At Post Office. Thinking of buying Spartacus DVD. Other DVDs begin speaking. "No, I am Spartacus.' in quiet digital voices.

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What's with George Eads' Hair?

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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...
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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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Modern Life Is Rubbish

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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...
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The Internet is Heaps Fun

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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...
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The Grate Gatsby

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Zeitgeisters, I know I’m supposed to be mature about this and ignore it. But if I cannot rant ineffectually to youse guys, then where? When? That’s why we ‘blog, right? I just read these words: Paris Hilton was released from a Los Angeles County jail early Thursday because of an unspecified medical problem and will fulfill the reminder of her sentence in home confinement, a sheriff's spokesman said. Are they really trying to tell the good people of Los Angeles County that her medical condition is so much worse than any other inmate that she can be detained at home? There’s no one else in the slammer that can get home detention, her condition is so peculiar that she deserves special treatment? If she’s so ill why isn’t she being put in some kind of sick-bay with medical attention? These are rhetorical questions, of course. I actually don’t hate Hilton. The problem is that she is the icon of an age when doing nothing, meaning nothing, thinking nothing and producing nothing is seen a...
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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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Coiffure Fury

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Zeitgeisters, I don’t mind it when Miss Raspberry Beret asks me if what she’s wearing is hot, happening, kicking out the jams, etc. This is a dread area for many guys but I’ve watched enough Trinny and Susannah or QUEER EYE to give it a red hot go. However, I can’t answer any of her questions about hair. Freakin’ hair. A Woman’s Crowning Glory etc. When posited a follicular styling question, I revert to being Mr C from HAPPY DAYS, or Fred Mertz from I LOVE LUCY or Fred MacMurray from MY THREE SONS (more on MacMurray soon). That is to say, as hapless as any iconic 1950s television husband when faced with something feminine. So the other day we’re getting ready to go out and Miss RB says, “I don’t know what to do with my hair. What do you think?” I try severally to weasel out of it. I distract with light chat about climate change. I attempt to make it a feminist issue that simply doesn’t involve my input. “But I value your opinion,” Miss RB says. So I employ hyperbole. “This c...
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Soup's Up!

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Zeitgeisters, Its winter in the Southern Hemisphere or SoHem as we like to call it down here. Which means its soup-making time. I like to get a ham shank and a leek and some magic beans and boil it up for a couple of hours and then freeze the result in a number of containers. Not quite the way granny would’ve done it, but its as close as I get. Last winter I was doing this very thing on a particularly cold night and managed to mist up my small flat. The windows, the computer and the front of the microwave all had a fine layer of moisture on it. I opened all the doors and windows thinking that equalising the temperature outside and would be in some way effective. You know that way you seize upon half-remembered scientific principles learnt years ago in school? I went about with a towel and dried light switches, the desk lamp and the telly etc. Then I sat on the sofa in a my thickest jacket while a chilly wind blew through the flat. I managed to catch a pretty good documentary on SBS a...
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Celebrating AFHVS

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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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Self-Paced

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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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