dimland radio 10-24-15 show notes

Really? I Mean - REALLY?

I started the show a bit hot under the collar.

 

I like baseball and this is the best time of the year for the game. It's the postseason and I try to catch as much of the games as possible. BUT, the local ESPN Radio affiliate believes it's better to run local programming or University of Minnesota Gopher Hockey rather than some of the postseason games.

 

Each of the games in baseball at this time of the year truly count and the Gophers are early enough in their season that one could miss a game or two, but, nope, gotta preempt baseball. It's probably a contractual thing.

 

Still. I WANT BASEBALL! Not local talk or college hockey. Sheesh.

Tales From The Janitorial Side

Oh, I know what you think: Janitorial is nothing but joy-filled, totally rewarding, and appreciated evenings of cleaning offices. Well, it's not. It's mostly thankless work that usually has you hearing from customers only when they complain.

 

I gave a few examples of the travails of a janitorial service provider. There were a couple positive stories, but those are fairly rare. 

 

Don't Just Read Headlines!

Headlines are tricky things. They are meant to get people to read the article. Or, at least, that's what they should be about. But, I noticed an unbelievable headline to the affect that Donald Trump would close mosques in the US if he's elected president.

 

That seemed a little outlandish even for Trump, so I read the article. Trump was being interviewed on FoxBusiness by Stuart Varney. Varney asked if Trump would do some of the things the British government is debating about doing to fight terrorism and ISIS. Varney mentioned two actions: Revoking some passports and closing some mosques. Trump indicated he might do that, although he did back away from closing some mosques when asked about religious freedom.

 

My problem? It was some mosques. Some not all. To me many of the headlines appeared to just give the impression that Trump wants to close all mosques in the US. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but not by much, because the comments I've seen on Facebook sure indicate that those who dislike Trump believe that's what he wants to do.

 

Read the article, damn it!

I Didn't Care For 'Whiplash'

My opinion was likely influenced by George Hrab's absolute excoriating of the highly rated, Oscar winning film 'Whiplash'. Geo is a musician and son of two teachers and he found technical errors and many other problems with the movie. His biggest beef was with what he called lazy script-writing.

 

So, as I said, my opinion was probably affected, but Adam Carolla and, Carolla sidekick, "Bald" Bryan Bishop raved about the movie. Bryan said it was the best film he'd see in the last 10 years, while Geo said it was the worst he'd seen in 10 to 15 years.

 

It appears I value Geo's opinion more than Bryan's; because, although I didn't hate it as much as Geo, I thought it was pretty meh. JK Simmons was very good in his Oscar winning performance of an egotistical, domineering, sadistic, abusive, cruel, terrorizing asshole of a music teacher at an elite music college. I think even without Geo's influence I would have great difficultly believing the man would keep his job for long with throwing chairs at and slapping students as he does in the movie.

 

Watch it if you like. It's up to you.

Movie Recommendations: None

 

Ran out of time, so you're on your own this week.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Take It Away' by Paul McCartney & 'America Is Waiting' by Brian Eno & David Byrne

Second ad break bumpers: 'Head Over Heels' by The Go Go's &  'The Unguarded Moment' 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
 
You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 10-17-15 show notes

More Of What Is Great About October...

Last week, I had forgotten to mention a couple of other things that make October the greatest month of the year. One is that my wife and I were married in October. That led me to talking about the wedding ceremony. I did mention three of my favorite pictures from that day, however, I don't have any of them digitized so I can't post them. I think my wife prefers it that way.

Next, I talked about the greatest aspect of October. BASEBALL! The postseason is here. Yes, that means baseball is nearly done for the year, but until it is done, it looks like we are in for an excellent postseason.

I'm rooting for the Chicago Cubs, of course. But any of the teams involved winning the World Series would be fine by me. As long as the Hated Yankees aren't involved, it's going to be a great time.

And Now For My Annual Rant 

Speaking of baseball and the postseason, it seems I forget each year that when I watch the games on TV, come the seventh inning stretch, I'll be forced to hit mute or change the channel.

Why? Well, because, since 9/11, Fox and MLB has felt it necessary to force a new tradition into the seventh inning. You see, kids, the attacks of America on September 11, 2001 took place in New York city, the heart of the civilized world (if you ask New Yorkers). And the Hated Yankees had started having some cop come out and sing 'God Bless America'. So, because it's New York, everybody has to be subjected to it every postseason.

 

I will spare you the entire rant here, you can catch it on the show. I'll just say that there is already a fine tradition in baseball for the seventh inning stretch. That tradition doesn't get televised.

Full Circle On Victor Garbor

Victor Garber is an openly gay actor, you'd likely recognize him from the film 'Titanic' or the TV series 'Alias', who just married is partner, Rainer Andreesen. Andreesen looks uncannily like actor Bryan Cranston. I talked about how I had remarked to myself about how much Garber's husband looked like Cranston, and I had stopped myself and realized I had just said something about a man and his husband. And it didn't feel weird to me.

I remarked on how far we'd come in how we view gay folks. Especially since the mid 80s, my high school and art school days, when in October 1985 Dire Straits' 'Money For Nothing' was number one in the US. The songs did ruffle some feathers at the time with its multiple uses of the term "faggot", but not enough to keep it from topping the charts. It also doesn't keep the dinosaur rock stations from still playing either.

So, on the same day I learned of Garbor's marriage and his name, which I hadn't known until then, I got home from work and watched some Netflix before bed. I decided to watch an episode of 'Louie', a series I hadn't watched in several months. The show I watched that night had Louie CK getting involved with a model and ending up in jail, needing a lawyer.

Can you guess who played the lawyer? Yep. Victor Garber.

No More Naked Ladies In Playboy

It had been a rite of passage to male adulthood for many a boy since 1953. But with the internet providing more than enough naked ladies doing much more than to strike pretty poses, the magazine just lost steam.

I blogged about the end of nude pictorials and my introduction to the magazine for the Nostalgia Zone. I also talked about a friend apparently dropping me from her Facebook friends due to my not writing something negative about Playboy.

That may not be exactly what happened. Her daughter later told me that her mom just closed up her FB account. But she did post a comment voicing her concern about her son's masturbating. Teenage boys masturbate? No shit!

As promised on the show, here is the website with virtually every Playboy centerfold ever. NSFW! 

Movie Recommendations: None

Ran out of time, so you're on your own this week.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Black Coffee in Bed' Squeeze & 'White And Lazy' by The Replacements

Second ad break bumpers: 'White Train' The dB's &  'Black Haired Girl' By The Alley Cats

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
 
You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 10-10-15 show notes

Interesting Science News Item...

I hadn't been able to get to this the last couple of shows, but I did this week. There's a small town in the Dominican Republic in which a number of boys are born appearing to be girls. When those boys reach the age of 12 or so, they get their penises and testes. It's a strange occurrence in which nature delays their sexual development.

 

The boys are called guevedoces which translates to "penis by 12". Nature sure can be strange.

 

I speculated as to how this might relate to the nature versus nurture debate.

It's Not True: Same Woman At Four Mass Shootings

 

Conspiracy theorists are a bit nutty. Have you ever heard that before? They will find evidence no matter how bad to justify their belief in some conspiracy no matter how outlandish. They engage in anomaly hunting and they are very good at it.

 

One anomaly some of them have convinced themselves of is that there are "crisis actors" who participate in these mass shooting events we've been having waaay too many of here in the US. These "actors" add to the perceived reality of the event by acting as grieving relatives of those who have been killed. So, that the country will be moved to allowing Obama to take our guns.

 

Well, the conspiracy nuts believe the same grieving "crisis actor" can be seen at four recent mass killings of innocents. Look closely at the images of this woman for, oh, 0.005 seconds and you will see that she is actually four different women.

 

Four different women grieving at four different tragedies.

Snopes came to the rescue on this one.

 

 Nostalgia Zones Blogs

I talked about the two latest blog posts I did for Nostalgia Zone. One was a parody ad about Jarts, the lawn darts game that might not have been a great idea. Large, heavy, metal-tipped darts you throw in the air - what could go wrong?

 

 

And then I blogged about a Halloween sound effects record we had when we were kids. It's called 'Monster Mash: Sounds of Terror' and I even played a few tracks from the album. Most tracks on the album were fairly tame. But then they included tracks that covered being possessed by the devil, burned at the stake, buried alive, and being decapitated by a guillotine. You know, for kids!

Movie Recommendations: None

 

Ran out of time, so you're on your own this week.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Cuts You Up' Peter Murphy & 'I Believe In You' by Don Williams

Second ad break bumpers: 'Almost With You' The Church &  'Something Against You' By Pixies

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
 
You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.

dimland radio 10-3-15 show notes

Once Again..

Yes, another senseless mass shooting. Another round of outrage and calls for and against gun control. Another round of calls for improved mental healthcare. And another round of me saying I don't know the answer.

 

I do know we ain't goin' to hell in a hand-basket. Since World War II, the world has gotten more peaceful and less violent. Since the 1990s, violent crime in America has declined. I also know that going by what we see and hear on the 24 hour news channels and social media everything appears far worse than it is.

 

Jeff Wagg of the College of Curiosity has an idea that might help stop these tragic events. He's not the first to propose it, but he gets the idea out very cohesively as one of his Daily Curio audio podcasts. His idea to to just not publicize the names of these killers and limit the coverage of the events. It may be possible to get the cable news outlets to not mention the name, but to limit their coverage would be a difficult request to meet.

 

As I've done before (and, sadly, may do again) I'm sharing Pete Townshend's plea to 'Stop Hurting People'.

Yay! Science!

I tried to lighten the mood of the show by reminding listeners that humans may be capable of mass shootings and other acts of violence, they are also capable of soaring to great heights. Science keeps having awesome moments and I talked about two of them: More pictures of Pluto's moon Charon and WATER ON MARS!!

 

Yay! Science!

 

How To Upstage A Supermoon Eclipse

 

How does one top a total lunar eclipse during a supermoon? Easy. Invite a racoon!

My lunar eclipse companion or, at least, how I'll describe him.

OK, I didn't invite the critter. He just wandered onto our backyard deck and stunned the hell out of me. He didn't attack. There was no long, heroic battle between man and beast, but that is how I'll tell the story years from now.

The lunar eclipse or, at least, how I'll describe it.

10-02-82

 

That is a very important date for me. No, it's not when my son was born. It's not when I met or married my wife. Nothing so trivial.

 

It was on that date that I saw Rock's all-time greatest band: The Who. I wrote about it on this blog some years ago: here.

 

It's been 33 years, but the love affair is still going strong.

Movie Recommendations: The Kids Are Alright (1979)

 

New World Pictures

The rockumentary doesn't follow a chronological path when displaying the greatest rock band ever, but it will go a long way in demonstrating why I love this band so much. There's no narration, just lots of interviews and loads of great concert footage.

These kids are definitely alright!

Check out the trailer with a familiar face. Here!

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Daily Records' & 'Athena' by The Who

Second ad break bumpers: 'It's Hard' &  'Cry If You Want' By The Who

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
 
You can also go to my CafePress store and buy stuff with my artwork on it and have me do a portrait for you if you like. Find out more here and here.