What Has Really Happened to Germany’s New York Gold

According to this article, the island of Manhattan has the United States’ biggest gold reserves. Bigger than even Fort Knox. An intriguing twist is that much of the reserves belong to Germany. Before Germany’s currency was taken off the gold standard, half of its gold reserves were placed in the United States.

But there have been cries of conspiracy coming from Germany. For decades no German had been allowed to see their own gold reserve in Manhattan. No wonder conspiracy theorists have been crying foul for awhile.

Now I don’t know know for certain what lies in those vaults deep on the Manhattan bedrock. But I have this idea of what could await curious Germans when the site is opened up.

The full reveal will show that most of the gold ingots have been replaced with vials labelled “Homoeopathic Gold Ingots”.

Scientific measurements will reveal that every last vial contains not even a molecule of gold as an impurity in the distilled water.

There will only be one note left in explanation. In German it will say:

“Each vial held one gold ingot and some distilled water for no less than one full week. With the important essence of the gold trapped in the vial, the ingot was removed and the water was then diluted and followed by a succussion (a forceful striking of the substance against an elastic body). This was repeated many times.

“Those followers of homeopathy in Germany will realize that in essence the vials still contain gold. Consider yourselves paid in full Germany. Thanks to your Samuel Hahnemann for being the creator of Homeopathy. Without that discovery, this scheme would never have been realized.

“Being true recyclers, the gold ingots were not tossed in the garbage or ill spent. Instead, in the future we will use it to compensate those homeopathic patients whose outcomes contradict homeopathy’s promises.”

Well at least that is what I hope the thieves use the gold for. Either they use it for that or for buying half of a continent.

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Stockholm Syndrome

stockholmsyndromeCow in overalls with a pitchfork. Pig in overalls: “Be a good dog and fetch me the keys to the tractor!” Dog: “Grrrr!” Chicken: “Bark?”

Also thought about doing Stockholm Syndrome at the zoo or in school.

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Pairs Figure Skating: the Inevitable Changes

I object to the name of pairs figure skating as there is almost always a huge mismatch in heights of the male and female skaters. I’ve heard it said that at least a 6 inch difference in heights is necessary for the best performances. Almost under breath it is usually added that with greater than a foot difference in heights, the male will find it hard to lift the female without kneeling and thus ruining the performance.

But with huge pressures on performances, eventually the skating community will realize that the second point can be broken. The first way is for the much shorter female to artfully scale the male and thus put herself in position for the showpiece lifts. The second way is even easier to see. If the female is very much smaller than the male, he will be able to lift her with one hand. This avoids the awkward, only a foot mismatch in height.

So as the competition in pairs heats up, there will be non stop pressures for the male to be taller and stronger and the female to be shorter and lighter. Very soon pairs skating will be made up of some of the tallest males and some of the shortest females. Pairs skating might begin to draw the freak show fan.

Indeed, to accommodate the pressures, the human species might divide into two races like the Eloi and the Morlocks. Genes would split between the tall and the small. This might even lead to the Tall having females that could lift and skate with the Small males. There could be two categories of pairs figure skating. The normal kind and the new strong and tall female with the small light male partner.

Competition would create even bigger size differences. There might even be trio or quartet skating. That would be where a very tall male would want to skate with two or three very small females. One feature of such a competition might have the male juggling the females. Just as in a freak show juggler with knives, the danger would be in catching any of the ladies by the skate blades.

Eventually, the mismatch would be so great that while the gigantic male is skating, the palm of his hand will hold an ice cube upon with his ‘pair’ female will skate a routine. Camera crews will need one magnifying lensed camera trained on the female and a wide angle lensed camera trained on the male. Any judges would need to see both on a split screen to accurately judge.

pairskating

Finally, the huge males would be too tall for arenas anywhere. At which point they would start storming towns and cities. Like Godzillas, they will destroy buildings in search of the most plentiful food of all, normal sized mankind. The small will escape the slaughter because they will be hard to see and capable of using mice hiding holes.

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We Need a New Hockey Word

Currently the NHL Chicago Blackhawks have a record of eleven wins, no losses and 3 overtime losses. They are undefeated in regulation time. The NHL has no word for this. Yet. Perhaps this post will make a difference.

It was a few years back when the NHL got rid of the old wins, losses and ties system in hockey. The problem was in the ties. Sure when everything is on the line, the playoffs, the NHL has always had overtime decisions. And when it is important, the fans might stick around through 2 or even three overtime periods to find out what happens. Not so for the regular season.

But sports fans seem not to like the wishy washiness of a tie. Eventually the NHL settled on a system of five minute overtimes in the event of a tie. If the game was still undecided it would boil down to a shootout, like European hockey. Still it was thought to be something if a team made it to overtime with a tie. As a result a team is given one point for an overtime loss and the other team gets the win and the two points.

This results in that odd overtime loss column in the stats for hockey.

In the old win, loss, and tie regime, a team can cobble together an undefeated streak if it manages to avoid the losses and have only wins and ties. The Philadelphia Flyers of 1979-1980 managed the longest undefeated streak in the NHL at 35 games. A Philadelphia fan pointed out to me that this record was bound to last forever since the NHL changed the system. I agreed at the time.

Back then we were both wrong. It’s possible that a modern team could get very lucky and put together a win streak of 36 games. This would also count as an unbeaten streak and might one day unseat the Flyers. Still I expect this Flyers record to last a really, really long time.

But what can we call the current streak of the Chicago Blackhawks? A wins and only pointed losses streak? An unbeaten in regulation time time streak? An old rules unbeaten streak (since overtime and shootouts wouldn’t happen with the old rules)?

I would prefer a one word concise definition just like when we could use the word unbeaten to describe the streak. Maybe we can steal the idea of a mega precise compound word from the Germans? How about wonpointloss streak? Unbeatregtime streak? Oruleunbeat streak?

I prefer unbeatregtime, because you can figure out its meaning the easiest.

Whatever you call the streak, the Chicago Blackhawks are having it right now.

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This Website – Now Half Off

This has been a long time coming. You see I happened to notice a long while ago that the natural rate for the Many Rants of Larry Russwurm post was about once a week. In a week I can usually find something interesting and humourous to take on. To post at twice the frequency takes more than twice the effort. Usually I’ll brainstorm ideas or visit more news sites to come up with that second post a week.

Now there’s nothing wrong with the extra effort required to be prolific. If you have the time it’s fine. So mostly I kept it up, not wishing for the pastures to be any greener.

But the pressure to post made me post more than a couple serious posts. There’s nothing wrong with serious, it’s just that it’s not in the original vision of this site. The pressure to post also made me post a humour science fiction piece Mammaral, that later I realized would have been the perfect thing to send out to a science fiction site (that pays) that specifically was soliciting humour SF. The piece I sent in was rejected on the basis they didn’t consider it science fiction. Those two stories were all I had in the humour category of fiction.

So I’ve decided a potential payment should be given priority. The time I normally dedicate to that second post I’ve decided to use for fiction writing. Long time followers will know that I completed NaNoWriMo this year. But there was more to finish to get the first draft up to book length. I took the month of December off, and envisioned myself getting up to snuff again in January. Well it’s now halfway through February and I have finished a grand total of three pages. I need about 25 pages or more.

That second post is pure writing time. I didn’t write because I was writing. One post is usually 2/3 of a page and I think it translates to 1 fiction page because I also spend time editing before publishing my posts. With one page a week going to my fiction writing, I would have 6 more pages. Not that much but look, I would have tripled my output for the period since the new year.

I used other tricks to get me through NaNoWriMo. If my output continues to lag, I will institute more of these methods.

Don’t think that I’m going to give up on this blog. Sometimes I have ideas that I just have no other outlet for. Sometimes I want to experiment in public. Sometimes I just want to share. Bye bye Wednesday post but look for my post sometime on the weekend.

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Big Bro: The Secret Plan for UK Dominance

The very first stage in this plan is the installation of video cameras everywhere. Practically everyone has heard of the ubiquitous cameras all over London. Recently bigwigs in the London video camera complex were worried that games in Europe, where contestants made a game out of smashing the many video cameras, would spread to London. But no fear. London has so many cameras that they can ID anyone masking up to take part in such a game.

cctv

The second stage in this plan was the spread of reality TV all over the world. Now we all knew it came from Europe originally but once this full conspiracy is going it should be obvious to all that the UK was the origin of this ‘fad’ that has lasted many years.

The shortening of song intros for shows has been present for many years, now. With many theme songs lasting ten seconds will we even notice when themes are so short musicians can’t even get a royalty for the music? This makes each show more inexpensive to produce.

Last in this secret plan from the UK will be to turn the populace of the UK into a nation of editors. That really is all that is stopping all that raw UK video from becoming show after show after show. With enough editors the UK will be able to flood the markets of all the English speaking world with cheaper video. Expect them to branch into reality movies next. It is already an accepted form called the feature length documentary.

Yes, Hollywood, you should tremble before this oncoming onslaught. And here you had labelled piracy as the one big threat to your mealtime. Maybe you will find that the biggest threat you ever faced was anonymity due to a more inexpensive methodology.

I for one want to be one of the first to welcome our new cultural overlords. God save the Queen. But can I have coffee instead of tea?

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The Insulting Clock Radio

It was awhile ago when I first noticed it. My own clock radio, without any provocation at all, called me 4 eyes. The nerve of it. I mean I feed it electricity just how it likes me to and this is the thanks I get. How can it even see that I wear glasses?

I started paying attention more after that first time. And I found out, like clockwork, my radio calls me 4 eyes twice per day. I was getting very angry when I first mentioned it to a friend. I even proved my accusation by showing him the following picture. I was shocked at his reply. Even though he didn’t wear glasses, his own clock radio called him 4 eyes twice a day, too.

4 Eyes

I looked for a loophole. Perhaps this friend was just wearing contact lenses and in the gutter mentality of the school yard, perhaps the term 4 eyes applied to contact lens wearers as well. My friend assured me that he never wore contact lenses and had never worn glasses.

I was stumped. Why would clock radios call everyone 4 eyes? Then it dawned on me. The clock radios might have been introducing themselves. They were calling themselves 4 eyes.

It was then that I realized that many reincarnation believers had said that consciousnesses could only travel from living creature to living creature. Despite accusing the rest of the world of not being open minded enough to accept their beliefs, I realized that some of them hadn’t been accepting machines as houses for a consciousness. Can they afford such a stance when it is obvious we are getting closer and closer to artificial intelligences capable of passing as human?

Indeed, the humble clock radio passing itself off as a 4 eyes or one of the simplest human-machine hybrids makes a twisted kind of sense. Perhaps my clock radio contains the spirit of a now deceased person who needed spectacles in their life.

Perhaps long dead wheelchair users now use automobiles as houses for their spirits. Some people name their cars after all, so in the machine world this is a desirable location for a spirit. This could really put the ‘car’ in reincarnation.

And perhaps one day a power serving Stephen Harper could come back as a nuclear power plant. The disgusting waste from this union would have to be specially housed for decades upon decades since it would destroy any environment it came into contact with.

And as more of Stephen Harper’s environmental policies come into effect (always business before the environment), there will be fewer and fewer animal houses for the reincarnated. If we all wish to come back we must not turn our noses up at the machine world.

As for me, I hope to manage to come back as a full AI and not a clock radio. But unfortunately there are many people that are more at one with their computers and thus better candidates for AI bodies. I’m just hoping that the AIs will be mass produced leaving room for me to come back as one.

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The Green Day Countdown

Now that the U. S. has entered a new stage of their space program, where their rocket missions are either done privately or in foreign Russia, many think that other remnants of the old space program ought to be updated. That’s why here at Many Rants we think the standard countdown ought to be changed. May we suggest the countdown off Green Day’s new song, Nuclear Family from the album Uno.

Oldsters might be unfamiliar with this particular riff of the countdown so expect some surprised comments when it is done at Mission Control for the next private mission.

“Everything looks good on the launchpad. We’re all expecting a successful launch.”

“10” “Wait is that the countdown already?”

“9” “But it started at T minus 23 seconds.”

“8” “Oh I get it the spaces are just different.”

“7” Someone at Mission control starts a Tre Cool drum beat.

“6” The lonely beat is augmented by a couple more console tappers.

“5” Head banging to the air begins at a couple more consoles.

“4” Not to be outdone others at mission control begin fist pumping.

“3” Even the unsuspecting reporter is into it now.

“5” “But that’s-”
“4” “-crazy.”
“3” “It’s double-”
“2” “-speed.”
“1” The reporter’s head implodes and then, right on cue the rocket starts lifting as the opening strains of Stay the Night, the next track off Uno, begin playing.

Now granted, the reporter’s head is only going to implode the first time this is done. I have to say, that particular recording would really be worth watching.

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The Laziness Maker

If only I could have thought about this as a kid – I might have avoided work my entire life. You might ask ‘What’s the trick to being acceptably lazy?’ If you’re on board I’ll tell you the secret. It’s growing your fingernails out.

We’ve all seen those pictures in the Guinness Book of World Records or perhaps in some Ripley’s Believe it or Not show. Pictures of those strange easterners with their five foot long fingernails from each finger curling around. It is only common sense that any person so devoted to growing fingernails must not have done a lick of work for the twenty years those things have been growing.

It’s the perfect excuse. You have chores to do, perhaps cleaning the family home while a youth. Mom, you say, I can’t do that because I’m growing my fingernails. I have to. It’s my identity. You’ll be so proud of me when Guinness or Ripley’s calls and makes me world famous.

Of course your little sister will resent you when all the chores fall onto her shoulders. But not to worry. She will eventually figure out that she must marry you off so your new spouse can pick up all the chores that you’ve managed to shirk.

Don’t be surprised if your new spouse refuses to do the chores because you refuse to have sex – you’ll have become a slave to keeping your fingernails long.

Still you’ll manage to go from place to place always staying lazy and keeping your fingernails long. Eventually when you are getting closer to death you’ll even pick a casket that is very spacious in the middle to accommodate your nails.

Then, before death you will have heard of some fantastic youth that is so lazy he doesn’t even walk. That’s right, he’s chosen to grow out his toenails as well as his finger nails. Loved ones let him maintain his identity by enabling his bed lying.

Then you’ll think, and here I’ve wasted my life, walking everywhere like a fool. And I say just be happy you’ve gotten out of cleaning houses.

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Johnny Fish Spawn

It should be patently obvious to all that fish first came from the sea. From there, some evolved into liking fresh water and thus migrated upstream into rivers and tributaries and freshwater lakes. But what happens when these fish reach a wall? Like for instance the 110 foot behemoth that is the cliff of Niagara Falls.

It is my contention that Lake Ontario and the lower Niagara River naturally have fish. The upper Niagara and the other Great Lakes must have somehow been seeded with fish.

Maybe Johnny Fish Spawn was an early European explorer of North America. Maybe he was a North American aboriginal. Maybe her name and deeds are lost in the mists of time. But surely such a person had to exist.

Perhaps geological forces changed things enough that fish made it to the upper reaches of other river and lake systems. But the Great Lakes are only 10 000 years old, dug out in the last ice age by glaciation. The road block that is the Niagara escarpment might have been in place for the entire time of the Great Lakes. Johnny Fish Spawn might have been necessary.

Did Johnny Fish Spawn transport pairs of certain types of fish? Or did he just transport the fertilized eggs? We might never know.

Judging by the variety of wildlife in the upper lakes, there might have been many, many Johnny Fish Spawns. Perhaps one species at a time was introduced. Some of the Johnny Fish Spawns might have even transferred odd wildlife, like crayfish to the upper lakes.

Regardless, all of the upper Great Lakes owe Johnny Fish Spawn recognition. This post is an effort toward that goal. Johnny Fish Spawn, whoever you were, we are indebted to you.

And then again maybe all the Johnny Fish Spawns were just sloppy caviar lovers. I hear that dry, crisp white wines go best with caviar. Lots of white wine might have made you sloppy, Johnny Fish Spawn.

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