I Think I’ve Been Experimented On

Posted on 2 November 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The new Coldplay album, Mylo Xyloto is out. I’ve been waiting since June because I wrote this post mentioning Coldplay and some thing, perhaps human, perhaps a bot, alerted me that Every Teardrop is a Waterfall was out. I checked it out, found the song on YouTube, and read the comments. The comments led me to more songs. I liked them all quite a bit so it’s been a long wait for the album which came out just last week.

It is indeed a 45 minute album and thus a throwback to the eighties when it was easier to write solid albums, not the 60 minute monstrosities that became commonplace in the late eighties to mid noughties. I’ve been watching and listening to these Coldplay songs on YouTube for months. Indeed the album is filled with them. But two that I found did not find a place on the album.

Moving to Mars was on the Every Teardrop is a Waterfall EP but is not on the album. Another song, Don Quixote, said it was a new song but also was not on the album. I don’t mind. I only listened to either song a couple times. It was obvious which songs I liked. I played them numerous times.

Mylo Xyloto is filled with the songs I listened to numerous times plus a couple, Don’t Let it Break Your Heart and Up With the Birds which I had never heard before. I believe that Coldplay and the music company were deliberately experimenting on me and the others doing the same thing. The numbers probably let them know Moving to Mars and Don Quixote were weak and thus the substitution of these songs on the album with new ones.

I kind of like my vote being counted, still it’s kind of creepy when you realize what happened.

I’d like to compare this album with an eighties one, So by Peter Gabriel. It is also a solid 40 minute album. In retrospect I find the promotion of it to have been one dimensional. The songs I know as singles, Sledgehammer and Big Time and Don’t Give Up(with Kate Bush) were rather one sided. These songs were kind of the same and releasing them as singles gives no inkling that the great Red Rain and In Your Eyes were on that same album.

Indeed, I went for years not knowing Red Rain was from this album and didn’t hear In Your Eyes till modern reality TV singing shows. So, record company and Peter Gabriel, I did buy the album but years later. So I got it used and you missed a payment from me. The album is a pillar of my CD collection.

Similarly Coldplay released Every Teardrop is a Water Fall, Paradise and I bet next they will release Princess of China (featuring Rihanna). Generally, these are the keyboard based songs. They’ve ignored the great Charlie Brown, Hurts Like Heaven and Us Against the World – more guitar based tunes. If you don’t show the variety, fewer people might purchase the album.

Still, I think it’s a better album than So. Which is why I couldn’t wait to buy the CD.

And on the back of the CD are 14 symbols which obviously represent the 14 songs. Someone else might understand the symbols for Hurts Like Heaven, Us Against the World, and M.M.I.X. I think the last symbol should be 2009, but it isn’t. If anyone knows how these symbols apply to these songs please let me know.

In the negative column, the CD doesn’t come with lyrics. Perhaps the bots will try to keep tabs on us by watching the statistics at lyrics sites. Again, creepy.

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The Fantastic Three

Posted on 27 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The Comics Code of ’61 was for some strange reason adamant that the Fantastic Four needed “unstable molecule” clothing. (Clothing that takes on the traits of the wearer.)

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Elastigirl – Va Va Voom

Posted on 25 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Elastigirl of The Incredibles is my pick for the hottest female fictional or otherwise.

If you are thinking “Why her? Aren’t real women hotter?” I would once have agreed with you. I saw The Incredibles years ago and didn’t realize till just recently why Elastigirl is so hot.

Her depiction in the Incredibles is probably the image that her husband wants. But she’s elastic and according to the official sites about her she can become as thin as 1 mm or stretch to 100 ft. (I’m aware of the incongruence in units).

If she can take any form according to those given conditions, she can also take the form of any woman living or dead.

I hadn’t realized the full consequences until the other day when I began taking the notion of shape shifters more seriously. Indeed I realized her potential after finding out that the shape shifter in Terminator 3 made her breasts larger in order to seduce a police officer. Now I still haven’t seen that movie so thank you Internet.

Any breasts. Any body. Any face. Imagine being the lover of Elastigirl. “I’ve got a hankering for Scarlett Johansson tonight,” you could say and if Elastigirl was in a good mood you might get her to appear exactly like Scarlett Johansson. Or Jessica Alba. Or Megan Fox. Etc.

“You’re every woman in the world to me,” goes the Air Supply song. If Elastigirl were your lover she could easily be that.

Here was recent negative Barbie propaganda from O Magazine. Check the link and the real model with a Barbie’s outline inked on top. Barbie may have an impossible physique and face structure, but it’s not impossible for Elastigirl to copy the form.

Elastigirl could take other “impossible” forms. She could do her Jessica Rabbit. Maybe a Miss Piggy. Leela the cyclops could be done. C’mell the girly girl cat/human. Or a simple four breasted alien female. You get the idea, use your imagination.

There are a couple disadvantages. Firstly I bet Elastigirl’s total substance would probably stay constant. So if you like tall, heavier women you can’t also have your Elastigirl be skinny and short. But I am willing to forgive this disadvantage.

The other disadvantage? Your Elastigirl wouldn’t have the colouring of every woman in the world. Favourite colourings could be negotiated. Maybe one constant colouring would do or on a monthly basis colourings could be changed.

Pregnancy could be easy if it comes to it. Elastigirl could hide it or her lover might like her lumpy. And for someone who can stretch or deform any part of her body, she should have it easy when in labour.

Really there is only one problem with all this. Elastigirl might want someone who could somehow be every man in the world to her. Like Plastic Man, Elongated Man or Mr. Fantastic. Someone who could have any face or body or look like different fictional men. So even if shape shifters could be real, you and myself might have no chance with one. Ah well, it can remain a crush.

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Honest Jobs for John Edward

Posted on 22 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

You may remember my nasty post over half a year ago regarding John Edward. He is of course the crummy psychic of Crossing Over fame. I thought of him because again he was on daytime TV. This time it was the bad judgment of the Anderson Cooper show that gave this trashy psychic the spotlight.

Yes, again, I want to say that we don’t have to watch Anderson’s talk show if he keeps having such junk programming. His credibility falls as a journalist – just as Dr. Oz’s credibility fell for me as a doctor for having Edward on.

John Edward’s cold readings really are cold of him. He takes a vulnerable group, the grieving, and to my eyes preys upon them.

But instead of focusing on just the negative today, I’d like to offer something positive. John Edward is a reasonably bright and talented man. Perhaps he can use his powers for lesser evils.

His power of pulling the wool over other people’s eyes ought to stand him in good stead as a publicist. And as a publicist he’d be dealing with other famous people as he already has a penchant for doing like with Dr. Oz and Anderson Cooper. If his clients were famous and getting married he could also use his powers of saying something vague that neither confirms or denies any direct questions.

Being vague is also a great skill of successful politicians. Combined with the ability to pull the wool over people’s eyes he would be just peachy in the political world. Some would say cold readings for the grieving are a lesser evil than politicking. But politicking looks more honourable. So much so that politicians in my country (Canada), demand the title of honourable when they are elected to parliament.

Finally, many a lyricist has made a fortune off of songs that appeal to many people. John Edward can be so vague sometimes that he could be speaking to these many people. And if he chose to perform this music himself, he has had experience in dealing with crowds. At his age I doubt he’d appeal to the crowd surfing, mosh pit crowd but Leonard Cohen and William Shatner have had some success with straight spoken word music.

So there you go John Edward. You could make an honourable change to your career. Promise you’ll do it and I’ll promise I won’t make a voodoo doll of you. For you see,voodoo sounds realistic compared to the things you want an audience to believe.

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Poor Millionaires and a Possible Penance for Cherry

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It’s becoming more and more well documented that concussions are serious. Largely news of this reaches us from the sport of football and studies done on exNFLers. Which makes sense – the most likely sport for getting a concussion is football. And many footballers receive multiple concussions.

You can take this link to a more in depth article about those footballers, but largely it says that long term consequences of concussions can be very serious. First of all there is dementia, many footballers have serious dementia for the last 10, 20, 30 years of their lives. 3 or more concussions give a much larger chance for the footballer to experience depression than the regular public. If you play too soon after a first concussion, a player can die of 2nd impact syndrome. Between 1980 and 1993, 17 deaths were attributed to this.

Those are the most serious consequences. Also don’t forget that after a first concussion, it is much easier to get more concussions. As well, concussions lead to headaches and memory loss to further exacerbate things in the long run.

Professional sports have been slow to react to the long term effects of concussion. I write this in a bid to speed things along.

I’m not sure where football is going to go with all this, I pay more attention to hockey. There are now groups trying to eliminate head shots. And it would be hypocritical to allow fighting to proceed when this mainly is about blows to the head of opponents.

The information is so compelling that I now feel sympathy to millionaire hockey players. Previously I didn’t care to such a degree that I had cheered checks to Eric Lindros that ended with him having a concussion. Maybe this was rebellion in the nineties to all the press that he was “the Next One” i.e. The next Lemieux or Gretzky. Lindros had multiple concussions so he is at high risk for lifetime problems. I now feel for him and wish him well even though he still has many millions.

And “the Next Next One”, Sydney Crosby, has been out with a concussion for months and months. Just when it seemed he was starting to turn on the jets and really becoming as good as Gretzky and Lemieux (see his goal to win gold at the 2010 Olympics).

It’s become obvious that the big fast guys in the NHL are marking the Next Ones. They know that if they can hit them just right a glorious career can fizzle to mediocrity. I now fear a world without any Next Ones. Sure I liked Lemieux and Gretzky but I don’t want all their records to last in perpetuity. So some parts of the NHL are lobbying for no head hits and no fighting.

For little fighting we can thank the Europeans all these years for thinking ahead and making that a part of their game for decades. Indeed, I think Europe managed to curate a better hockey experience for decades, now. It’s time Canada took the lead in hockey again, got Don Cherry to do the penance of praising European leadership for the last long while and take it further. Canadians should make it so there are absolutely no head shots and no fights. If Don Cherry refuses to do an about face and take the lead on this, I say he needs to lose any soapboxes he has now.

Hockey, at least, can largely be played concussion free. I wonder if that’s even possible in football.

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Puke Gets Cartoond

Posted on 16 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Once there was a really cool cat who was the god of hockey. Now, like every cat, this cool cat had a fur ball and one day hacked it up in the country of Canada. .

This furball, or puke, had a very ruddy complexion (probably because it was always angry) so the cool cat named it Cherry.

Cherry was one of the most prejudiced pukes around. He got away with it, though, because his target was Eastern Europeans and most Eastern Europeans look like most Canadians.

Because of his association with the god of hockey, Cherry got jobs in the business of hockey. Soon he began going by the title of Don because , like mafia dons, he had a lot of power he didn’t deserve.

He dressed flamboyantly in the oddest of suits to make sure we respected his power.

To this day, Don Cherry is in the high levels of hockey leadership. Perhaps one day Canadians will see that he is truly biased and demand of this puke the same level of civility they demand of their politicians.

Someday soon, maybe 3 enforcers will be waiting for him.

And maybe, once retired, we will finally realize that fake vomit in one of those flamboyant suits, has just as much to give as Don Cherry.

For some context, check here.

UPDATE: I of course didn’t see the apology last Saturday night on Coach’s Corner to the three enforcers. Here is the news about it I found  Remember you can direct your displeasure at Cherry and Coach’s Corner to: ombudsman@cbc.ca . I’m preparing what might be a totally serious post on why this has come to a head now and the possible end to fighting in the NHL.

 

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Are You Taking a ConCERN Position on the Large Hadron Collider

Posted on 14 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider or LHC has drawn so much interest that some of it is negative. There are fears that we’re dealing with forces of nature we don’t know how to control or how they fully work.

Look, that’s always been true when science pieces together something new. There were also rumours that playing with chain reactions with fission might start an uncontrollable reaction that would use the whole earth as fuel.

An Indian girl was so concerned about the LHC starting up a couple years ago, that she reportedly committed suicide.

I don’t want any repeats of that suicide, now that we are creeping up on 2012 and the so called end of days the Mayan calendar is supposed to represent.

Firstly I don’t believe the Mayan calendar predicts a doomsday scenario. That calendar simply stops in 2012. It was made such a long time ago, the Mayans figured that somebody would extend the calendar or a new calendar system would be in place, this far into the future.

Secondly, every so often there seems to be a doomsday prediction that turns out to be nothing. Remember Y2K? Or the Jupiter Effect? Doomsday predictions are far more common than actual doomsdays.

So, I hope the end of days of the Mayan calendar in 2012, combined with CERN’s LHC working does not convince other young souls the end is so near that suicide is viable. I don’t want any more suicides.

So here is CERN’s own site to hopefully calm you about the supposed doomsday. They say that reactions in the LHC have occurred in nature before and yet, say, the moon hasn’t been eaten by an originally microscopic black hole. They also say that every theory scientists have constructed that don’t have a good outcome have all been disproved. Theory is on the LHC’s side.

That the Higg’s particle has been called the “god” particle doesn’t mean that any god or gods have been angered. And theory seems overwhelming that any microscopic black hole will evaporate away and never grow into something large.

There is little to fear next year. I just wish the young would take a chance and live through a doomsday prediction, just to see how ridiculous such beasts usually are.

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Contrary Ontario

Posted on 8 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Greetings from Contrario, the multiple personality province that votes a different way federally and a different way provincially. If the Progressive Conservatives are in nationally this province will vote Liberal for its provincial leaders. If the Liberals are in nationally, it will vote for the NDP or the Progressive Conservatives to steer the province.

I remember hearing of this tendency way back when I was a kid when Bill Davis (Progressive Conservative) won regularly for the province and Pierre Trudeau (Liberal) won regularly for the nation. I heard this had been going on more or less since World War II.

So I just checked today. I compared the federal leaders to the provincial leaders and found that there were only 4 overlapping time periods. From 1957-1963, Progressive Conservatives were in nationally and provincially. From 1979-1980 again the Progressive Conservatives were in the two high levels of government. And a third time, 1984-1985 the PC’s were in both levels of government as the leaders.

More recently, 2003-2006 the Liberal party was in charge provincially and federally. Since then the leaders have been different.

Simple addition will give an 11 year total for a period out of a total of 66 years that the ruling party was the same, federally and provincially. Or about a once in 6 years showing. Maybe someday I won’t be so lazy and might try to take this back to confederation and see how the voting went. But that makes things more complex as there was a Farmer Party that ruled Ontario once and for the first years of confederation, a coalition of Conservatives and Liberals led this province. Interestingly this coalition was headed by John S. MacDonald. I always wondered why John A. MacDonald insisted on the A.

You would think that Stephen Harper, who was also raised in Ontario, would have been politically astute enough to have heard of this contrariness of the province. Instead he predicted a conservative hat trick in Toronto earlier this year of conservative Rob Ford municipally, Tim Hudak provincially and himself federally. Well Hudak failed, I say because of the contrary behaviour of Ontarians.

What could be the reason for this voting behaviour? At first glance one might think that Ontarians become disenchanted federally really quickly, so they react and form a different government provincially and vice versa. But this doesn’t explain the dynasties. Like Bill Davis and Pierre Trudeau, Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty, dynasties abound in this history.

No, I think that Ontarians are deeply conscious of their weight in the nation. Federally Ontario has 1/3 of the voters of all of Canada. Because many times they decide the national vote, they also realize that trusting one party too deeply could be bad. Thus the contrary nature.

So McGuinty got into power again, this time with a minority.

And as an update, Dave MacDonald, the TV weatherman who was claiming the jury was out on whether there was a human cause of climate change, barely lost his race in Kitchener Centre. It was close enough that maybe blogs like this one had a role. I’m probably done for local and regional politics for a while.

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Call of the Intolerant

Posted on 5 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I bet most Canadians would be able to identify which party in their province or federally is the least tolerant. And I bet the answer would be the same for almost every respondent. I don’t even have to name them for this article.

I used to think that this party was just stupider than the other candidates up for office. But, you know, at least one racist or homophobic scandal hits this party every election cycle. I no longer think the leaders of this party are stupid. I think they let something slip each election cycle to appeal to a certain kind of voter.

The leaders of this party will probably deny everything and try to stay as respectable as the other parties. But I think they do know what is going on. Even the racist and homophobic voter needs a party. This party chooses to woo that vote.

The election cycle thing? Well every few years, new voters come to vote in elections and they don’t know which party is most homophobic and racist. This party needs to alert them, thus there are the regular scandals for this party.

Here is the latest scandal in the Ontario election. If you don’t know which party I’ve been talking about, the answer is at the link. So I guess I don’t have to hide it any longer. Tim Hudak is backing this homophobic and by all reports, incorrect propaganda. He is so sure his homophobic stance will win support that he is not distancing himself from it.

Woo woo! Look at me, I’m being intolerant, just like a segment of the population. Vote for me.

And although that segment of the population has been forced to become quieter I not only believe they exist, I also believe they will vote for Tim Hudak.

To some extent political correctness has driven them into hiding but I know they exist. You see I wrote a post called Repurposing Some Racist Jokes. I have over 170 posts so not every post or its tags is in my top 20 Google searches. “Racist jokes” is on that top twenty list. I think the majority of these searchers are looking for racist jokes for their “entertainment” and aren’t looking for me.

I had some worry about writing this post that I, too, am leading the racist or homophobe to the Progressive Conservative Party or the federal Conservative Party. I don’t want to do this. But I believe that shining a light on this scandal tactic will eventually drive it away. So, if I’m still blogging in future elections, expect a post when scandal shows Canada’s right wing to be bigoted. I’ll say, “That’s what they intend.”

I’m really hoping that the right in Canada will eventually weed out its own.

Oh and I realize this is a conspiracy theory. So some context about conspiracy theories I’ve believed or disbelieved might help you.

I don’t and didn’t believe 9/11 was an inside job. The fact that the buildings fell almost straight down? Gravity was by far the greatest force on those buildings on that day.

For many months I believed the “Dubya” conspiracy theory that Iraq was actively seeking nukes and other weapons of mass destruction. Yes even governments can have conspiracy theories. Of course “Dubya” was proved wrong after invading Iraq.

To believe or disbelieve is entirely up to you.

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Ironic Timing

Posted on 4 October 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The timing of this fall’s Ontario election is very suspicious. Only a few days after this Thursday’s vote (Oct. 6) will be the date of Canadian Thanksgiving (Oct. 10). Presumably we will be thankful for our new government.

Did the parties get together and through collusion agree on this date? Forcing us, the unfortunate electorate to be thankful for whatever party we get in power. Will this become some way to champion politicians, when world wide, voters are usually drained by their limited democratic choices? It all feels so contrived and unfortunate.

The timing is actually quite ironic in our first-past-the-post electoral system. With three major parties as well as some Greens and independents to vote for, the usual outcome will be that some party with much less than half of the vote will “win” the election and have more seats than anyone else. Thus, the majority of supporters will lose and Thanksgiving will arrive with the majority being unthankful.

If you think this is all unfair, maybe you’ll want to check out Fair Vote Canada’s site. You might want to get involved and help change these unfortunate circumstances.

But I say if the majority of the electorate is going to end up unthankful this Thanksgiving Day, perhaps we can make the politicians similarly unthankful. That’s right, Ontario, no matter who you elect, make sure they have a minority government.

Indeed, the electorate might have a better sense of timing than our politicians. All the polls say we’re heading there, anyway. Happy Thanksgiving.

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