3 Superheroes and 3 Supervillains

Posted on 29 August 2020 by Larry Russwurm

“Modern Ninja, Tail,” started Mother Earth, “I’m glad we’ve got the three of us here. There’s something that we can do together.”

“What about Near Absolute Hero?” asked Tail.

“He fought a fire all last night and is wiped out. Besides, I have a feeling he’ll be out of commission for what I have in mind.

“First of all, did you all hear about the escape of our three ninjas from Montreal?”

“Yes,” said Tail.

“Yes,” said Modern Ninja. “But certainly they aren’t causing such a hubbub in Montreal that we have to go back there?”

“I’d be tempted to leave them be, too. Except for last night they were robbing a mall in the Big Smoke itself.”

“Here? But they must know that things are more dangerous with us on the case, here. Without the Flame Tosser, they should be even easier to take down than in Montreal,” said Modern Ninja.

“Which is why I think they will wait till there’s a major fire to do their dirty work.”

“Which puts Near Absolute Hero out of the picture,” said Tail. “Smart.”

“What did they take from the mall?” asked Modern Ninja.

“They robbed all three jewellery stores that were there. They left the jewellery kiosk alone because it had lower value jewellery.”

“I hate thieves that are too good for similar but lower value wares,” stated Tail.

“I just hate thieves,” said Modern Ninja.

“There were cameras all over the mall so I can play you the entire robbery. Modern Ninja,” said Mother Earth, “I want you especially to take a close look at how this was done.”

The video evidence showed the three ninjas stealing from the three jewellery stores and going from point to point. The moves at the jewellery stores were expected. What was not expected was how the trio moved from point to point in the mall.

Two of the ninjas were on the edge of the mall halls moving parallel with each other. But they looked sideways so they were watching each other the whole time. The third ninja was ahead of the other pair in the middle of the hallway.

“What do you think of their formation, Modern Ninja?” asked Mother Earth.

“The only reason I can get two ninjas in a fight is because I can line up with the two I want, on the same straight line we three make but outside the two ninjas. That way I stay invisible for both of them. In the mall I can’t do that.”

“I can get one,” said Tail.

“Which still leaves us one short. So let’s see their weak point – outside.”

The askew ninja got to the door first and ran outside to the waiting SUV which he drove right up to the mall doors. Only then did the other two break their formation and go outside into the waiting SUV. They were away in seconds.

“There’s only one more mall big enough in town to have multiple jewellery stores, too,” informed Mother Earth.

“Fairway Mall,” said Tail. “Is there a way for one of us to take out two ninjas? There will only be us two with boots on the ground.”

“I think I can make up for my physical uselessness with planning,” said Mother Earth.

And so they planned.

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Third Strike

Posted on 22 August 2020 by Larry Russwurm

My news sites were polluted this week with Rush Limbaugh. Some of you may know that I’m Canadian and don’t actively seek out anything with the Rush Limbaugh name. Since he has polluted my life yet again, I am reposting my Rush Limbaugh political cartoon which can be used for most circumstances of Rush.

This time he thought it was so funny to apply his name to the Democratic candidate team which is “Joe and the Hoe” (Rush Limbaugh has a radio show – I can spell any name he uses however I want.) And I hope that the Hoe can uproot vile weeds like Rush Limbaugh and just let them wither away. But if not, I still have my Rush Limbaugh political cartoon I can use.

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The Three Ninjas in Jail

Posted on 15 August 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Despite being put in the same jail at the same time, the experiences of the 3 ninjas, who battled against the Mother Earth Force in Montreal, were different. The other criminals were suspicious of what had taken down the trio. The trio answered honestly.

“But why are these superheros named after a female?” Was the first question they got.

The trio tried to explain it was a mixed male/female crime fighting team.

“So who was captured by a male crime fighter?” someone asked.

Immediately one hand shot up. “I fought Tail. Look him up. He’s a musclebound lunkhead with an extra tail to spoil all my martial arts moves.”

The other two were quieter about what happened. Still it got drawn out of them slowly. They thought Modern Ninja had captured them but weren’t quite sure. She had used invisibility they thought. They were just looking at normal scenery when all of a sudden they were decked. The other criminals found that ‘Eagle’, the first ninja taken, was knocked out with no warning. ‘Nuclear Submarine’ was the second ninja that saw his partner taken down by Modern Ninja. He just said that suddenly Eagle was down. He saw nothing after that until he, himself, was rendered unconscious.

“So you both got taken down by a woman superhero?” asked a particularly large man listening to the goings on.

“She was invisible.” The duo defended.

“I’m sorry, Nuclear Submarine. But you had warning and it was a female that beat you up. That makes you the weakest.” A couple of the men crowded Nuclear Submarine and then the fists began to fly. Nuclear Submarine was ably defending himself when the guards came in with a water cannon and broke up the fight. They took Nuclear Submarine and two other men to cool down in the hole.

Afterwards one of the men beside the ninja that attacked Tail, said “You’re cool! What do we call you?”

“Traditional Ninja is good enough.” He was left alone after that exchange. The same could not be said for Eagle.

The other criminals seemed to alternate between Nuclear Submarine and Eagle when starting fights. 2 or 3 would start the fight but the guards were quick with their water cannons and the hole punishment.

No one was getting seriously hurt but it still bothered Traditional Ninja. How could he arrange for the escape of the three of them when Eagle or Nuclear Submarine were perpetually in the hole. After a few weeks the fights (finally!) seemed to die down and Traditional Ninja got in touch with the Ninja League.

The league was a loose association of ninjas. There were only a few things it wouldn’t tolerate and the jailing of ninjas was one of those. It led to a daring and wild helicopter flight above the yard where the three scaled the rope ladder and were whisked away to freedo,m.

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Our Favourite Comedians Have No Sense of Humour

Posted on 8 August 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Who’s your favourite standup comedian? Or sitcom comedian? Or skit comedian? Ellen Degeneres? Jerry Seinfeld? Kate McKinnon? All of them do not have a sense of humour. First of all let’s look at why.

Our society likes to pride itself on the modesty of society. ‘Look at that bad comedian – he’s laughing at his own jokes.’ Laughing at your own jokes is just too prideful a thing. So a successful comedian cannot laugh at their own jokes.

The theory goes that a comedian will just have to repeat their jokes enough so they are no longer funny to themselves and they can give that deadpan delivery.

Well who can give a deadpan delivery every time? Someone with no sense of humour – that’s who. As a comedian all they have to do is memorize the jokes. They don’t need to deaden themselves to the humour.

I can tell now that some of you are beginning to accept the lack of humour amongst your favourites. So let’s look at how they do it. Someone has to have a sense of humour on the team and that usually falls to the behind the scenes writers. See that standup comedian, it looks like they are the whole show. But there are agents, promoters, managers and of course writers backing them up.

Behind the scenes writers can laugh at their own jokes. They can laugh and guffaw all they like, nobody is going to see them do it. Yes, they can laugh out loud. Yes, they can roll on the floor laughing. It’s even rumoured that once, on the Monty Python set, that a writer even laughed himself to death. But that is just a rumour. He actually just laughed hard enough that he had a heart attack. Thanks to modern medicine he lived to write another joke.

But wait, you say, having a comedian who has no sense of humour, is like having a politician without empathy!

There it is. The realization that politicians never empathize with their constituents. That’s why they never deliver on their most important promises. Even though they wax on about how much they would like to.

So John Cleese has no sense of humour. Bob Newhart definitely had no sense of humour. Bill Cosby …

Those rare times when live shows were taped and the comedian(s) start to burst out laughing – that simply means that the comedian has an ever so slight sense of humour that is usually not activated. Tim Conway and Harvey Korman on the Carol Burnett used to sometimes begin to get jokes. They snickered for a few seconds and then got back to the performance.

Even today there are some slip ups on Saturday Night Live where the performer might begin to laugh or snicker. So perhaps the players just have a small, undeveloped sliver of a sense of humour. And they are only getting the jokes now, while it is all being acted out in front of them.

I’ve known all about this secret writer conspiracy of standup comics for years now. I’ve put my name out there but no one wants to hire me as a writer. They say that I have too much empathy for the scammed. Which is why I have decided to publish this tell-all about the industry.

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Birth Control for Werewolves

Posted on 1 August 2020 by Larry Russwurm

It is said that all a werewolf needs to do is bite you for you to become a werewolf. Indeed most sources seem to think all a werewolf needs to do is break your skin and their saliva will transfer the curse to your bloodstream as well. All that remains is to figure out how many humans a werewolf will infect in each full moon.

Our era is called the Anthropocene. This is because humans affect almost every aspect of the earth these days. So almost any werewolf is going to be near humans. They hunt all night by the full moon – which lasts the whole night. That’s a lot of hunting. Let’s say each hunt lasts about an hour. That makes about 12 large creatures hunted. I’m going to say that one of them is a human.

Humans are usually around other humans. And that is what the werewolf is for 29 days of the moon’s 29.5 day cycle. So that places the werewolf near humans when the change comes. Obviously it will attack humans in its 12 hours of being a beast.

So if 1 werewolf bites 1 human, it will lead to 2 werewolves by the next full moon. The third full moon will see 4 werewolves and the fourth will see 8. This is an exponential progression.

So let’s look at the calculations we made in The Case for Vampires Staking Vampires with its similar exponential progression. There we figured out that weekly vampire killings led to a 34th week when all the people in the world have become vampires.

With the werewolves, it is easy to see that the 34th full moon will lead to the entire population of the world becoming werewolves. This is roughly 2 years and 9 months after the first werewolf arrived on the scene. Naturally the werewolf doesn’t want this because there will be next to nothing left to hunt (remember each full moon we said there are 12 hunts and only one of them is a human).

So werewolves will hunt the most dangerous prey – werewolves. But they will cheat. When they turn back to humans they will use their guns loaded with silver bullets and track the very same prey they bit during the full moon. They will exterminate it with their silver bullets.

So, of necessity, a werewolf will be a successful hunter in both forms. It will hunt then hunt again.

So if you’re worried that someone you know has become (or always was) a werewolf, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Worrying about how to find silver bullets or even possibly having to make them yourself is a nonstarter. All you need to do is root through the werewolf’s things and you will find silver bullets.

That is step one in killing a werewolf. Godspeed in pulling off the rest by shooting it with those very same silver bullets.

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A Quiet Place!

Posted on 25 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

There’s one thing that librarians all over the world have had to do every day at work. It’s just never ending. They have to hush their patrons from time to time. Most people need a quiet environment in order to read well. Librarians are simply trying to provide that environment.

They’ve had to do this from as far back as I remember and I bet for many more lifetimes this has been a small but important part of the job. Yet the public never seems to learn. I think I know of a way to accelerate the learning curve for the public.

The monsters from A Quiet Place hunt you down and kill you if you make noise. Sure that’s scary, you might say, until some pistol packing citizen gets accosted. You would be wrong. The monsters are also bullet proof.

So what if some librarian in a labyrinthine library gets a hold of one of these creatures? They could set it loose in the louder parts of the library where the public is known to be more likely to talk.

Can you imagine how quickly the patrons would catch on and how quiet that library would become? Next time you’re in a library ask a librarian if they have fantasized about such a quiet place. Undoubtedly they have, as bloodthirsty as that may seem.

But wait. The monsters from A Quiet Place are believed to have come from outer space and are in fact aliens. Can you imagine the planet they came from? Their libraries would never have needed librarians that hushed patrons. Patrons would have been able to hear themselves think so well. No wonder this species beat Earthlings to interstellar travel.

Maybe they wish to spread their gifts across the galaxy. A quiet place for all to think on whichever planet they set foot on. They might even gift their technology of interstellar travel to us if we continue to be quiet for long enough.

Indeed, maybe the monsters are really a race of super powerful librarians who are dead serious about their quiet policies. Oh I’m sorry. I forgot to say spoiler alert. After all this is the obvious and most likely ending to the A Quiet Place series.

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The Ice Demon

Posted on 18 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Mostly the big fire was out. So a very tired Near Absolute Hero flew away from the scene towards the base of the Mother Earth Force. Something that had bat wings much like his own approached him, coming from the direction of the base.

Near Absolute Hero was intrigued. He thought it might be an American soldier outfitted with the wings from the pentagon. But as the two got closer, Near Absolute Hero could make out that the other wings were different and overall the UFO was smaller.

As they got nearer it looked to be like a winged gargoyle with a trident in its hand. They approached and both began circling each other.

“Who are you?” asked/yelled Near Absolute Hero.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out!” the living gargoyle yelled.

“What are you?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out!”

“Leave me be, then!”

“I may leave you be but I’m certainly not going to leave this city be!”

Near Absolute Hero sighed. He wasn’t going to get out of this without a fight. With his cold gun he tried hitting the creature’s trident holding hand.

“Ooh hoo! That tickles!” said the flying gargoyle.

Near Absolute Hero didn’t want to shoot his cold gun any longer. That would be risking frostbite. So he tried his new superhero trick. He said aloud “Ice balls from the sky!” and let his cold gun hand and arm go limp. The computer and exoskeleton in his suit moved his arm and trigger finger up over the flying gargoyle’s head and the gun made the water vapour into ice balls that fell on the creature.

But the creature lifted its head and swallowed each ice ball whole. They were the size of tennis balls and would have hurt or injured some lesser creature.

“You don’t know what I am,” said the creature. “I am the Ice Demon. Someone summoned me from the coldest bowels of Hell. So I ate him and here I am now.”

“So you do not cooperate with the summoner. I’ll make sure I spread that publicly so no one summons a creature such as you, again”

“I think it’s time to lay waste to this city. Obviously you can’t stop me.”

“Just a minute,” said Near Absolute Hero. He had one last trick to try against the Ice Demon. He spun around in the air so his back and wings faced the Ice Demon. But most importantly his back pack which attached to the cold gun faced the creature.

He shot in the opposite direction, away from the Ice Demon. He turned the setting of his gun to its very highest. His wings fanned the air at the Ice Demon. He looked around, over his shoulder at the Ice Demon. The demon looked very ill and was getting worse till suddenly it went “poof” and it disappeared from this plane of existence.

“Back to the coldest bowels of Hell, I hope!” said Near Absolute Hero. He looked all around while continuing to circle. Finally, he decided that his interpretation was correct. He headed back to the Mother Earth Force’s base.

On the way he praised his back pack. “Never again will I call what you produce back there ‘waste heat’. The heat is a feature, not a bug.”

“Hmmm! Maybe I should call myself Old Hot and Cold.” He mused this as he landed at the base and yawned. He would have a well deserved sleep.

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Ice From Above

Posted on 11 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

“I’ve watched your cold producing powers for some time now,” said Mother Earth to Near Absolute Hero. “Am I right in supposing that your cold gun focuses the cold at a certain point?”

“Yeah. That’s what I think of as the art of using my gun. I’ve got to estimate how far away that object I want to make cold is.”

“Would you be interested if I said I could make it a science that required little thinking on your part?”

“I would love to hear how.”

“We’ll just get Modern Ninja to make you a pair of contact lenses that can tell your gun what your eyes are focusing on. She uses it to make herself invisible to an enemy at a certain point.”

“I didn’t realize that she was using something that could help me so much. I would thank her profusely if she gave me a pair of contact lenses like that.”

“Don’t forget it was my idea.”

“Thank you Mother Earth.”

“Since you’ve been polite, I will elaborate on my idea. You know that the air has a component of water vapour in it?” asked Mother Earth.

“I guess. When it’s humid we say the air is pretty damp.”

“Yes. And if the air is cooled enough, some of that water will no longer be supported by the air and it will become drops.”

Near Absolute Hero was getting where Mother Earth was going, “And if we cooled it even more an iceball could fall on my enemy. But I’ve already thought about that. If I could just motion my gun in a perfect straight line over my enemy’s head I could knock him out with a little iceball. The problem is I just don’t have the delicate and complex control of my gun to do this.”

“With the contact lenses connected to the gun we can take into account everything spatial with the humidity and temperature and let those ice balls rain down on your enemy. We would need to make a computer system on your suit to handle all the calculations. And the gun would need to be pointed just so. So your arm and trigger finger would need to be automatically controlled by the computer system. I can program this. Perhaps Modern Ninja could do it as well.”

“Well let’s get this system working. I’d love to test it out,” said Near Absolute Hero.

“First I want to get you to give it up for ladies in the STEMs.”

“You mean Science, Technology, Engineering and Math? I’d say I was only an engineer myself. I guess I’m relying on you ladies for science, technology and math.”

“Why can’t you just give it up to us for all four?”

“If you ladies can pull this off then I will toast your abilities in all 4 of these specialties. More women in STEMs I will say to anyone willing to listen.”

“Then you will become the superhero you always dreamed of becoming. Near Absolute Hero isn’t just Near anymo-”

Near Absolute Hero put out his hand to stop Mother Earth. “Absolute Hero isn’t possible. But we might be getting closer.”

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Super Cold for a Superhero

Posted on 4 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Mother Earth appeared on Near Absolute Hero‘s phone and immediately launched into what she wanted to say. “You’re the best fireman the world has ever seen but when it comes to the Mother Earth Force, you are our worst regular superhero.”

“I played it perfectly with our big fight against Flame Tosser and his gang.”

“Yes you were perfect for the job. But he was fire and you were ice. Are we to demand that supervillains remain just fire so you can be useful against them?”

“I’ve still never tested my cold gun to its highest setting. Who knows what a hero I’ll become?”

Mother Earth went in for the kill. “Blah, blah, someday, blah blah. We can also take an analytical tack and see the scientist that I think you’re needing to maximize the use of your cold gun.”

“What kind of scientist is that?”

“Fly to the York University campus.”

When they got there, Mother Earth first pointed the way to the Farquharson Life Sciences building and up to the second floor. The door she pointed out said Professor Keeshawn Betts on the outside. Near Absolute Hero knocked. A sixty year old man with graying hair answered.

“Keeshawn?”

“Near Absolute Hero? Mother Earth told me about you. Do you know what she thinks is your greatest need?”

“I think I need to cool hands that are holding guns, so much that they drop them. It’s just that I’m not sure if I will kill them or give them a bad case of frostbite, forcing amputations.”

“That’s what I already told him,” said Mother Earth from the computer screen on Keeshawn’s desk. “Guess what he studies?”

“What?” Near Absolute Hero asked looking at Keeshawn.

“I study cryogenic effects on living things. Allow me to take you to my lab in the basement.”

Keeshawn wasn’t talking, just leading till they got down to a basement door which read “Live Animals”.

Not knowing what kind of live animals, Near Absolute Hero was scared as Keeshawn took his keys and opened the door. A light turned on. Keeshawn went directly over to a giant terrarium.

Keeshawn waved at the terrarium. “Welcome to the abode of the wood frog. These frogs can be endure freezing – and when thawed will simply hop away again.”

“Can I just freeze any of them?”

“Oh no,” said Keeshawn. “I believe you have the power to freeze them too quickly. But if you use low power on their periphery there is no danger of frostbite. If you use too much power on their periphery they might eventually totally freeze. But that should take long enough to not hurt them.”

Keeshawn had set up experiments for them to try. Near Absolute Hero was displeased that they were still only using his lowest setting. He was pleased that the building had an inner court yard to do these things safely outdoors.

At first he aimed a few centimeters from the frog’s limbs with his lowest settings. Then he aimed closer to the legs of the live wood frog. The frog had a suit to measure how cold its skin was. Eventually they hit a sweet spot. That should be good to make it drop a gun. They could see the involuntary twitching of the aimed at limb.

Then they aimed further toward the body of the frog. The professor believed this would induce frost bite in another organism like a human. They pushed it further till professor Keeshawn said “There, I think its whole body is going to freeze.”

The frog stopped moving – including breathing. It was frozen. “Watch this,” said Professor Keeshawn and nudged the frog off the bench and onto the patio stone. There was an audible “clunk” sound as it hit.

Near Absolute Hero got into the action. He picked the frog up off the patio stone and threw it as hard as he could at the bench. It made a “Whack!” sound and bounced a couple feet in the air before settling on the patio stone again with the now familiar “clunk”.

“What are you doing?” challenged Professor Keeshawn. “It’s frozen but it can still be damaged!”

“I’m so sorry! I just thought I had to test a theory of mine.”

“What possible theory would that be?”

“I’ve always wanted to write about the perfect crime. I know that’s silly for someone who is so anti-crime they are a superhero.”

“What perfect crime?”

“The victim could be bludgeoned by a hard blunt murder weapon that later thaws out and hops away.”

“That’s not a perfect crime. In some murders the murder weapon is never found but they can still convict someone of the crime.”

“Again, sorry if I hurt the frog.”

“It’ll probably be alright.”

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The Last Gen Xer

Posted on 27 June 2020 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve been looking at generation lists with their starting points and end points for a long time. Lately Millennials and Baby Boomers have been getting in dust ups so it seems more important now than ever.

Firstly Millennials were named so because their date of birth and their milestone dates would have the millennium in them. Having a kid in 1982? They will be the class of 2000 if everything goes right or just normally. But then it seemed like it was handed down from on high that Gen Z should start in 1996 and thus have the easy to remember birth year marker.

I think this made Millennials angry. They still had the numbers to request a bump from Gen X and got it. Soon 1980 and not 1982 became the beginning of this generation.

Then the wars between Boomers and Millennials began. No one wanted to see Boomers win again. They seem to have the power in numbers to scare off almost anything. But sociologists knew this so they decided to expand Millennials to begin at 1977. So the war got more intense.

Under this new regime, Gen Xers are comprised of just 11 years. In most cases an 11 year old cannot have a baby so how can this possibly be a generation?

But I believe it is going to continue. The Boomers have seen how to magnify their strength and are undoubtedly going to claim some of Gen X for themselves. I have seen it before that some sociologists believe Gen X started in 1967, not 1965.

Since Gen X isn’t large enough to protest, we will be taken over from both ends by the Millennials and the Boomers. No one will hear our voices as usual.

I am a Gen Xer. Given a choice I would move over to the Millennials. After a whole life of hearing what the Boomers were doing whether I wanted to hear it or not, the Millennials are a nice change. Of course my preference would be to stay a Gen Xer but that seems unattainable. And what sociologist listens to the voices of Gen X? Obviously no one. It’s not enough that we were also called the baby bust – now there are even fewer of us due to Millennial erosion.

So obviously Gen X is done for. We don’t have the numbers to protest loudly. The only question is who is going to be the last Gen Xer? If it’s me, I will use my very brief time in the spotlight to say “A pox on all the other generations!” Then they will make me one of the other generations and the pox will be upon me, too.

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