dimland radio 3-24-18 show notes

Mom Had Surgery And Recovery Has Been Complicated

My mom had surgery on Monday, which went well. However, she's old, so very old, and not the most physically fit. That combination has made recovery slow going. She is in transitional care now. She is improving, so maybe she'll be back home soon.

Pedantic Moment: Long John Silver

It was 44 years ago on an episode of Match Game '74. One of the fill-in-the-blank statements was (something along the lines of), "Long John Silver and his parrot are so much alike the parrot even has a blank."

 

The contestant and all six of the celebrities answered either peg leg or wooden leg (both were considered the same). Only thing is...

 

 

Long John Silver did NOT have a peg leg!

It's Not True #1: Michelle Obama Said White People Are What's Wrong With America

Remember what Abraham Lincoln said about internet memes that show a photo of someone and have a quote alleged to be said by that person? Essentially he said there's a strong chance they are bullshit. This one about Michelle Obama is bullshit.

 

 

Snopes.com lists this as false and shows that the claim stems from a commencement speech the former First Lady made at Tuskegee University in 2015. She did talk about the obstacles African Americans faced through America's history, but if you hear her saying white people are what is wrong with America when she tells of that history, you have a problem.

 

Here's something she really did say about the people of America:

 

"The people of this country are universally good and kind and honest and decent. Don't be afraid of the country you live in. The folks here are good."

It's Not True #2: British Singers Try To Sound American While Singing To Make More Money

I used to believe this one, but I learned that the act of singing in English tends to make the singer sound as though they have a generic American accent. It's something that happens to British, Irish, and even Swedish singers. It even happens to singers with a strong New York or Southern accent. You can learn more about it here.

 

The Jam - Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler, & Paul Weller

I talked about Paul Weller, who was the lead singer of The Jam and later The Style Council. His speaking voice has a strong Cockney accent. When he sang in The Style Council his British accent washes away. However, when he sand for The Jam, he would purposefully retain the British accent. That is something singers will do, but if they just sing as comes naturally to them, most the time they sound American.

 

The Style Council - Mick Talbot & Paul Weller

I gave examples of Weller singing British in The Jam on their song This Is The Modern World, his speaking voice, and his generic American accent while singing in The Style Council on their song Boy Who Cried Wolf.

 

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here's Three Cool Things from this week.

3) I did some art from Nostalgia Zone, the comic book store I work for. The two pieces I did turned out OK and it was cool to do some comic book art again.

 

 

2) YouTube has a Columbo channel. It's an official channel put up in commemoration of Columbo turning 50 this year. And in the last three weeks now, they've posted three full episodes, two from season one and one from season 2. So far. It's looking like they'll post a full episode each week.

1) My mom and I spent an evening while she was in the hospital watching a really good movie (Open Range - It's an excellent Western). It brought back memories of when we would watch movies together on a regular basis. It was like the old days. Pretty cool.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'White And Lazy' by The Replacements & 'Eye In The Sky' by Alan Parsons Project

Second ad break bumpers: 'Rough Boys' by Pete Townshend & 'Emotional Rescue' by The Rolling Stones

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 10-15-16 show notes

Happy Anniversary!

My wife and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on October 13th. We dropped the kid at my parents' house and we took in a comedy show. The headliner was Dana Gould and we had a great time. We were right in the front row, so there were a couple of somewhat awkward, yet hilarious, moments.

Gould is very funny and he is the host of my current favorite podcast: The Dana Gould Hour. It's a monthly (more or less) podcast that is never just an hour. Very funny and thought-provoking stuff. It's on iTunes. Check it out.

We Can Say What Now On TV?

Just when you thought the Republican candidate couldn't get any lower, he does. Audio and video came out of him talking about his celebrity giving him ability to just do whatever he wants to women. Sure, it's bragging bullshit, but it's crude and base and, if he actually does what he claims, illegal.

This guy is not getting elected President.

So, in response to this revelation, First Lady Michelle Obama gave a very excellent and heartfelt speech on Trump's use of language, his attitude toward women, and how his is a mindset this nation, and world, should not tolerate.

Hear! Hear!

But, as I heard a local talk radio host ask, how do the Obama's square that correct stance and attitude with having rap recording artists, such as Ludacris, as guests at the White House? I hope I don't appear that I'm not painting rap music with a broad brush, I know it has a wide range of styles and topics, but would Ludacris maybe have a song or two with lyrics that contain what could be euphemistically called "locker room talk"?

Curious.

Also curious is the breaking down of the barrier of not referring to a woman's genitalia as a "pussy" on television. Although most news outlets were careful not to say it, some did. And Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show pulled a lot of comedy gold out of it.

What would George Carlin think?

The MN Vikings Are Undefeated, So Far

I have been a Vikings fan for many years, more than 40 in fact. And, as encouraging as this 5 - 0 start is, I know one thing that fans can always count on when it comes to the Vikings: They never fail to disappoint.

So, with that in mind, in my latest blog on Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone, focus on just how this team builds up their fans' hope and dashes them. Four lost Superbowls and five lost NFC Championships doesn't seem to deter some people.

Well, I'm not hopping on that bandwagon until a week after they win the Superbowl.

Movie Recommendation: From Hell (2001)

I have recommended this one before, but I think it's a worthy, stylish, if bleak, film. Perfect for October!

Music heard on the show...
 

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Broken Face' by Pixies & 'Epic' by Faith No More

Second ad break bumpers: 'Lead A Normal Life' by Peter Gabriel & 'Abacab' by Genesis

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 8-13-16 show notes

Pedantic Moment: Bison Not Buffalo

I started off by acknowledging that I had been taken to task for saying buffalo instead of bison when I talked about my family's trip to South Dakota. It's true that technically buffalo are found in Asia and Africa, but not in North America. So, I'm sorry I wasn't pedantic enough.

 

But, since buffalo has become so ubiquitous in its use over the last few centuries or so, how wrong is it? Doesn't language evolve with how it is used over time? The old Western showman was called Buffalo Bill, after all. Should we change his name?

 

Wouldn't it be better if we were a little more flexible on this?

 

Oh, but I better remember that the next time someone asks me if I would like to have black or red licorice.

 

Licorice is black!

How Dare She Say That?!

This bit wasn't as topical as it could have been if I had talked about it a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to address the reaction to the part of Michelle Obama's DNC speech in which she mentioned the White House was built by slaves. In the context of her remarks, that bit was meant to indicate how far we've come as a country, but there are some on the far right who only see nefarious intentions when it comes to the Obamas. They thought she was race baiting.

 

The website Top Right News had an article by Brooke Bosca in which they attempted to say there was one HUGE problem with Mrs Obama's speech. According to the headline, it was a huge problem, but in the article itself, it was downgraded to a big problem. They attempted to claim that slaves were only minimally involved in the building of the White House. They even went so far as to state that the slaves were paid and they pointed out one in particular named Philip Reid. He received direct payment.

 

The article provided two link to let their readers know where they had gotten their info about what the slaves did in the building of Washington DC.

 

Here are those links: The White House Historical Association and Politifact.

 

Those links refute Top Right News' assertions. The first link confirms that African-Americans, free and slave, provided the "bulk" of the labor, while Politifact does let us know that one slave was paid directly. The other pay for slave labor was given by our government to the slave-owners, not the slaves. It was a kind of a rent-a-slave initiative.

You can read Top Right News' attempt to mislead and race-bait their readers here.

Cupping? Really?!

Athletes are a superstitious lot and a gullible one. In the 2012 summer Olympics the bogus device or treatment was Kinesio tape. There were several athletes sporting that silly tape any which way all over themselves. At this year's summer Olympics, there's less of the tape, but there's plenty of hickeys.

 

These not so critical thinkers are going for the quack practice of cupping. And the media coverage has been what it almost always seems to be when covering pseudoscience: Completely noncritical. Hey, what's the harm? It works for the athletes, right? Michael Phelps has dozens of gold medals, right? It's all in good fun.

 

Tell that to Li Lin. He was having his back cupped in the same seven spots every day for several weeks. Now he has seven gnarly scars of his back.

 

YEESH!

Cupping is nonsense. It doesn't provide anything more than the placebo effect. It does lighten wallets and has the potential to damage the skin and cause infection. Just ask Li Lin.

 

Cupping - It's hickeys without the fun!

 

Pedantic Moment: Kelly Clarkson's Tweet

 

I attempted, on Facebook, a Pedantic Moment relating to the above Twitter exchange, but people didn't get it. 

 

My remark was, "Pretty certain the slaves who built the White House are all dead now. So, they wouldn't have heard anything."

 

And that confused the hell out of everybody. Everybody except one FB friend who is a writer and caught my joke right away.

 

But for the rest of the FB folks, I tried to explain what I was getting at. I said, "If I am correct in the timing of the comments, Clarkson is saying that the slaves who built the White House didn't like HEARING that part either. I'm pointing out that those slaves are dead now, so they couldn't hear anything said recently about slaves building the White House."

 

The second "it" in Clarkson's tweet is referring to the subject of Gage's tweet. The subject of Gage's tweet is "the part where she [Obama] said the Whitehouse [sic] was built by slaves." So, when Clarkson says the slaves didn't like it either, grammatically, she saying the slaves didn't like that part of Obama's speech.

 

Get it?!

 

Dimland Radio ARGH!: Answers Dot Com

I understand what "clickbait" is and I'll still explore some of it because it might be interesting. But, I will never, ever, ever, EVER falls for any clickbait offered by Answers dot com. (I don't even want to link to it here.)

 

What Answers does is get you interested in a story headline and picture, so you click. That's when the dance begin. To get the full story, you have to click through several pages revealing one line of text for the story per page. They often have the same picture for several pages before switching to a new one for the next several pages.

 

This is the worst kind of clickbait and I refuse to ever click on Answers dot com again.

 

Movie Recommendation: Frailty (2002)

 

Lions Gate Films

 

Directed and starring Bill Paxton and featuring Matthew McConaughey and Powers Booth, this film is about a widower father and his two sons and the father's mention from God to destroy demons. The father starts killing people he believes to be demons and his oldest son believes him to be crazy.

 

 

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'Super Trooper' by ABBA & 'He'd Send In The Army' by Gang of Four

Second ad break bumpers: 'I Don't Know' by Naked Raygun & 'This Ain't No Picnic' by Minutemen

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.