where is main menu, narwhal

I just reinstalled Ubuntu on a new box. WHAT IS THIS? I have these blobs on the side of my screen and I can't do anything with them. there is NO BLOB that gives me access to the main menu. When I click on the "applications" blob it coughs up a blob made up of more blobs, and none of those give me access to the simple, UNIVERSAL convention of all computing objects that we nowadays use, where there is a hierarchical menu of applications.

I've clicked everywhere. EVERYWHERE! Why would Ubuntu hide the main menu? Why is there an application to edit it in the controls if there is no way to activate it? I've clicked on the Ubuntu logo, where it should be, and nothing happens there. I've clicked everywhere. I've clicked on every single blob i can see. I've looked in every single panel of the controls.

No, I'm not stupid and I can find the applications in the browser or in the terminal. but why am i having to go back to my slackware days because ubuntu has dumped the main menu and replaced it with these useless blobs? Why can't I just have the normal main menu? Like normal people? Even windows has that!