Blood Red Toothpaste

Posted on 29 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

With current levels of vampire mania, I think it’s only a matter of time before some company capitalizes on it all and comes out with a blood red toothpaste. First-on-the-block-Johnny when he gets home from the store will immediately brush his teeth halfway (with it dripping down the corners of his mouth) and then go to the parent who didn’t buy it and say “I bit off bro/sis/friend’s ear and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Of course the bottom will fall out of the fake blood market. And thus absolutely everybody will be doing the fake blood thing. You won’t know if it’s day one of the zombie apocalypse or Saturday.

But the stink of mint will become a buzz kill for the true believers. Eventually there will be more call for blood flavoured, blood smelling, blood coloured toothpaste.

And what had started out as mild amusement for true vampires (where they just nodded and said “easier prey”), will become something of incredible value. With the true look, smell, taste and feel vampires for the very first time can see what its like to not feed.

With their guard down, some vampires can actually afford to fall for their would be victims. True love would come about as prophesied by some of the vampire stories. True love, from killer to prey.

Then to be considered anything of a sex symbol, women would have to show up with their emaciated lovers (they would be wasting away from improper nutrition). Normal males would find they could have any lover at all that they wanted as long as they were willing to become anorexic.

Perhaps the populace would become trimmer and we’d hear less about obesity in the modern era. More likely the range would be from the deathly obese to the deathly thin.

Would all the good vampires eventually waste away so much that they die out? Maybe. So all the remaining vampires would be pure evil. In fact, we may find that this was the plan all along. The truly evil vampires had started the blood red toothpaste for exactly this reason. It was only a natural reaction to the ‘sissifying’ of their reputation that the modern era’s vampire stories had brought about.

Posted in Humour, Stage and Screen | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Green Card Riots

Posted on 25 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Many of the readers of this column are not Canadian so they probably never heard of the Green Card Riots back in ‘Ought 8. Well let this article be sort of an overview of this deep subject matter.

Green cards are of course that valuable creation that Americans give out to their most valuable friends and collaborators. One green card allows a visitor to work in the United States of America doing a variety of jobs in that country for good old American Greenbacks.

Canadians, being so close, realize the importance of such an offering. After all, we too, realize that employment in the US is of course a zero sum game. That is for a Canadian to be employed in the US an American has to be unemployed. This dark side of the green card has been known to raise its ugly head especially around economic downturns.

Thus in ‘Ought 8, the huge financial downturn in the States meant that not only were projects not given over to the lowest bidder but instead to the most American of the bidders. Of course sights were next set on green cards. Thousands of green cards were slashed and made void, many of them to Canadians.

Now I don’t have to tell you what a blow this is to the Canadian psyche. Imagine losing all hope of spending a much warmer winter in balmy Buffalo or warm Minneapolis. Riots began in some of our largest cities, like Yellowknife, Pickle Lake and Waterloo.

In an effort to stem the violence it was suggested that the remaining green cards could get doled out via a fair lottery. The highest echelons of American power got wind of this plan. They not only rejected it but took back all those green cards which were going to be vied for in the lottery.

The riots spread to Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. There were calls to invade the States. But eventually the protests quieted down. And it became clear what was really happening. Canada wasn’t hit as badly as the US and the brain drain reversed. Even Conrad Black, Lord of all the pretentious things Canada isn’t, came back.

With all these ‘prize economists’ that returned, Canada now has to begin watching ten times as hard for securities and packaged investment products to be on the up and up. Sorry USA. We hadn’t realized the threat you were under all along from these so called ‘brains’. Maybe they’ll come up with a way that jobs aren’t a zero sum game. But I doubt that. I hear economists enjoy it most when they put fear into the heart of the populace.

Posted in Humour, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Cal I. Fornia

Posted on 21 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

For the ten millionth time I ‘ve seen an ad for Flo Rida’s latest album. The Flo Rida where the capital F is the state of Florida with two bars attached to finish the F. Normally I would try my best to ignore such a commercial but this time I wondered what other people in other states were going to do to wrap themselves in patriotic regionalism to get a recording contract.

The first state I thought about trying to be similar was California. Similarly, my division, Cal I. Fornia, almost makes sense, has the first syllable of a name and almost sounds sexual. Best of all the state of California lends itself well into making a capital C with the addition of two bars.

As a Canadian and thus always thinking about getting a green card (that card that allows non US nationals to work in the States) I realized my idea might not get me an actual green card but who in the US would throw me out when I wrapped myself so strongly in the American flag, even if it was just a regional flag?

So I’m gonna call myself rapper/singer/songwriter Cal I. Fornia and head south. I can show them my novelty song on Youtube: Time for an Old Fashioned Folk Off.

Here’s how I think it will go down. I will steal jobs willy nilly from promising American acts. “But look how patriotic this guy’s name is!” will be brought up every time there is a question about my American origins. So I will go unencumbered from state to state till finally I end up in the great state of California.

Others in California will be just as patriotic about that state and will want to check out how much competition I offer. Immigration officials will come but won’t kick me out of the states right away. Instead they’ll take their time hemming and hawing.

Until an immigration security officer comes around who has a bone to pick with me because I got a gig that his brother wanted. He will come up to me and say “Baja!”

“Aha?” I will ask. “What do you got.”

“I do have something, but I said Baja. As in California.” From there he will proceed to make a Baja California, Cal I. Fornia logo as pictured below. “You’re just another queue jumping Mexican. I need to see your papers.” The anti patriotic logo will of course be my undoing.

They will mistakenly deport me to crime riddled northern Mexico. Hopefully I will have made enough money to fly back to Canada.

Posted in Geography, Humour, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Roman End of Years

Posted on 17 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Perhaps we’ll get really lucky and survive past Dec. 21 of this year by the skin of our teeth. This will be in defiance of the Mayan doom but remember we still have other cultures of the world to contend with. Perhaps every single one has an end of days time that could be hard on our civilization.

I know for sure there is an end of years event with the Romans. You may question what this is so allow me to explain.

The Roman numbering system, Roman Numerals, can only go up to the number 3999. So the Romans can only count years up to year 3999. Not our year 3999, but the Roman year 3999. You see, the Romans marked their years from the founding of Rome in 753 BC. So 3999 – 753 (you’ve got to account for the fact there is no zero year between BC and AD) gives a value of 3246 as the year in AD terms when things fall apart.

But wait, there is one more accounting entry to be made. You see, Romans went by the Julian calendar, not the more accurate Gregorian calendar we now use. So typing December 31, 3246 into the Julian calendar entry in a Julian to Gregorian calendar converter, you get the date of January 22, 3247 AD as the last day of that calendar system.

So the Roman end of years is midnight on January 22, 3247 AD. What kind of apocalypse this will lead to we don’t quite know. But be very afraid.

Then similarly the western world’s end of movies will occur on December 31, 3999 AD because of course we won’t be able to decide on a pretentious enough replacement for Roman Numerals to date each movie.

I know some of you are saying aren’t there higher numbers possible with Roman Numerals like putting a line over an M to denote 1 000 times M, or a million. This and other schemes were developed in the middle ages after Rome itself fell. The Romans knew nothing of this which is why their end of years is still valid.

I think a more Roman way to add breadth to its numbering system would be to replace 5 000 with a letter, then 10 000 with another letter, then 50 000 with a third letter and so on. This might delay the End of Years in a marked way. But the Roman alphabet has only 26 letters so this only is a way to delay the apocalypse. The last year possible is 8 trillion 999billion 999million 999thousand 999. I won’t do the Gregorian calendar refinements or the since-the-founding-of-Rome refinements. But the world will end in an incredibly long time in the future even in a severely changed Roman counting system.

It’s just inevitable. So let’s all become preppers and survivalists, now. Maybe a shred of humanity will last.

Posted in History, Humour, Mathematics, Pseudo Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Golden Battle

Posted on 14 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

There’s been a long simmering battle in the Toronto and south central Ontario area. Two very urbanized areas have laid claim to Golden titles. The Golden titles refer to built up urban areas, which on maps are commonly represented by yellow. The Golden Horseshoe stretches along the shores of western Lake Ontario and includes Toronto, Hamilton and into the Niagara Region (which includes St. Catharines and Niagara Falls). The Golden Triangle Includes the three points of Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener.

Toronto and Hamilton are included because they are the first and third biggest cities in the province. That’s why they are in both. Metro Kitchener and the Niagara Region are smaller and about the same size as each other.

You might think that Kitchener folk say Golden Triangle and Niagara Region people say Golden Horseshoe. And you’re largely correct. But what do the inhabitants of Toronto and Hamilton say? Well for years, official Ontario maps showed blow ups of the Golden Horseshoe not the Golden Triangle.

The Golden Horseshoe stake was here first, so I suspect it has made more inroads with Torontonians and Hamiltonians.

And indeed, the Golden Triangle concept was developed to explain Ontario’s former status as a manufacturing engine, not as the most built up area of Ontario. It used to be said that 50% of all manufacturing in Canada was done in the Golden Triangle.

I hail from Metro Kitchener so I should take the Golden Triangle tack. But I don’t. You see triangles are everywhere, all you need is three points. Horseshoes are more unique and a Golden Horseshoe sets a part of Ontario apart from the rest of the world.

Still, we’re gunning for you, Golden Horseshoe. You see, Metro Kitchener is growing faster than the Niagara Region and has been for many years. So by dint of sheer numbers, the Golden Triangle might rise.

As for the uniqueness thing, that could change. Toronto has already shown it likes to expand into Lake Ontario. And with ever increasing housing costs, expanding into the lake becomes cost effective. So sometime in the future there will no longer be a western end of Lake Ontario and Toronto will border St. Catharines directly. What would the horseshoe be then? The Golden Blob?

No, I say the Golden Triangle will then have Kitchener, Toronto and Niagara Falls as it’s three points. Hamilton will fit inside this construction. And the Great Lake of Ontario will no longer be so mighty.

Posted in Geography, Humour | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Enunciator of the Year Award

Posted on 11 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

I would like to make claim to an enunciator of the year award. Since I know of none that have existed before, I hereby give the award to Ivan Doroschuck and Men Without Hats.

For those who don’t know, Men Without Hats were a popular new wave band of the eighties. Their biggest hit was Safety Dance. What I most liked about them are the two albums that followed. Pop Goes the World and The Adventures of Women and Men Without Hate in the 21st Century were both solid albums. Before Men Without Hats, I wasn’t sure that a new wave band could put out a solid album. This is, to me, what sets them above other eighties acts.

Well after a long hiatus they have another solid album out: Love in the Age of War. It’s been out for a couple months but I just found out about it last week. The album has one property that simply shocks me – I can understand every single word in at least half of the songs on the album.

To the last one, every single song put out by the labels that I’ve tried to figure out has usually no less then 2 sketchy lines that try as I might I have to guess at. This wouldn’t be so bad if lyric sheets were included with each album. But the labels try to save money in ways the public is not pleased with.

Thus I was crestfallen when Love in the Age of War came with no lyrics. Certain lines in all the songs might be a mystery to me forever, especially since the online lyric sites consider the album to be too small to have lyrics up yet.

Then imagine my surprise a few days later to realize I could distinguish all the lyrics in not one or two songs but at least 5 of them on the album.

I’ve long bought into the conspiracy theory that the labels deliberately get their acts to slur their words. Or make such a wall of sound that it hides some lyrics. Yeah they want more cowbell on Don’t Fear the Reaper – you can almost understand what the singer is saying.

The problem with this particular conspiracy theory is that motivation seems to be lacking. Maybe in a quest for lyrics, some super fan will buy the sheet music, just to make sense out of their favourite singer. The only other way the labels would make more money (the only one I can think of) is, since they are multinationals, issuing the lyrics with the album in another country might increase sales from imports. I actually heard of someone importing Nirvana’s Nevermind for its lyric sheet.

So in my lifetime of being a music consumer, over 30 years, I think the big labels earned a whopping $2 more from everyone I know by keeping the lyrics mysterious.

Has Men Without Hats bucked the trend completely? No. The Girl With the Silicon Eyes has a couple stanzas that I think are in French. And again, Your Beautiful Heart has a line that I think is French.

Still, I have a chance of learning the lyrics to 8 of 10 of the songs with lyrics on the album. At a week ago, that’s figuring out far more songs than I ever had before on any album.

Or maybe this inability to figure out lyrics has to do with music being international. After all, Men Without Hats are based just 300 miles away in Montreal, in the same country I live in. Perhaps I just understand the accent.

Posted in Humour, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The 33 Year Old Exes

Posted on 7 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Tom Cruise’s three marriages ended when his exes were 33 years old. It happened with Mimi Rogers. It happened with Nicole Kidman. It happened with Katie Holmes.

At first glance, Tom Cruise is the one common denominator in all three marriages. One could speculate that as each female approaches 33 he might become more snippy, more argumentative, more annoying and simply drives each woman away at that age. Maybe he made a pact with himself to never be seen to be married to a 34 year old.

But there is another common denominator. All three wives were in the church of Scientology along with Cruise.

Scientologists are known for extreme secrecy around their religion. Some purport it is like an adventure game where you are allowed more as the game progresses. In Scientology the ‘level ups’ are more information.

Scientology was developed by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Science fiction writers and fantasy writers are usually considered to be so close it’s incestuous. Of course L. Ron must have known the famous works of Tolkien. Specifically he must have known about hobbits and that their coming of age happens at age 33.

Maybe some ‘level up’ information is given to only 33 year old women. Maybe it contains core principles of Scientology. Or maybe it just lets the women in on the secret that Scientology is just so much hogwash. But after giving the 33 year old women this information it compels them to secrecy.

Of course, getting zealot Tom Cruise to give up on Scientology, at any age is just Tom foolery. So instead these women are left with only the choice to divorce him.

This Scientology cause seems better than the alternative. That being Tom Cruise is making a hobbit out of discarding thirty-three year old women.

Posted in Humour, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mobile Naked Scanners

Posted on 4 July 2012 by Larry Russwurm

You’ve probably already heard of the mobile naked scanners, that can see you naked on the street the same way the controversial airport scanners can see you naked.

But, thankfully, much thought will be put into each scanner’s crew. Different specialties will be put into different scanners depending on need. We expect things to play out in the following way:

Men’s crew with a token lesbian just in case a real pat down is necessary. Expect to find this crew at all feminist and women power events. That is of course this crew’s specialty. Since of course they are the truest of feminists and believe in empowering women so much.

Women’s crew with a token gay just in case a real pat down is necessary. Expect to find this crew at sporting events and hard rock concerts. Eventually this crew will weed out the chaff so the hard rock concerts will feature young acts (with young fans) and beer swilling sports fans with pot bellies will of course be assumed innocent enabling the crew to focus on the true agitators.

The youth oriented crews will first try to target schools. When finally it has been explained to them (multiple times!) that teachers are required to have background checks and other adults are required to sign in and are watched, they will move on. These crews will move on to BMX rallies and concerts by such artists as the Wanted, One Direction and Justin Bieber. It might even be found out that a fraction of these crews go on to offences against underage children. That will of course be an unfortunate coincidence.

After some years of these scanners, it will be found that those people considered to be traditionally very attractive, will have a higher incidence of cancer. This, too, will be just an unfortunate coincidence.

So insist your government buys plenty of these x-ray machines. Who knows, maybe the love of your life just needs to have a government job and needs to see you naked first before asking you out. Don’t worry, the sight of all those other naked people won’t have a detrimental effect on your relationship.

As for all you teenage boys wishing to sign up for one of the jobs: at times you will be forced to examine middle age men (and older) with pot bellies and comb overs, just because a tip came in that they have a bomb strapped to their genitals. Yes indeed, mobile scanners will scar everyone.

Posted in Humour, Politics, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ben Johnson for the Order of Canada

Posted on 30 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

Let’s look at the good Ben Johnson did. He handled reporters well as an up and coming track star in the eighties.

The steroids he took were not a magic bullet. He still had to train strongly to attain his muscle mass and his explosiveness and speed. Rumours have it that he wasn’t the only track star using steroids in 1988. He was just the one who had his gold medal in the 100 meters taken away.

And he had success before the Seoul Olympics. Perhaps he wasn’t a cheater back then.

I remember how proud Ben made Canadians in the mid eighties. The fastest man in the world lived here. What a turnaround from the Montreal Olympics in ’76 when Canada achieved no gold medals at all.

Some would ban Ben for all time from getting the Order of Canada. Representing some of the highest achievements in all of Canada, the Order of Canada is a privilege to the recipient. Ordinarily I’d agree with Ben being banned. But another famous Canadian cheater, Ralph Klein just got one.

If you don’t know, Ralph Klein was the premier of Alberta when he took a university course. For the purposes of the rest of this article I’ll ignore that the top person in the province was even allowed to take an education course and have it count, when education is a provincial responsibility. Anyway, an essay of Klein’s leaked and it was found to a great degree of certainty that large parts of it were plagiarized from other works.

I know people feel sorry for Ralph Klein, now, as he has developed dementia and has other health concerns. But giving out Orders of Canada out of sympathy seems like a bad precedent. Surely others have had bigger sob stories than being premier of a province.

Does this mean that if Ben Johnson has a protracted illness before death, that he, too, will be given an Order of Canada? I think that is only fair. This puts our famous cheaters on par with one another.

And a small cautionary tale for the kiddies. Notice how Ralph Klein avoided some thinking in his course? They say that to avoid dementia later in life, it helps to exercise the brain regularly. Apparently Ralph Klein didn’t do this and ended up with dementia. Now, cheating in education doesn’t guarantee dementia. But if you wish to minimize your risk you should avoid it.

UPDATE: An anonymous source told me that Ben Johnson does have an Order of Canada and that it has never been taken away. So that mostly eradicates the points I tried to make. My major point was that a major cheater like Ralph Klein (and now Ben Johnson) should not have an Order of Canada. Four other Orders of Canada have been taken away. Maybe we can add these two to that list.

Posted in Politics, Sports, Wee Bit O' Humour | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Suspension of Disbelief Important for Cats and Kids

Posted on 27 June 2012 by Larry Russwurm

I usually play with my cat twice per day with a string. I get frustrated that she ignores the string for a long time, sometimes. I guess she is practising her looking like part of the background skills. Or is waiting for the perfect time to stalk the string.

Getting bored by this I will start making the string go very close to her in a repeating circle. This sometimes still isn’t enough for a reaction so I make the string go so close to her that it hits her in the face. Usually this stimulates a gut reaction in the cat making her swat the string. But sometimes there still is no reaction.

I’m certain she doesn’t react because she cannot suspend her disbelief enough to get into the game. When is the last time in nature you’ve seen a mouse come up to a cat, ten times in a row, and slapped that cat in the face? It just never happens.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that my cat may very well want to play, it’s just that she is too discerning to accept the premises I am offering.

Kids are very likely to play cops and robbers a few times in their youth. Usually this is tried amongst a large group of kids.

There is always one kid in the group who thinks his every shot results in a death. And when others get good shots at him, he never dies. If he is more slick of a player they are just flesh wounds. But more often he says they missed completely.

Kids know that Rambos never happen in real life. When you are shot at 30 times, you are almost certainly dead. When you shoot at 30 moving targets in quick secession you are bound to miss a few shots.

That kid who never dies and always kills, fails to get the other kids to suspend their disbelief. As a result the game ends in arguments and everyone quits and little fun was had all around.

As I’ve gotten older, I find it harder to get sucked in to new fiction. I think it’s because I find it harder to suspend my disbelief. As I’ve gotten to know more and more science or facts, I find many authors haven’t kept up and they will trip up and not let me suspend disbelief.

Myself and others aren’t being anal when we say ‘get your facts right’ to the authors. It’s a simple matter of them not getting the facts we know correct enough for us to suspend disbelief. This makes us not want to play with those authors ever again. Suspension of disbelief is always key in fiction. Something even cats and kids know.g

Posted in Pets, Wee Bit O' Humour, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment