My Riverside Calendar Shot

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The Applecross foreshore last weekend.

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What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair?

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When I was in Primary School back in the 1970s in Western Australia, I went to a school that taught reading comprehension in all the usual ways but also used an American teaching aid that we referred colloquially as SRA cards, but an hour or research on the ol’ internet has persuaded me that I was, in fact, one of millions of Gen X (and 2nd Wave Baby Boomers) who encountered the SRA Reading Laboratory Kit.  SRA was Scientific Research Associates a Chicago based publisher of Educational materials (thank you Wikipedia). But their tautologically named teaching aid was kick-ass for a word nerd like myself. I recall it as a box stuffed with cards. Each card had a short segment of writing on it and then some comprehension questions. You’d answer the questions on a separate sheet they provided and if you were correct you got to move on to the next card. This was self-paced learning at its best as far as I was concerned. Boring, si? NO! Because the genius part was this – the whole sy...
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Join The Far Queue

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Vending Machine Win

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I had only planned on getting the above items.However, the vending machines in the place I work are programmed to take your money and give you nothing in return. I required a bag of Sour Squirms. They were in the bottom right hand corner compartment - E8. I put a fiver into the note-snatcher, heard $1.50 clatter into the coin return. The large black coil holding The Squirms, rotated one turn and released the bag, it shuffled forward two centimetres, then stood teetering on the ledge, just above the pit you grab your goodies from. I willed it to fall. It trembled on the brink like a plump diver waiting for the referee's whistle. After about five seconds it became clear that my paid-for bag of Squirms was content to stay where it was - like a portly Greg Louganis, frozen in time on a sprinboard to nowhere. There was no way I was going to allow this to happen, but because I too can be described as portly there was also no way I was going to be seen sh...
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The South Perth Foreshore Zeitgeisters, I'm walking these days. Apparently it's healthy or something. Because I live in South Perth, I mostly walk along the Swan River foreshore. I'm enjoying it now. At first it was slightly humiliating being overtaken by octagenarian Chinese men who fought alongside Chiang Kai-Shek. But it's not about pride, is it? I saw this sign as I tore through Sir James Mitchell Park at 2 ks per hour. I'm not a big fan of graffiti, but this entertained me. Polemical? Satirical? It says a lot more than a mere tag - and I appreciate anyone who can get my brain ticking over. If you can't quite read it: " Once you've been with woman there is no going back !"
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