Average Girls

Posted on 13 January 2024 by Larry Russwurm

It’s easy to pick on someone when they have characteristics which aren’t like yours. That person is too fat, for example. But it’s not the fat you have an issue with. It’s their lack of averageness. This frees you up to also condemn others for being too skinny.

Picking on someone who is intellectually stunted is so easy. Almost too easy. As such, you need a bigger challenge. So as a group, you decide to pick on someone who is intellectually gifted. Now that can be more of a challenge. But not really when you have numbers on your side.

Many who are small are subjected to teasing and being pushed around by their more average peers. But do we leave the tall people alone? We may not be able to push them around but use jokes to keep them in line. “What’s the weather like up there?” Or calling someone Tree if they are very tall.

It is my belief that this has been going on for many, many years. In fact I think someone who was intellectually gifted in math and language came up with a counter plan. They decided to also name the average as being the mean. They did this knowing full well that the mean can also mean the nasty.

Mean Girls is coming out this week and is based on the 2000s movie but is reimagined as a musical. So I hope this is timely. Now you can understand my title. But let’s take a look at what happens to the mean after middle school and high school.

One of the things that people supporting the bullied say is that it gets better. After high school and middle school, things get better. Averageness doesn’t rule as much in later life. Why? Because averageness is exhausting.

Usually the workforce doesn’t want average employees. Taller, or stronger workers are more likely to be wanted for physically demanding jobs. The intellectually gifted may be better at some desk jobs. The big overweight people may be better bouncers or other jobs in which they don’t need to be fast runners,

It’s tough to stay average. Middle aged people often sprout bellies and other weight gain. Do you still want to be the average in middle age? You’ll probably be a good deal heavier than in your youth, then.

Then, too, average becomes boring after awhile. Say you are a person who likes hearing about famous battles. Soon you will have memorized how famous battles went in history and you become the local expert. Experts aren’t average. To be average you almost can’t have a hobby.

In short, mean doesn’t win in later life.

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Xmas Coke Party

Posted on 6 January 2024 by Larry Russwurm

Listen to this intro from TMZ: Kim Kardashian hosts holiday party with snow, coke and gingerbread house.

Obviously snow and coke are slang for cocaine. But how is gingerbread house also slang for cocaine?

Well gingers are some of the whitest white people around. At least with the whitest skin (minus the freckles, of course). And their favourite bread has got to be white bread. And their favourite house is the White House (ask Donald Trump). All this whiteness seems to suggest something the colour white. Like cocaine. So gingerbread house could easily be slang for cocaine, too. You can’t fool me. I can read in between the lines.

Who was this Xmas party for? Why friends and family. Wait, their kids, too? I don’t mean to suggest that the Kardashians are bad parents. I bet no one snorted any coke while the kids were still awake.

And there is all that snow they brought in. Could it possibly be that they are that rich? That they sledded on cocaine? They want to wallow in their own wealth it seems. Or at least make snow angels in cocaine.

One thing that I don’t understand is the specially labeled bottles of Coca Cola. What does that have to do with cocaine? I know it would be cute for the guests to have these Kardashian-Jenner labeled bottles. But even if they took one home it would just end up in the recycling.

And did you see the shot of the trees and grass just covered in the snow? This is Southern California so I believe that was all cocaine. An impressive display of wealth. The whole clan (of adults!) can snort that for the entirety of 2024.

If I had that much cocaine I would be paranoid there would be strong winds blowing it away or rain that would wash it away. Forget that last one, it’s southern California. They should be worried about wildfires just burning it.

Writing about this cocaine, cocaine, cocaine Christmas party, is thirsty work. I think I’ll have a cola, now.

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Best Posts of 2023

Posted on 30 December 2023 by Larry Russwurm

I was so very punny this year that the 1st and last post I’m linking to in this are pun based. In February, I Don’t Want to Say What This Post is About cannot be named without falling victim to the same trap that all the headlines mentioned did.

May saw the Michael Conspiracy or what I would name the post now. It was actually called Canadian Michaels and China.

In July we heard about the Swift Quake. But wasn’t this just a physical manifestation of what we had been hearing all year? Taylor Swift was all over the news and really wasn’t that big of a surprise as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

In September I railed about an ever practical idea. For the Love of Life, Keep Eddie Vedder Away from Drugs. But I heard in a comment from someone that he just might already be using alcohol as his more legal crutch.

In November I wrote about different types of writers in Plotters and Pantsers and related them to different types of murders.

In December I again took on the punster hat to come up with 3 puns in a very short story. It was called Vegetare.

I’m wishing a happy new year to all those people out there who enjoy strange humour.

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Unending Hair Growth

Posted on 23 December 2023 by Larry Russwurm

The problem with unending hair growth for early humans, is that it would literally trip up our ancestors. This could spell trouble both when running from predators and running in when killing prey.

Indeed, back then, I bet baldness was prized. So too would be hair breakage before the hair gets too long. While both are seen as a problem by some today, they could have literally saved your life back in the stone age.

The one advantage of unending hair growth is that it might take decades to become as long as its person. It could be like an old age pension. If you’re so old that you trip over your hair, then you can stay home and do lesser tasks than hunting. The rest of the clan would have to hunt and forage for you.

So it is my bet, that the first thing that stone tools were developed for, would have been to cut our hair. If you were going back in time to such an era, you could bring along a good pair of scissors. They might be prized over other tools.

I envision the first tools may have been a stone that came to a point. This way, you could put the hair to be cut against flat rock and bash the sharp end of the stone against the hair. This would have been both the first barbershop and the first hair salon.

Only after making the tool to cut hair would we realize it had other uses. Like to kill and skin prey, So I am thinking this may have been the very first tool that humanity made and used, So the first profession after forager might have been the barber or hairdresser.

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Vegetare

Posted on 17 December 2023 by Larry Russwurm

I had been warned about driving in the desert alone at night. Still I wanted to return home to Oklahoma as soon as possible to maximize my Christmas break with my family.

I saw some lights over to the west. But decided to concentrate on the road instead. The stereotypical UFO encounter continued as I lost my radio station, then my only one year old car engine stalled. The lights came closer as I pulled over. I felt trapped as there were only a few cacti to hide behind. So I stayed in the car as the alien ship hovered over me.

Suddenly three aliens came down from the spaceship and surrounded my car. The closest one tapped on my driver’s window. I opened it a crack. “Greetings,” I said in an effort not to be overpowered.

“Greetings, Earthling. We are from Vegetare.”

I thought about that a moment then laughed. “Are you trying to tell me you are Vegetarians?”

“Is there something funny about that?” asked the talkative alien.

“Here on earth, people who don’t eat meat say that’s what they are called.”

The alien just stared blankly for a minute. I tried to help him. “Which star system are you from? Maybe you can go by that.”

The alien’s face became more animated. “Yes we could do that. We are from the Vega star system.”

I laughed long and hard at this. “Are you saying that not only are you Vegetarians, but you are Vegans as well?”

“What is funny about this?”

“Earthlings call themselves Vegans if they don’t eat animals or animal products”

The alien stared blankly. It blinked its eyes a couple times.

“To avoid confusion, what exactly do you aliens actually eat?

“Cookies,” came the quick reply.

I rubbed my chin. “That’s possibly Vegan or Vegetarian. Maybe your story does check out. But how do you survive on just junk food.”

“You misunderstand.” said the alien and pointed a gun like thing at my head. “We’re the cookers, you are the cookees!”

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The Six Basic Characters and Five Basic Settings

Posted on 9 December 2023 by Larry Russwurm

If you have delved into writing for any large degree you must have come across the idea (or the book) that there are seven basic plots. Now I am not going to tell you what these seven are (some have even said there are only two – tragedy and comedy), but I will tell you that this angers me. I mean when you over generalize to make something very complex very simple, it strikes me that much meaning is lost.

But I am not going to argue that there are more than seven plots. Instead I am going to argue that there are only a limited amount of characters and settings, the two other big areas in writing, to bring out your ire just as the seven plots brings out mine.

I would also like to say that I do this because many writers “specialize” in character because they think all plots have been done before. I also point out the limited settings because, I, as I have posted before, like to say I am a setting based author. So this exercise will annoy me as well as others.

Don’t laugh at the first category of character. You would be mistaken to say that that is the only character that is ever used. The first archetype of character is the “human”. Yeah you wince at the broadness of this category as many authors stated goal is to bring the character’s humanity to the written page. But enough. We are all humans and know what a human is at this point. So this is the first and most obvious category.

The rest of my 6 categories of character are: alien, robot or computer, godlike or near godlike, animal, and lesser magical creatures. That’s it. And I feel that the rest of these 6 are largely self explanatory for a human like you.

I bet you are thinking, well of course he has it down to 6 categories of character, since he uses such a broad stroke. Well you’re going to say the same thing again when I introduce the 5 categories of setting. After that, perhaps you’ll understand my anger when someone says there are only 7 plots.

The first setting is “earth” which prior to the last couple hundred years seemed to be the only place to represent many, many stories. But even then there was some attempt to buck the normal. Some stories took place in heaven or hell so I’ll just call the second category “the divine”.

As far back as Kepler’s day the other world or the exo planets, planets, moons, asteroids or comets category was born. Basically anything that was hard and had gravity.

Weird science fiction has pushed things further, saying that stories are possible in gas giants or stars (or even life can be stars) or neutron stars can have life or do something to life, and what stories are possible near the event horizon of black holes. These categories are ridiculous but fertile.

The last category is free fall, or any situation where gravity doesn’t enter the picture.

So there you have it, the 5 Categories of Setting and the 6 Categories of Character. Think on that and the whole idea of overly broad categories.

I myself will pick 7 stories with the different plots and read them to young impressionable people. Then, when I am done the 7, I am going to say “Enough! I have read you all the basic plots there are. I have shown you everything you need to know.” Then the young people will be jaded know-it-alls. They will fit in our post-modern world where everything is really just modern.

If they try to get out of my trap by mentioning “well at least there’s character and setting” I can wow them with the fact that combined with character and setting, there are still only 210 ( in other words: 7 plots x 6 characters x 5 settings) possible stories.

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Leaning Towers

Posted on 2 December 2023 by Larry Russwurm

I’m not sure quite how they do it but architects and engineers seem to know when the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Millennium Tower in San Francisco are relatively stable. They’ve held up this long so far.

But maybe, just maybe they are BS-ing it and they know that leaning towers last a long while before finally crumbling or tilting completely over. No matter the deal, I know I would never take a unit in the Millennium Tower as my home. I also never want to go on a tour up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Although some are willing to risk these things.

Major earthquakes have struck Pisa since the tower was built. It was a mystery how it held up during these crises. Dynamic soil-structure interaction is the theory of why it still stands. It would seem that the same soft soil that causes it to lean also protects it during earthquakes.

San Francisco also suffers from earthquakes. But its leaning has more complex causes as it has to do with at least three layers of different soils. My takeaway is that it might not survive earthquakes as well as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

With both towers, attempts have been made to shore them up. The Leaning Tower of Pisa once had a tilt of 5.5 degrees. That is down to 3.9 degrees. The Millennium Tower now leans 29 inches which isn’t nearly as much as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But there is concern it is sinking further.

I think it would be fantastic if they could predict to the day when each tower finally crumbles. Imagine that, you could build a tower with an expiration date. You could move out a few weeks before the fall, taking all the stuff that could foul the air like it did to ground zero of 9/11.

Earthquakes do of course complicate these predictions. With the Leaning Tower of Pisa, they might not be a factor because of the dynamic soil-structure interaction. So someone might indeed be capable of predicting when the tower finally falls.

If the same is not true of the Millennium Tower, likely an earthquake will take it out. As much as I wish all leaning towers had a definite expiration date, we aren’t there yet.

Maybe at a future time we could build towers on soft soil like Pisa and live in them for a guaranteed amount of years before moving out. Then we could watch them fall as one by one they got destroyed. Don’t we love footage of buildings being demolished? This would be nature’s way of demolishing these towers.

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Fingernails

Posted on 25 November 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Dear Lee Press-On Nails,

I have been looking for a product that I wish you would actually make. That is a set of artificial nails that are so long they start to curl around. Exactly like the world record holders in the growing of nails. I have looked everywhere I can think of, but it seems no one makes these nails.

I represent an untapped market for you. That is men who wish to get out of household chores. You see, I have figured out that the usual household chores are impossible while preserving such nails. But by the same token, I believe I could still hold and operate a video game controller while having such long nails.

I would be willing to pay over $100 a set for such nails. Just not so much as a cleaning person would cost to do the monthly chores around my place. I believe that this would allow for you to have sufficient profit that this line of nails would be viable.

I am entering the dating scene again and would like to start fresh with these nails. Any woman I date would only know me with these nails. I would tell her that they are an integral part of who I am. That to accept me, she must also accept the nails.

I would go on to tell her that most of my life I have been living under the tyranny of my parents and that the only thing I was allowed to control was the length of my fingernails. So I am literally deeply attached to them.

I would then take her over to my apartment and say it is really hard to take care of with my fingernails, as she saw the mess. My parents used to do such things but I am keeping their controlling ways far from here. I was hoping that she cared enough to help me out.

It would be then that she might suggest a cleaning person. I would say that I’m worried about the money because I have only so much and it’s hard to find a job with such nails.

I would be worried by then that she would come up with a diplomatic solution like cutting off the nails of one hand. I would then say you’re not accepting me for me. Hopefully then she would have the heart to clean for me. If not it would be back to the dating site to find someone who wants me for me.

Anyhow, please make these nails and I will be a loyal customer. Even if you have to make these custom just for me, I would be interested to see your pricing.

Thank you,

A future loyal customer.

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Pronouncing Sikh

Posted on 18 November 2023 by Larry Russwurm

When I was young I swear the news media as a whole used to pronounce the name Sikh as seek. It’s only in the last number of years that the whole of the news media changed to pronouncing members of this group as sick. I was taken aback about it. But I don’t think that it was simply a matter of them finally asking Sikhs themselves how to pronounce the name. I think they were heard decades ago and it was decided that polite society preferred the pronunciation, seek.

The problem in English is that native speakers didn’t want to disrespect Sikhs by calling them “sick” which is a word that for years had nothing but negative connotations. “I’m sick,” sounds like something else and even when the English speaker realizes the mix-up, they are likely to laugh at the Sikh and make them uncomfortable.

But it’s been more likely in recent years for English speakers to ask the group what they want to be called. And one thing that helped permanently tip the scales is the use of the slang sick which means good, or even wonderful. Now, sick can be a very positive word. So I think the change happened for two reasons. I’m glad that slang, at last, was a force for good in this case. This is quite unlike the slang of my childhood.

Political correctness has gotten rid of bad slang from my childhood, that promoted bad stereotypes. “Gypped” meant ripping someone off and was derived from Gypsy. “Welshed” on a deal meant weaseling out of that deal and insulted Welsh people. Chewing someone down meant getting them to go lower than their asking price and was meant to insult Jews.

Have we gotten to the other side of this and now we are using positive words for minority groups? “You’re sick? That’s sick!” Could this be part of a new trend? What new slang could evolve?

How about “She’s so indigenous!” where indigenous means beautiful? How about “She aced the test because she’s black!” where black means smart.

Maybe it’ll be years for this or other positive slang terms to take hold. But it might. Make up your own. Something may stick. Then maybe slang might become something we’re proud of.

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Who is the Toughest Driver of Them All?

Posted on 11 November 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Motorcyclists have the reputation of being tough. Idly, one day, I wondered if this were a true belief.

Firstly, I defined being tough with being the most invulnerable. So, yes, motorcyclists are tough when compared to bicyclists and pedestrians. But motorcyclists are wimpy when compared to even a Mini or Smart Car driver. The rest of cars are even tougher yet. And of course, motorcyclists are way less invulnerable or tough compared to a big rig truck. A small train or streetcar is way tougher. A long train even more so.

So if we take invulnerability to be the definition of toughness, the motorcyclist is sadly lacking. The train engineer would obviously be the toughest in this competition.

But it is brave to be out and about with trucks, cars, SUVs and even sometimes trains. So perhaps we can use bravery to be our definition of toughness. But motorcyclists drive around in leather jackets and big helmets. The bicyclist rides with a small helmet and no leather jacket. Surely the bicyclist is “tougher”? Not to mention, the bicyclist gets more exercise from riding.

Then there are pedestrians who have no helmets or leather jackets. Surely they are the bravest of all and thus the toughest. When it comes to bravery, the one I most fear is that pedestrian that jay walks, having looked both ways and decides to go, despite oncoming traffic, counting on the motor vehicles to stop in both directions. Yes the motor vehicles will have an encounter with the law if they don’t stop. But this seems like a very tenuous and small hold on those drivers.

This type of pedestrian is the “toughest” of all, when bravery is our pinnacle. Even more so when they are a little old lady who walks extremely slowly.

So if we are going to discover a way that motorcyclists are the toughest, we have to establish a definition that only they can win.

I hence posit that being the horniest driver is the definition of the toughest driver. Not only is the undercarriage of the said motorcycle driver being vibrated at all times while operating the motorcycle, but any passenger the motorcyclist has is going to have to hold on tightly to the driver in an almost intimate way. The only mode of transport that comes close, is horse back riding where you have to match rhythms with a horse. But this is more of a kink than a universal horniness.

There. Motorcyclists are the horniest drivers and therefore the toughest drivers. If you don’t like it then write your own piece where your preconceived beliefs are “proven” to be true.

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