Element of Style

Perennial Mendy (see archives, Dec 15th) winner and no stranger to the red carpet, Ytterbium made quite a splash at last night's Oscar gala as newcomer Jennifer Hudson's escort. Clad in a smashing burgundy bow tie from Versace's couture collection the Hollywood heavyweight (and occasional paperweight) was clearly glowing with pride after Hudson's victory was announced. Hudson, who has been dating the same man for 7 years, was quick to deny any romantic involvement with element #70: "My boyfriend had to stay back home because of work so I called Tterb who's been a good friend of mine since high school. I just couldn't face tonight alone and he's always been real supportive. I leaned on him a lot this evening, he's been a total rock."

Later at the Vanity Fair after party Ytterbium has these cautionary words for Jennifer: "After I won my first Mendy it really went to my head...I kind of let myself go, staying out late, trying to alloy myself with the wrong elements, eventually I got completely oxidized and had to spend three months in a very large flask of a mild acidic solution.

Jenn is young and has a tendency to put on lots of weight very quickly. You've all heard her sing, it's no mystery that her biggest influence is Aretha Franklin...I just hope she doesn't start overeating like Aretha...have you seen that woman?!! Check out her latest album...what a shocker!"

And so, another Oscar night came and went. Jennifer Hudson and the rest of the winners joyously clutched their statuettes while the other revellers were left to wonder if perhaps next year it would be their turn.

Oscar Thoughts a la Blob- Not Just Another Pissing Contest

What can I say about an Oscar night where Al Gore gets the biggest laugh? Ellen Degeneres was wry with gusts to droll and will never be invited back, likeable though she is. The daytime schtick just doesn't cut it.
Martin Scorcese and The Departed cleaned up even though it wasn't really the best film out there. The academy members, feeling remiss for having slighted the great director in the past, all joined in to create their own equvalent of the biggest pity f**k since I lost my virginity some years ago. He's still my favorite director but I'd have preferred if he won for Goodfellas.
The true stroke of genius this evening was canning the annual dance number and hiring Pilobolus in its stead to do several 10 second shilouetted masterpieces of motion.
Fashion wise there were the usual hits and misses. Among the latter were J Lo who looked like an upscale sofa and Naomi Watts (in bright yellow with a black belt) who looked like a bumble bee.
Cate Blanchett was stunning and made the case for being gaunt while Oscar winner Helen Mirren was simply breathtaking. I can only hope my tits look that good when I'm 61!!

The Art of the Nap

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Mon Feb 12, 4:25 PM ET
CHICAGO - Office nappers now have the perfect excuse: New research shows that a little midday snooze seems to reduce the risk of fatal heart problems, especially among men.

The news from the world of science just keeps getting better and better. 1st a study comes out that shows male sweat to have aphrodisiac qualities and now this. Napping and sweating are two of the things that I excel at and if, in the near future, they prove that eating too much pizza prevents cancer then I'll have hit the trifecta!

This all harkens back to a study published about half a decade ago that concluded that fidgeting helped burn a significant number of calories over the course of a year, and I quote:

Some brains may be wired to encourage fidgeting and other restless behaviors according to new research published by The American Physiological Society. This line of research suggests that frequent minor unconscious movements such as fidgeting and other behaviors associated with restlessness burn calories and help control weight. The study "Elevated hypothalamic orexin signaling, sensitivity to orexin A and spontaneous physical activity in obesity resistant rats," appears in the March 2002 edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology published by The American Physiological Society.

The young man at left, typical of the restless sample group watches between 1 and 2 thousand hours of TV annually but gains 10 pounds less than the more sedentary control group because he fidgets 40% more. The proof is in the pudding and apparently our young man at left has been as well. Were it not for his incessant finger twiddling there would be significantly less room on the rest of the not-too-surprisingly empty sofa.

No sooner had the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparitive Physiology (better known today as Maxim) hit the newsstands than we were overwhelmed with fidget-themed exercise videos as entrepreneurs and fitness gurus alike tried to cash in on the study's findings. Look for a similar spate of Napping DVDs any day now.

(ed.note: video at left featured participants in various states of repose twitching rhythmically to pop music of the 60's and 70's)

This is Really Happening People! (Anna Nicole's Myth)

Come and listen to a story 'bout Anna Nicole

She felt at home with a G string and a pole

But then one day she decided to pose nude

Next thing ya know she's marryin' some dude

(Old that is, billionaire, tortoise-like)

Well she had no talent, couldn't sing or act

She earned her keep being blonde and really stacked

The old guy died and he left her his estate

But the stress of litigation made her gain a lot of weight

(bloated that is, krispy kremes, haagen dazs)

So she signed with TrimSpa and lost a hundred pounds

Slept with lots of opportunist clowns

Made quite a splash on reality TV

And showed her life for what it was, a tragicomedy

(alcohol that is, sex and drugs, more sex and drugs)

Anna was a victim of her own success

A lifestyle fueled by ridiculous excess

A lousy childhood and a chronic lack of love

Let's hope she finds some peace in the heavens above.

(the ultimate rehab, set a spell, take yer clothes off)

photo -top row L to R: J. Howard Marshall; old,dead, rich ex-husband, Larry Birkhead girlish, potential dad #5 of daughter Danniellyn, Judge Larry Seidlin; robed nutcase.

bottom row: Virgie Arthur; estranged, lumpy mother, Howard K. Stern; lawyer, lover, enabler, Anna Nicole Smith

original photo courtesy of CBS

Please...Don't Wake Me Up!!!

I've only been disconnected from the web for a few days but during that time it seems as though I drifted into a reverie where the bizarre and illogical fantasies of my subconscious became some sort of hyper-reality. I dreamt of a restless spotlight, it's bright beam never focusing for more than a minute: 1st it trains itself on a diaper clad astronaut bent on revenge only to be whisked over to the tragic death of former nude golddigger Anna Nicole Smith but wait....now it spies the even more tragic life of Brittney Spears as she checks in and out of rehab before shaving her head, going in and out of rehab yet again and...whoa....now it's back at Anna Nicole and a crying judge named Larry has finally decided where to bury her rapidly decomposing body.

Please, don't bother writing in with your analyses. These were clearly the result of random misfirings in my cerebral cortex and any attempt to make sense of them will surely end in failure. I was really enjoying the daydreams until I was brought back to reality by a little something in my comment section that prompted some investigation and revealed a disturbing hoax. Here's the comment:

Shannon O., Chicago said... Dear Blob,I am a first time inquirer, long time reader.What I'd like to know is, what are the mechanics and philosophy of gerbil stuffing? How are the gerbils inserted and retrieved? Don't they bite and scratch? Why not hamsters or snakes? Is this a common practice? My curious friends and I await your reply with bated breath. --Shannon O., Chicago

I was overjoyed at finally having penetrated the Chicago market and was getting set for a great answer with some initial photoshopping (and a reasonable premise based on the gerbils penchant for tunneling into the warm soil of their native Gobi desert) when my research led me to Cecil Adams and his well known column; The Straight Dope and then to a question from one Shannon O. (what a tangled web we weave...) the very same that was copied and pasted verbatim into my comment section. Imagine my diappointment; no reader from Chicago, no reason for a well formed answer. If you must know then go here. I can't be bothered to explain. http://tafkac.org/animals/gerbilling/gerbils_gerbils_and_more.html

BTW After a lot of noodling around I think I have a fairly solid internet connection so there'll be more Blob to come. It's late now so I think I'll give it a rest, maybe watch a little CNN before hitting the sack, see if anything intersesting is happening in the news.

Technical Difficulties, Perseverance, Rage, resignation....

The title of this post pretty well sums up my week and I'd not be speaking to you today were it not for the drastic measures I've taken. After trying everything to get back online including spending 1/2 an hour on the phone with a helpless and not-at-all helpful tech support lad I decided to resort to the dangerous and barely understood "System Restore" (think of regression therapy for your comp). I don't know why I wasn't able to access Internet Explorer but system restore helps bring me back to a time before what I'll heretofore refer to as "the great upheaval". I'd seen time travel before; Superman spinning the world backwards, Marty McFly and his souped up Delorean, Homer Simpson and his toaster, but I hadn't actually attempted it myself. Desperate, wary, yet undaunted I undertook the process hoping only that I wouldn't somehow be trapped in the whirling vortex of the time/space continuum only to be spat out God knows where.....a naked gladiator ready to do battle, a scantily clad serf paying allegiance to my feudal Seigneur, naked and cold in a Stalinist era women's gulag....I didn't care, I had to get back to The Blob!!

A few clicks of the mouse later and the deed was done. My computer was whole again and I was none the worse for wear (strangely I no longer need eyeglasses or Cialis). I am in fact on my 2nd round of system restoring because it works but only temporarily so. This afternoon I will get a hold of the best anti-virus software money can buy and get back to the serious business of Blobbing. After all, there's so much to comment on and the world doesn't stand still just because my computer is on the fritz..........or does it????

Let's Take This Baby for a Spin!

Dixxx said...
I have found a device that may be of interest to readers of the blob. Should things get hot and heavy tonight, here is an idea that may serve you well 9 months from now.colitz.com/site/3216423/3216423.htmWhat an age we live in!

For those of you too lazy to check out this link here is what all the fuss is about. Look carefully and you'll be able to make out a woman in a centrifuge about to deliver a baby. This is an actual U.S. patent developed but never, how should I say, brought to term, in the mid 1960's. Besides 5 diagrams there is also a long technical treatise which basically asserts that the modern North American woman (of 50 years ago), far more sedentary than her evolutionary ancestors, needs the help of centrifugal force to ease the trauma of childbirth. In principle a great idea so what went wrong? I thoroughly checked out the patent application, had some of the Blob research crew go digging around in the U.S. Patent Bureau archives, and I believe we've come up with an answer....a combination of design flaws and the inventor's misunderstanding of human anatomy.

In early tests a startling 17% of babies flew out of the vagina and crashed against the containment cylinder....you'll thank me for sparing you the photos of the newborns after they sluiced down to the floor. Even after the addition of strategically placed pillows there was no way to keep mothers from fainting (diminished bloodflow to the brain) or from the baby's delicate digestive system ending up in it's chest cavity.

The centrifuge was never marketed but a later, retooled version saw limited success as a fecal disimpaction machine. Soon enough, however, both doctors and patients alike realized that there was no replacement for a skilled nurse with a knowing hand and a lubricated rubber glove. The bottom line is that science marches on but with the occasional, and often fascinating, misstep.

Happy Valentine's Day

I awoke this morning full of expectation and wonder, another Valentine's day was upon us. Even though here in the Northeast we're in the throes of our 1st major winter storm I remain undaunted and filled with love. As luck would have it the strong winds make for a driving, horizontal snowfall which I figure will just blow everything over to the neighbours (happy shovelling suckah!!!) but this for me is a mere bonus.

As someone firmly ensconced in a long distance relationship I of course will be spending today alone. I get to avoid the hackneyed "flowers, chocolates, dinner, concessionary sexual practices routine" (Hallmark conducted a recent poll that indicates that globally there are more instances of sodomy and other deviant sex acts between established couples onValentine's Day than any other day of the year with the local exception of Holland's Ass-sexeDag) but I still take the time to add a few of the little touches that make today so special: a 3rd cake of Shredded Wheat, a double dose of Febreze for those "hard to clean" areas of my house, and who knows, I may even call in sick today for work! As light and gay as I feel though I've been buoyed further still by news from the world of science....it appears male sweat has aphrodisiac qualities!!

I'm no scientist but I am somewhat of a sweathog, indeed I can work up a healthy glow just thinking about getting off the couch to fetch the morning paper from my front porch.

While I haven't read the report I feel that I can readily support these findings with my own empirical evidence from a recent trip to Colombia. The air was tropical and humid, the average daily temperature was 33 (low 90's) and I was a walking rainforest...how then to explain my inordinate success with the ladies! Once again science provides the answers and speaking of science, check out this video dealing with the cultivation of psychotropic fungi to help put you in a holiday mood. Have a happy day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udMReG1mwyk

Canadian (mal)Content

Canada is by and large a socialist country and as a taxpayer who enjoys reaping the benefits of our mostly equitable system I can't complain (I can and will but hang on a sec). I love the free health care, cheap prostitutes, and home veal subsidies(....what?...you didn't know about those??) and I'm able to spend a lot of time working on The Blob rather than search for employment because of our social safety net which is all the security I need! I was what you'd call a self-satisfied Canadian until I got this in the mail:

Ist of all what kind of name is Konrad Von Finckenstein (no joke!!) and how did he get to be chairman. I thought I was doing pretty well in the CanCon department and now this. With Big brother breathing down my neck I suppose I'll have to put a more Canadian slant to things. That shouldn't present too much of a problem but feel free to complain if it does. Let's start with a look at Canadian talent and ingenuity that will be sure to please Mr. so called Von Finckenstein.

http://www.jokeroo.com/extremevideos/human_can_opener_crazy.html

More Cool Stuff and a Minor Beef

I don't know what you're supposed to call the brother of your girlfriend so I'll just refer to him as Dan (which also happens to be his name). Anyways Dan sent me an email featuring the chalk sidewalk drawings of Julian Beever and they freaked me out. I found a short film on youtube that I'll share with you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyPhCO3LrtQ (so very sorry about the horrible Eurotrash soundtrack) For a better look go to his website: http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm.

As for the beef I'm not at all happy with some trends in fashion terminology i.e. the illogical use of the singular "shoe" or even worse "pant" when referring to a pair of either. I can't stand sentences like "He wore a simple brown shoe with a khaki pant" but because of shows like "Queer Eye" and "What Not to Wear" they are becoming increasingly prevalent. A pair of shoes are definitely 2 things and a pair of pants are arguably 2 things because of the seperate legs but why do we say "a pair of underpants"? They are clearly 1 thing and the fact that they have 2 leg holes won't sway me. After all a shirt has 2 arm holes but we don't say a pair of shirts and a thong has 2 leg holes but we still use the singular and save the term "a pair of thongs" when we want to refer to beach sandals or flip flops.

The problem with the word "underpants" lies with the fact that we are talking about a singular garment that lies beneath a pluralized one; pants. Should we simply say "an underpant" or drop the "pair of" and just say "underpants"? The truly logical choice would be "an underpants" but that's so ungainly and leaves us back at square one. I think I'll go to bed now...my head hurts a lot and clearly I have too much time on my hands.
Maybe one of you out there can straighten this out.

Let's All go a-Travelin' looks at NORWAY

Long overlooked, misunderstood, and misrepresented in the North American media, Norway is quietly leading the way into the 21st century and beyond.

As myth has it the great Norse god Odin slapped a huge handful of clay upside Northern Europe's head and so was born the great nation of Norway.

Approximately the size of New Mexico and with a population of 4.6 million, today's featured country counts itself as one of the most socially and economically advanced on the planet. Vast reserves of fish, oil, and other natural resources combined with an industrious and largely Christian/secular workforce create a dynamic and politically stable atmosphere but this has not always been the case.

We owe the word "Quisling" to the Norwegians and to one man in particular. It means a traitor (and collaborator) and Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonnson Quisling was exactly that. Seeing an opportunity to seize power he welcomed the nazi invasion with open arms, broadcast a coup d'etat during the news and within days became little more than a figurehead. He was executed after the war but his name lives on in at least 11 languages.

Other than him there are a handful of famous norskmen: Grieg, Ibsen, Munch, the explorers Amundsen and Heyerdahl, a couple of scientists and political figures.......not many really, sort of pathetic considering there've been people up there for 12,000 years!! Okay, so the 8th to 11th centuries were sort of a golden age when the Vikings ruled the roost. After that there was the plague (loss of 50% of the population...that's gotta hurt! ), political and religious upheaval leading to isolation from the rest of Europe and a couple of lost wars....your basic recipe for under-achievement. A period of cultural nationalism in the 19th century followed by independence in the 20th has now set the stage for Norway to flourish in the years to come.

Visit Norway, meet the friendly people and sample some of the fine food including Lutefisk, which is dried cod steeped in lye, or a steaming cone of whipped herring which can be purchased from street vendors almost anywhere! Three Norwegians have happened across the Blob in the past couple of days (according to my tracking software) and so this shameless travelogue is the result...I'll be expecting a note of thanks from the consulate any day now.

BTW if travelogue is a lecture describing travel what's analogue?

The Springerization of NASA

Okay...so this is another of those obvious targets but in fact it's just the old "love triangle" theme with a few twists thrown in (mental illness, adult diapers, mace, NASA etc.) This is the stuff of tabloid journalism, the bread and butter of the Jerry Springers, Maury Poviches, and Montel Williamses of our world. While these shows deal primarily with the lower socio-economic echelons of society the story in question deals with one of America's best and brightest, hence the heightened interest. It just goes to show, once again, that you can take the trash out of the trailer but you can't take the trailer out of the trash.......ummm no....you can take out of the trash....you can take the girl outta the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park outta the girl....whatever!! My point is that there is a fine line between infatuation and mental illness and not a one of us is immune. Sit back and listen to what happened to me not too many years ago:
If you're a faithful Blob reader you'll recall my weekend tryst (see may26th) with one Michaelle Jean, at the time a well known journalist and today our Governor General. After our camping trip I stopped returning her emails and was soon going out with Phyllis. When the GG got wind of this she started peppering Phyll with late hour prank calls and even showed up at her place of work (I believe she favoured a thong over the diaper) and tried to stab her with a syringe!
Bottom line: Lisa Marie Nowak is just the latest in a long line of spurned, depressed, and smitten women. If she hadn't have been a diaper wearing astronaut we would have never heard of her.

Whither Dixxx

That's the question that has been on everyone's lips of late as the Blob's most prolific correspondent has become conspicuous by his prolonged absence. I was at a loss to explain the sudden disappearance until I happened on the following magazine as I passed a newsstand on the way home from work. A trusted source, a plausible scenario, and all of a sudden I'm fearing the worst. Please, please say it ain't so!!

Global Warming and Me (and Phyllis)

I'll admit that with all the travelling of late I've sort of been out of the loop as far as knowledge of current events go. "You were in a 5 star hotel in Cartagena" you say, "Surely you could've watched CNN!" Well yes and no.....while I did get CNN International (mostly rugby scores and Spotlight on Lesotho) the reception was screwed up. The picture was fine but somehow the audio was the local taxi dispatcher. Even I tired of that after an hour or two. I was also quite busy in Colombia and Alberta so world news justifiably took a back seat.

Apparently a group of world climate scientists came out with a report today on the causes of global warming and I apologize for not yet having informed myself about its contents. I caught a bit of it in passing but I can't be sure if I heard accurately. For what it's worth I believe the report concluded that the increase in mean temperature is caused by Filipinos but don't go quoting me on this.

Phyllis and I have been anticipating the worst ever since we saw the film The Day After Tomorrow. Prior to my latest visit we decided that with the world coming to an end any day now we should take up a hobby that would be fun, bad for us, but not incapacitating on a day to day basis. Cigarettes were the answer and last week we began smoking 2 packs a day and I left Calgary wondering why we hadn't thought of this sooner!

When I say we I actually mean Phyllis since I can't afford a 2 pack a day habit. We got around this by closing all the windows and vents and having Phyllis puff away while I got the benefits of the 2nd hand smoke.... an elegant solution to a tricky problem.

Phyllis, ever the hedonist, couldn't stop and would smoke till the wee hours of the morning. A bit of sleep and an early start the next day was pretty much our schedule for the entire week. We laughed, hacked, and sputumed our way through six full days and each of us lost more than 10 pounds as an added bonus. For this to work though the world does have to come to an end within a couple of years so please...idle your cars, buy SUVs, stop recycling plastics, anything but let's get this over with!! OK gotta run...time for the nightly news.

The Greying of Hollywood

February 1st and the countdown to Oscar night begins in earnest. By now the nominations are well known, the PR campaigns are ratcheting up to full gear, and we may be witnessing a major shift (dare I say paradigm) in the way the film industry deals with North America's aging population. Just look at some of the nominess: Judy Dench, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Clint Eastwood, Peter O'Toole for heaven's sake....fabulous performances all and I know for a fact that at least two of them wear adult diapers. This is surely unprecedented and will likely herald a new era where the term "silver screen" takes on a whole new meaning.

The baby boom, that sweetheart generation of all marketers and demographers, is moving towards its dotage and taking its retirement savings along for the ride. Hollywood execs are finally feeling brave enough to cash in on this trend and will be producing more films that appeal to the older crowd. The recent and unfortunate Passing the Stone and it's inevitable copycat counterparts (see ad below) are but timid attempts at "going grey" while still maintaining some youth appeal.

Hollywood will always target the younger audience but I, who was born at the tail end of the baby boom and straddle the gap between both age groups (sort of like the mighty Colossus of Rhodes only much smaller and with a mysterious rash) will undoubtedly benefit from the greater choice of movies and the option of a more mature product.