The Gap Between The Pauses

Orac was a super computer in the 1970s BBC sci-fi series BLAKE'S SEVEN. If only the iPad were even half as cool as this...

C15 Espresso. 15 Riseley Street, Applecross, Western Australia 6153. Bacon and Poached Eggs ($14.90) and English Breakfast Tea ( 6/10 ); Scrambled Eggs on Toast ($12.90) and a Short Black ( 6.5/10 ). My breakfast pal and I have eaten at C-15 before and at these prices we think that adequate is not quite what I had in mind when I shelled out 15 Aussie Quid. Mr Trivia

Sent from my ever-lovin' iPhone

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...

Ipoh Garden Restaurant , Canning Highway. Mount Pleasant. Foreground: Ipoh Combination Horfun (fried, mild) 5/10 : Background: Ipoh Combination Laksa (hot,spicy) 8/10 . Cost with pot of Chinese Tea $11.00 per head.

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...

Mr Doyce and Mr Meagles choosing the right millinery  and thus owning Mr Clennam While World Cup Fever has swept your home and your nights are awash with chanting fans and the hum of the vuvuzela, Little Dorrit Fever has infected my abode. Fear not Dickensaphobes. Although I think this 2008 adaptation of Charles Dickens serial novel by television writer Andrew Davies for the Beeb has much to recommend it, I am not going to assail you with tales of Edmund Sparkler, Tattycoram or Cyrus Squickneedle (yes, I’m making up that last one). I will focus on but a single element of Little Dorrit . Regency garb for men. The story is set in the 1820s and there are endless scenes of men scheming whilst wearing that era’s version of the top hat. Because I’ve only ever understood the top hat as somewhat of a fashion relic, I’ve never seen the attraction. My lefty-ratbag sensibility sees them as the kind of idiotic headgear some stiff would wear to an event such as Royal Ascot. Leaving asid...

This video is such a melting snowflake of individual perfection that I daren't describe it for fear of 'tearing the butterfly's wing' of its rare beauty. Suffice to say, you will learn and grow as you experience the sights and sounds of this amazing half-minute of meta-imaginative glory. Mr Trivia