The Gap Between The Pauses

A Cold Food Vending Machine*
Hi Zeitgeisters,

This won’t please Matt, the Alaskan reader who posted a comment over at Ask Mr Trivia saying how damned cold it was in his neck of the world, but in Perth, Western Australia tonight, it was around 21 degrees Celsius. (That’s 69.8° Fahrenheit and 294.15 Kelvin, for those who want to know).

So naturally, I was eating a cold herring-fillet on toast, which was also cold (because I like cold toast) and wondering if I should put a spoonful of cold baked beans on top of this gorgeous creation. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the delicacy baked beans, they are navy beans, marinated in tomato sauce, in this case by the Heinz company. The temperature of these cuckoo legumes was the issue, not the culinary aesthetics of my actions.

Should I nuke said beans in the microwave? I wondered. A little voice inside, whom I call Purcell – Destroyer of Worlds – said, “No, Mr Trivia, these beans, too, should be cold, thus serving up an awesome, chille…

Desi, the only man who holds a candle to Bostwick

Hey Zeitgeisters,

I'm working on my new website which will be live some time in this decade. In it, I shall run further scenarios in which I imagine my life If I were Barry Bostwick, the famed American actor of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and SPIN CITY.

Some have questioned my seeming obsession with the man whom many have mistaken for me, on-line. The more I learn about Barry, the more I realised that confusing me with him is akin to being mistaken for the Dalai Lama or perhaps Desi Arnaz Snr in his hey day (which would be during I LOVE LUCY, clearly.)

Better to be mistaken for Bostwick than say, actor Donny Most, who played Ralph Malph in the nostalgic television series, HAPPY DAYS.

"I awaken with a spring in my step that betokens rather than belies my age of three score. Three score gentle friends! Never would I have imagined the power that I lightly command at what seemed - in my callow youth - like an advanced age. If i …

Lamas, Dando and Gugino prepare for PSYCHIC LAW

I was watching MEDIUM this evening (which is basically a more intelligent GHOST WHISPERER) and I discovered my dream job. The boyfriend/husband role in a television series about a female psychic investigator.

TITLE: Psychic Law

GENRE: Supernatural Police-Legal Comedy-Drama

PREMISE: Lacey Del Fuego (Carla Gugino of Spy Kids, Spin City & Sin City) can see dead people. Unfortunately she sees them while working at her job as a high powered realtor in Los Angeles. After freaking out herself and potential clients at a number of homes open (lots of hilarious opportunities for dead movie star cameos in old Hollywood mansions) Lacey decides to stop fighting her abilities and to use them.

Lacey persuades her de facto husband Merrick Fong (Mr Trivia) that their family (their adorable 6 year old Eloise) should up-stakes and move to Austin, Texas where Lacey’s family originally hail from.

At first, Merrick is reluctant because this is Lacey’s third …

Hey Zeitgeisters,

BLUR certainly hit on the head with that one. And why pray tell, Mr Trivia, is it so trashy?

You know those pop-up flash games that the ‘net so generously provides when you’re having a surf? Blah Insurance invites you to whack a frog with a nine-iron to see how far it can fly - that sort of thing?

I just came across one that suggested I might like to: tickle the fat kid til he barfs.

The fat kid in question is animated, has a mohawk and wears a t-shirt that says “I heart cake” and the prize for tickling the kid – with a convenient feather - is a free ringtone.

So I do it, I’m one of Pavlov’s dogs or maybe I’m just a sheep. I tickle the fat kid with a feather. After a few seconds there’s movement, but before there’s any peristaltic action, the kid pees himself and only then projectile vomits straight into the air.

Sure, we left political correctness behind somewhere after DRAWN TOGETHER, on the road to Fallujah, but COME ON!

And no, I didn’t collect my free ringtone…

Mr Triv's sad obsession with robots continued into 2007...



Zeitgeisters, who among us hasn’t plugged their name into Google to see how many mentions one cracks?

You haven’t?

I’ll just hang on here until you do.

A word of warning, though, the wise old saying “Evesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves” sometimes applies to ego- surfing.

Sidebar to this: if you have a common Anglo-Celtic name you will discover that you are a Professor of Chemical Engineering at a college in the Midwest of the United States . Or in my case, my actual name, the one I don’t mention*, is also shared with the lead singer of a five piece soul outfit in London. Elsewhere, we are also an anti-globalisation activist, which sounds like the kind of annoying ratbag I merely dream of being here in my Australian incarnation.

Elevate the Insignificant,
Mr Trivia


* I don’t mention it, because like John Connor in Terminator 3, I have to remain Off The Grid. I tried to explain this to the Tax Department to…

Rita Rudner seriously assaying one  part of the colour spectrum.



So Zeitgeisters,

I read this in the NPR feed on the RHS of this blog:

Jay Leno and NBC Studios are among those suing the author of a series of joke books. "We think there's a very important principle at stake: protecting intellectual property of the comedians," says the plaintiff's attorney.

The author in question is Judy Brown, a comedy teacher and writer who has edited some 19 joke books, with titles like Joke Stew, The Comedy Thesaurus, and Joke Soup.

The books are organized by theme, from "religion" to "refrigerator." One, by comedian Rita Rudner fell under "children" in the book Jokes to Go.

On her HBO special Born to be Mild, the joke went something like this: "You just never know what you're going to get," Rudner said, "little kids on carousels... some were jumping on the horses... afraid of the horses... betting on the horses."I was reading thi…

Channel 7's Kochy say Woot! to 2007, Mums, Dads & Kids.


Zeitgeisters!

I’ve spent the last week living like a mentally-fragile, reclusive millionaire, sans the mansion and the money. I’ve been writing through the night and sleeping all day. I’ve been going to bed at 8am and waking at 4pm. Everyone is out to get me and all surfaces are covered with germs. Okay, I made up the last bit. No germs. And because I’ve covered all my windows with three ply aluminium foil, no-one can get me.

Not even Barry Bostwick. (Note: First Bostwick name-check for 2007).

So, 2007, eh? Either the start of a glittering future or just another year in an endless blur of undifferentiated existence that leads ineluctably to the Big Dirt Nap.

Thank God for the distraction of professional sport and Ikea. And I guess there’s substance abuse for some of you, although that’s looking a bit 2006, if you ask me.

So, New Year’s Resolutions, I think we agree, are crap. Instead join with me and let us draw up a m…