dimland radio 12-29-12 show notes

The Lost Episode:  Why And What You Missed

The show kicked off with a prerecorded 20 minute explanation of the tech issues I had and what I talked about in show 150, the now infamous "Lost Episode."  I covered the following topics (links will be provided where possible): the non-event of the Mayan "Doomsday," a little talk about a Makita Tool Girl poster from my art school days, a lying meme generated from the Right attacking Pres. Obama, actress and mediocre artist, Jane Seymour, and her 'Open Hearts' design (which I think looks like a stylized snake), and about my son's first viewing of 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

A lie from the Right!

 So, you didn't miss much.

We Got The Flu

I then went on and on about how Amy, Hayden, and I all got the flu.  Amy and Hayden had it coming out the top, I had it coming out the bottom.  It was no fun.

We did get our vaccines, but obviously the vaccine we received didn't cover the bug that hit us.  Still, I advocated for vaccination.  It is effective and safe.  And will keep people from dying!  Don't believe the lies of the anti-vax crowd.  They are causing more harm than good.  Much more.

Before You Write Off The Human Race...

As I've been saying the last couple of shows (the Lost Episode doesn't count because it was lost), human beings are still worth it.  Mass shootings, suicide bombings, war, the fiscal cliff notwithstanding, we humans get along surprisingly well.  Hundreds of acts of kindness and compassion happen all the time.  And we humans have a grand capacity of silliness.

This is why I recommend checking out Where The Hell Is Matt.  Matt Harding is a young fellow who travels the world and gets people to get a little silly and have a lot of fun.  Here's one example.  Just try to watch it and not be moved.

Movie Recommendation: Hugo (2011)

  Paramount Pictures

Unless you count 'Goodfellas' (and why would you?), this is Martin Scorese's first family film.  And it's a pretty darn good one.  It's about a lot of things:  a boy's love for his father, friendship, grief, art, loss, and the magic of movies.  Ben Kingsley plays Georges Méliès, a magician turned filmmaker in the early 20th century.  He was one of the first people to realize that movies could depict our dreams.  And the production is stunning.  This is one movie I would have liked to see in 3D.

Music heard on the show (Whenever Possible, I Will Link To The Song)...

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

First ad break bumpers: 'My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)' by Ramones & 'Gonna Get Ya' by Pete Townshend
Second ad break bumpers: 'Telephone Operator' by Pete Shelley & 'Achin' To Be' by The Replacements
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 12-22-12 no show notes

The Fabled Lost Episode

Unless you were in the chat room, you won't be hearing this show.  Tech problems plagued the entire affair.  One microphone went wacky, then I forget to hit the button for listeners to hear my ad breaks, and then the other microphone went insane!  Oh, brother.  This is sure to go down as the lost episode and will surely begin to take on myth proportions.

 

My apologies.

dimland radio 12-15-12 show notes

Monsters Do Exist

The monstrous act of the mass killing of innocents in Newtown, CT has had everyone confused, angry, and heart-broken.  I did my best to express my thoughts on the events, but I can't say I have any answers.  I wish I did, but I don't think anyone does.

We'll be hearing about this on the news for the next several days, I'm sure; so, here is something that will remind us that humanity isn't lost.  Not yet.

Pedantic Moment

I called myself on this one.  Last week I went on about a Chevrolet ad on the TV.  The ad has a fellow telling the Santa-like salesman the he hunts deer...fish.  That's funny, but the ad has been changed the include the hunter saying he meant fish and that he didn't know why he said deer.  I found that to be clunky and it ruined the joke.

But I didn't get the line quite right so I intended to get all pedantic on my butt.

However!  I searched for the ad online to get the lines right and I found this. It's an extended version.  Really extended.  And it's very funny watching the "fish hunter" trying to dig himself out of the hole he put himself into.  The explanation that felt tacked on in the ad that I thought had been ruined works well in the extended ad.

The "Best" Bigfoot Trackers At It Again

Remember August, 2008?  Well, there's one event from that year that I remember.  A couple of bigfoot trackers (the best! sure they are) claimed to have a body of a dead bigfoot.  Unsurprisingly, the bigfoot body turned out to be a sasquatch costume.  According to one of the trackers (Rick Dyer), it was all a joke to lighten the mood of the country.

I wrote about this embarrassing event back then.

Well, those self-proclaimed best bigfoot trackers are claiming the possession of another dead bigfoot.  Really?  Excuse my yawn.

Bigfoottracker.com is a joke.  Their website is an amateurish mess.  And Rick Dyer and his new partner, DJ, are pathetic.  Watch their video on their home page, if you can stomach it.  It's mostly Rick and DJ talking smack about other bigfoot hunters and what great trackers they are in comparison.  There is a clip of an alleged bigfoot in their bragging/paranoid promotional video.  It's intriguing, but still not very good evidence.

They claim that in 2013 they will reveal explosive evidence about bigfoot.  I predicted that by 12/31/13 bigfoot will be just as unverified as he is today.

Let's see which of us is the better prognosticator.

Movie Recommendation: Quick Change (1990)

  Warner Brothers

This understated comedy is not the first one the comes to mind when someone mentions Bill Murray.  But it should.  I think it is as good as or better than his more broad comedies such as 'Stripes' and 'What About Bob?'  It starts out a caper film, but continues as the story of three bank robbers trying to deal with their greatest obstacle: New York City.  Costarring Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, and Jason Robards, it is well worth a look.

Music heard on the show (Whenever Possible, I Will Link To The Song)...

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

First ad break bumpers: 'Freewill' by Rush & 'Apeman Hop' by Ramones
Second ad break bumpers: 'The Mercy Beat' by The The & 'Running Free' by Buzzcocks
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 12-8-12 show notes

The Storm Of The Day!

I started the show talking about the weather.  I knew we were going to get some snow, but I was told earlier in the day that the amount of snow would be more than originally predicted.  Batten down the hatches, everyone!
 

Dimland Radio's War On Christmas

Why should Fox News have all the fun?  I jumped into the "War on Christmas" by ranting about the guilt imposed on me by the bell ringers of the Salvation Army at the entrances of the stores I frequent.  And I went on about a car ad campaign featuring a very Santa-like salesman.  The jokes of the ads center around the salesman possibly being the gift-giver himself.  One ad in particular is very funny.  Or it was last year, but this year it was changed a little and the humor was diminished by that change.

 

I also mentioned Penn Jillette's take on the fictitious war.  You can listening to Penn's take here.  And, although I didn't mention it on the show, Jon Stewart has a very spot on take on this whole mountain-out-of-a-molehill business. 

 

JFK, GHWB, and BE

Or maybe it's just some other guy?

There's a conspiracy theory out there that says that President George Herbert Walker Bush had something to do with President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's death.  There's a picture from the day, shortly after the assassination, showing, among others, a man in a grey suit standing by the Texas School Book Depository building.  He does look kind of, sort of, possibly similar to a man that might maybe be GHWB.  But there's another person it might be... Beatle's manager, Brian Epstein!

The image just isn't clear enough to be certain who it is, but I think it's BE!  What was he doing November 22, 1963?  DOES ANYONE REALLY KNOW?

Wanna Feel Old?

'War Games' will turn 30 years-old in 2013.  The classic film is about a couple of teenage kids unwittingly hacking into NORAD's missile launch control computer.  This sets of a series of events that brings the world perilously close to nuclear war.  In those days there was a palpable fear that President Ronald Reagan was going to get us into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  It didn't happen.  (Spoiler!)

A couple things about the movie stood out.  One was the amount of advancement our technology has made in those 30 years.  The other was how upset my wife got when the two teenagers remarked about how old some fellow was when he allegedly died.  He was 41 years-old.

A couple weeks ago my wife had turned 41 herself.  Poor Honey Bunny,  you're not old.

Movie Recommendation: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

 

 

  Twentieth Century Fox

A sweet, quirky, wry, and vulgar family movie by director Wes Anderson.  Anderson's movies are all a bit odd and that's what I like about them.  'Fantastic Mr. Fox' is also odd and I like that.  It's not really vulgar,  The characters, voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, and others, use a lot of profanities, but instead of saying the actual word or bleeping it, the characters say, "Cuss".  As in, "What the cuss?" or "You cussed that up."  (I'm not sure those are actual quotes, but that's the general idea.)

Music heard on the show (Whenever Possible, I Will Link To The Song)...

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

First ad break bumpers: 'Nobody Told Me' & 'Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)' by John Lennon
Second ad break bumpers: 'Woman' & '(Just Like) Starting Over' by John Lennon
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 12-1-12 show notes

Two And A Half Men Isn't Funny

To me anyway.  I went on about my snobbery toward TV sit-coms taped before a live audience.  They just don't live up to the quality of the single camera sit-coms, such as Arrested Development and The Office.

Oh, and on the listen back of the show, my son pointed out that I mistakenly call the show Three and a Half Men.  Maybe I was included their man servant.  Do they have a man servant?
   

Speaking Of...

The "half" man of the sex jokes sit-com Two and a Half Men, Angus T Jones, has advised people to stop watching the filth that is the show from which he earns a reported $350,000 an episode.  The show goes against his Christian values.  But then he apologized.  And then we hear that he'll leave the show after this season.

The damn show has been on for ten years!  Let's wrap it up!

"Nottabug"

I revisited the UFO story out of Denver that has gotten wide attention recently.  The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, has weighed in (as have many other skeptics).  He actually got in touch with the reporter, Heidi Hemmat, who was responsible for the non-investigative report.  He told her of an easy experiment that would determine if the objects are far from the camera and therefor very large and fast moving, instead of close to the camera and likely to be bugs...

Use two cameras!  If it's a large craft of some kind, far from the camera, it will be seen on both cameras.  There!  See?  There's a way to determine what the UFOs are.

Read Phil Plait's blog on this topic here.

Kudos To Law & Order

I have been watching old episodes of Law & Order through Netflix lately.  There is one episode from season five called 'Cruel and Unusual,' which is about a severely autistic young man who dies while in police custody.

Without going into the entire show synopsis, ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) demonstrates in court how facilitated communication doesn't work.  I applaud the producers of Law & Order for getting this bit of pseudoscience right.

Here is a skeptical take of facilitated communication.

Movie Recommendation: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)

Paramount Pictures

Yeah!  That's right!  I LIKE THIS MOVIE!  Is it the best of the four Indiana Jones movies?  No, but it's still lots of fun and entertaining.  Yes, it stretches credulity to the breaking point, but ALL of the films do that!  I think it has become fashionable to take the hipster stance and dismiss the film, but had it been the first released I think there would be a lot more love for it.  So, grab that big barrel of popcorn, turn off your incredulity device, and sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.

Music heard on the show (Whenever Possible, I Will Link To The Song)...

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

First ad break bumpers: 'Slow Train To Dawn' by The The & 'Cat's In The Cupboard' by Pete Townshend
Second ad break bumpers: 'White And Lazy' by The Replacements & 'Back On The Chain Gang' by The Pretenders
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.