dimland radio 10-29-11 show notes

Cold Open: A Reading From The Book Of Strangely Enough!


I read a selection from C. B. Colby's book, 'Strangely Enough'. A story titled 'The Whistle'. Very creepy.

Baseball! Again!

I just had to talk about this past World Series and, especially, game 6. Believe or don't, I spent the first two segments of the show focusing on that game, two predictions I had made about it, and about how awesome it was.

Correction: During my talk about great World Series sixth games, I mentioned that Sports Illustrated online had ranked the 1991 World Series (Twins/Braves) as number 1. It was not Sports Illustrated, it was ESPN online that did the ranking. Here is their number 1 pick.

Stop Making Sense: TV Division

Those robotics should go up into the hips.

I pointed out how the graphics of the opening sequence of the show The Six Million Dollar Man incorrectly show the bionics of Steve Austin's legs. The mechanical parts should go all the way up into his hips, not stop 2/3 up his thigh. I also mentioned that The Bionic Woman's opening sequence got it right.

You can watch The Six Million Dollar Man open here (it's in Spanish, that's the only version I could find) and The Bionic Woman's here.

Movie Recommendation: The Mummy (1932)

Another classic horror movie starring Boris Karloff as the title character. Don't look for the mummy walking around in its wrappings, you won't see it. But it is creepy and Karloff underplays the mummy really well. I particular enjoy the flashback sequence showing how the mummy came to be buried alive.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: 'Antonin Artaud' & 'In The Flat Field' by Bauhaus
Second ad break bumpers: 'Terror Couple Kill Colonel' & 'Stigmata Marytr' by Bauhaus
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

dimland radio 10-30-10 show notes

Wrap up of Halloween Awareness Month

Weapon not included.

I told the story of getting Hayden's costume for this Halloween. He's going as an Ice Wolf Ninja. He spotted the costume in one of those catalogs we get in the mail at this time of year. I talked about having to go back to the store to get the mask.

Halloween storytime

I read three stories from my favorite book from my days as a child, 'Strangely Enough'. I started with 'The Man Who Fell Forever', then 'Haunted Schoolhouse', and, lastly, 'The Gauntlet in the Castle'. All very creepy tales, all undoubtedly nonsense.

Selling out with Gang of Four

The band in the days when they would never allow their songs to be used in ads.

I discussed the notion of musical artists "selling out". Neil Young was one artist who really hated to see other musical artists using their songs to sell products other than their own albums and singles. Another artist (or group of artists) I was sure I would never see used to sell some shameless product is Gang of Four. But the other night, there was an ad for some Xbox thing, I think, and my ears were greeted with the sounds of 'Natural's Not In It'.

I was stunned! Gang of Four was (is?) one of the most anti-consumerism bands I've ever known. And now they're selling some video game system? I've seen it all!

You can check out the song here.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

I love this show! I talked about why it is so great and, as usual, I was spot on. If you haven't seen it... How can you not have seen it? Everybody has seen it! Are in al Qaeda or something?!


Movie Recommendation: Halloween (1978)

Very effective! This lower budget horror films delivers some good scares. I don't know about the other Halloween movies (I do remember seeing Halloween 2, but I don't remember much about it.) The original hits all the notes just right.

Put it in your Netflix queue now!

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'Dreams Reoccurring' by Husker Du & 'Natural's Not In It' by Gang of Four
Second ad break bumpers: 'Dark Entries' by Bauhaus & 'She Never Said' by The Church
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

dimland radio 3-13-10 show notes

Hey, kids! Well, the first show of Dimland Radio is in the can. It was a long time coming and I'm relieved that I got the show started and I didn't screw up. Not too much anyway. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to listen, I really appreciate it.

I think I've finally recovered from the cotton mouth I was suffering through the show.

Here are some links to find more information on the topics I touched on...

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

http://www.skeptic.com/junior_skeptic/issue34/

Strangely Enough!
Here's a link to another blogger giving his thoughts on this entertaining book...

http://secretmountainlaboratory.blogspot.com/2008/01/strangely-enoughmetaweirdness.html

This link is to Brian Dunning's skeptical take on the 'Footprints in the Snow' story I read on the show...

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4031

(For my take you can scroll down to the previous post, just below this one.)

These next links are to Amazon.com, just in case you might want to buy your own copy. Highly recommended...

http://www.amazon.com/Strangely-Enough-C-b-Colby/dp/B0000CKFM0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268591497&sr=8-6

http://www.amazon.com/Strangely-Enough-abridged-C-Colby/dp/B000NQ0EUC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268591497&sr=8-2

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ahead' by Wire
First ad break bumpers: 'We're So Cool' by Au Pairs & 'Driving The Dynamite Truck' By Breaking Circus
Second ad break bumpers: 'Generation' by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry & 'You Better You Bet' by The Who
Closing song: 'Angler's Treble Hook' by $5 Fiddle

With the exception of that last song, all music is available on iTunes. Regular listeners to my show can, if they really want to, although why I don't know, get the $5 Fiddle track by contacting me through the chatroom.

I have a couple corrections to make...

1) When I talked about the original Jonny Quest series, I said that Dr. Benton Quest had a Van Dyke or a goatee. Actually, Dr. Quest had a full beard and mustache.

2) When I was going on about how great my musical taste is, I referred to Z Talk Rocks as Z Talk Radio. Whoops. I also didn't complete my thought on Z Talk Rocks. I was going to say that I would have liked to been able to go over to Z Talk Rocks and play the full versions of my bumper music. Unfortunately, Z Talk Rocks is gone and I won't have that opportunity. I meant to say that, but I didn't. Sorry.

That's it for this week's show notes. Be sure to join me next Saturday night 11 central, midnight eastern for Dimland Radio on the Z Talk Radio Network. www.ztalkradio.com

Thank you and have a happy pi day!

strangely enough!

When I was much, much younger I was really interested in (and terrified by) the unexplained mysteries of ghosties, critters, strange visitors, and things that went bump in the night. I suppose this is a common trait of youth. After all, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, if you don’t believe in such things when you’re young, you may not have a heart; and if you don’t cast those things away when you’re older, you may not have a brain. Or, at the very least, you haven’t been taught to think critically.

Well, I was young and I did have a heart. And my favorite book in those days was ‘Strangely Enough!’ It’s an eerie, fascinating, fun collection of short stories of unusual events. Ghosts, UFOs, premonitions, disappearances, buried treasures, weird things falling from the clear blue sky. “Over 80 hair-raising tales to fascinate and intrigue you,” according to its back cover. And that’s only the abridged version!

C. B. Colby, the book’s author, suggested that these stories might all be true. “Fact or fiction? Real or imagined?” are the questions posed on its cover. Of course, I believed them all to be real back then. Many of stories included dates or names of people and places, so how could they not be true? In fact, in my youthful assuredness, I even went as far as to draw arrows on the cover; one pointing to “fact”, another to “real.”
My copy has seen a lot of use over the years. The well-thumbed pages have yellowed, the cover is tattered, half the back cover is gone (don’t worry I still have the detached half, I use it as a book mark), and its spine is quite taped up. I read this book, acquired through the Scholastic book program for a mere 35 cents, again and again and again. One time, when my fifth grade teacher had to leave the classroom for a few minutes, my classmates had me read a few stories from this endlessly intriguing book.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. I still do. The stories are short and well written. They’re told in a gather-around-the-campfire-children-and-get-creeped-out style. They are quite suitable for campfire storytelling.

The cover of the edition I have is fantastic! Just look at that green hazy night, the nearly black and dormant trees, and that figure racing through the night. Is it a witch? A devil? A lunatic? A frightened villager? And is that ball lightening in the sky? Or, maybe, a flying saucer? I think the cover is a terrific illustration, perfectly suited for the book.

I also learned something important from this book, or, rather, one of my teacher’s reactions to it. Something that I realize now was a seed planted in my mind that would put me on the path toward skepticism.

I think it was during the seventh grade, when I brought the book to school to show to my English teacher, Mr. Raymond. Mr. Raymond encouraged his students to read and would set aside class time for us to read books we’d brought from home. (Anyway, that’s how I remember it.) I was so enthusiastic about ‘Strangely Enough!’ and I had such respect for my teacher that I wanted to get Mr. Raymond’s opinion of it.

I don’t recall how long he held onto the book. It might have been a day or maybe just through that class, but when he returned it to me he gave his opinion. He thought it was interesting, but very probably most of the stories weren’t really true. He told me that the fact or fiction question was most likely a gimmick to make the stories seem more compelling. He also said that, despite the names and dates giving it an air of authenticity, most readers wouldn’t bother verifying the alleged facts.

I’m sure I was a little disappointed by his lesson. However, I know that, in his way, without being too blunt, Mr. Raymond was telling me to think more critically. To be skeptical. It’s interesting how that brief conversation could have such an impact on me later in life. I know now that it’s most likely that the majority of these stories are urban legends, apocryphal morality tales meant to frighten and teach. But, I didn’t know about urban legends when I was a kid.

Imagine my surprise when years later, but still some time ago, I bought a Reader’s Digest publication titled, ‘Mysteries of the Unexplained’. I was still a believer in odd things then and I was stunned to find a story in that book that was of the same event written about in ‘Strangely Enough!’
The story was about footprints in the snow appearing overnight and stretching for 100s of miles. This was one of my favorite stories from ‘Strangely Enough!’ and it was one with dates and real places. This was a second source! I wasn’t sure what to think.

I let that corroboration slip from my mind until very recently, when Brian Dunning of Skeptoid.com did a podcast on the story. http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4031 Brian is a skeptic and he’s rising fast in today’s skeptical movement. His podcast and blog are well written, concise, and well researched. Apparently, there was a story reported in the papers of 1855 touting this impossible, seemingly supernatural feat. According to Brian, much of the more incredible claims were “purely anecdotal, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated verbal reports” in the media of the day. It’s a good thing the media of today are much better at vetting stories of the supernatural. Oh, wait. What am I saying?

Some used copies of ‘Strangely Enough!’ can be found on Amazon. You can even get the unabridged edition, but you’ll have to shell out eighty bucks or more. The abridged version is more reasonably priced.

Pick it up, if you like. Bring it along on your next camping trip. And creep out the kids.