Elon Musk would not be the most long lived. Someone with no children or other obligations and is a successful entrepreneur would almost be able to live indefinitely. Given copyright law where the copyright exists past the creator’s life, this might be able to keep someone alive forever. That would give credence to saying a work is timeless.

For society to function, though, these people living forever still would have to follow the rules. Thus we would have jail or hard time which could even be thought of as negative time. It would take time off your life. And you wouldn’t be allowed to make money while you are incarcerated.

Wouldn’t things be so much easier if all we had to worry about was money to live a long life? But instead we have to worry about things that can kill us, depression, disease, pandemics, stress, etc.

In today’s world, with all his money and even with some possible expensive life lengtheners, Elon Musk will not outlive the rest of us. I bet he won’t even make it to one hundred. But we shall see. Money doesn’t equate to time just yet.

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U-Turn on U-Turns

Posted on 30 August 2025 by Larry Russwurm

When I was young I seem to remember the law being different on U-turns. About 40 or 50 years ago I think it was illegal to do a U-turn. This pretty much was the law everywhere in southwestern Ontario. Except there were a few sign marked places where you could legally make a U-turn.

Now it’s many years later and I think somewhere in that time, the government has made a U-turn on U-turns. I think they gave up on enforcing no U-turns everywhere. Everyone seems to do it and it’s just impossible seeming to enforce it.

However, enforcing no U-turns seems important on certain stretches of road. Like King St between downtown Kitchener and Uptown Waterloo. Now that there is Light Rail Transit in the middle of this street, any U-turners are very likely to be hit by the LRT vehicle. It’s happened at least once that I’ve seen on the news.

So now there are no U-turn signs all along this stretch of King Street. This is a small enough stretch of road that the police can enforce it. Also, the LRT can enforce this rule simply enough by smashing up your vehicle. Remember you were warned by a sign so it’ll be your fault if your car winds up smashed.

And now I wonder why they are called U-turns in the first place. I think that when you begin to do a U-turn is when it should be envisioned. But at the start of a U-turn, it’s not a U but a small n that let’s you envision what you are going to do. You begin at the bottom right end of the n and follow that line as it circles back to where you have been.

To actually make a U-turn, you would have to stop your car in your lane. Then you would have to go backwards, starting at the top right of the U and tracing the letter the whole way. You would be going backwards the whole way. Dangerously, I might add. Then when you got to the top left of the U, you would stop and then drive forwards. It works but it is dangerous.

That is why I vote for changing the name of the U-turn to the n-turn. But everyone older will never use that term and it will be 70 years before the changeover is complete. All while there will be much grumbling.

I might have to take an n-turn on my position.

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2 Strategies for Multiple Lead Singers

Posted on 9 August 2025 by Larry Russwurm

From what I’ve heard there are a couple of strategies when having multiple lead singers in a band. The first strategy is to have obvious differences between the lead singers so one can easily tell the voices apart. This Strategy was done with Supertramp whose Roger Hodgson had a high distinct voice whereas Rick Davies’ low voice obviously contrasted.

It was also done with Styx. Dennis DeYoung’s voice was more theatrical as he almost acted out his different characters. Tommy Shaw took a more normal approach. Shaw lit up more when it came to background singing as the combined backing vocals of this band were quite distinct.

Also good at this strategy was Fleetwood Mac. Christine McVie’s singing was the most normal of the three singers of this band. Stevie Nicks, with a second female voice, was very distinct with the heavy vibrato on her voice. She had so much vibrato that she sounded like a sheep. There was no mixing up these two women. And Lindsey Buckingham had a definitely male voice that also contrasted with the other two.

The second strategy for having multiple singers in a band is to have them sound the same. I was surprised to find out that Triumph had two lead singers. Rik Emmett, the guitarist and Gil Moore, the drummer could quite possibly have learned to sing from each other.

I didn’t know Saga had two lead singers till I recently saw the video for Scratching the Surface. Both singers are strikingly the same as if they had learned to sing at the same singing school.

I was also shocked to find that Ann and Nancy Wilson can sound much the same as they do in the video for These Dreams. But these two are sisters and have similar genes so perhaps it’s not that surprising.

Wait just one moment! All the similar singing bands I listed are from Canada. Heart maybe less so but they were considered to be Canadian enough to be up for Juno awards one year.

What is it about Canada that makes bands want to conform? Are they worried about being called out for being a hoser?

Or maybe these bands are rebelling against another Canadian band like Rush and their singer Geddy Lee. Geddy Lee has such a distinct voice that no one else seems intent on mimicking. He sounds like what the wicked witch of the west should sound like. Excepting the green colour, he almost looked like the wicked witch of the west, too. Is Geddy Lee unhappy that they won’t accept men in the part of the wicked witch of the west in movies and on Broadway?

Anyhow, no Canadian singers want to miss their calling like Geddy Lee and, thus, they try to conform.

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Bird Wings Good; Bat Wings Bad

Posted on 26 July 2025 by Larry Russwurm

Have you ever noticed that good religious creatures, like angels, have what can only be described as bird wings? Meanwhile, evil religious creatures, such as demons, have wings that are blatantly like that of a bat.

The only bad thing I can think of for a bat is that they can give rabies to humans whereas birds can’t. The reason they are so susceptible to rabies is because they are closer to humans than birds are. They are mammals, just like us. Whereas birds are part of the bird family of vertebrates. Birds are descended from the dinosaurs and have their own diseases to worry about.

Mammals survived the apocalypse that wiped out the dinosaurs (except birds) and basically took over almost all the niches that dinosaurs were in. Dinosaurs were tall so mammals became giraffes. Dinosaurs were big so mammals became the blue whale, the biggest creature that has ever lived. Dinosaurs could fly so bats took to the sky.

Bats nurse their young, thus proving they are a caring species of mammal.

Another thing which seemingly makes them bad is that they come out at night. But this is really more of a testament about how birds are evil in daylight. Bats don’t brave the day because they are likely to be dinner for some bird with 100 million years more of flying experience. And those daytime birds can be big with nasty talons and sharp beaks.

As a fellow mammal, we should be proud of our bat cousins. They can fly in the dark because they use sonar. They have good vocalizations that their good ears can pick up and that their good brains can use to figure out what the terrain is – even in the dark.

Still think birds are superior in the good/evil department? Then why is it a murder of crows, a conspiracy of ravens, a plague of grackles and a squabble of seagulls?

Actually a squabble isn’t that bad. So suddenly I see the truth. Bad is associated with black birds and bats because they are black.

This dark/ light thing of good and evil has got to go. Termites are white so they must be good. Maggots are white so they must be good. Polar bears are white so they must be good. It’s just not true. Black labs, black horses and even black cats can be very good.

Maybe I’ll retreat into fantasy which has some stories of good dragons who incidentally have giant black bat wings. It’s more realistic than the angel/ demon characterizations of religion.

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