Imperfect 10

Howdy again folks. I'm pretty much memed out, but Poetikat tagged me to do this one and I'm gonna go ahead and do it because it's kinda related to my regular schtick: Revealing Mysteries.

These are personal Mysteries. It's a list of 10 things about me that nobody knows. (Well, almost nobody - Mrs. Doodlius knows everything.)

So, no Mytery of the Universe today, and instead it's 10 Mysteries of a tiny little corner of the Universe known as Baba Doodlius. So without further ado, here are

10 Mysterious Things about the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius

---

1) I introduced Kermit the Frog to the concept that "It Isn't Easy Being Green". And he never gave me credit for it.


Ungrateful frog. Never trust a frog that's not being served to you in a French restaurant.

2) I invented the feather duster. It was an accident, really - I got my ass stuck under the fridge. Icky!

3) I love eggs. Eggs are yummy! Poached, especially.

4) I once fought and destroyed a cyborg from the future.


He looked all cute and fuzzy until you saw the robotic endoskeleton. He was tough, but nothing I couldn't handle. He won't be back!

5) I set the world record* for "most wooden blocks chewed up in one hour" in 1969. It still stands. Take that, macaws!


Macaws get all the press because of their colorful feathers, but I can beat the best of 'em in a wood chewing contest!

6) My brain is larger than the dimensions of my head. It only fits in there due to an anomaly in the space-time continuum.

7) I am the Universal Master of Bird Fu. Actually, I alluded to this little factoid once before, but never revealed that I am, in fact, the Universal Master. Bird Fu was how I defeated the cyborg from #4, above; I used the deadly "Crouching Parrot" technique. You shoulda seen it, it was epic!

8) I once painted my toenails. Purple. I think it was because of the Oxycontin. Whoops, said too much.

9) I was an uncredited backup singer on the song "Postcards from Paraguay", on Mark Knopfler's 2004 album "Shangri-La". I'm great with harmony!


Mark Knopfler is cool, and can really play that guitar. He isn't as much into parrots as Jimmy Buffett, though.

10) I hate spiders. What with the Bird Fu and all, I know I could take 'em, but the thought of them crawling over my beak while I'm sleeping totally gives me the willies. You know what I'm talking about!


So there you have it. Ten Mysterious things about me that you always wanted to know. Or not. Whatever, I did the meme.

Have a nice day!



* There is an unfortunate asterisk on my wood-block-chewing world record. I used a performance-enhancing substance: titanium beak implants. Hey, they weren't illegal at the time!

Coming Clean

Sorry for the delay since the last post, but I've been pretty busy. Mostly I've been consulting teams of lawyers about the information you're about to read. They say it's OK now, so here goes:

Moooog35 guessed it: When I went looking for D.B. Cooper in the woods of Oregon and discovered that he made a nice little Cooper-shaped crater on the forest floor, I also found his ill-gotten loot!

In a moment of greedy, weak, avaricious, selfishness, I took it for myself!

Oh, woe is me! I have been found out! Life can never be the same again! And it's been horrible - Horrible I say! - living a lie all this time! Having to hide in trees whenever a police officer came by! Being forced to read all those books about money laundering! Having to pay huge brokerage fees! Those damn fees really bite you in the shorts!


But let me start at the beginning of this long, sordid tale.


It was 1971 when I found all that D.B. Cooper money, and I had to lie low for a while until the heat died down. In 1972 I figured it was time to do something with that cash, but at the time I knew nothing about high finance. Plus I was a bird, and when you're a bird it's hard to just waltz into a bank or somewhere like that dragging a suitcase full of cash and not draw some suspicion. So I called up one of my best human friends to give me a hand:



Yes, that's Jimmy Buffett, the singing sensation who has brought so much fun to the world in the form of songs like "Margaritaville", "Cheeseburger in Paradise", and "My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don't Love Jesus" (I swear I did not make that title up). Jimmy, with his well-known affinity for parrots, was more than happy to help me with my money issues. And the advice he gave me was this:

"Baba, my main bird, If you got some extra money, I say keep it in the family! I got this distant relative named Warren who knows all about what to do with money, so I'll get you in touch with him and he'll set you up!"

This is how, in 1972, I came to buy 3,000 shares of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway stock.

Today these shares sell for about $130,000.

Each.

I'm a bird with dough! My friends don't call me "Greenback Baba" because of the color of my feathers! Having virtually unlimited money is pretty cool - with tons of money, an otherwise ordinary Joe can become anything he wants.


Having nearly unlimited money allowed Bruce Wayne to go from being a loser with a bad attitude to a caped Superhero!

I'm not really the superhero type, so I had to think of something else to do with a huge wad of cash. What does a bird do when he has more money than you can shake a jewel-encrusted stick at?


1) I got lucky.


Oooh, twins!

When it comes to bird nookie, I've tried' em all, from sparrows to spoonbills, wood ducks to warblers - if it could be bought, I bought it. I won't get into the details here (you can all just use your sick, twisted imaginations), but suffice it to say that lovebirds have absolutely nothing on rainbow lorikeets!


Hubba Hubba! Wow, she was in-effin-credible.

I know this sort of behavior is frowned upon today, but all that was back in the '70's when things were pretty crazy. And of all this promiscuity, I can tell you that I really have no egrets. (Ha ha, a little bird humor there.)


2) I Bought a boat

Everybody with scads of cash eventually buys a boat. I got this one in the early 80's, and I thought it was great:



But it was just a little too small, though - I barely had room for a butler on board. So I bought another one:



That's a great boat. But eventually it also turned out to be too small: I could land my helicopter on it, but when I bought an airplane I wanted a boat with a landing strip, so I had to get something bigger:



I haven't bought it yet, but I have my eye on another boat now:



Whaddaya think, too ostentatious?


3) I got some pets for the house

Well, they aren't exactly pets - they're more like employees. This one is Phil, my personal attorney, during some rare downtime (when he's not working on a copyright infringement case or something):


He looks pretty content here. He should for what I pay him.

I figure if people can keep birds in cages in their houses, I can keep humans in cages in my house. Hey, it's only fair! And in case you were wondering, humans, like most birds, don't mind this sort of thing much so long as you pay them well. Unfortunately for me, money is generally the only pay a human will accept, unlike most birds who will take, literally, peanuts.


4) I Started my own company

I figured I'd use my natural talents at mystery solving to fill some of my spare time and help some people out, so I opened the Eagle Eye Detective Agency in the 90's.



Nobody would hire a bird detective, so I had to hire a figurehead human so I could drum up some business.



He said his name was "Norelco Irons", but I'm sure that was an alias. He was pretty suave and talked with an accent, so he was good at shmoozing and doing public appearances, but he was dumb as a bag of rocks and useless on an investigation. All he would do was say some stupid one-liner every now and again and that made him feel like he was contributing. I guess if you don't pay very well you have to take what you can get. Oh well. Live and learn.

I closed the agency after a few years anyway - I figured I could still do mystery solving without having to pay corporate taxes, so that's what I do now.


So there you have it: the mystery of what happened to D.B. Cooper's money, all wrapped up in a neat little package. And now that you know the Truth, don't you be hitting me up for any loans - I'm a cheap bastard. And you can't threaten to turn me in, because the statute of limitations expired years ago (I don't pay all those lawyers for nothing, you know). I think I'll go light a fire in the hearth with some 100-dollar bills now. Have a nice day!

Blast from the Past

Howdy again all you powerlifters doing the clean-and-jerk of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

I've got a Mystery Revelation this week that should have been taken care of a long time ago. It's one that goes back only 36 years, but it's one of those things that people dredge up off the bottom of the Great Cosmic Mystery Pile (GCMP*) every now and again and try to make a big deal of. And somebody did it again just the other day. I'm so tired of this one that I'm going to Reveal to all of you once and for all the Real Truth behind the Mystery of


D. B. Cooper!


If you've been reading the news lately, you may have seen that The F.B.I., that famous Institute of Mystery Solvers in the U.S. of A., has re-opened the 36-year-old case file of the infamous skyjacker known as D.B. Cooper, the only skyjacking in the history of the sky that has never been solved. Apparently the F.B.I. is once again admitting that this Mystery has them stumped.

So here's the whole story, in case you have forgotten it:

A guy calling himself Dan Cooper (later known as "D.B.") hijacked a plane out of Portland, Oregon, USA in November 1971, and demanded $200,000 USD and four parachutes. These being delivered to him, he ordered that the plane take off and head for Reno, Nevada (of all places). Once in the air, he strapped on a parachute and left the plane somewhere over Oregon with his bag of cash. The F.B.I. has been looking for him ever since.


Here's the composite sketch of D.B. Cooper. Yeah, I know, that could be any balding, non-descript, goofy white guy.

A couple of people have claimed to be D.B. Cooper during deathbed confessions, and the F.B.I. has had oodles of suspects, but nobody has ever been able to prove what happened after D.B. took his famous flying leap.

Apparently the F.B.I. is still looking, because they came out with a press release about ol' D.B. just a few days ago. Well, I'm sick of this Mystery cropping back up over and over. And, since I am the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius and I happen to know exactly what happened to D.B. Cooper, I'm going to settle this once and for all, right now.

So here's the real story:


I am a bird, and birds are flight-capable (most of us, anyway - sorry to rub it in, Opus).

In case you were wondering, Berkeley Breathed does not know that I used this copyrighted picture of Opus the Penguin in this blog, and if he did I'm fairly certain he'd tell me to cut it the heck out.

So, when in 1971 I heard about all these D.B. Cooper schenanagins, I figured I'd check it all out for myself. Being a decent flyer, I went to Oregon and followed the route of D.B.'s plane. Nearabouts where he abandoned ship, I started looking around. After a short while I saw this scene:



Now that may not look like much to you, but I'm a bird with a great pair'o'peepers, so I saw exactly the evidence I was looking for. I'll zoom in a little so you can see what I'm talking about:



See that little mud puddle in the middle of all those trees? I'll zoom in one more time:



So there you have it. D.B. Cooper may have made quite an impression on the American psyche, but he made an even bigger impression on the mud of rural Oregon. Yep, the chute didn't open and D.B. went splat. No more mystery, F.B.I., so you can stop looking.

And the money, you ask? Well, uh, nobody ever found the money. Certainly not me. No way! And $200,000 wouldn't have bought that much bird food anyway, or a nice camera, or a house in the suburbs, or a really rollicking night with Betty Bluebird... uh, where was I? Oh, right, nobody ever found the money!



* - Great Cosmic Mystery Pile and GCMP copyright 2008, Baba Doodlius, all rights reserved

Too Much Holiday Cheer

Howdy once again, all you backstrokers in the swimming pool of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with another blog entry, but this time it contains no Revelation of a Mystery of the Universe.

Why no Revelation today? Well, as regular readers (all five of you) may have noticed, I haven't been around lately. I have, in fact, been in a coma for the past 14 days. How might that have come about, you ask?

Well, maybe it's better if you don't ask. But you asked, so I guess I'll tell you: I experienced what medical professionals have termed

EHCS

which, as you probably know already since it's so prevalent this time of year, is short for

Excessive Holiday Cheer Syndrome

In other words, I attended the 5th Annual Mystery Solvers Association Holiday Party. And while there, I unfortunately consumed maybe just a little too much of the eggnog. And I have no idea whatsoever what was in it besides egg and nog.

So let me back up a step and explain what's going on here. The Mysery Solvers Association (MSA) is an organization of the great Mystery Solvers on planet Earth. Everybody who's anybody in the mystery biz is a member, and naturally I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, am the brightest luminary in this galaxy of super-investigators.

We don't really have regular meetings or anything formal like that - we Mystery Solvers are a solitary bunch, loners and outcasts and outsiders who exist on the fringes of ordinary society. Well, many of us are like that. Which means we don't get out much. So we have only one social event every year, and that would be our Holiday Party.

You're familiar, I am sure, with the concept of the Holiday Party. Most offices have them, and many bars, and many clubs, and pretty much every organization that needs an excuse to throw a party. The Mystery Solvers Association is no different. And the result of our Holiday Party is not different from most either - we get together and make complete and utter idiots of ourselves.

And I have pictures!

Most of the pics are nothing that should ever be shown in public - you'd be amazed at how rowdy a bunch us Mystery Solvers can be. However, since we don't have a newsletter and some of the members rarely show up to the Holiday Party (I'm talking about you, Sherlock - and by the way, we all know you're a junkie so there's no reason to try to keep it hidden from all of us), I promised to put up a couple of them here so that the whole group can see what went on. The actual attendees were wholeheartedly against this idea, but a promise is a promise, so I'm gonna post some of the less incriminating shots. Forgive me, please, for the poor quality - the aforementioned eggnog was pretty brutal.

So here are a few pics of the 5th Annual Mystery Solvers Association Holiday Party:

1)


Columbo in the garage right after he arrived. I don't know if he was in a bad mood, or if he was cheezed off by the "No Smoking" sign since he's a chain smoker, or if he was trying to be funny by flipping 'the bird' to a bird, but he clearly was giving me "the finger" in this photo. He always was a big doofus. Plus that lazy eye thing drives me nuts!

2)


Harry Potter's owl Hedwig hangs out in the kitchen with Doris the Witch from "Clash of the Titans" (in the movie she was the one in the middle, in case you were curious). It's pretty obvious how Doris got in the MSA, since the "Clash" witches were billed as "all-seeing, all-knowing" - although in reality, Doris doean't really know all that much. But she knows enough to get in the club. You're probably wondering how Hedwig got into the MSA, though. He's actually our most recent addition to the club, and he got invited because he was the one who, single-handedly and at great personal risk, broke the story that Dumbledore is gay! So, thanks for solving that Mystery and welcome to the club, Heddy! Heddy gives another data point to my Revelation that nobody ever suspescts the bird.

By the way, I'm pretty sure it was Doris who spiked the eggnog. I've been too incapactiated lately to do a formal investigation, though. But she's done it before, that mean little witch.

3)


Speaking of spiked eggnog, this is Joe Hardy (yes, the younger of the Hardy Boys) after having a little too much of the stuff. I took this one in the basement bathroom, and boy did it ever stink down there!

4)


Scooby Doo, Inspector Clouseau, and Jessica Fletcher in the living room. I don't know if it was the eggnog or the Scooby Snacks or something else available in the back of the Mystery Machine, but Scooby was humping everything in sight all day long. Clouseau was trying to get him to stop humping the tree, but as usual the good Inspector was somewhat ineffective. (Inspector Clouseau, by the way, is more of an honorary member of the MSA - he doesn't really solve any Mysteries, but he's fun to have around.) Jessica, as usual, dressed waaaay too sexy for a holiday party. She has a a nice body for her age, and I understand the "if you've got it flaunt it" mentality, but really, Jessie, at least put on a little jacket or something.

5)


This one was the last one I took before I passed out. It's hard to see clearly, but that's Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew in the master bedroom "investigating each other's secrets", as Nancy put it. They were all over each other all night, and when Doris told them to get a room, they did. Insatiable, those kids are.


That's it for the Holiday Party pics. Hope the Mystery Solvers who were not able to attend got a good idea of how the party went, and that these pics do not dissuade any of you from attending next year.

Season's Greetings to All from the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius!

Cold Hard Facts: OK, Finally

OK folks, I promised that I wouldn't get the darned Mysteries wrong, and then I got it wrong again yesterday. But today I got it right - I checked everything with the Ultimate Authority*, who said that I didn't screw anything up this time, and that's as good a guarantee as you will ever find on this planet.

So without further ado, I'd like to get to my Revelation of this week's Mystery of the Universe, the Truth behind the Secret of


The Abominable Snowman!





The Abominable Snowman, or "Yeti", is said to be a powerful, fearsome ape-like beast that resides in the perfmafrost of the Himalayan Mountains in central Asia. This creature has terrorized the indigenous inhabitants of that region for the past several hundred years. Leading a lonely, solitary existence (except for raiding the ocasional village to carry away a few small children), this brute is seldom seen by human eyes.

Aside from invoking all that terror, the Abominable Snowman is so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that we regularly invoke it for our own entertianment:


The Abominable Snowman terrorizes Peter Cushing


The Abominable Snowman terrorizes Bugs Bunny


The Abominable Snowman terrorizes Yukon Cornelius

With all the fuss over this beast, what evidence is there that it actually exists?

1) First of all, (and very similar to Bigfoot accounts), the Abominable Snowman reportedly leaves large footprints all over its natural habitat:


Yep, looks rather like a Bigfoot footprint, but in the snow

2) Also, a group of Nepalese monks have an artifact that they claim is a scalp from one of these creatures:


I did not make this up - this thing is in a monastery in Nepal. Seriously, Google it for yourself!

3) Naturally, there are also scads of eyewitness accounts.


I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, set forth on an expedition to the frigid wastes of the Himalayas, to examine all this evidence and get to the bottom of this Mystery once and for all. So what did I make of all the evidence?

1) Footprint? Fake. C'mon now, all that snow and there was just ONE FOOTPRINT?. They have to do better than that. Sheesh!

2) The scalp isn't a scalp at all, but rather a pelt from a goat's ass. And it still smells like one.

3) So what of the eyewitness accounts? These are harder to dismiss, because they go back for generations and are not consistent in their details over that time.

But oddly enough, I did notice that over the past 30 years or so, the descriptions of the beast have been consistent - they detail the creature as being approximately man sized, with oddly shaped feet and covered with white hair. I decided that I must look for this creature myself in order to evaluate these recent claims.

• [On a side note, you folks should be thanking me for doing this investigation so you don't have to. Why? Because it's EFFIN COLD in the remote Himalayan wilderness. I about froze my feathered ass off for you folks. I hope you appreciate it.]

So what did I find out on the freezing, oxygen-starved heights of the Top of the World? I discovered that

There really is an Abominable Snowman!

After days of searching, I located a super-secret hidden cave, and venturing inside I caught my first glimpse of the terrifying creature, the bulbous body, the, uh, round feet, and those terrible, uh, big, blue eyes...



Blue eyes?

I hid and waited for a few minutes, and what I saw was astonishing!



It was the Pillsbury Dough Boy! In a fur coat!

So at this point you are saying, "But you said it was man-sized, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy is only 6 inches tall." Well, that's a common misconception. The Pillsbury Dough Boy is actually 6'4" - on his old commercials they used special camera effects, sorta like they used to make the Hobbits look tiny in the "Lord of the Rings" movies, to make him appear so small (that's a bonus Secret of the Universe, no extra charge).

Now you're saying "What the heck is the Pillsbury Dough Boy doing in a cave in the Himalayas?" I can only speculate on that based on my observations: when he finally saw that I was watching him, he threw on his coat and fled into the snow, screaming

"Not the belly! DON'T POKE MY BELLY!!!"

So I have concluded that all those years of getting poked in the belly finally drove him insane (wouldn't it do the same to you?), so he took off to Nepal to become a recluse. Now he lives happily alone, far from all those giggling children, poking fingers, and hot ovens. I'll put this Mystery in the "Solved" column!

All this investigating has made me hungry. I think I'll go bake some moist, flaky biscuits and crescent rolls! Yummy!



* In case you were wondering, the Ultimate Authority is Mrs. Doodlius. That's another bonus Secret of the Universe, no extra charge.

Cold Hard Facts: Let's try that again

Howdy all you hungry baby birds waiting for the momma bird of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

So I started to do a post yesterday about the Mystery of "The Adorable Snowman". Well, it turns out that I had a tiny misunderstanding about this particular Mystery. In fact - and I can admit when I'm wrong - I got the whole name of this mysterious creature incorrect.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize profusely to all my readers (yes, all 4 of you). Here I am telling you folks that "I know all" and then I go and do a boneheaded thing like getting a simple name wrong. It won't happen again.

So I checked my notes and did a little more research, and today I would like to present my findings about the REAL denizen of the frozen wastes, that creature who strikes fear into the hearts of snowboarders everwhere,


The Abdominal Snowman!




When this fearsome beast is not terrorizing sherpas and cross-country skiers, it can be found in the gym, compulsively doing crunches and sit-ups, hanging out by the Torso Track and the Ab Rocker, working on its mighty six-pack...

What?

Well CRAP! Fer cryin' out loud, why didn't you stop me?!?

OK, I'll get this right. I vow that I will get this right. Consarnit.

Cold hard facts

Howdy all you wiggly lures on the fishing line of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

You may recall that I did a startling Revelation a few months ago about Bigfoot. (If you don't recall that, feel free to click the conveniently provided link - this is definitely a Secret of the Universe that needs to be known!) Since then I have received countless inquiries* from you dedicated Truth-seekers about another creature that has similarly eluded scientific study and classification for centuries. Rather than hanging out in the deep woods, though, this beast roams the trackless, barren lands of ice and snow. Of course, I am referring to


The Adorable Snowman!




This creature has delighted children since time immemorial. Bright-eyed tykes squeal with laughter as they build likenesses of this joyful beast amidst picturesque scenes of Winter bliss and...

What?

Uh, wait a minute, let me check my notes...

Hmm... OK, my bad. Heh-heh, sorry about that. Just a little misunderstanding there. Let me do a little more research and I'll get back to you.




* Actually it's not exactly countless - the current count of inquiries stands at, uh, zero.

Conservation?

Greetings all you commuters in the carpool lane of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

Today's Mystery may surprise some of you, especially if you are well versed in what you humans call "scientific priciples". I know many of you humans are big on science, and you love to study things and come up with "rules" and "theories" and "laws" to describe all the physical phenomena around you in the natural world, and often you folks figure things out exactly right, or pretty darned close. So I don't want to discourage all that sciencey stuff you do with this post, but I have to Reveal to you that you got one of your scientific laws wrong.

This is a big one, too.

There's this scientific principle called "Conservation of Mass" that some guy named Antoine Lavoisier* came up with in 1789, and science-types make a pretty big deal out of it. Without going into the nitty-gritty details, this rule says that regardless of what you do to physical matter (the technical term for this is "stuff"), you can't make more of it or destroy any of it. The best you can hope to do is move it around, but you always have exactly the same amount of it when you're done.

A well-known illustration of this principle was demonstrated by the great Russian scientist Dr. Alexei Jiffypopov in 1974:


Before thermal processing.... After thermal processing

As can been seen in these images, the delicious, butter flavored treat weighed the same before and after thermal processing, despite the obvious difference in volume. The total mass remained the same!

So why is this important? Well, the Conservation of Mass rule is considered the cornerstone of modern Chemistry, so without it you wouldn't have many modern conveniences that you take for granted, like shampoo, non-stick cookware, or breast implants.

So it may come as a complete shock to chemists and other scientists all over the world that I have discovered, under specific circumstances, that this Immutable Principle of the Universe can be violated!!!


Bill Nye the Science Guy is incredulous of my findings.

So what are these seemingly "magical" circumstances where this Pillar of Modern Science ceases to apply? You have probably experienced them yourself, at:


Holiday Dinners!


Yes, I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, have now proven experimentally what many of you have suspected for years: When you sit down to eat a Holiday meal, you can actually gain more weight than the weight of the food you eat!!!

How can that be, you ask? Well, I leave that as an exercize for the reader. I specialize in the "What" and let some sciencey folks figure out the "How". (If I gave you all the answers you'd all just get lazy and expect me to spoon feed you all the time. Yes, I'm looking at you. You know who you are.)

So I may not want to put in the work to figure out HOW Holiday Dinners manage to violate the law of Conservation of Mass, but I have conclusively demonstrated, through diligent experimentation**, that this effect is real. Fortunately it only appears to happen during actual Holiday Dinners and not just any old time of the year. Further investigation of this time-dependent function is certainly warranted; I'll try to get a grant later. But for now I will just publish my data, which quantifies the magnitude of the additional mass gain during a typical American Holiday Meal (people outside the U S of A can feel free to replicate my findings with your local dishes the next time you have a Holiday Dinner):

1) Turkey, roasted and sliced

Amount Eaten: 6 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 9 ounces

2) Stuffing

Amount Eaten: 4 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 10 ounces

3) Ham, baked and sliced

Amount Eaten: 6 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 10 ounces

4) Cranberry Sauce

Amount Eaten: 4 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 12 ounces

5) Green Bean Casserole

Amount Eaten: 6 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 13 ounces

6) Mashed Potatoes, with butter

Amount Eaten: 6 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 1.2 pounds

7) Mashed Potatoes, with butter and gravy

Amount Eaten: 6 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 1.7 pounds

8) Pumpkin Pie, 1 slice, with whipped cream

Amount Eaten: 7 ounces.............................. Amount Gained: 7.2 pounds

As you can see, if you just stick to eating turkey or ham, and maybe a light veggie, you don't come out too bad in the end. But if you go all out with the traditional Holiday Dinner, well, you'll probably end up looking like my test subject:


Before............................... After

So whenever you sit down to eat a Holiday Meal, remember the Baba Doodlius Principle of the Violation of Conservation of Mass - and go easy on the dessert. Do what I do - eat it the next day!



* I believe this may be an honorary title meaning "Smart Guy": Earlier scientists like Galileo were said to be "Lavoisy", our conservation-of-mass guy Antoine was "Lavoisier", and later geniuses like Einstein are the "Lavoisiest".

** No animals were harmed during this testing phase. One human may have been harmed a little, but he sure did enjoy it.

Oh you folks are just so nice!

Howdy folks! I trust you are all happy and healthy this week. And to all of you who are still stuffed with too much turkey and stuffing I say, good for you! Turkey is yummy.

No Revelation of a Mystery of the Universe today - maybe later this week if things don't get too busy (yes, a bird can get busy just like a human, you know). Today's entry is a big, hearty "Thank you very much" to Odd Facts of "Odd Facts" and Azzitizz of "the "Totally Transparent Party" for awarding me the following award:



You're so nice! Great big humongous bird hugs to the both of you! and to anybody else reading out there, a big bird hug to you too, but not quite as big as the ones Azzitizz and Odd Facts get, because they gave me the blog award.

Anyway, everybody have a nice day, and tun in next time when I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, demystify another Mystery of the Universe!

Gone, Baby, Gone

Greetings all you gliders on the warm updrafts of Truth! Baba Doodlius here, with a Revelation of another Mystery of the Universe!

I have listed, accurately, my residence as "The Universe", but lately I have been mostly hanging out in the U S of A. As such, I am going to do today's Revelation on a quintessentially American Mystery. It concerns a prominent American citizen who vanished over 30 years ago without any trace whatsoever, and whose disappearance has baffled all who have attempted to discover this person's whereabouts. Countless references to this person have appeared in the media, and occasionally show up even today, so many years after the vanishing! I am naturally referring to

Jimmy Hoffa!


James Hoffa was born to be mysterious - his actual middle name is "Riddle". I swear I am not kidding about this, you can look it up. (I even put a helpful link on his name, if you trust Wikipedia.) Born in Brazil, Indiana on February 14, 1913 Jimmy was a beloved and upstanding American citizen. (Heck, how could he not be beloved, he was born on Valentine's Day for cryin' out loud.) Despite being born to humble circumstances, Jimmy rose to prominence in his chosen field of Transportation, accumulating only two serious felony convictions, and their associated 5-year intensely-managed residency period, along the way.


Hoffa lived for 5 years in this posh residence facility in Lewisberg, PA, known for its attractive high walls and impressive towers.

Jimmy attained the pinnacle of his career in 1957, when he became the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, aka the famous Teamsters Union. During his nearly 20-year tenure as Teamsters President, he made many close friends in the Italian-American community and enjoyed a spirited friendly rivalry with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.


Attorney General Robery F. Kennedy, left, shares some quality time with BFF Jimmy Hoffa, right.


Prominent Italian-American and best buddy of Jimmy Hoffa Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, right, takes a stroll with an unknown aide. Curiously, Tony was never photographed with Hoffa.

Well-known, well-respected, and seemingly beloved by all, how did it come to pass that this paragon disappeared without a trace on July 30, 1975?

Theories have abounded for 30 years on what happened to Mr. Hoffa, including:

1) He ran off with a go-go dancer
2) He was kidnapped by lesser union organizers who were jealous of his success
3) He was abducted by the CIA and taken to a secret prison, to be subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" about union activities

We can ignore #3, since that sort of thing could never really happen. The other two are somewhat more plausible, although #2 cannot be true - he was far too beloved to have been kidnapped by anyone. While it is possible that he ran off with a go-go dancer, had this actually been true we would have heard about it on "Oprah" by now, so we can discount theory #1 as well.

So what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

As you may have guessed by now, I, the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius, have discovered the real story behind this Mystery, and have also determined the current whereabouts of Mr. Hoffa! Let the F.B.I. take some notes, here.

The story begins when Jimmy was a just a child. It turns out that Mr. Hoffa, from a very young age, was an avid reader. A favorite book of his as a young boy was "Sunny Boy at the Seashore" by Ramy Allison White.



He kept a copy of this book wherever he went. Ironically, his great love for this book would turn out to be his undoing!

You see, the copy that he kept was not his own - it was borrowed...

from a Library!


(Cue ominous music!)

He checked this book out shortly after its publication in 1920, and loved it so much that he never returned it. That would prove to be the biggest mistake of his life! Despite notice after notice that the book was overdue, he could not part with his most cherished possession. This raised the ire of

The Librarians! (Cue more ominous music!)

Folks, you really don't want to mess with The Librarians. They're the toughest, orneriest, most ruthless gang on the planet! You will rue the day you cross them!


Librarian Ruth Westland, in her natural habitat. So I guess this means The Librarians aren't completely Ruthless after all. Ha, ha, little joke to break the tension there.

Oh, I know what you're thinking - "Librarians aren't tough or mean". But you see, that's what they want you to think! To the public they present such a calm, helpful, peaceful demeanor, but in the meetings of their Top Secret Society of the Dewey Decimal Enforcers, their true selves are allowed to show:



So, you see? You really don't want to mess with these folks. Jimmy Hoffa found this out the hard way! After noting that his book had been overdue for 2,875 weeks, The Librarians could take it no longer - they pounced on poor, defenseless Jimmy in the dark of night and dragged them to their hidden lair, the Great Global Card Catalog:


It is rumored that the Arc of the Covenant is in there somewhere too

According to my inside source, Jimmy is still alive, being forced to work off his overdue book fine as a slave, constantly updating the master list of books in every library in the world! A fitter ending could not be written for the Jimmy Hoffa, the greatest overdue book offender in the annals of the Dewey Decimal Enforcers.

So let this be a cautionary tale for all of you blog readers: Enjoy the library, read all the books you want, but remember - the books are there for everybody, so return them on time. Or Else!