dimland radio 7-13-19 show notes

Peptiva Ad And Poor Advice

There is an ad for the dietary supplement running on the TV, in which a woman is texting her friend about always suffering bad stomach problems when she eats. Her friend gives advice, but make good advice.

My talk included me touching on probiotics, complimentary and alternative medicine, integrative medicine, Dr. David Katz (who developed Peptiva), and actual medicine. I maintain there is no such thing as alternative medicine. If it works, it's medicine.

Cool Thing #1: Late Night With David Letterman

I wrote about Late Night with David Letterman on Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone, this week (Click here.) Well, there are lots of videos for he watching on the YouTube. And this link will take to the very first episode of Late Night. And that's a cool thing.

Cool Thing #2: Gang Of Four's "Appearance "On Late Night

As I watched that first episode of Late Night, I spotted something pretty cool. You can see it it the image above. It's a screen capture from that first show. It shows a wall in New York city with several bills posted on it. There are a few for Late Night, one for Miles Davis, and a few for post punk legends Gang Of Four (there are two full posters in the lower right).

 

So, it can be said Gang Of Four appeared on Letterman's ground-breaking show. True, they have appeared of Dave's CBS talk show the Late Show, but that show wasn't the same thing. Late Night was cool and so was this "appearance".

 

A Lame Attempt To Blackmail Me

 

I received a scam email from someone attempting to get me to send them $500 in bitcoin to them or else they would release video of me "enjoying" some online porn. I was given 50 hours to comply, otherwise everyone on my email list would be sent that video.

 

I didn't comply. It's far more than 50 hours. Have you seen such a video yet?

 

Pedantic Moment: Geico Ads

 

Geico Insurance has lots of ads. Their advertising budget must be huge to support so many different ad campaigns. One campaign caters to baseball rivalries and two of the ads bring out the pendant in me...

 

The ad featuring rival fans of the Washington Nationals and the New York Mets has a landscaper (the Mets fans) sculpting "Go Mets" into the lawn of a Nats fan. I think the landscaper will soon be looking for a new job.

 

Another ad has an Atlanta Braves fan choosing to sit between to crying babies rather than sit next to a Philadelphia Phillies fan. The things is the babies are obviously twins and the man and woman holding the fussy ones are obviously together, so why the empty seat between them?

Cool Thing #3: STEVE

 

"Steve is looking good tonight."

There is an unusual atmospheric condition related to the auroras. Amateur scientists/astronomers have helped the pros figure out what this phenomenon might be. Occasionally, a single thin purple ribbon of light can be seen in the night sky. The amateurs took to called it Steve. Professional astronomers used the inform the amateurs gathered to help figure out what was going on.

 

It's not completely settled but they are close. The pros decided to call the phenomenon Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement or STEVE. Cool!

 

Learn more here and here.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'One Step Ahead' by Split Enz & 'Baby Have Some Faith' by 54-40

Second ad break bumpers: 'Eye In The Sky' by The Alan Parsons Project & 'Face The Face' 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 11-18-17 show notes

I Turned 53 This Week (Astrologers, Put Your Charts Away)

I call it a milestone age: 53. I explain why after talking about the TV comedy Barney Miller. The show was pretty damn good and still is.

 

The connection of the show and my age has to do with the actor Abe Vigoda.

 

Pedantic Moment: Geico Casual Friday At Buckingham Palace

Geico has about three or four dozen ads on radio and TV, some of them are pretty clever. But there's one that shows one of those Buckingham Palace guards (you know the sort: Big furry hat, stand absolutely still, shows no emotion, etc) being relieved by a rather sloppily dressed fellow. You see, it's Casual Friday.

Funny, right? Well, not to this pedant.

There Is That Funny Ad By Progressive

Much like Geico, Progressive Insurance has many, many ads. Geico and Progressive must have massive advertising budgets. They might be able to charge lower premiums if they weren't spending so much to advertise.

 

There is one ad in particular that is very funny. It's the one that plays like a soap opera featuring Susan Lucci.

I'm Done With Sargon Of Akkad

There's a whole lot of difficult people on the internets. Trolls and others who just can't play nice with others. I try to stay out of the fray between YouTube atheists and skeptics over social justice and feminism and anti-feminism that has been boiling away for quite some time now.

 

I've watched videos, read opinion pieces, and listened to both sides SJW/Alt-Right/Nazi/Feminist arguments. I find reason and unreason on both sides. I try to side with the facts and treating people with respect and kindness.

 

Sargon of Akkad has been one of the more visible and controversial voices tending to call the SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) on what he thinks is their bullshit. I haven't done a deep dive on his stuff, but I've watched a few of his videos.

 

I might agree with him on this, disagree on that, but I haven't heard anything that I've thought crossed the line. He gets close, but nothing I'd heard him say made say, "That's it, pal. We're done."

 

Then came Mythcon a convention held earlier this year. I'm not exactly certain what Mythcon is, but it's a convention and it raised a few eyebrows by inviting Sargon and others in his camp to appear. Speakers decided not to attend due to how controversial these fellows (they are mostly middle-class, white males) are.

 

Sargon was interviewed before an audience that contained more than a few of his fans. The interviewer was Thomas Smith and he asked Sargon to confirm his statement made to a politician who is a woman who had been sexually assaulted. The statement to her was, "I wouldn't even rape you."

 

That's when I said, "That's it, pal! We're done!"

 

I go into a little more about my reaction to Sargon's assholery.

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here are the Top Three Cool Things from this week.

3) Sure, I turned 53. Yep. Same age as Abe Vigoda at the premiere of Barney Miller. That's right. I'm old. But it's a birthday. A trip around the sun completed, another begun. That's cool.

2) At the Stuck in the 80s blog it was XTC week. I got to promote one of my favorite bands for a whole week. Somehow the first and last installments didn't get posted, I wrote six in all, but still. Four is pretty cool.

 

I wrote about the following songs:

Love On A Farmboy's Wages

Grass

Towers Of London

Senses Working Overtime

 

1) I will be the guest on Minnesota Atheist Talk Radio. My friend Maddy will being interviewing me. It should be pretty cool. And fun.

 

 

Movie Recommendation: The Iceman (2012)

 

Millennium Entertainment

Based on a true story, The Iceman introduces us to Richard Kuklinski (played by Michael Shannon), a quiet but menacing man who has no qualms about killing. He becomes a hitman for a local mob boss (Ray Liotta), a job he keeps from his wife (Winona Ryder) and their daughters.

 

It's a fascinating looks at a man's violent life. The film gets a bit violent, of course, and there is a scene showing part of the process of dealing with dead bodies that fairly disturbing. It may be on the brutal side, but if you enjoy true crime movies, I recommend this one.

 

It is streaming on Netflix.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Earn Enough For Us' & 'Dear God' by XTC

Second ad break bumpers: 'I Bought Myself A Liar Bird' & 'No Language In Our Lungs' 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

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.

dimland radio 11-26-16 show notes

300th Show!

Nothing particularly special was done for this my 300th show. I only made note of it and moved on.

The Dinga Dinga Dinga Sound Of Guilt

Each holiday season, just before Thanksgiving, out they come: The bell ringers from the Salvation Army. And I seem to forget about them each year until I step out of my car to head into the supermarket. That's when I hear the "dinga dinga dinga" of the bellringer insisting people throw some money in the kettle. Well, the bellringers don't force anyone to do so, but that ringing bell just makes me feel guilty.

 

I'm an atheist. I just can't give to a charity whose mission is to get more people to believe in a god that I'm pretty certain doesn't exist. Sure, the Salvation Army might be helping people who are struggling to make ends meets, but they still insist in the god pushing. So, I don't give to them.

 

It's a yearly complaint I have and I'm sure the bellringers don't think less of me for passing the kettle, but the guilt is still there.

 

If only there was a way I could help someone directly...

A Tap At The Car Window
 

After dodging the bellringer, I was sitting in my car, filling out a birthday card for my wife, when there came a tapping, a gently rapping, at my driver's side window. There was a young man, not dressed for the weather. He was wearing a hoodie to protect him from the 30 something degree night. He looked cold and had his best nonthreatening, humble look on his face. In his hand was a clear plastic sleeve holding a standard sized sheet of copy paper. On it was a copy of a photograph of a youth basketball team. Under that photo was some text explaining how the team had its uniforms stolen and that he was asking people if they might give a buck or two to help purchase new uniforms.

 

A sad story indeed. But it's bullshit. That night had been the third time in the past year plus that I had been approached by a panhandler using that same gimmick. And I'm certain I've seen someone else having that begging pitch used on them on, at least, one other occasion.

 

Well, I told the kid that I had seen this before. I had that skeptical tone I get. But I softened and asked, "Do you need a couple bucks?" He said that he did, so I gave him two dollars. He went off to get money from other people in the lot.

 

I told the kid to get somewhere warm as he wandered off. Then I remembered I had a quilted shirt I didn't need in the car. I tracked him down and gave it to him. I'm not sure he wore it, but he did thank me for it.

 

Funny, how during all this, I didn't notice the dinga dinga dinga.

 

Please! Make It End!
 

Aretha Franklin is a great singer. She has a fantastic voice. She's the Queen of Soul for crying out loud!

 

Yes, that's all true. But! If you're not a fan of her style of singing, which I am not, listening to her stretch out the National Anthem to more than 4 and a half minutes is going to be difficult. Thank science for the mute button!

When I sat down to watch the MN Vikings lose to the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, I was troubled when Aretha was announced as the person who would be singer our Anthem. I immediately started searching for the remote.

 

When her "Oh-oh say..." came out, "OoohooOOOHHooohhhooohh" I hit the mute button and turned to my son and said, "This is going to take a while." I went into the kitchen to make a sandwich or do the dishes or bake a cake from scratch, something to occupy the time, and when I came out SHE WAS STILL SINGING!

 

Oh, my lack of god!

 

Sure, there were some who were dazzled. Maybe even moved. But, it was ridiculously long.

 

A Strange New Cheer In Sports?

 
Over the last several months, I've become aware of a new shouted cheer coming from a few fans at sporting events. I've notice it in baseball and in football.

 

I can't describe it here, but my younger brother was listening and he told me it's a Ric Flair thing. He was a pro wrestler, I guess. So I looked it up and I found this clip of some Indianapolis Colts doing the Ric Flair. And there's the cheer!

 

 

It's interesting how stuff like this takes hold.

 

That Library Marquee

The image above has been popping up on the Facebook lately. It's amusing, but I have news for whoever it was who created this image: Not everything in a library is true either.

 

Does your library carry any books by Sylvia Browne or James van Praagh or Deepak Chopra? Do they have a copy of The Amityville Horror or books promoting the Bermuda Triangle, psychic abilities, or ghosts? Do they have a self-help motivational section? The Bible or the Quaran?

 

Do you see what I mean?

 

A Few More Complaints

 
When talking about that new cheer, I touched on a Geico ad featuring a football game in which the center distracts his quarterback with info about the insurance company. A distraction which leads to the quarterback getting sacked.

If I were the coach of that center, I'd have benched him.

My talking about that library marquee reminded me of a pet peeve I have about prices posted on marquees. Specifically, if you don't have period/decimal point/dot tile to use when separating dollars and cents, just leave a little space where you would have placed the period/decimal point/dot.

See how easy that is?

Finally, I complained about how the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is only barely on television anymore, despite having two networks "covering" it. I go into more detail at my blog over at Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone.

 

Movie Recommendation: None

 

I ran out of time, so you are on your own.

Music heard on the show...
 

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Teacher Teacher' by Rockpile & 'In-Between Days' by The Cure

Second ad break bumpers: 'Mea Culpa' by Brian Eno - David Byrne & 'Empty Glass' 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
 
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.