dimland radio 9-22-18 show notes

Retiring "Wife Beater"

Last week, as I talked about the Universal Studios horror classic The Wolfman (1941), I described the undershirt worn by Lon Chaney Jr. during the first transformation scene as a "wife beater." That's an old term from a less enlightened time. A listener suggested it might be time to stop using the term. He's right.

Consider it retired.

Movie Night

Each Sunday night, for the last several weeks, my wife, son, and I come together as a family, turn off our devices, and watch a movie. It's very enjoyable and good to spend that time together. However, picking a movie can be tricky... 

The Decision Has Been Made, But...

Well, each of my suggestions for movie night were shot down. And I'm OK with that. But, let's pick something.

They picked Superbad (2007), a very, very, very raunchy comedy about two high school friends coming to terms with going their separate ways after years of friendship and dealing with raging hormones.

I try not to be a prude, but my son is 15 and...

Oh, Boy! More Blurry Lights!

A Facebook friend of mine has captured video of some UFOs. The images are very, very, very underwhelming. Are they alien spacecraft? Inter-dimensional beings in their inter-dimensional craft? Ghost orbs? Demons? Top secret military aircraft?

What could they be?

Blobs #1: Before zooming in.

Blobs #2: In full zoom.

Blobs #3: Blobs merging.

Blobs #4: Yawn.

Sky Lanterns: Litter, Fire Hazards, UFOs

I took a stab at what I thought those blobs of light might be and I came up with sky lanterns.

Sky lanterns are mini hot-air balloons made of plastic or paper and are often launched at weddings or some other celebrations. They float away shimmering and glowing into the night sky. They are so pretty.

They are also litter. They have to come down somewhere. And they are fire hazards. In 2011, sky lanterns were determined to have started a wildfire that burned 800 acres in Myrtle Beach, SC.

As of December, 2015, 29 states had banned sky lanterns. In early 2016, Nebraska became the 30th state to ban these possible explanations for some of the nighttime sightings of UFOs.

Which state do you think my friend lives in? A sky lantern free state or a sky lantern ban state?

More information at this link. 

It's Not True: Man-child President Trump's Double Fist Pump At A 9/11 Ceremony

I was caught be this one, too. The story of the picture is that the 5th Grader-in-Chief inappropriately did a double fist pump as he headed into a 9/11 Memorial Ceremony in Pennsylvania. Well, Snopes.com cleared up the confusion.

And you thought Snopes was just a leftist site set up to make Republicans look bad.

  

A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: Another Not Very Profound Placard

Nice try, but...

I don't know what protest this young woman was at, but I do know the message on her sign is not nearly as profound as she thinks it is. In fact, it's kinda dumb.

I mean think about.

Three Cool Things

 

1) On YouTube there are several full length episodes of Sherlock Holmes adventures starring Jeremy Brett (here's one), whose portrayal of the great consulting detective is the best. I blogged about it here.

2) Also on YouTube are several video clips of the viewer mail segment from Late Night with David Letterman. So much fun to look back at a show that I rarely missed and had such an influence on me. Here's one. 

3) Homework time. Watch this short film by Adult Swim. It's funny and you will quickly come to understand why I think it's so cool. Watch it before next week's show, because I'll be talking about it.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'All Gone Away' by The Style Council & 'Help Me Somebody' by Brian Eno/David Byrne

Second ad break bumpers: 'I Don't Know' by Naked Raygun & 'Positive Vibrations' by The Soft Boys

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 12-30-17 show notes

Legitimate Complainer Or Lazy Ass

Up there in Canadaland, a fellow living in a corner house has been putting up with snow plows leaving piles of snow across the front of his driveway for the four years now.

 

Um, yeah. That's what happens in winter. Homeowners usually then grab a shovel and clear it away. That's what this fellow's neighbors appear to have done in the news report at this link. But the man is upset with the city and, from what I can gather, he wants the city to clear the pile away. The problem with the report is that we don't get enough information. We don't hear from the neighbors, so we don't learn how much snow was left in front of their driveways.

It's hard to know for sure if the man has a legitimate complaint or if he's just a lazy ass.

 

A Reason I Don't Care For Musicals

 

There are a few reasons why I generally don't care for musicals. You can blame most of them on my pedantry, but the other day I became aware of another reason: The musical numbers can slow down the pace of a movie. I realized that when I watched the movie that is my recommendation. Not a ringing recommendation, but it's all right.

 

A Little Mad Men Talk

 
I finished watching the AMC series Mad Men this past week. (It's streaming on Netflix.) I'm not sure how much I liked the show, but I didn't hate it. It's well written and acted. The characters are complex and complicated. Some are likeable even if they are assholes. I lost count of all the times I called the main character Don Draper an asshole. It was a lot.

 

Settle Down

 
So, some video of a blob in the sky was released and the UFOers are all atwitter. And there's some related news about a government program that investigated anomalous sightings of objects in the sky to assess potential threats to national security. But, really, that's not much to get excited about.

 

Seven Not Really Banned Words

 
"Vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based," and "science-based" are words that haven't exactly been banned by the Centers for Disease Control. But their use is being discouraged if funding from a conservative congress is to be garnered for science projects. It is troubling, but it's not a ban.

 

Pedantic Moment: Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) & The Fly (1986)

 
I get a bit pedantic about two movies:

 

My pedantry about Raiders was inspired by the very funny Dana Gould and was, so I was told, supported by the very unfunny Big Bang Theory. I'm sure you know the movie, so think about it: Was Indy really necessary in keeping the Ark out of the hands of the Nazis?

 

Then I dug into The Fly and its very inaccurate portrayal of science. But, really, my pedantry was aimed at the disappointment Jeff Goldblum's character feels when he has to admit, early on, that his teleportation device came only transport inanimate objects.

 

Um. That would still change the world and make him tremendously famous and wealthy.

Top Three Cool Things Of The Week

Here are the Top Three Cool Things from this week.

 

3) Sea smoke. It's a weather phenomenon that can occur over large bodies of water when the conditions are right. It's a massive fog bank. I first heard of it this past week.

 

Duluth News Tribune

2) This undoubtedly freaked out the chemtrail conspiracy people, but the rest of us were impressed by the awesomeness of the contrail that followed a SpaceX rocket launch just a few days ago.

1) It was Christmas. Yes, I'm an atheist. I still think Christmas is pretty cool.

 

Movie Recommendation: Scrooge (1970)

 

Cinema Center Films

 

It's not my favorite version, but there's a certain fascination about it. It's musical, which makes it a little challenging for me, but a couple songs are OK. It stars Albert Finney as Scrooge and features Alec Guiness as Jacob Marley's ghost. And there's a scene in hell. That's always cool.

 

You can watch the entire film here.

Music heard on the show...

Dimland Radio opening theme song: 'Ram' by The Yoleus 
First ad break bumpers: 'C'est Comme Ca' by Les Rita Mitsouko & 'Only You' by Yaz

Second ad break bumpers: 'Let's Get Married' by Celibate Rifles & 'Dear John' by Au Pairs

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 6/13/15 show notes

Better Late Than Never

This was the show that was supposed to play last week. I'm not entirely certain why it didn't play as scheduled, but I think I might have screwed something up. But, I guess better late than never, because I think this was one of my better shows.

Doubtful News Dropped My Name!

 

So, in late May a video of an odd looking object floating through the skies of New Zealand was captured on video through the window of a jet airliner. What was this UFO (remember the U stands for unidentified)? Some have suggested it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

 

Someone had posted an image of His Holy Noodleness on the Facebook group page Group of Fort. The person was curious as to what it was and what the other members of the group thought of it.

As it so happened, just a day or two prior to that posting a FB friend of mine had posted a link to the YouTube video of the hoaxer showing how he created the image. With that bit of good info available, I linked to it in the comment thread.

Sharon Hill, the curator of the Doubtful News website, posted on Doubtful News the hoax reveal and yours truly got himself a nice thank you.

Pretty cool beans!

Bitch About The First Pitch

I wondered why there was a change in how baseball conducted the ceremonial first pitch. In the old days, the first pitch was thrown from the stands, not the mound. Maybe that was just for presidents. Anyway, I did some research and it looks like Ronald Reagan was the first sitting president to take to the mound for that first pitch.

 

Thanks, Obama!

Speaking Of Politics

 

I took a moment to suggest that politics can get otherwise fine skeptics to fall victim to their own political bias. One such skeptic who is very left in his politics tried to shrug off a recent poll that shows that George W Bush now has a better approval rating than President Obama. He suggested the sample size was small and skewed by being done mostly by landline phone calls.

 

I suggested that had the poll showed Obama ahead of W, that particular skeptic probably wouldn't have had an issue with sample size or landlines. He would likely just accept it as a given. "Of course, Obama is more popular than Bush. Duh!"

 

Thanks, Obama! 

 

A Selfie Brings The Hurt To ISIS

 

Looks Photoshopped, he isn't looking at the camera, and image is not the selfie in question.

 

Now I wasn't saying that a selfie taken by a member of ISIS didn't help the US military in selecting a target. I was suggesting that the image in the article on the ISIS selfie probably was constructed for the article.

 

I thought the image looked Photoshopped, that the terrorist wasn't looking at the camera, and my biggest problem was that the selfie image was a third person (or should that be second person?) point of view and not the selfie itself.

Sleep Paralysis And Fringe Thinking

 

I'm not a psychologist. I may be completely wrong, but that didn't stop me from talking about how folks who tend to believe fringe or conspiratorial ideas will accept opposing ideas as long as those ideas also conflict with the "official" story. I also pointed out that even though the majority of experts in some field can be in complete opposition to the idea of one crank, fringe thinkers and conspiracists will hold the crank's idea up as the real story.

 

And I talked about a recent guest on the internet show Paradigm Shift and his alien abduction experience. I never heard of him or his claims, but in the break before he told his story I had pretty much nailed every aspect of his claim.

However, I did this with just myself as a witness. So, you'll just have to take my word for it and I understand if you remain skeptical.

 

But the reason I could be so accurate was because the fellow was describing all the classic symptoms of sleep paralysis. I also told about the experience I had with my own bout of sleep paralysis.

 

Movie Recommendations: None

 

I didn't have time this week, so you are on your own.

 

Music heard on the show...

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

First ad break bumpers: 'You've Got Everything Now' by The Smiths & 'You Know Better Than I Know' by Pete Shelley
Second ad break bumpers: 'You Took' By The Church & 'You'll Have To Go Sideways' by The Soft Boys

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