National Boss’s Day

Posted on 12 December 2013 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve only heard of National Boss’s Day over the last little while. At the time of writing this, it is nowhere near that special day and I refuse to promote it to you. Since I am between bosses right now allow me to offer an unbiased view of this special day.

First of all, according to this Wikipedia article, it was first registered as a special day at the Chamber of Commerce. Were you expecting it to be registered at a union? And the woman who registered it first worked for … her father. Maybe that’s not quite incestuous but it certainly is nepotism.

In my humble opinion every day is boss’s day. Some might work hard but others don’t. Some are competent but some are not. Some raise the level of their business. Others run it into the ground. And many bosses are ogres. Remember you cannot spell boss without SOB.

Some of you want to remind me that it’s not necessarily the boss’s fault. Many bosses have their own bosses. I say let’s go right to the top. How about the CEO or COO or whoever is running a big business? These high placed individuals constantly remind us that their bosses are the shareholders. Let’s start the giving of National Boss’s Day there. I say that all CEO’s should give flowers or candy or at least a card for every share of their company.

Let’s not stop at the private sector. The public sector enjoys the presence of bosses, too. The top of my federal government is prime minister Stephen Harper. And he says that the voters are his bosses. If he wants a gift for National Boss’s Day he’d better be sending out his own gifts to all the voting aged people in the country.

Oh and I challenge Stephen Harper and the CEOs or COOs to do all of this with their own money. After all, that’s what your staff is forced to use.

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The Lottery in Babyl- er- Ontario with Apologies to Jorge Luis Borges

Posted on 7 December 2013 by Larry Russwurm

Some of you may have heard this lottery story. A Hamilton woman will be 50 million dollars richer next month. Not because she proved she had the winning ticket by handing it in for the claim, but because the lottery corporation hunted her down.

The woman lost the winning ticket and to this day doesn’t know where it is. The corporation knew which retailer sold the winning ticket. There are cameras in the store showing who came in at what times. I’m going to ignore the big brother aspect of this for the remainder of this post. The retailer was paid for the winning purchase by the odd dollar value of $16. The winner’s credit card showed a $16 charge on that day by that retailer.

Now, if I’m clear that you no longer need a winning ticket to win the lottery, doesn’t that mean that someone who didn’t play can now win, too? If so, I’d like to have my name put down for the next lottery draws, too. Of course if the regular lottery players find out I won without paying, they might question why they even paid. I think this makes it even more exciting. The buyers of lottery tickets are thus being punished by the lottery corporation. The very next lottery they will not pay for.

So the lottery will have to become cashless. Perhaps the winners can get high ranking positions with the lottery corporation. To make it more interesting they could keep punishments as part of the lottery. Perhaps losers could get a pie in the face. How exciting.

I bet the lottery would become more exciting with even more ways to win or be punished. If you want to see what form the lottery will take in the end, I suggest you read Jorge Luis Borges’ The Lottery in Babylon. If you’re impatient and wish to see a summary, then follow this link.

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The Masked Asphalt Chewer

Posted on 30 November 2013 by Larry Russwurm

I came up with this post while I was thinking more destructively than normal. I thought, ‘what kind of car/truck design might destroy the very asphalt the driver was riding upon?’. My first instinct was to have wheels (titanium of course) that went to a point where they touched the road. And then, maybe if the vehicle was a pickup truck you could add mass to the back of the vehicle that would help it chew up the road.

But, if the titanium wheels are like razor blades, they will cut through the lower strata of the road as well, not just the asphalt. In fact the wheels will keep spinning until the vehicle is up to its axles on the road.

But I just wanted the vehicle to chew up the asphalt and keep moving. This is where years of mechanics training allows me to suggest simple flanges two inches from the edge of the wheels would stop the wheel from sinking in at that two inch mark.

maskedasphaltchewer

After coming up with this breakthrough, I tried to make my design more societally friendly. My driver would become the Masked Asphalt Chewer and would only rip up certain roads. You know the roads that he would target; the ones that the city or county or province or nation is waiting so long to repave that it wrecks the suspension of every other car to drive upon it. The Masked Asphalt Chewer would drive on those sections of road, forcing the government’s hand and making them repave it sooner rather than later.

Of course this means the Masked Asphalt Chewer would cause your taxes to go up, either by getting away with his crimes or forcing the government to lock him up.

But the neatest thing about the Masked Asphalt Chewer is that he could use only one of his cutting, flanged wheels and with the other wheels being tires, thus be able to sign his name in cursive. Or write whatever he wants. He could point out corruption in the mayor’s office for instance. He could become the world’s first asphalt graffiti artist.

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Novel Writing Month Winner

Posted on 26 November 2013 by Larry Russwurm

I participated in National Novel Writing Month again this year. Last year some of you may remember I won the challenge of writing over 50 000 words in the month of November. I tried not to brag too much because some of you noticed that I wrote 50 000 words of short stories so what I succeeded in doing was being a Writing Month Winner.

 

This year I tried completing a novel (my first!) and I succeeded so now I can claim the title of Novel Writing Month Winner. As proof, below is my badge.

 

 

 

 

But I live in Canada and the contest is put on by people headquartered in the United States. So for next year Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper is going to have to declare war on the United States and win. Then if I complete the contest I can truly call myself a National Novel Writing Month Winner.

 

I know that some of you are disappointed by my willingness to start a war when in sports, the National Hockey League has both American and Canadian teams as well as the National Basketball Association. Even the National Football League has one Buffalo Bills home game played in Toronto. So why can’t I make an all inclusive definition of national the way jocks have embraced it?

 

Well I’m not a jock. I’m a writer so sometimes I hang by technicalities. So next year it is really up to Stephen Harper.

 

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Who Needs a Surname?

Posted on 24 November 2013 by Larry Russwurm

Queen Elizabeth II of the British commonwealth does quite well without a surname. She has enough variety in her full name to almost never be in need of another name. Allow me to guide you.

I think the name Elizabeth has more variety than any other English name. You might even call it the “queen of names”. From it, one can derive: Eliza, Elle, Ellie, Ella, Liz, Lizzie, Liza, Abby, Beth, Bette, Betty, Betsy, Bess, Elsie and Libby. That’s 16 total different names.

Her next name is actually a number. It is II. Now everyone knows this can also be written 2. As well, Toots and Tootsie can be derived from this name for a full 4 different names.

Her next name is Alexandra and it also has a lot of derivations: Ally, Alex, Lexi, Andy, Sandra and Sandy. That’s a total of 7 different names.

Her final name is Mary which has the following derivations: May, Mamie, Maria, Marie, Marilyn, Marion,Maureen, Meg, Miriam, Molly and Polly. This is a total of 12 different names.

So the queen can be called by 16 x 4 x 7 x 12 = 5 376 different names. As the title asks, who needs a surname with that amount of latitude in your given names?

I know some of you are probably thinking I went too far afield from the original names such as in Polly for Mary. I assure you that some of the most far afield names, I got from my Websters’ New World Dictionary (1979). I could have insisted on putting Marj or Marg and all their myriad variations in, after all they only differ by one letter from Mary. I didn’t because that same dictionary told me not to.

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Are Farmers Fowl Racists?

Posted on 17 November 2013 by Larry Russwurm

All the turkeys I’ve ever seen on farms (in real life, pictures, or video) are white. All the geese I’ve ever seen on farms are white. All the ducks I’ve ever seen on a farm are white. The majority of the chickens I’ve see on farms are white, too.

How can this be? Wild turkeys in my area are brown or black. The geese in my area are Canada Geese so they are mainly black with patterns of white. The ducks are almost all Mallards and brown for the females with more brightly coloured males. Can chickens even survive in the wild? The breeds from a century ago might but since they’ve been over bred to produce white meat, their chests have gotten huge and their legs have gotten tiny.

Are the farmers favouring white fowl for some reason? If Daffy Duck came along to some farm, might he be prodded away with a pitchfork and told “We don’t tolerate black ducks in these here parts”?

With the new science of epigenetics, traits caused by genes can be turned on and off for generations if given the right trigger. Perhaps this whiteness is a common gene in fowl that is triggered by farm life. Maybe the epigenetic trigger is one of: lack of exercise, confinement, the same feed day in and day out, or a lack of sunlight.

I live in North America. Maybe farm fowl were shipped over from Europe during colonization. Isn’t everything in Europe white?

Or maybe fowl know a thing or two about humans. Perhaps they are waving the only white flag they have – themselves. “We give up,” they are saying. “We want a truce. Have the land, just don’t eat us.”

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The Gayist Post

Posted on 10 November 2013 by Larry Russwurm

Take a look at the following three words and focus on the one that doesn’t belong: Racist; Sexist; Homophobic. All three are labels to attach to someone who is prejudiced. Not only is homophobic much longer and less succinct, it is a rare instance when the bigot is afraid of his target, like the phobic part implies.

 

So I am going to suggest we start calling sexual orientation bigots (you guessed it from the title): gayists. As in “You are gayist.”

 

Now since I’m coining a new word, I’d like to say how this part of speech must be used in English. For instance I would ban the use of any indefinite articles, be they ‘a’ or ‘an’ with this word. Only the definite article ‘the’ can be used. As in, “Is he the gayist?” “Yes he is the gayist.”

 

Now some confusion might happen in ordinary usage. I might say, “John is the gayist.” But you obstinantly say “Jen is the gayist.” Now how can they both be the gayist? Quite calmly we can come to the agreement that “Both are the gayist.”

 

It is also quite correct to label gayists as part of a group. As in “He is the gayist of the jocks”, “She is the gayist of the Republicans”, or “He is the gayist pastor”.

 

Probably the most harmful gayist in the public eye are those repressed souls who spend years coming down on homosexuals. Sometime into their political career they are found (through a sex scandal) to actually be gay themselves. We reserve for these individuals the title of “Gayist of the gay.”

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The Wettening

Posted on 31 October 2013 by Larry Russwurm

Ellen Degeneres usually ends her shows with the line “Be kind to one another”. And indeed, many times her actions show that she tries to follow this advice. Very regularly she gets companies to give thousands of dollars away to deserving Ellen viewers. And with her Christmas giveaway shows she has filled the vacuum Oprah left on the major networks.

 

But Ellen has one character flaw that is definitely not being “kind to one another”. She likes to scare people and then film it so all her viewers can see.

 

I know what you are thinking. Most of her targets have with luck or talent become famous. A little fear in their lives might keep them humble. I submit that celebs are people, too. Their feelings must also be taken into account.

 

Take repeat victim Taylor Swift. I would not doubt if she is now suffering from post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. She has been scared in the bathroom and the haunted hallway, and these are just the shows that I’ve happened to catch. I wouldn’t doubt it if you said the name “Ellen” around her that Taylor has scary flashbacks.

 

And just this year, Ellen happened to notice that two of her employees were especially nervous types. Andy and Amy were ordered to go through a haunted house together. Obviously frightened, Andy repeatedly put Amy between himself and whatever scared him. Wanting more fear, Ellen ordered Andy and Amy to go through another haunted house that was purported to be even scarier. Ellen did the ordering on film, and I could just tell that Andy was thinking that now might not be a good time to get a different job. Maybe he agreed knowing that there would be footage of his ordeal that could prove the cause of his PTSD and thus lead to treatment. The pair got scared again.

 

Finally, many times Ellen has dressed monstrously and hidden in the bathroom stall of her victims. When they innocently enter, she lunges at them and makes a noise. Now, these victims have to go to the bathroom. Does the phrase, “scared $#!+less” mean nothing to her? Or how about “scared the piss right out of me”? I bet someone has had an accident already, thus my title. Is anyone surprised that Ellen sells underwear?

 

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NaNoWriMo Eve

Posted on 31 October 2013 by Larry Russwurm

Here I sit on NaNoWriMo Eve (National Novel Writing Month Eve), sometimes referred to as Hallowe’en, and I’m scared that I can’t cough up 50 000 words in 30 days in November.

Wait, a long time reader might ask, didn’t you succeed at this challenge last year? I believe there’s a December post with a winner’s badge.

Well last year I did something different than NaNoWriMo asks. Instead of doing a novel, I succeeded at writing 50 000 words of short stories and 1 novella in the 30 days. Oh this is tough all on its own. Even though I knew the basis of all the stories before I started, that first day of a new story, when you have to pull your head out of the last story and fixate on the new one to the tune of 1667 words, is really tough. Just as I’m not sure a normal NaNoWriMo winner could do this, I’m not sure I can do 50 000 words of a novel in this month of November.

Although I’ve regularly written for years, I have never finished a novel. Under any circumstances. I’ve started one thrice. Once I got 1/3 done and twice I’ve done an outline. That first outline I was afraid to start filling in because I thought this was the basis for a really great novel. I am over that initial rush of pride. If I were to write that piece there are too many huge gaps I can’t cross because the outline is really barebones and I have stories to write that I can get a better handle on. Maybe someday I’ll do it. That second outline was for a novel writing class so I finished some chapters, too (also necessary for the class). Once the class was over I ran out of steam. Partly I wanted something pristine to work with for class so I had hurriedly thought it up. The setup wasn’t my best.

From that novel writing class I am well aware of the second act slump. With my largest complete story being two different novellas, I haven’t written enough for that to ever become a problem. If I do encounter it I have no experience. But I do have tips that I don’t remember but should be in my notes. Maybe I can handle this.

The second thing I’m worried about is losing track of the biggest plot I’ve ever done. My sister (Laurel L. Russwurm, Author), told me to write an outline to avoid this problem. I haven’t as yet, but when I dreamt of this project I dreamt of many scenes that should string together with the plot. At this time it’s too late to write an outline in the 4 hours before NaNoWriMo starts. So the outline in my head will have to do. Having some feel for the length of things by the amount of writing I have done in the past, I think this first draft will just go over the 50 000 words so maybe I do have enough contained in my head.If not, I can start outlining on the fly and be even more antisocial in November. Which brings me to my third fear…

This story might not allow me to finish NaNoWriMo because it might be less than 50 000 words. If that is the case, I have promised myself I can add a subplot or two. Mixing it in seamlessly might have to wait for the edits. If that fails I can try going over my many years of sf ideas I’ve written down but never used. This might also build up more story.

So NaNoWriMo Eve, to the invested, can become the scariest night of the year. BOO!

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The Gift We Can Give Our Children

Posted on 26 October 2013 by Larry Russwurm

There is a very common theme in spiritual/self-help/improved-lifestyle paradigms. I think it can be best summed up by the following wise saying. “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.”

Gurus are trying to get us to live more in the present. And not the future or past. This is such an important piece of advice that I think we should alert our children to it. And we should also enforce it. Any time we find our children utilizing the past or future at all they should be redirected.

The first big thing that will have to be destroyed in our children’s lives will have to be school. That unethical institution actually prepares our young ones for the future.

When we take our kids out of school remember they can’t be home schooled as a remedy. That also prepares them for the future. We would just be moving the problem to a different area.

And we can’t just let our children dream willy nilly. Often times they are just dreaming about the future then, too. So don’t ask them what they want to be when they grow up. Of course they will never buy lottery tickets. Even mentioning lottery tickets can bring about that future game where they think of all they could buy with the winnings.

Entrepreneurship is out. The end goal of any such maneuvering is like winning the lottery. All those present worshiping book writers should never have made their work available on any free market. The money they make off these is all for the future. They might charm some critics with the “just making ends meet” excuse, but I clearly see it as totally ignoring their own advice.

As well, those present worshiping writers almost always draw on their experiences from the past to fill the whole book up. Don’t fall for this. Experience is every bit as bad as preparing for the future.

Our children will have to stop drawing on their own experiences, too, because that is also not living in the present. They’ll have to revert to diapers so they never draw on the learned experience of toilet training.

And words. Oh so many words that they have learned. They will all have to go unheeded and unused. Instead of words, get your little one to scat. But not with rhythm. And most definitely not in song.

And in a hundred years if all parents follow my advice to the letter, we will have all died out. And that kids, is how you truly live in the present.

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