dimland radio 5-11-19 show notes

I'm Through Being Cool

I gave up my flip phone. I know. I know. Flip phones are cool.

My wife convinced me to jump on the bandwagon with one of those intelligent portable telephones.

I feel I may have let many of you down, but she's my wife.

Cool Thing #1: A Vague Memory Made Clear 

For decades I had a vague memory of watching a kids' TV show featuring various monsters before going to school. I don't remember seeing many episodes, but there was something rolling around in my brain. I had often thought that maybe I didn't actually seen the show and it was a false memory.

 

 

The other day, on Facebook someone shared this image (above) and asked if anyone watched the show. It looked promising. Was this that show I was remembering? There are episodes on YouTube, so I checked them out.

 

It is the show I remembered!

 

It's called The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. 130 episodes were produced for Canadian television. It was a daily show starring Billy Van as eight different characters. It also featured Vincent Price who did the intro and the close as well as several poetic interstitial pieces through the programs.

 

Here is an episode for your enjoyment. Most of the episodes available do not include the pop song dance bit, which was my specific memory of the show. However, here is an example of the Wolfman's DJ bit.

 

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: 6 Seconds Of Criminal Minds

The cable station known as WE-TV shows reruns of the crime procedural Criminal Minds. In an ad they run to promote the show, they edit an episode down to six seconds. The ad asks if the actors can do all that in six seconds, imagine what they can do in an hour.

Well...

 

Cool Thing #2: Basking Sharks Of The California Coast

 

Photo credit: Kristin Campbell/Newport Coastal Adventure

Of the coast of southern California, basking sharks have been spotted. They haven't been seen around there for 30 years. They are way big and way cool.

Dimland Radio Science Heroes: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P Kennedy II & Maeve Kennedy McKean

 

You will note that each of the three Dimland Radio Science Heroes has Kennedy in their name. It's that Kennedy family. You know. The famous Kennedys of Camelot fame.

 

The three Kennedys wrote an article decrying the danger presented by their brother/uncle Robert F Kennedy Jr. with his anti-vaccine activism. He fights the good fight when it comes to the environment and climate change, but he's just straight up wrong about vaccines. And his family members call him on it.

 

And that makes them science heroes.

 

Dimland Radio Science Zeroes: Robert F Kennedy Jr. & Rep. Jonathan Stickland

 

RFK Jr. Is a complicated science zero. He's right on climate change, but wrong on vaccines. His anti-vax activism is dangerous. Texas Rep. Jonathan Stickland, on the other hand, isn't nearly as complicated. He's just a dumbass.

 

And here's an article about the dangers of the anti-science and lack of critical thinking and how they are bringing back measles.

Cool Thing #3: Scene 38 Reimagined

 

 

A computer effects house FXitinPost created a very dramatic and entertaining reimagining of the final lightsaber duel between Ben Kenobi and Darth Vader from Star Wars: A New Hope. Just watch it! You'll agree it's pretty goddamn cool!

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Death Of The European' by The Three Johns & 'Takin' A Ride' by The Replacements

Second ad break bumpers: 'Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time' by Gang Of Four & 'Face Dance Part Two' by Pete Townshend

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

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 9-15-18 show notes

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Again

Excellent forced perspective!

Yes, again. This time I explained how suspension of disbelief works for me. I can accept the main idea of this great film that there are extraterrestrials visiting earth, that they have far advanced technology, and that they can somehow implant ideas into people's minds. But the story has to stay within the rules it sets up for itself. And everything else in Close Encounters follows along with what would happen in the real world. Nothing feels out of place or wrong. Except how do the humans know how to respond when learning a "basic tonal language" without having been given any kind of key from which to learn? How did the government fellows know what to tell the musician to play back when the "conversation" started? Am I making sense?

I gave a made up example of potential rule breaking in another movie (Creature From The Black Lagoon - 1954) that would make it difficult to suspend disbelief. Impossible, even. And I noted an oddity about The Wolfman (1941), more than one actually. And I talked about my favorite deus ex machina moment that comes from Monty Python's Life Of Brian (1979).

I blogged about the whole Pedantic Moment I have regarding Close Encounters.

Beardless Jim

Jim

Beardless Jim

As a little stunt for my friends among the Minnesota Skeptics, I shaved off my mustache and beard. It has been 11 years since I had gone clean shaven.

Leading up to the big moment I had foregone trimming the facial hair. I'm gonna be shaving it off, so why bother. That means the before picture show the beard being much shaggier than I usually keep it. I don't care for a shaggy beard. On me, that is.

I also don't care for the clean shaven look. So the beard and mustache are growing back. By next month's meet-up, I will look as I should.

I also talked about the traffic and road construction woes that plague my sojourns to the meet-up location. Well, if you want nice, smooth, and reliable roads, construction delays are the price we pay. And taxes, of course. 

A Rant About Coffee Drinkers

When working as a janitor, I can get annoyed by some of the messes left behind. Not the kind of messes one would expect in a place of business due to the work being done. It's the unnecessary and avoidable messes that make me grind my teeth.

One such unnecessary mess is caused by coffee drinkers and their insistence on filling their coffee mugs as full as possible. They need that caffeine so much, they just can't leave any it of that mug unfilled, and off they go dripping coffee all along the way. And leaving coffee rings.

Coffee rings. Coffee rings. Coffee rings. 

A Dimland Radio Science Hero: Harrison Ford

I haven't been able to discover how Harrison Ford feels about GMOs or vaccination, but his stance on human-caused climate change and how the people of the world need to address it is right on. He has called for Americans, at least, to stop casting votes for anti-science political candidates, whether they're really anti-science or just pretending. 

An Anti-Vaxxer Or A Russian Troll?

The following anti-vax "facts" list was left in response to a pro-vaccination comment on Facebook:

My response? Listen to the show. ;)

Some anti-vax myths dispelled here. 

Also On The Show 

Hurricane Florence? Never fear! Pat and Kat have it under control! 

Three Cool Things

 

1) The above picture of our president gave me a chuckle, but I found something out about it, which I will talk about next week.

2) Aaron Rodgers, quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, added another story to his legend with his astounding second half (after a knee injury) performance against the Chicago Bears. Oh, if only the Vikings could have a quarterback like Rodgers. 

3) GQ has released a recent interview of Paul McCartney. There's a video of Paul talking about some of his classic Beatles and Wings tunes.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Head Over Heels' by The Go Go's & 'One Day' by The Church

Second ad break bumpers: 'Undertow' by Suzanne Vega & 'Twist' by Tones On Tail

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

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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.

Images used under Fair Use.

dimland radio 12-9-17 show notes

A Couple Entertainment Notes

I start off by mentioning that the Fox network seems desperate for me to watch their live TV event of the musical version of A Christmas Story. I'm not a big fan of the musical genre and there is no way any version of one of my favorite holiday movies could ever be as good as the original. Only the original has Darren McGavin.

 

And I talked about the outrage I felt at a click-bait site that listed the 10 Best Singing Drummers. Whoever put it together listed Karen Carpenter lower than Peter Criss of KISS. He certainly isn't a better singer and I don't think he's even a better drummer.

 

Jim And Andy

 

 

 
There's a Netflix documentary called Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, which gives audiences a behind the scenes look at Jim Carey making the film Man On The Moon, the biopic of comic, performance artist Andy Kaufman. Carey decided to go deep into the method and "channel" Kaufman and Kaufman's very caustic character Tony Clifton.

 

Carey comes off as quite the jerk to his co-workers, but his performance is pretty damn good in the film.

 

Pedantic Moment: Jim Carey's Method Acting Stopped Short

 
Jim Carey's method didn't go all the way. Andy Kaufman got lung cancer and died. Jim didn't get lung cancer and he's still alive. Some method actor he is.

 

It's Not True: The Amish Don't Vaccinate And Don't Get Autism
 

A claim by anti-vaxxers is that the "fact" that the Amish don't vaccinate and don't get autism, therefor vaccines cause autism. Well, vaccines don't cause autism. And the Amish do get vaccinated and they do get autism.

 

Of course, if the anti-vaxxers accept that fact they would just say, "See? Vaccines cause autism."

 

They get to not accept the truth about the Amish, vaccines, and autism and claim vaccines cause autism. If the do accept the truth, they still can claim vaccines cause autism. They can have it both ways.

 

Sigh. 

 

Yeti DNA Samples

 

Last week's Pedantic Moment (better than this week's) had to do with a headline stating that DNA alleged to be from yetis turned out not to be bigfoot. (Well, duh.) Well, I thought I should report on the story from which that PM came.

 

The DNA wasn't yeti or bigfoot. The DNA came from bears with one sample being from a dog.

Is This A Perfect Example Of Mansplaining?

A Facebook friend claimed Norman Rockwell's 1959 illustration The Jury Room (see above). The Facebook friend claimed this illustration is a perfect example of mansplaining. I asked, "If the lone hold-out was a man, would it be mansplaining or just splaining?"

 

What do you think?

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here are the Top Three Cool Things from this week, all related to the space documentary The Farthest: Voyager In Space.

3) The amount of computing power used in the Voyager Project is equivalent to an object you might have in your pocket.

 

2) The planetary alignment that makes the mission possible in the shortest amount of time happens once every 176 years.

 

1) The gold records with lots of information about us and our little planet will last a very, very, very long time. Very long. Very, very.

 

Movie Recommendation:The Farthest: Voyager In Space

It's streaming on Netflix, so watch it as soon as possible.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Rock N Roll Is King' by ELO & 'One I Love' by REM

Second ad break bumpers: 'Girls On Film' by Duran Duran & 'Relax' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

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

Please subscribe on iTunes! Just search for Dimland Radio in the podcast section. And if you could leave a good rating and a positive review it would be awesome.

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.