whistler’s blog

This concept has been told and retold before, but I didnt get a chance to blog about it. Most of the year at AUS, it is unbearably hot outside, each time you enter a building you thank God for creating AC. Its usually quite cold inside buildings.

During a typical day a typical student has to go through several typical “sun crossings”. You get out of a building and walk in the burning sun to get to your next class. While in the sun your head expands, as your brain expands you feel smarter for a while (when not in a class). But within a couple of minutes you are in AC again and your head shrinks and by this time you are sitting in a class. Because of the contraction of your brain you feel really dumb.

As this cycle continues throughout the semester, numerous expansions and contractions of brain result in the weathering of the brain similar to what happens to rocks in the desert. During the day heat expands the rock, at night the cold contracts the rock, this creates stress in a very thin outer layer of the rock which then peels off. Overtime rocks just become sand. But the brain weathering I am talk about is much faster than the so called “onion skin weathering” because expansions and contractions happen to our brains multiple times a day instead of once as in the case of rocks.

So by the end of a semester it is perfectly normal to feel much more dumb than you were at the start of the semester.

Originally written for my WRI 101 class in December 2007.

At the international convention of villains held recently, super-villains from all over the world united against Superman and Spiderman and decided to take care of these two super heroes once and for all. They came up with foolproof plans to kill the two. The reasons behind this conspiracy range from personal enmity to giving female superheroes like Wonder Woman more chances to fight crime. Here is what they decided to do and the similarities and differences between the two plans.

Spiderman should not be hard to kill as he is a human being after all. So what if he was bitten by a spider and got all kinds of cool powers, spiders aren’t invincible themselves and in fact can be very easily squashed. One thing I don’t understand is why villains do not carry cans of insect killers incase they encounter Spiderman? I see no reason why it should not work. But Spiderman is really quick and would probably run away so it is necessary to trap him. Trapping him is the hardest part of the job. The best way is to trick him coming to a place from where he cannot escape and a team of villains is ready to jump him. Although Spiderman would come to help any random person, to make sure that he does come, MJ should be used as the bait. The good thing about Spiderman is that he is not infinitely strong like Superman who can break through anything. This makes it possible to encage Spidy. But make sure the keys aren’t anywhere close by as he can use his web to snatch them. Once he is trapped the killing part is easy, just use a can of insect killer. If that does not work just blow up the place where he is encaged, don’t give him food or add poison to his food. Killing him with a gun should work too once he is weak enough to lose his super quick reflexes which he can use to dodge bullets. To make sure he really does die and not just pretends to, why not use all of these methods one by one. To make the plan a success all the villains would have to work together.

Although just like Spiderman, Superman is also a superhero who wears tights, killing him is not as easy as killing Spiderman. This is because not only is Superman super fast but he is also super strong. Firing bullets on him would have no use as he is faster than a speeding bullet. However even if he is hit by bullets he is so strong that nothing would happen to him, unless, the bullets are made of Kryptonite. Just like Spiderman, Superman would come to save any stranger but to make things faster Lois Lane should be kidnapped. Kryptonite makes Superman weak, therefore the villains should find a good supply of it. Once enough kryptonite is found, either he could be poisoned by sprinkling kryptonite in his food, trapped in gaseous kryptonite or as said before shot with bullets made of kryptonite. If Spiderman can make clever plans to kill him fail, Superman can do that even better. Therefore there should be backup plans to make sure he dies. All possible methods to kill him should be tried one by one. Whatever way is used to kill him with kryptonite, make sure a large quantity of it is used so no matter how strong his will power is he cannot overcome his weakness and run away. Apart from kryptonite what is required is lead and lots of mirrors. Superman cannot see through lead so the villains should hide behind a wall of lead so that Superman does not know what’s coming. Mirrors can be used to reflect back any lasers he shoots out of his eyes back to him. Make sure wherever he is set up, it is as far from sunlight as possible because sunlight gives superman more energy. Therefore the plan should be carried out at night and make sure he cannot escape to the other side of the Earth very easily. Another important thing about the world Superman lives in is that magic is possible there unlike Spiderman’s world where things are a little closer to reality. So Mr. Mxyzptlk can turn Superman in to dust if he wants to. But he would have to be convinced that just annoying Superman is no good and that he should be taken care of for good. If that doesn’t work, Batman can be hypnotized to kill Superman. After all Superman himself gave Batman a ring made of kryptonite to stop Superman incase he turns evil. Although killing Superman seems a little more difficult, villains working as a team would make the plan a success.

Too bad for the villains that Al-Qaida does not exist in the worlds of Superman and Spiderman, otherwise they would have been toast already. The two superheroes have been around for ages and it is obvious that they are not going to die of old age instead they remain young as ever. But are these new plans really a bad news for the general public? Spiderman and Superman have obviously become boring over the years. And do we really have to worry about crimes when these two are gone? I don’t think so, there are new superheroes being created all the time that can do the same as Supes and Spidy: they can put out fires, save cats from the trees and save that guy getting robbed in the dark alley.