dimland radio 5-21-16 show notes

Why I Like Flip Phones

Yes, flip phone are passe. My wife has let me know that. But the cell phone service I use, a pay as you go thing, has sent me a free phone. It's a flip phone which is so 2006.

 

I like it! It's like the phones in The Wire. It eliminates the accidental button pushing while in my pocket. Best of all, I can pretend it's a communicator from Star Trek: TOS.

I Know Steve Shives Is A Bit Controversial...

I like YouTuber Steve Shives. I mainly watch his 5 Stupid Things... series. Steve can get the internet riled up. Steve is a staunch feminist and has upset plenty of folks on the internets who don't agree with his brand of feminism. I don't always agree with him though. But we're human We're not always going to agree with each other, but I don't want to cut myself off from viewpoints I may not agree with. I don't want to live in an echo chambers, even if that would be more comforting.

 

 Anyway, Steve posted this sentence on Facebook:

 

"The hissy fits [emphasis mine] being thrown over a Ghostbusters movie no one has seen yet are as amusing as they are annoying as they are revealing." 

 

I thought it ironic that Steve, a fellow very sensitive to sexism (it's sexism that he is referring to when he says revealing in his comment) would use the phrase hissy fit. Hissy fit is a phrase that is a female based. I pointed that out.

 

Other commenters began to discuss the etymology of the phrase. It's hard to track down, but one stated it comes from the Greek word for womb - hystera. I never made anymore statements, but I had always associated "hissy fit" with a female based phrase. 

 

Steve obviously agreed and stated he would use the word "tantrum" instead and he replaced the sexist phrase in his original post.

Photographs Can Lie

I talked about something I learned from Jeff Wagg of the College of Curiosity about a photograph making the rounds on social media. The photograph appears to show a Kenyan police officer about to curb stomp a man laying unconscious in the street. It appears to show that, but that's not what is happening.

Go here to get the story from Mr. Wagg.

 

I mentioned this far less disturbing example of an optical illusion that Phil Plait had written about. Go here to check that out.

 

And I mentioned the film American History X in the curb stomping talk. The entire movie is on YouTube. Click here.

Music Of My Life

I got the idea from the podcast Geeks Without God and their recent guest Barb Abney. The following would be the tape I would make as my Music of My Life mix (not necessarily in the order I stated on the show):

 

Paul McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

Paul McCartney - My Love

Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run

Cheap Trick - Dream Police

Kansas - Dust in the Wind

Rush - Red Barchetta

J Geils Band - Centerfold

Blondie - Heart of Glass

Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

The Vapors - Turning Japanese

The Who - So Sad About Us

The Who - I'm One

The Who - Baba O'Riley

Pete Townshend - So Sad About Us/Brr

Pete Townshend - Let My Love Open the Door

Pete Townshend - Face Dance Pt. 2

Pete Townshend - Give Blood

Pete Townshend - Misunderstood

XTC - Respectable Street

XTC - Earn Enough For Us

The Jam - Going Underground

Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant

Buzzcocks - What Do I Get?

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Christine

New Order - Perfect Kiss

Tones On Tail - Go!

Les Rita Mitsouko - Cest Comme Ca

Wire - Ahead

The Screaming Blue Messiahs - Wild Blue Yonder

Ministry - Jesus Built My Hotrod

Sweet - Ballroom Blitz

The Replacements - I Will Dare

The Replacements - Unsatisfied

Husker Du - Celebrated Summer

Urban Guerrillas - Freeway Picnic Party

Pixies - Here Comes Your Man

Pixies - Where Is My Mind?

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Suzanne Vega - Cracking

Pete Townshend - Slit Skirts

Sade - By Your Side

Lorrie Morgan & The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby

54-40 - One Day in Your Life

Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians - The Man With the Lightbulb Head

XTC - The Wheel & The Maypole

 

I mentioned the Japanese new wave band The Plastics and their song Top Secret Man. It wouldn't go on (goon?) this tape, but I said I'd link to it and I keep my word.

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn't have time, but you could watch American History X.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Face Dances Pt. 2' by Pete Townshend & 'Go!' by Tones On Tail

Second ad break bumpers: 'Cracking' by Suzanne Vega & 'Earn Enough For Us' by XTC

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.

dimland radio 8-29-15 show notes

One Of The Weird Things I Do...

One of these might just be hidden somewhere near you.

Since I was a kid I found I liked hiding toy soldiers in places. Places that had some permanence to them. Such as in the foundation wall of a local library, under a walk path in a nearby park, and throughout my house.

 

I know. It's weird.

The Joker Has How Many Teeth?

 

How many teeth do you count?

 
You may be aware that I do a blog for Warehouse Find, the official blog of the Nostalgia Zone. The Nostalgia Zone is a store selling old comic books and collectibles. I try to blog for them on a regular basis and I've had some success at that.

 

My most recent blog is about a particular illustration of Batman's greatest enemy, The Joker. Go here to read my take on it.

 

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

I received a request through my Dimland Radio Facebook page. It was a request to have psychic Karissa Fleck and haunted person Phil Siracusa as guests on my show. You may be aware that I very rarely have guests on my show. And a psychic and some guy claiming he's haunted by demons aren't what I want on Dimland Radio. If I have guests they will be skeptics.

 

Funny the psychic, who was the person who sent the request, didn't realize I'm a skeptic. Must be the psychic power dampening field we skeptics have that keeps psychics, dowsers, etc. from plying their trade, as it were.

 

She also didn't look very closely at the Dimland Radio page. If she had, she wouldn't need to be psychic to know she was barking up the wrong tree.

 

I did suggest other "trees" she could go to who met be more accepting of her claims.

 

Barking Up The Right Tree

True, I don't do guests very often, but if I did (and I might) I'd have Jeff Wagg as a guest. He used to work with the James Randi Educational Foundation and he now runs the College Of Curiosity. He loves to promote being curious, although he still practices skepticism.

 

He does a Daily Curio and a recent one dealt with getting taking in by "news" posts on social media. He talks of a story that went around the internets about a young girl sent home with a note stating she could not bring her Wonder Woman lunchbox to school. This is because Wonder Woman is a comic book super hero and super heroes solve problems through violence.

 

I'll let you get the full story from Jeff here.

 

A Blog About Penn Jillette

 

Penn Jillette has lost a lot of weight and I'm a bit skeptical about the method he used to get there. There's no doubt the weight loss program worked, but I am worried he might not be getting all that his body needs. Of course, I might not be getting all that my body needs.

 

You can read my post here.

 

You will note there is a clarification on the definition of a gris gris. That's there because a person on Facebook is even more pedantic than I am. But I am pedantic so I made sure to post the clarification even though I was told I really didn't have to.

 

What's my favorite tree?

 

Pedantry. 

Movie Recommendations: Mud (2012)

Everest Entertainment

It was a rather quick recommendation, but it is a really good film. Matthew McConaughey plays the title role. This is part of McConaughey's reinventing of his image. Gone is the insipid rom-com role, enter a damn fine actor.

 

Mud is a bit of a shady character, who is hiding out on a tiny island on the Arkansas River. He's befriended by two 14 year-old boys who live on the river. They take to Mud and help him get the items he needs to get an abandoned motorboat functional and to get messages to his girl played by Reese Witherspoon.

 

But trouble comes, as we knew it had to.

 

There's a real Mark Twain flavor to the story. And it gets my wife's stamp of approval. What more do you need?

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'I Would Die 4 U' by Prince & 'Face Dances Part Two' by Pete Townshend

Second ad break bumpers: 'Eight Miles High' by Husker Du &  'Mega City 1' By The Screaming Blue Messiahs

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 3-1-14 show notes

An Update

My wife was finally able to get her dad to the doctor. Yay!

McDonalds Ads, Auto-tune, Pop Music, & Retirement

I kind of went off on tangents when discussing a couple recent TV ads for McDonalds. One shows pop auto-tuned singer Austin Mahone (I'd never heard of him before either) auto-tuned singing his way through some song when he's distracted by his hangers-on having McDonalds' breakfasts. I pointed out that his speaking voice should also be auto-tuned. For accuracy.

The other ad has a retired woman telling a busily working fellow to sit back and enjoy his McDonalds' coffee. Well, that's easy for her to say. She's retired.

Something You Probably Didn't Know About The Star Spangled Banner

 

I had appreciated our National Anthem for its lack of referring to a god. That way it stays secular and more able to represent all Americans no matter their faith or lack thereof. But, guess again, the poem The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key does, in fact, invoke God. God damn it! Now I'll never be able to listen to the anthem in the same way.

Here is where I learned about this and you can learn a bunch of other stuff there as well. It's the College of Curiosity and it is really cool.

Duck, Duck, Binder!

 

Apparently, we in the Upper Midwest have our own way of saying things. I gave two examples. One is that we call the classic tag game Duck, Duck, Grey Duck, while the rest of America says Duck, Duck, Goose. That's just wrong. Goose? As if!

The second thing I mentioned is that we call rubber bands binders. That one seems less unusual than goose. Goose? Really?

Celebrity Deaths Always Come In 14s

 

I had talked about this before, but with a spate of celebrities kicking it lately I thought I'd go over the celebrity deaths in threes fallacy. They really don't die in threes. They just die. We tend to notice in threes if we happen to be predisposed to do so. I listed off 14 celebrities who had died in February only.

There are a couple factors go into this whole thing. What constitutes a celebrity? How much time has to pass between deaths? It really just comes down to how we tend to notice the deaths.

 

More Guest Bloggery

 

Madame Kitty Mervine of the Yankee Skeptic blog asked me to write about my favorite topic: Me. Well, me and Dimland Radio. I wrote about how it started and about an early dust up with a "psychic" who shall remain unnamed. It posted Thursday and Kitty tells me it has been getting a few hits. Who would have thought people would be interested?

Kitty has asked me to write more. It's nice to be asked for more. 

 

Movie Recommendation (a two fer): The Man Who Laughs (1928)

 

Universal Pictures

 

Sort of a companion piece to the movies I recommended last week (The Bat & The Bat Whispers - Both considered influences on the creation of Batman), this week I recommend the movie that inspired the look of The Joker. The Man Who Laughs is a silent film that was released in the transition period between silents and talkies. And, as such, it does feature a score and some sound effects. It is also surprisingly bawdy. There are a few saucy moments with one of the female supporting actors.

Not exactly a horror film, it is pretty creepy and Conrad Veidt's lead character looks awfully scary, especially when in white face make-up. You can find the movie on YouTube. It's in ten minute segments, but you'll want to watch those as they have the original soundtrack.

 

Tell me this doesn't look like the Joker.

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus

First ad break bumpers: 'My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)' by The Ramones & 'Shut Out The Light' by Steve Diggle
Second ad break bumpers: 'Take It Away' by Paul McCartney & 'Epic' by Faith No More
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.