Mr Trivia's Other Blog Wants You

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Oh Yez, Zeitgeisters,

Mr Trivia is back here and he's back over there at mrtrivia.net.

I have posts on Eurasian of the Week, my searing Art and how sometimes they do save the Best For Last at the movies. Check it out, folks.

Or if you're feeling a bit rebellious and just don't wanna, click this link and go to Stuff White People Like instead.

Mr Trivia

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What's with George Eads' Hair?

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What’s with Bradley Whitford’s Hair?

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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...
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Slap Happy

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Some quick thoughts on the Slap Chop.  NOTE: If you don’t know what that is or how it works spend some time watching the famous infomercial. You won’t even need to watch the whole thing.  You’ll get it before the first minute is over. The Slap Chop seems okay. I don’t like it quite as much as Vince does. But Vince also likes the Sham Wow so his judgement is in question as well as up for sale.  I wanted a Slap Chop because I don’t like chopping vegetables. I do it six days out of seven and find somewhat dull. I first learnt to chop vegetables as a kid working in my parents’ various restaurants, so I’ve have sliced a myriad of onions, a plethora of cabbage and a several tonnes of carrot in my time.  It’s boring and a tiny bit dangerous. Not sky diving dangerous, but certainly ‘get me to the emergency room, stat!’ levels of threat. But my main objection to the Slap Chop is the size of the appliance. The celery, potato etc that go into it, are all sliced at least o...
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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...
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Institutional Memory

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Note: If you’re here, you were connected with Perth’s Film and Television Institute at some point. The FTI in the form that we know it, is being wound up and some of its functions are being taken over by ScreenWest. This is my idiosyncratic tribute to the FTI as it was formerly. I’m not someone who plans things. Depending on how well you know me, you might be saying “Amen to that” right about now. There was no plan to have anything to do with filmmaking when my friends and I entered our first efforts in the WA Film and Video Festival almost 35 years ago (forerunner of the WASAs). We made experimental films on Super 8 movie film; in-camera editing, falling down sand dunes, raw meat and tomato sauce representing the terrible effects of our filmic violence.   Super-8 was the cheapest type of movie film. 8 millimetres in width. You could shoot two-and a-half to three-and-a-half minutes depending on your frames-per-second. We had no money, so shot “longer” at 18 fps. Our ti...
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Guten Abend Zeitgeisters, I work in an open plan office (it’s a loft or mezzanine style of thing) and it is a common occurrence to hear other people's mobile phones going off. Graeme downstairs has a “My Sharona” ringtone and Liz, with whom I share my office, has a Madonna ringtone. Like any other oft-heard sound, these cut into my brain like brick-saw into concrete. To be fair, my own ringtone is just as bad. If you have a Nokia 3120 , then you can sample the twittering cacophony that is “Urgency”. Imagine the sound of a finch caught on a length of razor wire, then amplify it. What I love is the reaction when anyone hears it for the first time. “Is that your ringtone?” they ask, as though I might have programmed it by accident. I have very purposely chosen a high, “top-endy” sound so it cuts through the background noise. I propose a new piece of cell phone etiquette. Much in the same way that one doesn’t comment on how other people raise their children – especially not ...
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