A Tale of Two Cities?

Posted on 19 August 2023 by Larry Russwurm

It was recently found that the politest city in Canada shares a border with the rudest city in Canada. What could possibly be going on when you magically cross that border?

Both cities are in the Greater Toronto Area. The politest is Markham and the rudest is the city of Vaughan. I feel I can give my opinion here as I once lived in Vaughan and I once worked in Markham.

Vaughan was so happy when it could finally call itself a city. Because it was in the GTA it didn’t feel comfortable doing this till it had a population of over 100 000 (in the rest of Ontario, places call themselves a city if they have over 30 000 people). Back then, it could join the ranks of North York, Brampton etc. as a peer. But it couldn’t peer with Markham. Markham had 150 000 people at that time and was still demanding to be called a town.

Indeed it wasn’t till 2012 that a government of Markham changed this to be called a city. At that time, Markham was the 16th largest municipality in Canada with 310 000 people. Even at this size, developers opposed the change, thinking it would make Markham less desirable.

But bad blood shouldn’t exist from that time. 2012 is so long ago. The pretentious bastards who kept calling Markham a town are long gone. Aren’t they?! So Vaughanians are long over it and the fact that some Markhamers still want to be a town.

How can Vaughanians ) @ ^^ ^ the city of Markham? I certainly can’t. Those @$$es are finally doing exactly what I wished them to do way back in the ’90s.

Markham being called a city was long past due. I bet the Markhamers apologize for their tardiness, these days. Especially now, that they have to live up to their polite ranking. But politeness only counts for so much. I wouldn’t be surprised if Markham had the same per capita murder rate as Vaughan.

Politeness is just that. It doesn’t necessarily carry over into other areas of life. Indeed it might be a veneer for the horrible things that lurk beneath the surface.

Like when I worked in Markham, I had to cover my seething rage with a polite demeanor in order to serve the public.

Anyhow, my verdict is that Vaughanians are rude precisely because Markhamers are polite.

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Lessons in Geography

Posted on 12 August 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Let’s look at the continents starting from south to north. There is Antarctica. Then comes the currently joined plates of America. Then comes Australia. Then there’s Africa. Certainly not least is Asia. Last of all is Europe.

One of these continents is different. Well at least one of these doesn’t start and end in an A. Now why would Europe be separated so much in the English language?

But wait. Saying there is a continent of America is really quite a stretch. Obviously it should be broken down into North America and South America. This makes these names different as well. Maybe because both continents were heavily settled by Europeans. Since indigenous Americans hadn’t been exposed to the old world’s viruses and germs, Europeans were able to heavily colonize the Americas.

Then what’s the story with Australia? They also were heavily colonized by Europeans because of a decimated indigenous population. I think the difference is obvious. Any day now, the indigenous are going to rise up and kick all the Europeans out of Australia. I give it two years, tops. It’s all in the name.

***

There is much debate in Canada about where Hollywood North is. Toronto has claimed this title, So has Vancouver. Montreal has too. I bet anytime a Canadian prairie city has a film shot in it, that they do to. I used to be an agnostic in this debate. Now I believe in a pan Hollywood North. i.e. Hollywood North is all of Canada.

The thing about Hollywood and California in general are the nice temperatures for its climate. Canada will never have this. Even with climate change, we won’t have this. Our temperatures just get too cold for California equivalency.

However another part of the climate can shift to be more like California and Hollywood. And it may have already shifted because of climate change.

California usually has massive wildfires every year. Indeed some plants rely on regular fires to procreate. Canada hasn’t had such extremes before but with this year’s fire season across virtually the whole country, its looking to match California’s wildfire season.

Instead of just matching California’s first two letters, Canada has raised the stakes to maybe also include regular wildfires. We’re not just Hollywood North anymore. We’re also California North.

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Shenanigans at Walmart

Posted on 5 August 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Self Checkouts were brought in as a business model at Walmarts a couple years ago. After all, this high tech method of checkout, only demanded a couple people to oversee about 6 self checkouts so it was more efficient. It also had the advantage of not taking so long for those people who only had a couple items they wanted to scan and pay for.

But these advantages weren’t seen by everyone. Instead, others saw that Walmart was hiring the customer at the grand total of $0.00 an hour to do work that was formerly done by a Walmart employee. Not to mention that Walmart was hurting the economy by having fewer employees.

These leftish concerns were ignored by Walmart and really I thought this was the end of the discussion. Until I heard of a Walmart in Ottawa taking out self serve areas and putting back full serve cashiers.

What is believed to be the reason for this backpedaling by this mighty corporation? Five finger discounts or theft seems to be behind it all. Walmart has neither confirmed or denied this. After all, they don’t want to spread the idea of stealing from the rich (don’t forget Walmart is legally a person with deep, deep, deep pockets) and giving to the poor (by comparison to Walmart virtually anyone is poor) is good.

In the affected store, Walmart said: “We are pleased to announce the test of the full service experience”. Now doesn’t that quote make you just have bubbles of joy move around your body.

But Walmart hasn’t backpedaled completely. They said the affected store would still have a smaller self checkout area. But it sounds like its going to have more staff lurking about. This is for the people with the couple items that don’t want to wait as long. There will be more cashier using checkouts, too. Sounds like this may be a win/win for Walmart customers and staffing.

Possibly Walmart will spread the new formula throughout its system. This way they can still say their newish business model works. It just had to be tweaked a bit.

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Swift Quake

Posted on 29 July 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Did you hear about the Swift quake at the Taylor Swift concert in Seattle? That’s right, Swifties’ dancing combined with the sound system are believed to have caused tiny earthquakes, the largest of which was 2.3 on the Richter scale.

Lumen Field, the site of the Swift concert, was known for the “beast quake” which occurred in 2011 when Seattle Seahawks football fans celebrated a touchdown. That measured 2.0 on the Richter scale.

Now I would like to point out before the Swifties brag too much, that Lumen Field is in an area of the US that is prone to earthquakes. As such it probably has more seismographs that are more sensitive than other ones at other locations. They want to have advance warnings if there is to be a a big quake.

Bands from a bygone era may have triggered bigger earthquakes in the past. I’m looking at the Who, which had the loudest concerts on record. So much so that band member Pete Townsend is almost deaf.

But for the record, I most want to implicate the band Queen. We Will Rock You has a pronounced simple beat that the audience can easily follow. With a clap, clap, STOMP, I bet that some Queen concert of years ago would have had the record if they were being watched by all the seismographs near Lumen Field.

But for now, Swift has the bragging rights. I bet more acts would like to play Lumen field just to see how well they will do in the great seismograph competition. Who knows maybe Queen might be curious how they could do vs. Swift?

Sensitive seismographs could be set up near other venues, all over the world. It could be an international contest of who has the most raucous fans. Who knows, maybe Swift and Lumen Field can keep the record. But with all the fans and acts around the world, I doubt it.

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‘Battle of the Generations’ to be Called Off?

Posted on 22 July 2023 by Larry Russwurm

The new show which pits Boomers against Gen Xers against Millennials against Gen Zers may be forced to come to a halt. Why? Because of the scarcity of Gen Xers.

When Gen X was in its infancy, it was firstly called the baby bust. That’s because there was a sharp drop off in babies after the baby boom. So obviously, to begin with, there were a lot fewer Gen Xers.

Then, to add to the scarcity, Baby Boomers and Millennials both spread their range into the Gen X territory, making Gen X even scarcer.

And now, this generational trivia show has siphoned off all the remaining Gen Xers who are good at trivia and can handle being on camera. With no one left to carry the torch for Gen X, filming of this new show has ground to a halt.

For commentary we asked gen Xer, John Abelson what he thought of this kerfuffle. All he did was ask “Is that camera on?” We finally told him it wasn’t. Then he said, “It has a light on. Is that camera on?” We gave up after our deadline for reporting had passed.

We asked the other Gen Xer Tracey Tyson if she would be interested in carrying the torch for Gen X. She said, “As sure as the British won the American Revolution, I will out trivia anyone,”

So now CTV is scrambling to try to put something together. They are thinking of changing the name to “Battle of the Significant Generations”. After all there are still some Silent generation people around who were never included in this show. Of course, if they were included, they wouldn’t be very silent.

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A Partial List of Rock Bands that are Better than the Rolling Stones

Posted on 15 July 2023 by Larry Russwurm

The Rolling Stones are overrated. Some people in my area might disagree. The nearby city, Toronto, in order to declare that the risk of getting SARS was over, had a festival to declare that illness gone. They got the Rolling Stones to headline. I was not impressed and didn’t go.

The local museum here in Kitchener, had an exhibition that they declared a triumph as they were only one of three cities getting it. It was a Rolling Stones memorabilia show. I am not impressed . I didn’t go to this over hyped event.

The worst part of Rolling Stones propaganda is that they are hyped as the greatest rock and roll band in the world. They have a handful of good songs and a couple handfuls of okay songs. I don’t think they are worthy of this title.

And let’s be crystal clear. The Rolling Stones would never have gotten this tag line if the Beatles hadn’t broken up. No one considers them better than the Beatles.

So allow me to present to you a partial list of bands I consider better than the Rolling Stones.

I don’t even consider the Rolling Stones the second best of their wave of music to come out of Britain in the mid 1960s. I prefer the stylings of the Who. And if they didn’t impress you in the 1960s, they would in the 1970s. The Who was a better rock band.

What came next in rock music was progressive rock. The bands that came to the fore in these times were much better at their instruments than the Rolling Stones ever were. Bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Genesis and Rush are more deserving of “the greatest rock and roll band in the world” title.

Next came arena rock. While it could be argued that a few of them were still progressive, like Queen, Supertramp and Styx, others like Electric Light Orchestra, Journey and Foreigner were straight pop rock.

The eighties showed the Cars, the Police, the Cure, Men Without Hats, U2 and INXS were better bands than the Rolling Stones.

The nineties had funk rock and grunge which had bands better than the Rolling Stones. Among them were the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

This millennium saw bands like Coldplay, Bastille and Imagine Dragons be better than the Rolling Stones.

If you’re wondering what the magic formula is for being better than the Rolling Stones it is simple. 1. Be a rock band. 2. Put out a few good songs. 3. Wait for I or someone else to declare you better than the Rolling Stones.

Have you ever noticed that nearly every Rolling Stones cover song is better when done by a new band?

I also am not at all impressed by Rolling Stone magazine, which has a very similar name. What can I say? I like moss.

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Heated Skate Blades

Posted on 8 July 2023 by Larry Russwurm

When I first heard of heated skate blades I thought, well there’s a way of skating that sounds like it is cheating. You see, skating is a way of putting all your weight on two small skate blades. All this pressure makes the ice on the top turn to water, thus making skates more slippery. Obviously heating the blades, is going to make the skates even more slippery.

All this got played out in the NHL 15 years ago. 5 players tried it and only one thought the heated blades were better. So the study was expanded to 50 players. I couldn’t find any results with this expanded study. Perhaps someone with better google fu than me can find this. Regardless, the results mustn’t have been good if this is the last we’re hearing about it.

The specific claim that the company wanted to make is that with their blades it should take less energy and be faster at getting to top speed. That’s the theory anyhow.

But testing this would be easier in the sport of speed skating. There would have to be a different design to the heated blades simply because speed skating blades are different. But this wouldn’t be impossible. It wouldn’t just be an NHLer saying ‘I couldn’t tell the difference.’ Speed skating is a sport of 1/100ths of a second. If there is any real benefit, I think that sport can settle things once and for all.

Of course things couldn’t be decided just there. There is also the skater and what they are used to. Perhaps the skater needs to begin as a heated blade skater, so they are truly master of their different blades. So if the company that makes these heated skate blades, really wants to find out if they offer an advantage, they should go on a long term study with speed skaters.

However, patents only last about 20 years. It’s my understanding that the company that offers heated blades, sells them to junior skaters and anyone who just wants a pair. They might even have gone under. Again anyone with better google fu than me might enlighten us.

So, in a few years the national speed skating associations can develop and start distributing these to some in their system. Then we can finally see if they make any difference at the speed skating level.

I doubt the difference can be calculated on how they feel to an NHL player who has spent their life on unheated skates. Winning by those 1/100ths of a second in speed skating, might be a more concrete example of the blade’s superiority.

Who knows? Maybe the heated blade will find a home in figure skating. Perhaps the extra slipperiness will make the weaker skaters fall more often. In which case, it may be enforced from the top to the bottom.

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Stampede!

Posted on 2 July 2023 by Larry Russwurm

I don’t know what people were thinking out in the old west of North America with the cowboys and their giant herds of cows. It being the old west, everyone had guns. Sure that’s okay if you use yours. Then the cows would stampede away from you. But what about if someone shot theirs on the other side of the cows from you. They would stampede toward you.

I guess that’s why everyone had horses. And that’s why being a horse thief was considered such a heinous crime. If you were on a horse you could flee the stampede. At least until it peters out. But what happened at night? When you were no longer on your horse.

At night could be prime time for cattle rustlers to steal the cows. It’s simple. Approach the cows on the opposite side of the cowboy encampment. Then shoot your guns and yell. The cows would trample to death all the sleeping cowboys. There would be no eyewitnesses of your cattle rustling.

Which is why the cowboys had to stand guard and also why they would have a big chuck wagon with them. The guard would hopefully stop the cattle rustlers. But if it didn’t, You could put your chuck wagon between the sleeping cowboys and the cows, That way if the cows stampeded toward the cowboys, they would avoid the bigger chuck wagon and thus go around the cowboys.

So the old west was survivable, even with stampedes. But this has got me thinking. Sure the shooter is immune to stampedes from most locales. But what if they shot their gun while being in the middle of the huge heard of cows?

Of course the cows in front of the shooter are going to head away at full tilt. The ones to the side would even go in the same direction as the front cows. But what of the cows to the rear?

Would they actually flee in the same direction as their compatriots? In other words, would they head into the scary noise? If so, the shooter may be killed.

Or will they turn all the way around and then run? Or will they not run at all? While I might want the answer to this question, I am not going to go into the middle of a herd of cattle to test this out. I guess some questions just weren’t made to be answered by me.

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Beneath the Waves – Above the Waves

Posted on 24 June 2023 by Larry Russwurm

It made headlines recently, the fact that New York city is sinking. It is because of all the massive amount of weight contained in all those high buildings. But various parts of the city are sinking at different rates.

Counter intuitively, all those highest buildings aren’t sinking at all. Why? Because they go down to the bedrock. And so far, bedrock hasn’t been found to sink at all.

Still, Parts of Manhattan and the other boroughs are sinking by between 1 and 4 mm a year. This, combined with the rising of sea levels mean that eventually these parts will be beneath the waves.

Could this possibly mean there was an Atlantis with incredibly high and heavy buildings that already sunk beneath the waves? It’s a possibility. However, I doubt the world could support a continent sized city with massive skyscrapers all over. Still, maybe Atlantis was only an island. If the island had no bedrock, with skyscrapers it could easily have slipped beneath the waves.

But Atlantis is so depressing. Why couldn’t there be a continent that rose above the waves?

There kind of is an Anti-Atlantis. The lands reclaimed from the ocean in the Netherlands are a kind of Anti-Atlantis. The idea is simple enough. Build dikes higher than the water that completely contain an area, then pump out the water and keep pumping through any rainfall. What you get is fully reclaimed land from the sea. For centuries the unceasing pumping was done with windmills which made that an iconic symbol of the Netherlands.

I did wonder what kind of crops can grow on land that has been in the briny deep. Lands with salt tend to be infertile, but not to all crops. Just by growing salt tolerant crops, in a couple decades or so, most of the salt will be out of the soil, and more normal crops will be able to be grown in that soil.

So, as long as the Dutch don’t decide to build skyscrapers on their reclaimed land, they have successfully pulled off the Anti- Atlantis trick.

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What’s in the Name, Newfoundland?

Posted on 17 June 2023 by Larry Russwurm

When the explorer Cabot got to Newfoundland in 1497, Columbus had already discovered America, so, it was definitely possible that this was the same land that Columbus had discovered. Still the name Newfoundland eventually did stick. Perhaps the British had every intention of using it as an excuse to settle and trade in the Americas, instead of just letting Spain and Portugal do whatever they wanted there.

But, perhaps, the British knew the history of this large island. They could have heard about the Viking sagas of settling a new colony past Iceland, past Greenland. A place they called Vinland. If these sagas were true, the Vikings were the first to discover these lands for Europeans.

Maybe the British tried to bury these discoveries, also, by calling it Newfoundland. This way they had a better claim to its shores and all that fish in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Better to ignore the rumoured Vinland and claim this land for themselves.

It was only in the modern era when it was discovered that the Vikings left some remains in L’Anse aux Meadows. This was authenticated by archaeologists and is still the only known Viking Settlement in North America.

It’s possible that the indigenous Beothuk drove them out.

Could the British have guessed this? Is that why the Beothuk became exinct in British times? Did the British deliberately kill them with diseases and starvation (the British overtook the coasts and left the Beothuk with little access to the rich fishing)? So the British in their turn wouldn’t be wiped out by the Beothuk?

Or did the British wipe out the Beothuk in revenge for the wiping out of the Vikings in North America?Was there some secret cabal of white power, even back then?

And wouldn’t the Beothuk be more likely to call this island, Oldfoundland? Who knows how many thousands of years earlier it was for the Beothuk and their ancestors to find it.

Ahh, Newfoundland. Your statement of a name just leads to so many questions and possibilities about it.

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