There's a Thirsty Sucker Born Every Minute

I've long been suspicious of bottled water. As a kid I remember the exotic, salty Vichy Celestin and the ubiquitous, fizzy Perrier. I liked neither and never understood what all the fuss was about. Not too long a go all hell broke loose and, well....read this article and then we'll talk:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901872.html?hpid=topnews

Sure, at certain times the convenience factor can be a major selling point and bottled water has been a real life saver in some of those places I've visited that have a tainted and dangerous supply: Mexico, certain areas of South America, my Aunt Miriam's etc.

Dasani, or filtered tap water, is bad enough but how about BlingH2O mentioned in the article. Have a look at their website and then we'll talk some more: http://www.blingh2o.com/

The good news is that this wasteful and moronic tide may be turning. The green movement is having it's say and people are finally starting to pay attention. The recent U.S Mayors meeting saw a motion passed that would seek to put the genie back in the plastic bottle and ban all municipal use of this product. Here at The Blob though, money talks, and I'd be hard pressed to turn down another sponsor. As such I've accepted an offer from a company who's ad campaign, and consequently their water, is the most palatable. Remember; I am not a hypocrite, I'm a human being!! (who could use the money)

Opportunity Knocks (up)

Gloucester Girls Gone Wild


The latest what's-the-matter-with-kids-today story comes from Gloucester, Mass., and it's a jaw-dropper. According to Time, a group of 15-and 16-year-old girls at Gloucester High School made a "pregnancy pact" -- an agreement that they would all get pregnant and then raise their kids together.
Later reports have cast doubt on whether the girls actually made a spoken pact, but what is indisputable is that Gloucester has itself a little teen mommy explosion, with at least one of the baby mamas choosing a 24-year-old homeless guy as her co-parent.





No doubt this is a titillating story and sure enough the Gloucester chamber of commerce wasted little time trying to cash in and lure some badly needed tourist dollars to a depressed local economy ("Why go all the way to Thailand??").

Here at The Blob we look for the story behind the story and have uncovered an interesting tidbit in the process. Apparently the homeless population in Gloucester has doubled in little more than a week! Said one of the migrant vagrants identified only as Murph: "Sure Chicago was great but when I read about the pregnant chicks out here I decided it was time for a move...basically it was a quality of life issue."

This, of course, got me thinking. More than a roof over their heads or a full belly, these homeless men need love but have a hard time finding it. Surely Gloucester can't be the only place where comely coeds are looking to get impregnated by hobos!! "Eureka" I exclaimed and shared with Murph my idea for an on-line dating service that caters to those whom society has forgotten (the homeless, the mentally ill, most Blobophiles etc.)

Welcome to BlobLife.Com!! Here's Murph's profile...feel free to sign up and send in your own!!











SWM with own shopping cart looking for woman who enjoys the outdoors. Please, no Serbians.

Setting the Record Straight

Maria Callous said...
"What a fag."

This recent quote from the comment section was in reference to my most prolific contributor; Mikexxster. While The Blob is an open forum for free thinkers and the immature I cannot stand idly by and let a friend be slandered even if it is my young and foul-mouthed muse, Maria Callous, who's doling out the calumny.

Before I come to his defense there is a general priciple that I should address....entrenchment.

As we grow older, we, or at least those of us who are so inclined, try to hone our lives; eliminating the dross, turning redundancy into efficiency, identifying and living according to our core values etc.

If we get too deeply into this process before we have found a husband or wife then our prospects diminish significantly. Firstly our stock as a breeder becomes devalued because we've aged but second and most importantly we've become so entrenched in our ways that finding a partner who's just the right fit is almost impossible.

As an example let's take ummm...I don't know....OK, let's take Mikexxster. He's every inch the heterosexual male as his next lady friend will no doubt find out but as each and every year passes, he becomes more and more particular. He has honed and refined his life down to a razor's edge and at this point there may actually be no room for anyone else save for a one in ten million long shot. Still, every 17 years or so Mikexxster, like the cicada (see photo), metamorphoses and seeks a mate.

It's those in between times when he isn't pursuing the opposite sex that give rise to comments such as Maria's.

Living the life of a confirmed bachelor is one thing and his uncanny imitation of the barely closeted Tobias Funke(from TV's Arrested Development) is another but his acting career and in particular his choice of roles is probably the cause of most of the confusion. "Mike of Arabia" was a mistake to be sure but what is one to make of this yet to be released opus.

Take my advice Mikexxster and get yourself a new agent...I'll take a 7% cut off the top and half of all bobble head profits.

First Cyd Charisse now This!!

Moonless In Montreal

Giant moon illusion expected in tonight's sky

June 18, 2008 5:00 PM
PORTSMOUTH — If the moon looks especially huge tonight, fear not: It’s all in your mind.
According to the Web site of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the full moon will hang low on the horizon and look unusually large this Wednesday night. Though it may appear to be huge, it’s actually an optical illusion.

....and so, spurred on by a snippet of news I went looking for the moon only to return home disappointed. Maybe it was hiding behind a cloud or a hill, who knows, but I was finally moved today to try to answer the question; "why does the moon sometimes look gigantic when it's close to the horizon?" To my great surprise the official answer is; "Nobody really knows." It's not atmospheric refraction nor is it the wonderfully named Ponzo Illusion best illustrated by an actual picture (it's a real photo, I swear on the life of my favorite kid) of me lying on a train track in St. Emilion, France (don't ask!). I cut and pasted my image further down the track......which one is bigger??? Wrong!! They're both exactly the same.

Anyways, everyone who's wrestled with this puzzle, from the ancient Sumerians to Da Vinci and now me agree that it's our faulty perception, and nothing else, that is the root cause.

If our brains are convincing us that an illusion is reality then that opens up a whole can of worms that maybe we shouldn't be dealing with. This has got me all off balance. I guess I'm just going to keep repeating "seeing is believing" and enjoy the simple life......professional wrestling is fake though, right??

Peace in Our Time

What better Father's Day present than the news that I post today, for the eons old battle of the sexes is over and women and men everywhere can relax and accept reality!!

When Hugh Hefner (pictured at left with two of his three comely wives....if you've seen their reality TV show then you'll know that they share Hef and a single brain)

helped kickstart the sexual revolution in the early 60's, he couldn't have imagined that monogamy would be so bruised and battered by the turn of the next century.

Yet here we are in 2008 and marriage is our most embattled social institution. Within it's confines men and women have been going at it tooth and nail (and lawyer) in a perpetual power struggle where men put up with being told they're not good enough in exchange for sex and women pick up dirty underwear in exchange for babies.

Now comes the following interview with Griffin Hansbury, a self decribed, post-feminist, female to male, trans-sexual who relates her/his experience in such a way as to end the debate. After listening you will have no choice but to admit that the very nature of men and women is just that....nature. All the social conditioning and religious repression in the world haven't and won't change this very fact. The audio segment in question occurs at 15:15 of the show. Allow it to load for a minute or so and then slide the cursor to the aforementioned time...Happy Father's Day!!!

http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/CPRadio_player.php?podcast=http://www.thisamericanlife.org/xmlfeeds/220.xml&proxyloc=http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/player/customproxy.php

Ute 'R' Us

Ute 'R' Us is what I'd call my base of operation if I were a gynecologist, but I'm not, so someone else can have the name. I've been thinking about this because in a little more than a week my girlfriend will be going under the knife for some relatively minor surgery on her woman parts.

As a sensitive partner I'll be making the trip out west to be by her side......not during the operation or painful convalescence but three weeks later when she is all better and the area in question could use some intensive conditioning and physiotherapy.

As always, surgery, (including surgery "down there") presents certain risks but also certain opportunities. Now let me just say at the outset that my GF has excellent muscle tone, you don't win Kegel Queen at the Millarville County Fair 6 years running without it!! Still though, with a stitch here and a stitch there a skilled surgeon can work wonders and with that in mind I mailed off a crisp new 20 dollar bill to her Ob-gyn, Dr. Ersek, with a little note that said simply: "Surprise me!!"

As a general primer on the subject you may want to take a look at this educational clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c39sirXOad4

and then revisit this must see video for further insight: http://oxygen.feedroom.com/?fr_chl=1e2039ffe65a8155cf73b19ad333d4a7b2457076

Super Hero Fever (yes, we need another hero)

It's just about summer and once again Hollywood is trotting out the super hero themed blockbusters. We've already had Ironman and The Hulk and there will certainly be others coming down the chute.
The film trailer above is from a movie I saw on TV as a child. I don't remember it much except that the Mexican super hero, Santo, was called upon to battle vampire women who were led by a mysterious immortal with the worst case of eczema ever!!
I saw another Santo film earlier this year while working in Colombia and there, in my hotel room, I had a revelation and at once understood the whole super hero phenomenon. (Santo=Saint...hello-ooo!!)
Think about it...worldwide we spend billions of dollars a year on these fictional characters and it's basically the same story being told over and over again. Good vs. evil, the world in peril or just plain folk victimized by the greedy and treacherous saved in the end by a mysterious being, at once of this world yet possessing supernatural powers, knowable and familiar yet unknowable all the same. Did somebody say Jesus?? (the old testament God was too much of a vindictive asshole, sort of a bizarro Jesus, so I can't include him in this analogy.)
It's hardwired in us, this need for justice in the face of a frequently oppressive and grossly unfair existence. Whether at places of worship or in cinemas, in front of a television or a comic book, we seek to have our wrongs redressed even if it's some kind of vicarious catharsis. The fact that we are willing to shell out so much money got me to thinkin'....maybe I can cash in on this too, come up with my own popular super hero and retire in style!!


Here's the back story for volume#1:


Craig Garner's parent's were killed by terrorists on 9-11. He's presently an Ivy League grad student assisting his physics professor, the eccentric but brilliant Dr. Ladislaw Bronislavski, on a top secret pentagon project. After a jargon laden monologue detailing the experiment (treating mice with irradiated mega-hormones and a new drug that causes cells to vibrate at a frequency invisible to the human eye.) Bronislavski exits the lab leaving young Craig to close up. He ends up accidentally falling into a vat of this toxic soup and dies, a victim of drowning and radiation poisoning. He is buried soon after but the chemicals begin to take their effect...his whole body was affected inside and out except for a small area between his buttocks (which were clenched at the time of the fall) that was never touched by the liquid, indeed, in his comatose state the chemicals never worked their way entirely through his digestive tract. He is now alive, larger, stronger, and completely invisible save for his anus!!

You get the picture....bye bye Craig Garner, hello Anus Boy!!!! (OK , OK...so this is my 1st attempt. I think I got the formula right but the central character may need a litle retooling).


On a related topic, I posted a cleavgey picture of the young soprano Maria Callous a couple of days back and within 48 hours my daily readership more than doubled!! (I kid you not) It's sort of disheartening to think that the whole, massive internet industrial complex is being driven by pathetic men world wide, trolling for tits (guilty as charged). With that in mind this final super hero pic is sure to keep my new enlarged fan base from shrinking back to it's pre-Maria size.

Worst Movie Ever!!

Move over "Sex and the City", step to the back of the bus "Love Actually". I've just discovered the worst movie ever made and this includes all of the films created by the legendary Ed Woods.

Imagine a big budget, desert themed flop like "Ishtar" only without the "A list" stars...not Beatty and Hoffman but a wannabe thespian hack and his euphonium (that's right, a euphonium!!).

A down on his luck musician gets stranded in Syria after the cruise ship he was playing on goes bankrupt. One mishap with some self-tanning cream and a few bizarre plot devices later and our hapless hero is leading a revolt against the British occupying forces. The woefully out of place comedic/homo-erotic interlude with a camel boy was supposedly insisted upon by the leading man himself and the catchphrase: "I say lad, will that be one hump or two??" gained some currency among the bath house set.

Now out on DVD, this is not only a movie to avoid, this is a movie to burn, urinate on, and bury.

(Ed. note: On further review it appears that "Sex in the City" is actually far worse than "Mike of Arabia". Our apologies for the earlier inaccuracy.)

Bow WOW!!....A "Blob" Stage Presence Primer

Maria Callous, frequent contributor and Blob muse, has been in negotiations with me for the past several weeks about today's post. Let's go back to the beginning though.

As a music educator it has long occured to me that the youth of today are largely unschooled in the art of the stage bow. They stare awkwardly at the audience, legs splayed, arms adangle, with a timorous body language that displays no small amount of insecurity.
Imagine my surprise then at the end of Maria's vocal recital when she capped a wonderful performance with one of the finest closing bows I've ever seen. Legs together but not clenched, bent deeply at the waist, hands clasped reverently, staring at her shoe tops for a count of three. We, the audience, were treated to a double dose of confidence that afternoon.
I snapped a photo of this moment using her mother's camera but then complications arose. The soprano world is highly competitive and Maria wasn't about to send me the photo and let me post one of her stage secrets....hence the negotiations

Dearest Maria,

Attached is a picture of young Timothy McNulty, aged 9, who hails from Oshawa, (Ontario, Canada). Timothy suffers from spina bifida and as such can't bend at the waist without experiencing severe pain. To make matters worse he has encountered complications and Timmy and his family have been informed that he may only have weeks or even days to live.
This brave little boy you see trying to bow at his school's Easter pageant (where, dressed as a banana, he participated in the "The Fruits of Jesus' Bounty" tableau) is, like you, a big fan of The Blob, and I've been contacted on his behalf by the Make A Wish Foundation. This is where you come in.
Timothy's wish is to make an appearance in The Blob and I have made the editorial decision (as discussed with and agreed upon with the board at the M.A.W. Foundation) to do an educational posting about proper stage bowing technique so that other performing children may benefit. I know that you have in your possession a photograph of an exemplary bow. I know because I took the picture at your semi-recital, snatching the camera from your Mother when I realized that I was in the rare presence of perfect bowing technique.
If you'd be so kind as to email me this picture then I can post it in tandem with young Timothy's before he passes and a dying boy's wish will have come true.
I know that your tough exterior is but a facade and that you are in fact kindhearted and benevolent. Those supposed friends who say that you are a cold-assed bitch are dead wrong. Maybe it's time to put the lie to this assertion once and for all. Send the picture Maria...if not for me than for Timothy McNulty. You'll be glad you did.
thank you sincerely,
The Blob



And so, Maria coughed up the photo early this morning in a wordless email (whose subject was "Re: fuck you") while under the influence of a heart warmed by too much alcohol. I'd like to publicly thank her, for by showing such ample generosity she has made a little boy's wish come true (and that sick kid is probably happy too, I guess).

It's Official: The Blob Endorses Obama!!!

These are golden days for even the casual observer of all things political involving our neighbour to the South. I had endorsed Ms. Clinton at an earlier date because I felt that she was the bigger underdog (trust me...it was a sound argument which I will not rehash here!). With Barack Obama winning the nomination last night it can finally be said that the better man has won and now it's on to the general election. The violently prejudiced sector of the American populace has been strangely silent thus far, perhaps waiting patiently to see whether their energies would need to be expended on sexism or racism and racism it will be....unless of course Hilary gets the nod as vice-presidential candidate in which case it'll be open season on everybody!!

What has pundits and bloggers alike scratching their heads is Hilary's far from magnanimous speech where she barely mentioned the impressive Obama's historical accomplishment (compare this to his effusive praise of her some minutes later in his Minnesota speech) and her somewhat divisive refusal to concede defeat and rally the party together after a long and testy struggle.

If there was any doubt about the equality of the sexes I'd say it's about time we put it to rest. Women can be just as stupid as men and that includes smart women doing inexplicably dumb things and dumb women overextending themselves by trying to be smart. This usually ends up in some sort of tragi-comedic disaster. Clinton's blunder is just the latest but here are a couple of clips to further illustrate my point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrZQ0gEr4Mc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN9bqYhNLDs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L577cWLDH5c&feature=related

The last one with Tyra Banks has an added laugh track (and somehow it works better with the laughs) but the real version, accompanied by silence, was deadly serious and infinitely more awful.

Like men, these women, more often than not, try to redeem their missteps but unlike men they now have their very own awards night courtesy of Oprah Winfrey. This years gala from L.A.'s Dorothy Chandler pavillion was a star-studded affair where all sorts of women were lauded, from untalented flash-in-the-pans to the talented but self-righteous.

That's Some Funny Shit!!

The Blob has inadvertently taken a bit of a scatological turn of late, both on the main page and in the comment section. It wasn't my intention to continue in this vein, rich with lowly comedic ore as it is, but my tracking monitor indicates that hits coming from the former republic of East Germany are way up!! (those Germans sure love their poop jokes!!).
Once again I leave the task to the brilliant Larry David who along with his pal Richard Lewis have formed a latter day and very foul-mouthed TV comedy team to rival even the famed Abbott and Costello. Enjoy the clip and remember guys, unlike women who must always wipe away from the genitalia, we have the God given freedom to wipe in any old direction we please....ahh God, ahhhh freedom!!

(sheisse ist lustig, ja??!!)

TV Notes:

The passing this week of composer Alexander Courage (Star Trek theme -Blob list apr.7, 2008) raises a couple of interesting points:

• Courage had little use for the science fiction genre refering to it as "marvelous malarkey" and yet he penned one of the great sci-fi themes of all time, at once swashbuckling, sexy, intrepid, and futuristic. This only goes to show that a fat paycheck is inspiration enough to a skilled professional.



• His death also points out how far we are from realizing the dreams that Star Trek offered to us. One can only wonder what Courage's dying thoughts were as the NASA space shuttle astronauts had to rig up a back-up bag-like collection system in order to urinate as another mission raced to the rescue with a replacement part for their malfunctioning space loo. He scarcely could have imagined, years earlier, that the signature phrase : To boldly go where no man has gone before" would come to mean peeing into a bag-like collection system while orbiting the earth in a tin can-like space station.

At any rate th(Sorry for the interruption, Troy Huber here by means of a simple hack that maybe about .05 of Blob fans could even begin to comprehend. Blob is obviously forgetting about episode 28, season 2 of the original (and only) Star Trek entitled "The Arcturis Conundrum" where a mysterious force wreaks havoc on all of the Enterprise's life support systems including the waste disposal units. So much for not being able to predict the future. Remember this priceless snippet of dialogue?

Kirk: Scottie, the waste units are still malfunctioning. That Dilothian marsh hog we had for dinner is acting up, we'll have to make a pit stop at the nearest planetoid...give me warp speed 8!

Scottie: But Captain, the engines will never be able to handle warp 8!!! I don't want to be responsible for blowing up the Enterprise. Ye canna just hold it in a wee bit longer??

Kirk: It's either blow up the ship or blow up my colon......your call Lt. Scott.

Scottie: Warp speed 8 it is Cap'n!!

Priceless!!! This is Troy Huber, over and out.)e composer left his mark as did my next subject, Earle Hagen.

Hagen too died this past week leaving behind a rich legacy of television and film music. The former trombonist (who began as a baritone/euphonium player)worked with the Dorsey and Goodman big bands before teaming up with producer Sheldon Leonard to write for TV.

He wrote the Andy Griffith theme and that's him whistling as well, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E59YyrvCzj4&feature=related probably the most famous whistled tune in our popular culture! Mod Squad, Dick Van Dyke, I Spy, Gomer Pyle etc. are just a few of his best known theme songs. The aforementioned should have all been on the Apr. 7th list and I apologize for their omission.

Also gone but not forgotten is the illustrious comic actor Harvey Korman....here are some examples of this master of comedic timing and delivery:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-e7GB6i5vc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoM-ZC7uNnc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEGuVb-mtf0&feature=related (this 3rd one is mostly him cracking up during an onslaught by Tim Conway...one of Korman's trademarks) and at this point may I share with you the blogger's prayer:

Dearest God I write this blog

and do so in thy name.

Thou givest me material

by smiting men of fame.

Amen