Late April 2023 Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 22 April 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Few things are as opaque to see as the day of the week that Jesus died and the day he rose again from the dead. I was brought up in a Lutheran church and heard that Good Friday was the day that Jesus died. I assumed that he rose again on Sunday which is why Easter Sunday was such a big deal. But the one thing that is in agreement is that Jesus rose again after 3 days.

Did Christians make an easy counting error? Jesus was dead on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Therefore he rose on Sunday after 3 days being dead,

Or is it likely that the big celebration is on Sunday because Christians believed something was afoot? Jesus would be found alive on Monday after the obligatory 3 days. But because of their belief that Monday was in the cards, they celebrate on Sunday.

An enlightened religion would celebrate the most on Easter Monday. That’s the day we lowly earthlings were given “proof” that Jesus had risen from the dead. It makes me wonder why proof is so lowly regarded in organized religion. It’s almost as if those in power want to make their own rules.

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We’re always told to keep our music down because it may disturb other people. Especially late at night when many people need to rest up for an early work day.

It seems the only place to escape this is the country. Farmhouses are generally far enough away from each other that farmers can generally play their music on 11, anytime, all the time.

But they don’t. Farmers are some of the earliest risers in society and start work before the majority of other workers. So they end up going to bed at about 9 in the evening, to get up with the sun in the summer.

But surely they crank their music (even if it’s country music!) at times during the day? Well if you can find a farmer with music equipment that goes to 11, then maybe. It’s just that I have never seen that music equipment. What a waste of a perfectly good opportunity, farmers!

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In a 2015 post I noted that the most popular female name in a song was Sherry. It was in the song Sherry by the Four Seasons and Oh Sherrie by Steve Perry.

But I have since realized there are two other contenders for most popular female name in a song: Virginia and Jane. Meet Virginia by Train , Virginia Don’t Go by Prism, Jane by Starship and Jane by Bare Naked Ladies present two new contenders.

In 2015 I said Sherry was popular because the songwriters were talking in code. Sherry was popular because it is also the name of a type of alcohol.

Virginia could also be code for something, most likely a virgin. Virginia reminds the songwriters of virgins, either real or imagined.

So what about Jane? There aren’t any easy other meanings of Jane. If Jane were a more popular name I would say it wins this popularity contest.

But maybe, just maybe it reminds people of the fictional Jane in Tarzan stories. Possibly the male songwriters thought of the part where Tarzan and Jane try to communicate. “Me, Tarzan. You Jane.” Maybe that’s what the songwriters felt their conversations with attractive women were like.

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Fabricated Diagram

Posted on 15 April 2023 by Larry Russwurm

My new book, Fabricated, links together fundamentally different fantasy machines. The following diagram lists these fantasy machines and the story in Fabricated that contains the link.

Notice how the arrows connecting the machines only go one way. This is because these aren’t straight equivalences. Going the other way between the machines is different. The other way is shown on the other side of the half arrows.

You can already get my book in paper or electronic form, from Amazon. the link is given at the top right. Sunday, April 23rd, I will be at the Stratford Book Fair for the hard launch of Fabricated. If you’re in southwestern Ontario that day you can see me there from 1pm to 6pm. Admission is free.

Notice that the bottom right corner of the diagram gives a tease of what the Interstellar Flit is about. It will be the first novel and second book in the series. All books in the series can stand alone.

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April 2023 Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 8 April 2023 by Larry Russwurm

As two letter abbreviations for Canadian provinces become more and more common in Canada, I looked up Newfoundland. NL is the two letter abbreviation for Newfoundland. This is way better than the four letter, Nfld., we were taught as kids.

Why is this much better? Well NFL – D means that Newfoundland is on the D list of football. The NFL or National Football League, is of course the A list of football. The CFL or Canadian Football League is the B list of football.

Going down by the same amount, the C list of football is any amateur game of football played anywhere. So the D list is usually reserved for places where they call soccer football – and, of course, Newfoundland.

Newfoundland is probably happy that we no longer rub it in their faces that they are on the football D list.

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If I were a lead guitarist that used mainly a Fender guitar, like a stratocaster or even a telecaster, I would like to have the nickname Fender Bender.

But instead I am a rhythm guitarist that prefers non Fender guitars. So, if you see a good lead guitarist that does play a Fender, feel free to bestow the nickname on them.

I wonder if Frank Zappa used a strat because of the song Joe’s Garage which has the line, “it was a stratocaster with a whammy bar”. Maybe we can give the moniker to Zappa. There should be bonus points for the Fender Bender using a whammy bar, which bends the strings even more.

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I have a brother, Lance, and a sister, Liana, who do realist art. They don’t have an obvious gimmick as with surrealism or impressionism. They just make paintings that are more or less how someone else would see or even how a camera would see.

As such, I call them realists. A tiger mom would call them completely nonrealists. They must be doctors or lawyers or engineers or scientists to get the realist moniker from her. Most artists are quite unrealistic according to this narrow view.

So how do I defend my point of view to those tiger moms out there and their allies? My brother and sister are realists enough to know that having a part time job at the same time while doing their art careers, is a good thing. This is why they’re realists.

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The Weakest Link in “Fabricated”

Posted on 1 April 2023 by Larry Russwurm

In my collection of short stories called “Fabricated”, I link together disparate fantasy machines. I’ve been saying they are strong links, but there is one weaker link. For time travel into the past, I substitute seeing into the past. I know that seeing into the past isn’t time travel. But there is a certain type of time travel, that doesn’t mess with cause and effect, that it does mimic.

I don’t want to give away my method of seeing into the past in my book, so I will use the only other way I know how to see into the past.

That other way is with ‘slow’ glass. The speed of light is a variable that is different depending on the medium it is in. Usually the speed of light in a vacuum is used as the constant for the speed of light. But it is different in different glasses and plastics.

Imagine a glass where the speed of light is slowed considerably. If you could make light slow down such that it travels through one pane of glass in 12 hours, you would have a cheap way to light a room at night.

Plus you could go outside and pose at the slow glass pane, then come inside and stand by the same pane and say “Look at that. I’m faster than light!” You would however have to wait almost 12 hours to prove it.

Also with 6 month slow glass, you could grow plants in the arctic in a greenhouse in the winter! Fresh vegetables and fruit, all year long.

Anyhow, I’ve been digressing. With slow glass you can see into the past. With lip readers you can even “hear” some of what was said. I liken it to the DC comics time travel of Superman.

I forget how, but Superman could go back to the past. When he did so, he was outlined in dashed lines in the comics. This was because he could not touch anything or speak to anyone or be seen. It was like he was a ghost. He could touch nothing and people would just walk through him. But he could see and hear things as they happened around him.

Notice that this DC comics time travel has no problems with cause and effect. He could just hear and see in the past. This is the same net effect of just seeing into the past. I may not have totally linked seeing into the past with time travel in “Fabricated”. But I believe I have done it here.

After writing this, I realize that I am going to have to include slow glass into my series. It’s too late for it to go in this book, but I see no reason it can’t be included in another book in the series. All for the sake of completeness.

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Late March, 2023, Grab Bag o’ Humour

Posted on 25 March 2023 by Larry Russwurm

People may question why McDonald’s brought out their new chicken Big Mac. I’m just wondering why it took them so long. Some might say the taste is a little bland after their palates have been accustomed to the normal Big Mac. But McDonald’s will quietly wait while those old taste palates become accustomed to the new offering.

When McDonald’s began, chicken meat was more expensive than ground beef. Changes in the shape of chickens (due to selective breeding) has changed this factor. Now chicken is the cheaper meat and McDonald’s is now waiting (and hoping) that they can change our taste buds to liking chicken better.

Wait for it. The Quarter Pound Chicken with Cheese is next up. But I expect McDonald’s to hedge their bets and keep offering hamburgers, too. If the consumer is going to try to be cheap about their purchases, McDonald’s has that covered. If the consumer prefers the taste of hamburgers, McDonald’s will have that covered as well.

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There’s a little bit of surprise in the air that Succession is having it’s last season be the 4th season. It used to be that shows would pull out all the stops to make it to the 5th season. Why the 5th season? Well this is the magical year when most syndication deals are possible.

However, with the advent of streaming, and marathon small screen watching, making it to the 5th season isn’t quite as important. In other words, network television is losing some of its pull.

And the show creators all remember what happened to Babylon 5. It was planned to be a 5 season show from the outset. But I guess, 3rd season numbers weren’t what the network wanted to see. So they gave the warning: finish it off in the 4th season because that is as long as the show would get.

So the most important story ideas were finished off early. Everyone wanted to see how all the arcs would tie together in the end. Viewership went up. So much so, that at the end of the 4th season the network relented and said there would be a 5th season.

Now all the arcs didn’t get tied up in the 4th season, just most of the more important ones. Still the 5th season became known as an almost pointless season.

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Some people are so adverse to losing that they will take me up on my next idea. If you’re going to play “she loves me, she loves me not” with a flower’s petals, why not use a trillium? This 3 petaled flower basically guarantees a win.

Assuming that “she loves me” is a win, that is. If you are playing the game with a she or he or a they that is so repugnant you can’t believe it, the answer is to play with a poppy. This four petaled flower guarantees that she/he/they will love you not.

And for those who don’t like winning for whatever messed up reason, use a poppy when it’s good to be loved and a trillium when it’s bad to be loved.

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Fabricated: My Book, Out Now

Posted on 18 March 2023 by Larry Russwurm

“Fabricated” is my first book that I have put out. It’s a collection of science fiction stories that dare pose the question: is there a grand unified theory of fantasy machines? While it doesn’t quite answer this, it provides strong links between totally separate fantasy machines,

While I don’t want to give away too much, one of these stories’ strong links has been around in various science fiction forms for decades. It links the replicator to the transporter.

If a replicator is thought of as a perfect scan and a 3D printer, it can mimic a transporter. All you need to do is send the information from the perfect scan to a far away 3D printer. Once the 3D printer has finished printing you, it’s exactly like you were transported to the far away printer. The only thing that gives away what really happened, is that you still exist in the scanning bay.

If it is important to create the illusion that this is just another transporter, your machinery can kill the unfortunate you inside the scanning bay. You may be dead, but from the outside world it looks like you are very much alive and have transported successfully.

That’s just one of the strong links in Fabricated. If you want to be there for the hard launch of Fabricated, and you live in or near Stratford, Ontario  or if you just want to check out some fine books, I will be at the Stratford Book Fair and Market on April 23, from 1pm to 6pm.

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Hoops

Posted on 11 March 2023 by Larry Russwurm

The new Tangerine ad has people having to go through hoops on the way to work, at work and anywhere they have to move while at work. Unfortunately, I can’t find this ad on YouTube, yet, so I hope my descriptions are enough.

I think this ad is supposed to show a dystopia, but I can’t help wishing that it was real. I’ve always preferred to get my exercise by accident. Which was fine long ago when I worked at a lumber yard and a pavestone yard. But after those jobs, I didn’t really keep up on getting exercise that way.

Now seeing these hoops around a normal office job, I bet I could keep in shape there. Lifting my legs high enough and stooping over my upper body to get through the hoops I bet is wonderful exercise. And it’s all done in the normal course of the day.

I bet it keeps you awake to go through hoops like that. Could this be the tipping point we need to banish caffeine from our everyday life? We could stay awake with exercise instead of drugs. And in the great coffee pendulum, the last study I saw a couple weeks ago said coffee was bad for you. I’m aware that the pendulum may swing back. But still caffeine is a drug and maybe we can use one less drug in our lives.

And with all this wonderful exercise we could get at work, maybe we could save some money on gym memberships. We would no longer need to go to the gym because we would be getting all our exercise at work.

And don’t forget the time we are saving by not going to the gym. Remember, time is money, and in fact now we would be getting paid to exercise at work. So put up your hoops all you evil employers, and you just might end up with a healthier and happier workforce.

So Tangerine, you’ll have to excuse me for seeing your work dystopia ad as a work utopia ad. But I would also like to say that this utopia is not for everyone. The hoops would be road blocks for those with disabilities. And elderly employees might not be able to work through these hoops also. So may I suggest a second floor for these people without the hoops. Because I believe in an inclusive utopia.

It figures that a company, when thinking about a dystopia, comes up with something that could be seen as a utopia. Which might also mean that when they’re chasing utopias for the company, those become dystopias for the employees. I guess that’s capitalism at work,

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Grab Bag o’ Humour, March 2023

Posted on 4 March 2023 by Larry Russwurm

While I was in early elementary school, they did the Canadian switch from imperial measurements to the metric system. So I was one of the first grades to come up to the spots where they used to talk of units and conversion. These spots were huge. It would take just a few minutes to understand the metric units and conversions, but we were booked for a full hour, or whatever had been necessary with the imperial system.

No wonder I learned to daydream in school. With all these useless gaps it was easy to get through doing this. I wonder if school is still like this. Or did they manage to squeeze those unit of measurement time periods into smaller bits so they could teach other things? I think that probably they did. Otherwise some kids would use that conversion time we never needed to make spit balls or make and use paper airplanes.

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I just noticed that in a block of 6 commercials in a row, the first 4 had only black people as the stars. The fifth one had white people and the 6th one had no people at all.

Now this doesn’t always happen but that it is happening at all is a sign of progress. The ads originated out of Toronto, on Global, during the Drew Barrymore show.

More than half of Toronto’s population is visible minority, so it’s about time this happened. That I noticed this first on Global which is not considered to be a progressive network, is interesting. That it happened during the Drew Barrymore talk show is also interesting. Drew is of course white and on at the same time as Jennifer Hudson’s talk show on another network, where J. Hud is a black woman. Better representation has already gotten here and I just noticed.

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And speaking of Drew Barrymore, you might wish to know what kind of content she hosts. Well I’m sorry, but I haven’t yet noticed the representation on her show, and whether she is being progressive or not in that area. But I did notice one quote that just rose up and slapped me in the face.

Drew said while promoting some product that, “I have no capacity to B. S.”

Yes this is a direct quote and Drew is an actress.

If she has no capacity to B.S. she is a horrible actress. Beings she has been hired as an actress, multiple times and in some good films, you would think she’s an okay actress. So the sentence she said must have been a lie. So her current job of helping to promote things on her show, means that sometimes she lies about the virtues of what is being sold. Oh, Drew!

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I Don’t Want to Say What This Post is About

Posted on 25 February 2023 by Larry Russwurm

I don’t want to say what this post is about or I’ll fall into the same trap as these other fine headline makers did. Just look at these train wreck headlines I found under Science in Google News:

From Giant Freakin’ Robot: NASA scientist wants to explore inside Uranus.

From Popular Science: Uranus’s quirks and hidden features have astronomers jazzed about a direct mission.

From IFL Science: Why planetary scientists think it’s time for NASA to probe Uranus.

It makes me wonder if it’s even possible to have a non suggestive exploring Uranus sentence (uh oh, I fell into the trap).

The following headline makes a good attempt:

From Hot Hardware: Planetary scientist issues desperate plea for NASA to probe the icy depths of Uranus.

This was a good try. I think that icy is not something you usually associate with your anus. I say nice try because the kid inside me still burst out laughing when he heard this sentence.

Why probe Uranus at all? (I did it again!)

Well as suggested in this long ago post of mine, Uranus may have liquid diamond seas with diamond icebergs floating in it. (and again!)Of course they are going to explore it. Such raw wealth available for the taking. It’s better NASA gets it than those billionaire rocketeers.

But this true mission will go up unexpected by anyone because we all expected the whole thing was just one big joke.

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Roger Hodgson in Kiss?

Posted on 18 February 2023 by Larry Russwurm

Roger Hodgson is to many, the voice they think of when they think of the band Supertramp. And why not? He penned and sung most of their hits. But there was a schism with the band in the early 1980s and he left and then released the hit song Had a Dream.

For those who don’t know Kiss, they were a hard rock band that was best known for their painted faces. Indeed their gimmick in the 1970’s was that they always performed with their makeup and fans didn’t know what they really looked like.

I finally looked up the video for Hodgson’s Had a Dream and was taken by the fact that Hodgson has no less than two black and white painted faces. Was he trying to woo Kiss into taking him on as a band member? He was a known hit maker, with the two faces for his application.

Kiss has been silent on this matter all these years. So has Hodgson. But maybe, just maybe this happened,

The faces appear in the video at the 2nd and 3rd verses of Had a Dream. At roughly the 3:00 and 4:00 minute marks of the video.

The first one can be described as a going-to-war face. The black paint looks very angry. The white accentuates this a bit. Kiss purists might think that this paint is not covering enough of the face and is lazy. But aren’t the rest of Kiss lazy for not doing their necks or ears?

The second face can be described as lightning man. This particular look, to my mind, is more likely to win over Kiss fans, It’s black and white with the whole face done.

There are likely many reasons why the lineup of Kiss never included Roger Hodgson. Firstly he is a very high singer compared to that band’s more gruff singing. Secondly, Hodgson is an excellent piano player, which I doubt is a sound that Kiss wanted to add to the band. Thirdly, although Hodgson is also a good rhythm guitarist, I don’t think Paul Stanley ever left the lineup of Kiss. Thus, there was no opening for Roger Hodgson.

As for Roger Hodgson, he would likely have had to curtail his piano and keyboard playing. Although he was a known hit maker, his high, lilting voice might be forced out of the very songs he wrote. And Kiss isn’t just the faces, he would likely have to learn theatrics and how to walk in heels.

Anyhow, this marriage of two well known sounds never happened, Maybe the world is the poorer for it. But are we really?

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