dimland radio 9-25-10

With my son leaning on my side, I put up this week's show notes.

Controversy!

Last week's show stirred up a little controversy with one listener in the chat room. It was during Ten Minute Topic with Chris Brown, when Chris talked about the science on weight loss being essentially burn more calories each day than you take in and you will lose weight. The listener objected when Chris suggested the all diets are a variation of that theme.

Well, try as I might, I couldn't find any diet that didn't follow that theme. The Atkins Diet might be less concerned with caloric intake, so that may be one, but I'm not sure. Would that be the exception that proves the rule?

Anyway, Chris' exact statement was, "Every diet out there is a variation on that theme, if it's going to work." I think the listener may have missed the part where Chris said, "...if it's going to work." When talking about what works in dieting for the majority, as Chris was, I don't think that statement is inaccurate.

WebMD has 24 tips to losing weight without dieting here. ABC News' online has an article about the Atkins Diet here. And I told of a young woman who cannot gain weight no matter how much she eats. You can watch the Today Show report here.

Ten Minute Topic with Chris Brown

This was part two of Chris and I talking about weight loss and obesity. I did a little more talking in this TMT than I had before. We talked about my personal, unscientific observation of kids in my son's school. I wondered where all the fat kids were. We also got into the ridiculousness of the Body Mass Index and how just about everyone is fat according to that measuring stick. And we touched on the buff dudes and dudettes in the movies.

Jump the shark

Some years ago, pop culture enthusiasts/critics came up with a phrase to describe the moment a good and popular TV show goes bad. It's called 'jumping the shark'. The phrase was inspired by the very popular series, 'Happy Days'. I don't agree with the timing of when 'Happy Days' jumped the shark, I think it was much earlier.

I also talked about single camera sitcoms and sitcoms which use three cameras. I prefer the single camera, because I think the writing for those shows is better, not relying on an audience to supply the laughs.

I also mentioned the newer phrase 'nuking the fridge'. The phrase comes from 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'.

You can check out TV Guide's site dedicated to the jumping the shark phenomenon here.

Movie recommendation (TV division)

Seeing as how I was talking about my preference for single camera sitcoms, I deviated from my movie recommendation to recommend a TV series you should check out. It's 'Arrested Development' and it was brilliant. It was a Fox sitcom that lasted only three seasons, because it just couldn't find an audience. It did however earn critical acclaim and Emmy awards and, most importantly, my stamp of approval.

Put in your Netflix queue now.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'Younger Girls' by Cheap Trick & 'Voices Carry' by 'Til Tuesday
Second ad break bumpers: 'Strange' by REM & 'Under Cover of the Night' by The Rolling Stones
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle


That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com You can also download my show from the Z Talk Show Archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

dimland radio 9-18-10 show notes

Twins win! Twins win!

Cold open: Twins talk

I went with a lengthy cold open to doing some talk about my Minnesota Twins. I related how excited I am about what looks like another AL Central division championship. And I took the opportunity (it's my show) to reminisce about our 1987 and 1991 World Champion teams.

1987 World Champion MN Twins

1991 World Champion MN Twins

We have colds

After going on about the Twins for 20 minutes, I finally started the show with a little talk about the annual event that occurs mere days after school starts. Hayden, my son, gets sick. Yep, after eight days of school he brought home a cold. At least, he shared his cold with my wife and me. He's such a generous boy.

Ten Minute Topic with Chris Brown

The second installment of TMT was the first of a two part talk about weight loss and obesity. Chris Brown talked about his battle with weight and what he's found really works. It's pretty simple: increase amount of calories burned each day to more than the amount calories taken in and you will lose weight. For most cases it is just that simple.

Next week will be part two and we'll talk more about obesity.

It's Not True

The Amityville Horror house, looks pretty innocent to me.

The untrue item this time? The Amityville Horror, which by now it ought to be common knowledge that the whole story was made up. But, pop culture being what it is, there are still a lot of people out there who still believe that the Lutz's story is real. It's not.

You can read more about it at Snopes.com and at Brian Dunning's Skeptoid.

Movie recommendation

I pulled this week's movie recommendation off of my all time favorite movie list. In fact, you could say this IS my all time favorite movie. It's the 1942 Warner Brothers' classic, 'Casablanca'. The fantastic WWII era romance and war-time intrigue starring the great Humphrey Bogart.

I talked about some of the back story on how the film was made. It wasn't thought to be the great film it turned out to be during production. Warner Brothers released a movie a week in those days and 'Casablanca' was just one of that year's 50 releases. However, the movie was a hit, it won the Best Picture Oscar and became Warner Brothers' signature film.

Oh, when I was listing that cast I couldn't think of the actor who played Sam the piano player. I thought it was Sam Dooley, but then I realized that was wrong. I still couldn't think of his name and I had to check the interwebs to find it. The actor was Dooley Wilson. I was close.

Put in your Netflix queue now.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'Is It A Crime' by Sade & 'Tony's Theme' by Pixies
Second ad break bumpers: 'No Reply At All' by Genesis & 'Eighties' by Killing Joke
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle


That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com You can also download my show from the Z Talk Show Archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

dimland radio 9-11-10 show notes

As promised on last week's show, I had a guest!

Guest: Todd Allen Gates

Ok, I didn't exactly promise I'd have a guest, I said that if we could get it scheduled for recording I'd have Todd Allen Gates on the 9/11 edition of Dimland Radio. It turned out that we could get everything prepared , so Todd did, in fact, appear on the show. I think it was a good conversation about religion, the Bible and God. Our conversation centered on the themes of his book 'Dialogue With A Christian Proselytizer' (he's holding the book in the photo above), which can be purchased from Amazon.com. Check out the reviews of his book there, but, as Todd advises, read the five star reviews, those are the best written ones.

I need to clarify something (yes, again) in last week's show notes I had said that Todd Allen Gates, who is an atheist, had been a Christian. Well, not really. He wasn't very religious even while young. Like a lot of atheists, he had some beliefs as a child but began to lose those fairly early on.

Here's a link to one of his YouTube videos. He has nearly 100 videos on the YouTube, you can get to his channel here. I highly recommend his stuff.

Movie recommendation

In the remaining moments of my show, I combined the 9th anniversary of 9/11 with this week's movie recommendation. Yep, it's been nine years, hard to believe, eh? I talked about my tradition of marking the day on my blog with a series of photographs of people I thank for helping to keep another such attack from happening here in America. (Scroll down and you'll see what I mean.)

So, the movie I recommended was 'United 93'. The 2006 film depicts the events that surrounded the one flight that day where the passengers fought back. The film is very intense and will shake you to the core, so be prepared if you watch it. It also includes many of the actual people who had been involved that day.

Put in your Netflix queue now.

And! This is exciting!

A couple weeks back I did a segment on the loss of 'At The Movies', the movie review show started by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert way back in 1975 on PBS. The show was canceled, but a friend called me the afternoon before my show to tell me Roger Ebert is bringing it back!

Well, sort of. He's working with PBS again to produce a movie review show that will start up in January. Thank Roger! I have a reason to keep living (other than my family and the fact the I want to live, of course). Read more about it here. I give this news thumbs u... Wait! I can't do that, Roger holds the copyright on the thumbs up/down thing.

Oh, what the hell?! Thumbs WAY up!

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'That's Entertainment' by The Jam & 'All You Pretty Girls' by XTC
Second ad break bumpers: 'Heaven's Falling' by Cheap Trick & 'Month of Sundays' by The Church
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle


That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com You can also download my show from the Z Talk Show Archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com

9/11/10

Nine years. No attacks on American soil.

Thank you!

dimland radio 9-4-10 show notes

The coolest thing about this show was having three old friends show up in the chat room to listen and chat. One from high school, one from art school, and one from one of my art jobs after art school. I only knew one of them was there as I started the show. I found out about the other to after I was off the air.

It's Not True

I started the show with an installment of "It's Not True" which focused on the urban legend of the vanishing hitchhiker. I read two versions of the tale from my favorite book from the days of my youth, 'Strangely Enough!' by C. B. Colby. Both stories involved lone women being picked on the side of road, at night, and at some point disappearing from the car. The fellows who gave the lift to the vanishing hitchers later find out that the mysterious women had been dead for years.

It's not true. These types of stories go way back. Read more about them here.

Clarification

I needed to clarify something I had said about last week's 'Ten Minute Topic with Chris Brown'. I said that Chris had studied under Bart Ehrman. That is a bit misleading. Chris has read Erhman's books and followed his radio appearances and listened to the Biblical scholars lectures, but Chris was never a student of Ehrman's.

My son goes to the MN State Fair...without us!

The day of this show, my son, Hayden, went to the MN State Fair with his friend Lily's family. They picked him up at 8:30 in the morning and brought him home close to 10:00 that night. That is the longest Hayden had been away from his mom and dad without being with other family members. We were a little nervous, but Hayden had a blast.

Black clothes, no shorts

I am an odd fellow. I freely admit that. I wear mostly black clothes and I never wear shorts. I talked about how my fashion sense came to be that way and related a humorous story about one of my walks around the local lake. I related the reaction of a teenage girl to my wearing black on a hot summer's day and how I responded.

Breast milk and tooth decay

Breast milk is great for babies. But there can be a problem with it IF the milk is allowed to pool in a sleeping baby's mouth. This happened to our son. Hayden breast fed until he was almost two years old and he would latch on to Mom's boob at night and fall asleep, allowing his teeth to soak in the milk. The sugars in the milk led to decay, which lead to several teeth being capped and others getting fillings.

There are other factors involved. Hayden's teeth probably didn't have very strong enamel, which made them vulnerable to decay. If you have a new baby at home, it's a very good idea to get him to a pediatric dentist as soon as that first tooth emerges.

A guest for next week's show?

Can this be possible? An actual guest on Dimland Radio? Yes, Virginia, I may have a guest on next week's show. His name is Todd Allen Gates and he is the author of 'Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer'. He also has several videos on the YouTube where he addresses his skepticism of the Bible and other religious ideas. Oh! And he used to be a Christian himself.

If all goes well, we'll be recording our conversation later in the week for playback on Dimland Radio's 9/11 edition.

Here's a link to one of his YouTube videos.

Movie recommendation

I went with a comedy this week. The 2001 film 'Royal Tenenbaums' is an odd, quirky, off beat comedy that some may find challenging, but I love it. It is one of my all-time favorite movies. Comedies are very hard to recommend, because a sense of humor comes in many varieties. If you think 'Wild Hogs' is funny (and why would you?) then 'Royal Tenenbaums' may not be for you. But, who knows? Give it a shot.

Somehow when I talked about the outstanding cast, I neglected to mention the the often great Bill Murray was also in the film. Duh!

Put in your Netflix queue now.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'Kiss Off' by The Violent Femmes & 'Super Trouper' by Abba
Second ad break bumpers: 'It's Obvious' by Au Pairs & 'Delirious' by Prince
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle


That's it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com You can also download my show from the Z Talk Show Archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com