September 2024 Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 21 September 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Donald Trump will have you believe that he is the most persecuted of all presidents ever. With two attempted assassinations in a few weeks, many might believe this bluster.

But Gerald Ford had two attempts on his life within 17 days in September, 1975. Obviously Gerald Ford was more persecuted than Donald Trump. So unless Donald Trump has a new assassination attempt, I would say Gerald Ford was the most persecuted president.

I largely believe that Ford was the most persecuted because of the deal he might have made with Richard Nixon, his predecessor. It’s very widely believed that Nixon resigned, which made Ford president and in return, Ford used his presidential pardon on Nixon.

However, if Trump said most prosecuted president, he would be 100 % correct.

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There is a newish advertisement for Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, voiced by his wife, an immigrant. This is a clever ploy on the part of the advertisers. The Conservatives are known to be anti immigration in a lot of their policies. Indeed this party is probably the most recent one that has been accused of racism. Perhaps they can persuade a lot of immigrants or pro immigrants to switch to voting for their party, if this ad does its job.

Anyhow I cannot help but think that his wife’s accent makes the word boy (in describing a young Poilievre) sound like the word bully both times she says it in the full ad. Not only is this funny and you can’t help hearing it in the ad, but it harkens back to the old stereotype of a conservative politician who might best be described as a bully.

Indeed, Poilievre’s wife should know him best and if she describes him as a bully, well who am I to argue?

This ad has convinced me to not vote for Poilievre.

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Oasis Fees

Posted on 14 September 2024 by Larry Russwurm

The Gallagher brothers are back together and thus the band Oasis has been reunited. Often known more for their fiery fights than the music, Oasis will make a boatload of money for the reunion tour.

But Ticketmaster took heat for having added nearly as large amount in fees as the tickets themselves cost. But looking at the fee names, it’s easy to see why they were necessary.

The first fee was a Tambourines Can Also Be Weapons fee. The often feuding brothers have used tambourines as weapons before so you can see why this fee was necessary.

The next fee was a Cricket Bats Can Also Wreck a Studio As Well As Your Brother’s Head fee. This fee was absolutely critical in getting the brothers to reunite so of course it’s part of the price.

Next came the fee for A Fight Can Also Be Released As A Single. The brothers had a fight in an interview and had it released as the single, Wibbling Rivalry, the highest charting interview release in the UK.

Then there was the I Have a Sore Throat But I Can Still Heckle the Band fee. This fee comes with the warning that only Liam Gallagher can get away with this and absolutely no one in the audience is allowed to do this.

Then there’s the “You Can’t Question the Legitimacy of Noel’s Daughter fee. It was many years before Liam apologized for questioning exactly that.

Then there is the to be expected fee for a rock and roll show, The Wielding a Guitar Like an Axe fee. Surprisingly, this to be expected maneuver, is what broke the band apart in the first place.

But Oasis is back. Will the rivalry continue? Will there be new fights? Will there be new music? Will there be any music at all? Wait and see. The shows are set for 2025.

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Ex RSV

Posted on 7 September 2024 by Larry Russwurm

I just realized what may have gone down in the RXV naming meeting. They had a viable vaccine for RSV. So maybe they wanted to name it ex RSV. But they wanted it to be shorter. So they replaced the ess sound for the ex sound. Hence, they called the vaccine RXV. Clever.

But do you want to know what was really clever advertising? Bubly using Michael Buble in their advertising. The ads made for good watching. I will only link one ad. See the rest on your own time. The possibilities for humour when your product name is very close to a likeable celebrity are entertaining.

So I think now that RXV can up their game even more. Say “Wayne Gretzky, RXV” three times fast. They are similar. Maybe we won’t make commercials as classic as the Buble ones , but they might be close.

I offered Wayne Gretzky because I know he is willing to shill for a company as he does for sports betting. Offer him up enough money and I’m sure he’s game enough for anything within reason. Check that word game. Maybe Wayne Gretzky is game for RXV. Well I’ll let the ad writers do the writing. But the possibilities are there.

Now naming a new pharmaceutical product usually involves coming up with a new word. Is there any rule stating that it can’t be close to a likeable celebrity’s name? A celebrity that you have a working agreement with? No there isn’t.

But corporations beware! These celebrities may not want to do ads with you (after the initial flurry of ads), for less than a billion dollars. After your name and their name are inextricably linked by being almost the same, no other celebrity will fit. That actually is okay for those in the medical field. That much money goes into promoting a new breakthrough drug anyhow. Maybe the corporation will pay, maybe it won’t. It depends if it needs that type of boost.

It’s my belief that Bubly was named depending on a contract with Michael Buble. This trick can be easily used for any new pharmaceutical. And the money is there. Watch for it in the future.

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Maybe Boeing is Trying To Do Their Share in Evening Out Passenger Death Rates

Posted on 31 August 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Perhaps you have heard that the death rate per 100 million passenger miles varies greatly by method of transportation. This is true as shown by this linked graph. Basically the lowest that passenger cars dips to is 0.5 deaths per 100 million miles over the years 2007 to 2022. The highest any of the other three transportation modes goes to is 0.1 deaths per 100 million miles by passenger rail in 2008. Buses and scheduled airline flights both have fewer deaths per 100 million miles of travel.

Indeed, scheduled airline flights have so many fewer deaths, that it is only visible on this graph for one year. That is for the year 2009. Congrats airlines! You are the safest method of travel for every year compiled by this graph.

Boeing has been criticized for shoddy workmanship in their planes over the last few years. Issues keep arising. Look at these 9 incidents from the first 3 months of the year.

Perhaps Boeing feels sorry for its huge advantage over passenger car fatalities per 100 million miles. Perhaps Airbus will follow Boeing’s lead in the shoddy workmanship department, so passenger deaths per 100 million miles will at least show up on the chart every year.

So what’s next for Boeing? Why space of course.

Do you know that the space station orbits the earth 16 times a day. That’s 25 000 miles every 90 minutes. It’s been up for how long now? And no one has died, even including the rocket flights up to it and back. With seven astronauts in it since 2000, that is about 25 billion miles with zero fatalities. This is even better than the scheduled airline flights.

So the first Boeing Starliner to make it to the International Space Station has problems with leaks and might not make it back to earth with live crew members. NASA wants an even better record in space so they scrubbed the return via Boeing. What can one say? Boeing might have brought down that record if only for a year.

So now, without Boeing to even things out, it falls down to all of us to increase the number of miles driven in a passenger car without fatalities. That means no drunk driving, no distracted driving, no speeding etc. We can even out the death rates by being almost perfect!

I doubt Boeing will help much. They are changing CEOs and have been concerned with a falling reputation. So if perfect isn’t possible for us in our own cars, don’t expect continued help from Boeing. Indeed, I bet some statisticians want to now start a graph of death rates which pits Boeing directly against Airbus. Something that is easily done when there are only a couple big players in scheduled airline flights.

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Guardian Caps

Posted on 24 August 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Guardian caps are now allowed in games in the Canadian Football League as well as games in the National Football League. And they look ridiculous.

These caps are another layer of protection over the helmet of football players. With this extra layer, heads look disproportionately big for the bodies they are on. They look funny and the only reason they are being talked about is because they lessen the risk of concussion in sport.

So they have a serious purpose. But that’s not going to stop the mocking. Remember Elaine Benes being called big head by a guy she broke up with? “It’s almost a compliment,” she said at first till events made her reconsider. All those insults are going to be used on the players starting this trend of safety.

I can hear it now. “Top heavy!” “Humpty Dumpty!” “Bubba Bulbous!” Then there will be the newfound excuse for the opposing team. “ I couldn’t see the play properly with his big, bulbous head in the way!”

All of this will be thrown at the trendsetters. And this will indeed be a trend. Every concussion that happens, the players will think, I might have avoided this. And in another era we got used to the presence of helmets. Certainly we can get used to something extra that also prevents injuries.

Right now the aliens are turning their noses up at us. They will ask, “If they can’t get used to big heads and small bodies on their own people, how will they ever accept us?” They will telepath this to all within range.

So if you’re not into disproportionate features, you’re just not ready to accept aliens just yet. So quit expecting them to reveal themselves. Especially while we still war amongst each other.

As for the birds, there will be the odd one that will fly right into the guardian caps almost as if it were so big they couldn’t avoid it. Like there was no possibility of any other outcome.

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Selective Breeding

Posted on 17 August 2024 by Larry Russwurm

When it’s not being used to make the snouts of collies even more anteater like, selective breeding can be a powerful thing.

Unconsciously we can see it being done when actors marry actors, sports heroes marry sports heroes, musicians marry musicians, etc. Of course we will have to live lifetimes to see how it affects these areas of human achievement. As well, we will have to correct for the nepo baby effect. In other words, the influence of their parents in being hired initially, or more easily.

I’d like to start a selective breeding program, myself, in an effort to improve the human race in a way that I find to be advantageous.

I believe we should breed for transparent eyelids. It is possible to see through my eyelids if it is bright or dark where I am. I can see a little light when I am in the sun, through my eyelids. Even bright indoor lights are detectable through my eyelids.

Other people may have the ability to know what direction the light is in that they are detecting through their eyelids.

I say we take the best of these people at seeing light with their eyes closed and knowing where the light is coming from and breed them. It might take many generations but at minimum we will have bred for a thinner eyelid from these people. At best their eyelids may be transparent.

If their eyelids get transparent, think of the benefits. They could look during a sandstorm/ snowstorm. They could keep their eyelids shut tight to avoid illness being circulated through their eyes ( they wouldn’t need the covid screen then). They’d be harder to kill in their sleep because they could still see a would be assassin while snoring away. They could swim in chlorinated water with their eyes not being bothered.

A potential drawback is that to sleep they might need an eye mask. But eye masks are cheap and easy to rig up if none are available.

I think it would be worth it to selective breed for this type of human. But if we did, would the results be called evolution? How about mevolution​ Or ievolution? I prefer this last one because it is all about the i’s, but Apple might try to sue.

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Extra Medals Everywhere

Posted on 10 August 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Until this Olympics, I was unaware that two bronze medals were handed out in each boxing weight group. I think this is a bit unfair to other sports.

The reasoning is that boxers get hurt more than those in other sports. With the four semi-finalists, the losers of the first bout would fight the next day if it were another sport. The winners would fight in two days for the gold and the silver. Thus there is extra time to recover for the gold and silver medalists.

I think this is just a naked medal grab by the boxing arm of the Olympics. You could have the losers box at the exact same time as the gold medal match. There is no rule saying that this couldn’t happen. Or, you could have the bronze medal match after the gold medal match.

So I say there should be two bronze medals in every sport if this kind of loosey goosey attitude toward bronze medals keeps up. For events that decide a 3rd place and 4th place easily, just put a 3 on one of the two bronze medals and give it to the 3rd place finisher.

Indeed let’s look at boxing even more. There are 13 weight classes (7 mens, 6 womens). Why can’t 13 medals be available for team sports, for instance. Perhaps in hockey, you could give an award (gold, silver and bronze) for the best player from each position. Soccer may be the most bloated sport, with 11 positions, hockey would have 6, baseball 9, and basketball 5.

Speaking of beat up, we could add American football to the mix. This sport is largely not played internationally, despite an almost identical game played in Canada. It’s traditional to let the teams have 1 week to recover between games. As such, only three games could be played by each team during the time of the Olympics, meaning that only six nations could compete. The first game could eliminate the worst two losers. For the second game, the biggest winner would go against the best loser and the other two winners could go against each other. The combined results would let it be decided who is in the gold medal game and who is in the bronze medal game. American Football would have the most positions, 22. Which would lead to the most medals of any sport if I were to have my way.

Then, maybe with all these medals for team sports, you could get rid of 3 on 3 basketball. But wait a second. I am about giving out the most medals possible. Let’s have 3 on 3 football, soccer, hockey and baseball as well!

Of course the boxers may just threaten the rest of us if boxing doesn’t get an extra medal than the rest. Indeed, they might also threaten us with the judo, wrestling and taekwondo competitors who also get a double bronze. But there are many more athletes that don’t get the extra bronze. The others can take them due to numbers. More medals for everyone!

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The Chore of Voting

Posted on 3 August 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Finally! A politician who finally gets us! Donald Trump has finally offered conservative Christians the idea that they will never have to vote again.

Presumably, policy in the future will probably be pro Christian. But I don’t know how he could possibly speak for other parties. Unless, of course, if those other parties could never be voted in again. But even so, the call of never having to vote again is loud.

Imagine the following Utopia. You never again have to watch stupid politicians playing stupid politician games. A lot of the news you could now ignore.

And, the icing on the top of the cake is you never have to go out, once every 4 years for a 10 minute wait to vote at your local town hall. You never have to prove your identity for the intrusive workers at the polls, again. You can laugh at others bitching that it took them 2 hours of waiting in line just to vote for their favourite lefty. Or you can laugh it off if the exit polls don’t match the “real” polls.

Soon your favourite or only preacher will not have to tell you how a good Christian should vote. That will already be taken into account. You will not have to hear a sermon muddied with politics ever again.

But most importantly, once every 4 years, you will not have to do one more errand that might take you half an hour, all told.

The only unfortunate thing about this offer is that you will have to show up to vote one last time. If only Trump would somehow skip this last step.

But wait a second. Trump is so smart he managed to figure out how to do this, too? Conservative Christians don’t have to vote at all in the next election? And some called this brilliant man senile! He’s figured it all out. Conservative Christians don’t need to vote in this upcoming election, then.

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Running Out of Steam

Posted on 27 July 2024 by Larry Russwurm

It’s slowly happening. I am running out of humour ideas. Don’t forget, I have to riff on an idea for a whole page or so. Or, if I’m doing a grab bag o’ humour, I have to have a lot of little ideas.

I’ve used up a lot of steam thus far. I am at post # 908. In other words, I have more posts than there are episodes of the Simpsons. That’s a lot of jokes. So I am seriously thinking of stopping once I reach 1000 posts.

So for the second week in a row I don’t have a humour post. I’ll live, you’ll live, but we may have to find our humour elsewhere after post 1000. As well as for this week.

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July Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 13 July 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Giant hogweed had a nicer name when it was first exported to North America from Asia. It was supposed to be a nice, big, decorative plant. Oh, the folly of our ancestors! It spread easily and it quite earned the name of giant hogweed.

This plant’s sap is on the outside of its stem and can cause painful burns and scarring. Because the sap reacts to the UV light in sunlight, you are recommended to cover the exposed area from the sun and wash the site with soap and water immediately. Sensitivity to sunlight can last years.

Giant hogweed is indeed a giant hog that is also a weed. I vote that we call the initial importers of this noxious plant, giant hogs, too.

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You just knew the Canadian men’s soccer team’s attempt to win the Copa America was going to be Messi. Their very first game was against the number one seed Argentina with their star player, Lionel Messi. They lost that game 2-0.

They then beat Peru 1-0 and tied Chile 0-0 which was enough to get them into the playoffs. They won their first playoff game on penalty kicks against Venezuela. Then they lost to Argentina, again, 2-0. It was Messi. He got one goal which was enough to beat Canada.

So now they play Uruguay to decide if they are the 3rd or 4th place team. Either way, that’s higher than Canada was supposed to get anyway. Good for team Canada.

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Baby boomers love to whine about Gen Z and Millennial participation trophies. They whine so much about it that you just know they secretly wanted these themselves.

And now I shall present proof of this. In the mid 70s there was a band called Hot Chocolate who had a hit with the song “Everyone’s a Winner”. This is a prime baby boomer era song. Baby boomers loved this song so much that they literally bought it. This was a boomer’s version of a participation trophy.

Besides, who were the people who first gave out the participation trophies to Millennials and Gen Z?Teachers at their school must have. And usually these teachers are a generation or two older than the students. That’s right boomers, I’m blaming you for the participation trophies in the first place.

What would the Greatest Generation say?

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