The Mystery Solving Goes International

Hello again folks, and welcome to today's installation of the Baba Doodlius Mystery of the Universe Solution Center! Today I'm taking on an International mystery, one that has plagued farmers in Puerto Rico, Mexico, the United States, and several South American countries for decades. Recently this mystery has spread as far as Russia! Of course I'm talking about the legend of

EL CHUPACABRA!

The Chupacabra, translated literally from Spanish as "The Goat Sucker", is a beast that has been reported all over the globe. This critter's modus operandi consists of removing all the blood from farm animals, and since its earliest reported favorite meal was goats it got its now-familiar moniker.

So what, really, is a Chupacabra? Is it a fearsome vampire? A demonic space alien? Could it even be some cruel prankster with a Shop-Vac?

To get to the bottom of this mystery, I decided to do some personal sleuthing. Rather than relying on somebody else's grainy photographs (like in the earlier Loch Ness Monster mystery), I packed my trusty camera and took a trip to Texas, home of a fair number of Chupacabra reports. (Technically I should have gone to Puerto Rico, where most Chupacabra activity is reported, but the airfare was a killer!) I camped out near a bunch of goats and waited for my prey. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting for a Chupacabra to appear (it must have been *at least* 30 minutes!), I took the following series of amazing photos that, for the first time in journalistic history, show a Chupacabra attack *In Progress*! (Click any image for a larger version)

A happy little goat

Uh-oh, here comes a Chupacabra!


Slurrrrrp!


Well that really sucked.


You may doubt your own eyes when you see this incontrovertible evidence of the Chupacabra's real identity, but c'mon folks, have you ever been to Texas or Mexico or Florida or the Caribbean? The bugs they have down there periodically interfere with Air Traffic Control radar. Heck, the cockroaches have been known to eat Volkswagen New Beetles (I have a picture of that too, if you wanna see it). So really, the true identity of El Chupacabra shouldn't come as such a shock.

If you go outside today, don't forget to wear your Chupacabra repellent!

One you know you have always wondered about

Your first reaction to today's topic will be "I've never wondered about that". But remember, I am the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, and I know all, so I *know* that you actually *have* wondered about this, even if you've only witnessed it once or twice in your entire life. I am referring to the phenomenon known as the

GHOST POO!

Not everybody is familiar with the terminology, so I'll explain: a Ghost Poo is a poo that you feel coming out of you, and you hear its little splashdown in the toilet, but when you stand up and look at it (yes, you know you look before you flush, just admit it - I know *all*, remember?) there's no poo in there! You *know* you made a poo, you felt it, you heard it, and >POOF< no poo is there. It's a Ghost Poo! Theories abound concerning what happens to Ghost Poo. Some say that the Ghost Poo rips its entry into the water so perfectly, like Greg Luganis, that it zips directly into the pipes without the need for a flush. Some say Ghost Poos are abducted by aliens for top-secret poo-related experiments. There is even a theory that Ghost Poo is literally supernatural, and that it crosses over into a higher plane of poo existence.

The reality of Ghost Poo is actually very simple and explainable by science. But in order to get to the reality of Ghost Poo, I must first make a brief jaunt into a cutting-edge area of modern physics, String Theory.

String Theory, in essence, is an attempt to explain all of the itsy-bitsy particles known to science. Particles like the electron and the proton are known to most schoolchildren these days, but modern scientists know of an entire alphabet soup of particles like fermions, muons, pions, boobions, honkions, and bajeebions. String Theory explains that all these exotic particles are actually vibrating strings, so small that not even an eagle with a microscope can see them. The tough part about String Theory is that in order to make the heinous theoretical mathematics work out, there have to be at least 10 dimensions in the Universe, and puny humans can only perceive 3 dimensions of space and one of time. So the theory says that the "extra" dimensions are really there, but they're so small that not even the aforementioned eagle can see them.

This theory is exactly correct.

So now you're probably beginning to see how String Theory is inexorably linked to Ghost Poo. When the Ghost Poo disappears, it does not really disappear - what really happens is that, due to a rare anomaly in the space-time continuum, all of the poo particles are spontaneously folded into the "extra" dimensions that are undetectable by humans. The Ghost Poo is still there, you just can't see it! You know it's still there, though, because generally just enough poo particles remain in your detectable dimensions so that you can still smell it, and that smell is definitely poo.

That's one more mystery of the universe down the toilet, courtesy yours truly, Baba Doodlius.

Back to the Bigger Picture

I hope you enjoyed that last brief dip down into the world of the mundane and practical. Today we're going back to look at a phenomenon of grand scale and then we're going to tie it back down to earthly experience. I am referring to

BLACK HOLES!

Yes, Black Holes, those Einsteinian entities that roam around the Cosmos gobbling up planets, stars, and even entire galaxies like huge extraterrestrial Pac Mans. (They even make that "wokka-wokka-wokka" sound if you listen closely enough, which of course you can't, becuase if you got close enough to hear it the thing would eat you - it's a defense mechanism.)







(Artist's conception, not actual photograph)







There's not really a question anymore whether these things exist or not - of course they do. There's so much evidence to support their existence that there are actually 12-year-olds who have detected them with their homemade backyard telescopes. So this entry isn't about whether they exist or not, or even if they prefer to eat red supergiants or white dwarfs (most of them like the red ones best - they taste like M&Ms; that's a bonus secret, no extra charge). Today's secret is about the lesser known black holes, the small ones that hang around right here on earth instead of way out in space.

"But there aren't any black holes on earth" you say. Ooooooh, so now look who knows everything! Aren't you clever. But you're wrong, there *are* back holes right down here on earth. Fortunately the little ones aren't nearly as hungry as their big brothers - they don't tend to eat everything around them.

The defining characteristc of a black hole is that nothing can get away from it - matter and light get sucked right in, and even the laws of mathematics and logic break down once caught in its grasp. Now I think you see what I'm getting at here, and it's something you've always suspected: Earthly Black Holes exist right behind the eyeballs of politicians and similar political hacks! And the more successful the politician/hack, the stronger the black hole!

Just think about the last statement you heard from a U.S. presidential candidate (you can't avoid them if you're in the U.S.A, and you can check the web if you're not). It wasn't illuminating at all, and it made no sense whatsoever. That's because the black hole devoured all the light and logic! These mini-black holes snuck into the heads of those candidates and now you'll never hear anything remotely useful out of any of them! They're sneaky little suckers.

If you're not convinced yet of the truth in this dissertation, just watch Fox News for 10 minutes - there's a higher concentration of black holes there than anywhere else on earth. Enough said.

So keep your eyeballs peeled for little Pac-Man-looking things sneaking around in the dark, and listen for that telltale "wokka-wokka" - little black holes are trying to sneak into your head. If they get in, you'll never make a coherent statement again. But on the plus side, you'll have a nice future in politics!

Something a little more practical

Howdy all you blog readers. (All three of you.) It's time for Baba Doodlius to reveal another Secret of the Universe! Today I'll take a step away from all the pie-in-the-sky theoretical stuff and focus on something more practical. I'm about to unlock a mystery that may save you countless hours, several doses of Prozac, and about 200 gray hairs. I am referring to the great secret of

THE CHAIN LETTER!

I'm sure you've seen a bazillion of these. You're reading this on the Internet, so you must use e-mail, and anybody who uses e-mail has received at least 327,951 copies of various chain letters. These beasts claim things like "If you don't forward this to 100 of your closest friends you will get hangnails, gout, Restless Leg Syndrome, and gingivitis." And on the plus side, "If you DO forward this to 100 of your closest friends, you will find a $1,000,000 bill on the sidewalk and Katherine Heigl and/or Matthew McConaughey will call you and ask to have sex with you."

I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you, but these chain letters are not for real. Those bad things are not going to happen if you don't forward on a boatload of copies - hell, Restless Leg Syndrome isn't even a real disease, it's just something a pharmaceutical company made up so they could put out a bunch of scary, irritating TV commercials, sell you a bunch of useless pills, and rake in a few more millions (there's a bonus secret -no extra charge!). Conversely, the really good stuff similarly will not happen if you DO send out a bunch of copies. C'mon now, seriously, aim a little lower, folks - maybe Paula Poundstone or Rob Schneider will want to have sex with you, but not any A-listers.

So stop worrying! You don't have to come up with a list of 100 e-mail addresses. You don't have to compose a personalized intro. You don't have to waste one more minute of your valuable day on these chain letters. Now aren't you more relaxed already? Ahhhhh!

Have a nice day!

The one that started it all

Howdy again folks. The Baba Doodlius Mystery Solving Service is once again open for business (rather like Scooby Doo and the gang, except I don't get to drive a green 1971 custom painted conversion van).

Today's mystery is a real doozy, the one that started the entire mystery business - and I mean that literally. Of course I'm referring to

THE BIG BANG!

People ask all the time whether the Big Bang really happened. It's a valid question, naturally, since all most folks have to go on with this one is the word of a bunch of scientists with large, expensive toys. Since they need to *pay* for all those toys somehow, they need to come up with some justification for why it should be *somebody else* who should be doing the paying. So would it be morally beyond these science-types to just make up a cool sounding story to convince investors (mostly from various governments) to open their wallets? The answer to that is: Absolutely not. They're just as fallible as the rest of us. Hell, I'd make up a cool story if it would get somebody to buy me lunch!

Fortuantely, in this case the scientists didn't have to make up a cool story - they're right, there really *was* a Big Bang. In fact, I hereby present you with a brief History of the Universe in which the Big Bang plays a very prominent part:

1) The Big Party (Mr. Universe meets Ms. Cosmos there)
2) The Big Open Bar (at which they get loaded on rum & cola)
3) The BIG BANG
4) The Big Morning Sickness
5) The Big Shotgun Wedding
6) The Big Natural Birth (Mrs. Universe would not recommend this)
7) The Big Potty Training
8) The Big Wedgie (from that bully Parallel Universe in grade school)
9) The Big Zit (on Prom Night)
10) The Big Virginity Loss (time sped up significantly during this brief period)
11) The Big Batchelor's Degree (in History, naturally)
12) The Big Scary Job Interview
13) The Big Mind-Numbing Corporate Career (time slowed down significantly during this period)
14) The Big Mid-Life Crisis (complete with procurement of The Big Sports Car)

That brings us to modern day. The Universe is currently middle-aged, and looking forward to The Big Retirement, followed by The Big Rambling Story To YoungUniverses, and probably The Big Shady Acres Assisted Living Facility.

There you have it. The Big Bang is real, and it eventually allowed all of us to enjoy this entertaining blog. You're welcome!