Waterloo Region Citizens

Posted on 10 September 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve had a handful of searches land on my site looking up “geographical humour”. I’m a bit surprised because I thought that those who were into geography were, as a rule, humourless. Since this might not be the case, I have more geographical humour for my area. It takes that old question, what to call citizens of a specific town, and through humour, degradation and puns tries to answer this for Waterloo Region. Here is my map to get a lay of the land. Waterloo Region is in southwestern Ontario, about 100 km west of Toronto.

Warning. Extreme pun alert. Nearly everything that follows will have a pun or three.

Well let’s start with the cities. Kitchener is the largest city and I believe the inhabitants should be called KitcheNERDs. That’s right, I’m going to emphasize every pun with capital letters. Like wise Waterloo residents should be called WaterLOONIES, and Cambridge residents should be called Cambridge Copycats. Why should it be this non pun? Simply put, I think in 1973 when Cambridge was formed they thought ahead to this very post and decided to name themselves something hard to corrupt. Others had noticed this incorruptibility in the past which is why there are almost as many Cambridges in the English speaking world as there are Springfields.

Four towns in Waterloo Region end in -berg or -burg so of course they will be called New HamBURGERs, BamBURGERs, PetersBURGERs and HeidelBURGERs. Then there are the -villes. Roseville natives should be called RoseVILLAINs, and Hawkesville natives should be called HawkesVILLAINs. People of the -dales ought to call themselves FloraDILDOs and BloomingDILDOs. The same insult can be used on the -hills, CrossDILDOs and MaryDILDOs.

I couldn’t corrupt a Saint so the 2nd part of these names needed to be worked upon. People from St. Jacobs, St. Clements, and St. Agatha become St. JakeOBSOLETEs, St. ClemENTRAILs, and St. AGHASTLIEs.

Of all the towns I think I’m letting Elmira off the easiest, calling its inhabitants ElmiraNITES. If you’re not from this area you might never get the play on the religious sect name, Mennonites, which Elmira has aplenty. From Conestogo you might have ConesTOKERs. You might see the WinterBURNT in Winterbourne. West Montrose would have West MontPOSERs.

WallensTEENIEs are from Wallenstein, LinWOODIEs hail from Linwood, WellesLEECHes are from Wellesley.

IRON Badens come from Baden, New DunDWEEBs are from New Dundee and AYR HEADs are from Ayr.

And that is my region and hopefully I’m all punned out for my next few posts.

Posted in Geography, Humour, Language | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Tag Conspiracy

Posted on 7 September 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It was about 4 years ago when this Hanes ad was given heavy rotation on television. For forty years I had existed without even once consciously thinking that my shirt’s tag made me itchy. But I tell you after seeing that ad a billion times I found myself noticing that my shirt tag on occasion made my back itchy.

I hate it when television does that. It invents a problem whose only fix is the product they are selling. Of course Hanes only made money hand over fist for a small while before many clothing manufacturers also began to sell printed on tags instead of the allegedly itchy kind. On this day, most of my shirts are tag free.

That was step one in the conspiracy.

Step two was making the printed on type of tag self destruct over time. Shown is a photo of a shirt I have that is only 2 ½ years old. The printed type tag should be on the back open and shown part of the shirt. It was there when I bought it but you can clearly see it has completely disappeared. It seemed a slow process but I think that the tag became unreadable after only a year.

So soon will come the coup de grace of the conspiracy. Clothing manufacturers will lobby the government hard to ban used clothing without the tag from being sold. It will be to “protect the consumer”. You see, even second hand users of the clothing should have the information to properly care for the garments to extend their life to the maximum.

Since the printed on tags will be gone after a maximum of a year, second hand clothing will mostly never be resold. Goodbye Value Village and all the charity sellers of used clothing. Even the poor must ante up for new clothing. The tag conspiracy will ensure this.

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“My Shower Curtain is a Slut”

Posted on 3 September 2011 by Larry Russwurm

The following letter was sent to this site as a comment on my post The Horny Shower Curtain. I have moved it over here to its own area for comments:

Dear Many Rants of Larry Russwurm,

I’ve looked all over the Internet and it seems like you and your site are the biggest experts on shower curtain behaviour on the Internet. Perhaps you can help.

I noticed my shower curtain had a certain attraction to me right when we first bought it. Whenever I was engrossed in cleaning myself in the shower, it would sidle up to me, sometimes even touching my naked body.

But that’s as far as it would go. I am after all a married woman and loyal to my husband.

One time I let it slip to my husband about the shower curtain’s behaviour and he insisted that the very same shower curtain would sidle up to him and also touch his naked body.

We were both taken aback- having thought all along that we were the only one, but decided that the shower curtain was bisexual and it was relatively harmless, after all my husband and I were still very much loyal to one another.

We left it at that.

Our town has an annual rotten tomato throwing event. It happens in our town square. Townsfolk can get out their aggressions by throwing tomatoes at each other in the crowded square. 5 friends were thinking of going so we offered our house and bathroom as a wash up area for afterwards. Our house was closest to the square.

After this dirty event, my husband and I had showered as well as two of our friends. You can imagine my consternation when one of those friends said, “Your shower curtain likes me as much as my own one.”

The other friend said, “It liked me, too. Don’t look now but I think your shower curtain is a slut.”

If it ended up that the shower curtain liked all the adults, it wouldn’t be so bad. But last to go into the shower was my friend’s minor child as well as our own minor child. I began to worry about their safety. My husband sensed my panic and said to each minor, “When it’s your turn you must bathe.”

My husband mumbled something about “You’re so dirty because of the tomatoes.” But now it’s gone back to day to day living and my minor is questioning. What do I say? How do I react?

Many thanks in advance Many Rants, Connie.

First of all Connie, as near as we can figure shower curtains are pansexual, not bisexual.

Secondly, I think you already know what must be done. A shower curtain will never step over the legal line. But still you don’t want your minor to deal with adult issues. You could hang the offending shower curtain over the other side of the tub. This might make some more clean up necessary after each shower. But the shower curtain can still indicate its attraction to even your minor by coming closer when the shower is on even if it won’t be able to touch your minor.

No, the real solution is more expensive. Install a glass enclosure above your tub to keep all shower water and soap inside. I don’t know any contractors in your town who might do it but with enough people to have a public square and a tomato throw, your own town should have one.

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

Truth in Advertising

Posted on 31 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I felt weird the first time I heard the Conservatives of Canada being called Cons. It was even weirder that it was a Conservative Party supporter that I heard it from. I’ve heard it again, also from a Conservative supporter so I guess this is going to be a thing. The above title should give you my take on this turn of events.

I do think the Conservatives are cons. Just to cite one example, they say that they are tough on crime. But the Tom Flanagan affair proves that this is not the case. Tom Flanagan counseled to commit murder on a CBC broadcast. No charges were ever brought forth on this serious matter, despite the much recorded and broadcast evidence. The Conservatives were in charge and fully aware of this crime. The Conservative Party of Canada is thus soft on crime.

So does this truth in advertising apply to all the Canadian parties? The official opposition is the New Democratic Party of Canada. If we take the first syllable and pluralize it, we get the News. Maybe it’s possible that this party has the journalistic integrity of the news. However they’re a bit more honest than the news – they’ll tell you up front that they are partisan. You have to figure that out about certain newspapers and news outlets across the country.

Then the Liberals would be the Libs. Perhaps that has something to do with the Women’s Lib movement. But the NDP and Greens fielded more women candidates in the last election than the Liberals. So we’re at a loss as to the meaning of Libs. Perhaps that is as it should be. After all the Liberals were so alien to most Canadians that they fielded a leader, Michael Ignatieff, who has spent many years living in the United States. And still, in this late day, Canadians are still suspicious of too much American influence in politics.

And last of the major parties, the one that seems to seal the truth in advertising thesis of this post, are the Greens. Green in English can mean new. And of the major parties the Greens are the newest. They are so new that in the last election they got their first elected member of parliament.

Will this truth in advertising thing in politics expand? Can you imagine a politician of any political stripe saying, “Most of what I do is waste time on each topic till the public helps me make up my mind or until my party leader tells me what to do.” Wouldn’t that be mind bending to hear from a politician? And of course it would also be true.

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Musicians are Tone Deaf

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Right off the top it might not be all musicians. I am going by all the songs I know in the English speaking world. Why the English language? That, as it turns out, is important.

The English language itself has tonality. And it is that tonality, not musical tonality, that has been thrown out.

Firstly, I’ve found that in speech when there is a rise in pitch for the last word at the end of a sentence, it means the sentence is a question and the speaker is expecting a yes/no answer. I’ve spoken English for over 40 years and hadn’t realized that I and English were that leading. But it’s true.

Indeed the yes/no thing is true of any sentence with a rise in pitch at the end. If the sentence isn’t normally a question, it becomes one with that rise in pitch at the end. “You are an enforcer,” with a rise in pitch for enforcer becomes a yes/no question.

Alright let’s look for a real world music example. The only song book I have is “Yes Complete Deluxe Edition”. I do not recommend buying this type of sheet music. Maybe it’s because Yes was a complex band that much of the music is incorrect. I’ve also checked Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Rush sheet music books like this and they are also incorrect. I’m not sure if just complex music is incorrect. I don’t need so much help for easy music. Is it any wonder that guitar tabs have become popular over the Internet? Also this book is incomplete because Yes insisted on reforming more times. So it does not include 90125 and later incarnations.

So for this example we’ll look at Roundabout, their most popular song from this book. I’m going to look up singing lines that finish with higher pitches, thus possibly making a yes/no question.

“I spend the day your way” ends with a high note so we can make it into the yes/no question that English speech would demand. Whether the answer is yes or no we must decide for ourselves as the rest of the song offers no clues. “Call it morning driving through the sound and in and out the valley,” becomes the next yes/no question. “mountains come out of the sky and they stand there?” and “one mile over we’ll be there and we’ll see you?” and “ten true summers we’ll be there and laughing too?” and “of distant atmosphere?” all complete the yes/no questions of this very long song. So what can we conclude by this?

First of all Yes is very rude. Most times they leave no space for a listener to answer yes or no.

Secondly with Yes’ extremely abstract visions the yes/no thing would seem to comment on the reality of their vision. Despite the band’s name, most people would give a resounding “no” as the answer to the visions.

Roger Dean (long time Yes artist and this year’s Kitchener Blues Festival Artist) seems to have given a “yes” to the question “Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there?” A large portion of his work has been floating rocks and mountains and even some with orderly movement. Indeed I’ve heard people say that the Avatar scenery could be called a rip off of Roger Dean’s work.

Let’s get to the next tonality thing I’ve noticed. Bear in mind that the dialect I speak is the urban Ontario, Canada dialect and some dialects of English might not have the same tonalities. That second tonality is for general questions. When I ask a normal question my pitch goes up for the whole question.

So I’m thinking that falsetto sentences could be thought of as questions.

The seventies was seemingly the era of falsetto so I hope you will excuse me if my examples are from then.

So in the song “Bloody Well Right” by Supertramp, when the background singers say in a higher pitch “Quite right?” and “Right?” they are actually asking a question and not helping to assert the main line.

And of course when mentioning falsetto, how could we not mention the Bee Gees, famous in the mid to late seventies for their entirely falsetto songs? Now, due to me, their songs are famous questions. “Blaming it all on the nights of Broadway?” or “Staying Alive?” are two famous examples.

And actually when I first thought of this topic I thought to look at songs with direct questions in them. Most of them don’t use falsetto or other obvious higher pitch. Like the recent “What Do You Got?” by Bon Jovi. And most questions asked musically are not yes/no questions so looking at the last word’s pitch isn’t going to help. So we are safe to conclude that the title of this post is for the most part, true.

And perhaps this article might spawn a couple experimental songs. Indeed there is more about English speech tonality on Wikipedia and other places on the Internet. So there might be even more to work with than my two main points. And if someone is searching for a name for music that includes English tonality, might I suggest “Questionable Music” as a name for any such genre.

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Solving the Exercise Difficulty

Posted on 25 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

There is a loophole in my post of last week. In that post I explained that couch potatoes if they exercised 15 minutes a day to get 3 years of extra life, this was equivalent to 1.2 years of solid work to get 1.8 years of bonus life. The loophole of course is that you can exercise while you’re sleeping.

But how? Some of you might point out that people become paralysed during sleep and thus don’t act out their dreams. But of course we know of sleep walkers and other sleep movers so all that’s necessary is a shift in the brain.

Hypnotism is the shift I’d like to look at. Imagine with the right hypnotist you needn’t stop at 15 minutes a day of extra exercise you could do an extra hour of exercise. This increase has a correspondingly larger gain in life extension. But I think the hypnotist might look at some of these exercises one might do and use common sense in the application.

For instance she might command you to walk around the block for a few minutes of sleepercise. But your subconscious doesn’t know about traffic rules. Or you might be mistaken (almost correctly) for a zombie and be shot by one of your neighbours. Better that your hypnotist has common sense and avoids this by making you run on the spot in your bedroom for a few minutes.

In-home exercising seems best but it isn’t automatically safe. For instance if you were to use weights, bench pressing is out (because of course you don’t have a spotter). And squats with weight in your sleep just sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

Then there are exercise machines. I can see them all being dangerous without consciousness.

So low weight exercises and simple things like leg lifts, crunches, push ups and other calisthenics should be good for your post sleep exercising.

And upon hearing about this loophole and workaround, expect hypnotists to follow up on the idea. After all, your body will be increasing in strength so expect to need to go back to the hypnotist every two weeks or so to increase your regimen.

I only see one possible side effect: perhaps you won’t feel as rested from sleep any more. Ah well, whatever will be, will be.

Posted in Humour, Pseudo Science, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

About the New Banner

Posted on 24 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Many thanks to my sister Laurel for creating my new banner for this blog. She is very skilled in photo manipulation as evidenced by this banner and creates the best cards from her computer and many pictures she takes. For those of you who don’t know she is a writer, currently serializing her first book for free at this link.

The picture is me when I was about 9 or 10. This was my most memorable Hallowe’en costume during my childhood. I remember asking my Dad if I could get a Superman costume advertised in a comic book. He said “No, those costumes are too cheap.” Instead he offered to make a better one. Together he and my Mom put together this costume (while they were at it they made my little brother into Batman).

I’ve always had a ‘cow lick’ or a ‘rooster’s tail’ or a ‘Superman curl’. Guess which name I prefer. So Superman was a positive role model growing up. Mine is in the corner of my face instead of the middle but I still like the comparison to Superman. It’s hidden with my present hairdo by parting my hair at the side.

Anyway when the costumes were finished, my Mom and Dad made me pose outside pretending I was flying. I didn’t see much point in it, but posed nevertheless. Now that Laurel has made the sky background I do see the point. Thank you Laurel, Mom and Dad.

Posted in Announcements, Art, Fashion, Wee Bit O' Humour, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hope for Couch Potatoes

Posted on 20 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

It was a much ballyhooed study that took the media by storm for a day. As little as 15 minutes a day of exercise can add an average of 3 years of extra life.

You could tell the media was proud of itself for this one. Information was going to add life expectancy to nearly everyone. After all, 15 minutes a day of exercise was such a small hurdle to overcome. All that was left to do was to thank everyone all around. Thank you study scientists. Thank you fitness gurus who try to get us moving. Thank you media who spread the new health mantra.

The only thing that stands between this study and success are couch potatoes and math. Full disclosure: I’m a couch potato.

What do couch potatoes have to doubt? This study was reputable and transmitted properly.

Alright, let’s get to the math. 15 minutes is ¼ of an hour. There are only 16 waking hours of the day. 15 minutes is 1/64th of the useful time you have.

The average life expectancy is about 75 years. Doing the daily 15 minutes of exercise will amount to 75 years times 1/64th which is 75/64. This works out to about 1.2 years of solid exercise.

So with my couch potato math skills I can tell you that to gain 1.8 years of possibly good living (it could also possibly be bad), it takes 1.2 years of hard, nose to the grindstone, work.

It’s not so good when couched in those terms.

So leave me alone, health nuts, It’s time to watch some good old fashioned television.

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Superpower: Sun Shielding

Posted on 17 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

I made myself a deal when I thought of this cartoon. I knew I was going to publish it for today but I didn’t know the how of it. I said if there is an easy to use backward baseball cap in Bitstrips I would use the service. If you don’t know, Bitstrips is a service that non artists or non conventional artists can use to make comic strips. There are character and strip generators that are very versatile. So if you’re funny and lacking an artist or serious and like graphic art for your stories, you might be interested in Bitstrips.

 

Of course, Bitstrips is competent enough to have that backward pointing baseball cap so today’s strip is courtesy of them and me.

 

I published two strips last year called the IOC Files, the full story being here. I let down my country by not publishing them till after the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. If you live in the UK and don’t want to let down your country in 2012 you can use the same strips since they fall under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence.

Posted in Cartoon, Fashion, Humour, Politics, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Zombie Jobless Headed Toward Me!

Posted on 13 August 2011 by Larry Russwurm

Here are the straight goods as revealed to me by this article.

Windsor, the Canadian city across the river from Detroit, has for awhile held the title of worst economy in Canada. But just recently the title came to London, Ontario. This might not be alarming to you but I live in the next large urban area up the 401 (for the uninitiated, southern Ontario’s Interstate highway). Metro Kitchener might be next so I carefully needed to check the data.

Here is what I think happened.

Detroit’s economy tanked some years ago (although it just might be recovering now, a bit). Depopulation hit some areas. Some workers escaped to the suburban areas but there were some real casualties. There were some more zombie like workers left. Of those, some probably had dual Canadian/American citizenship. They could manage to get across the border. Slowly, oh so slowly.

These zombie workers tanked Windsor’s employment stats. This made Windsor the worst large city economy in Canada for a while. But as disappointment met the zombie work force, they slowly, ever so slowly headed up the 401. They got to London and now this city has the worst employment stats in Canada. This must be where most of them are right now.

But it’s a loaded gun set to go off near me. Metro Kitchener is the next large city in line along the 401. Already the cover story is in place. Research in Motion, one of the largest employers in Metro Kitchener has let go 2000 workers. Maybe not all in this area, but still. (And you heard me Waterloo, I said Metro Kitchener).

Obviously the zombie jobless are going to hit Metro Kitchener. We must try to move them along as quickly as possible.

Perhaps we can entice them with the riches of the very large city after us on the 401 – Toronto. Even if the zombie jobless stay there, they’re not going to sway the jobless stats by more than a couple tenths of a percent. Toronto’s job market really is that big.

So, in a year or two when you’ve visited Toronto and found that that Burger King cashier was a bit zombie like, well there may be a story behind it.

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