Curmudgeon Award Noms

By

Hey Zeitgeisters,

Put your thoughts down and respond to the nomination categories for Mr Trivia's Curmudgeon Awards 2009. Go over to the other blog and see what all the fuss is about.

Elevate the Insignificant

Mr Trivia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's with George Eads' Hair?

By
Image
DailyCeleb.com & David Edwards Hey Zeitgeisters, Bet you thought this blog would never top “ What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair? ” For those of you who weren’t part of that historical blog entry, it was the glittering moment where I wondered what’s with West Wing star Bradley Whitford’s hair. Good times. However, tonight, while watching the current series (in Australia) of CSI :Original Recipe , I was forced to witness the unpleasantness of George Eads’ new(ish) 'do and I felt compelled to blog on’t. George plays the part of Nick Stokes and has spent some 5 or 6 seasons with a haircut “you could set your watch to,” as Grandpa Simpson might say. It was always short; it always had that US Marine Corps vibe; it was always as dependable as the ebbing and flowing of the tides. Now in something of an El Nino effect, I note that someone in Jerry Bruckheimer’s organization has decided to mess with the length of George’s crowning glory. Although I chiefly watch CSI wa...
Read more

What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair?

By
Image
Okay, Zeitgeisters, that’s as shallow an attention-grabbing start as one could ever want, but I really want to know. And sure, I’m really talking about Josh Lyman’s hair. (I’m like one of those people who insist on calling an actor by their character’s name – only in reverse. e.g. “Go Knight Boat!”) Whitford plays Deputy Chief of Staff, Josh Lyman, in the Aaron Sorkin -created, NBC television series The West Wing . He plays this part to a tee and now he’s set to do great things in the new Sorkin drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip . I know this last bit because the Angriest Ex-Video Store Clerk in the world told me. Oh, and Whitford ’s married to the awesome Jane Kaczmarek who plays mom, Lois, in the series Malcolm in the Middle. So Mr Whitford’s your regular pop-cultural icon and yardstick for excellence. We’re here in this, frankly, puzzling cultural landscape, because I’ve just finished watching season four of The West Wing on DVD. And Josh Lyman’s hair has bothered me througho...
Read more

Celebrating AFHVS

By
Image
And Zeitgeisters, if you don’t know what AFHVS stands for, you’ll be stunned to discover it means Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show (Nine Network). And yes. AFHVS is mediocre, mainstream, middle-of-the-road and vanilla. Or is it? (I learnt that little technique in high school debating.) No, it’s actually bold, ground-breaking and revolutionary. “And why the hell is that. Mr Trivia?” I hear you ask. Let us rewind to a recent Saturday. Witness the following: video-tape of a middle-aged couple sitting on a porch swing. Naturally, they swing back and forth. And like everyone else, I was thinking, yep, them chains is gonna bust and them two is gonna end up on th’floor! (Sorry , I’ve been watching the The Andy Griffith Show on Access 31). However, totally against all expectations, a dog leapt up and one of the couple fell out of the swing! That chain was supposed to break! After fifteen years of AFHVS there was nothing else that the chain could do, but break. It was a certa...
Read more

Tell Me Venn Will You Be Mine

By
Image
So Zeitgeisters, Miss Raspberry Beret and I were driving down Venn Street in North Perth. I said, “Venn diagrams” in that way you do to work your mouth and you have no connecting thought. Fatally, Miss RB asked, “What’s a Venn diagram ?” And I said, “Well you have these two circles see. And there’s things inside them. Points. You know the circles overlap. And where they overlap…hold on. There’s these different objects. Some are in one circle and some are in the other. And there’s an array. No there isn’t. Forget everything I just said, there’s no array and I know f**k all about Venn diagrams.” Everything I learned in high school twenty years ago has dried up into tiny particles which leak out of my ears while I sleep. Elevate the Insignificant, Mr Trivia
Read more

The Internet is Heaps Fun

By
Image
Hey Kids! (Of All Ages!) Run out of fun stuff to do on the Internet this weekend? Why not check out these boffo sites? For The People www.communism.com - has extensive stuff on communism for all those who wanted to know about the subject but were too bourgeois to ask. It gives a scientific definition of communism and contrasts it with what the site calls a “bullshit definition” i.e.: “Rule of society by a single party which maintains a monopoly of political power and suppresses all opposition. Control of the economy via centralized bureaucratic planning.” There’s plenty that will annoy and stimulate you in this text-y yet colourful site. There’s an FAQ and a poll, which asks among other questions: "Is communism a monstrous system of slavery or the inevitable peaceful and abundant future of humankind?" For all those missing the feel of a poli-sci debate at an undergraduate level. For The Folk www.folkdancing .com - from its plain black text on white backgro...
Read more

Modern Life Is Rubbish

By
Image
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...
Read more

Vending Machine Win

By
Image
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...
Read more

Self-Paced

By
Image
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...
Read more

This Week In Mr Trivia’s Bubble

By
Image
Monday. Sick at home and thus unable to educate today’s youth to not say LOL as a word. Not that I can manage this even when I’m there. I discover day-time television is as terrible as night-time television with a couple of subtle differences. Day-time TV is filled with infomercials about buying life insurance without a medical and infomercials for bagless, cyclonic Dyson ripoff vacuum cleaners that can pick up a bowling ball using just suction. Night-time telly is filled with infomercials about how the whole world is going crazy for Zumba and informercials with scantily clad ladies (some of whom can pick up a bowling ball using just suction) who want you to call them NOW for just $20.00 a minute.
Read more

Logie Rhymes With...

By
Image
Zeitgeisters, It’s fashionable in certain types of blogs to be snarky about Australian television’s night of nights, the Logie Awards. Mr Trivia’s Tract will do nothing to reverse this trend. However in the interests of full disclosure, I must admit, that I only occasionally flicked over to last night’s awards show. It just wasn’t that compelling. If you don’t watch something from end to end, then it is quite possible that the bits you missed were brilliant, funny, witty and truly entertaining. If switching over is a matter of timing and accuracy similar to throwing darts, let’s just say I didn’t get near the bullseye all night. The red carpet was brought to us by cosmetic giant Maybelline. Austereo Network’s Jackie O was out-there ‘interviewing’ with a bold look that might be described as ‘exploded Barbie’. Channel 9’s Jules Lund, whom I’ve been very snarky about on occasion, was quite good. He seemed to understand the gig wasn’t too serious. When he interviewed Network 7’s Son...
Read more