Our first day in London. We made our way to Trafalgar Square. Amy prefers this artsy black and white image of us. That’s the National Gallery in the background. Our delayed flight meant we had to scratch our visit to that outstanding art museum.
This was the photo I had to have. Why? See below.
This is why. Monty Python fans will know.
I just had to reproduce the image from Monty Python’s classic Olympic Hide & Seek sketch. You haven’t seen it? Well, go here.
The Feathers pub.
Amy and I enjoy our first pint of some English ale.
Day Two: London, England
Westminster Abbey sneaking up behind us!
Impressive church, even to an atheist, with a fine altar. Kings and queens have stood on that altar. We weren’t allowed.
Scientific giant Sir Isaac Newton is buried in the Abbey.
When you find yourself in Westminster Abbey, be sure to look up!
Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the world famous clock tower, but everyone calls the tower Big Ben, so let’s not get all pedantic about it.
Inside Tower of London with Tower Bridge behind us.
Our guide Fabrizio taking us through Tower of London.
Some of the Tower’s resident ravens coming to see if I had any food.
Day Three: Windsor And London, England
Our guide Fiona takes us through the town of Windsor and Windsor Castle.
Windsor Castle
More Windsor Castle.
One of the recently changed guards.
One of the coolest parts of the visit to the castle was an incredible dollhouse. Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is stunning in its detail. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures, but YouTube has a video that tells about the amazing attraction.
Finally, we ended the day, back in London, with a walking tour exploring the dark history of the Jack the Ripper murders. Philip was our guide and he was refreshing in his understanding of confirmation bias and realizing we will never know who committed those grizzly murders. By the way, the woman in the back on the left is standing on the very spot one of the victims was found.
After the Jack the Ripper tour, it was back to The Feathers for a bite to eat and another pint. We were pretty tired.
The next day we would be heading to Scotland!
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
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 archivespage. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts! 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’d like. I also have a shop at RedBubble!
Such a cool logo.
Collect comic books? Check out Nostalgia Zone! We deal in back issues from the Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Modern Age. We even have a few Golden Age books. Looking to fill a few holes in your collection? Sign up for our Member Ship to save 10% and earn loyalty points to put toward future purchases. Order online! We ship just about anywhere!
Having the power out wasn’t nearly as romantic as this AI generated thinks it was.
We had the power go out Tuesday morning, just before 6am, when the second wave to thunderstorms came through the Twin Cities. We survived the first wave that came through Monday night. I worried that it wouldn’t stay on, but it did.
We breathed a sigh of relief, then, eventually went to bed.
The TV weather guys warned us the second wave was coming. And they were right.
Our utility company estimated they would have out power restored by noon on Thursday! If they got the estimate right, t would mean we wouldn’t have power for approximately 54 hours.
We didn’t have to wait that long, because they had the power restored Wednesday just before 2pm. That meant we were without power for about 32 hours.
My wife and I, along with our dog, spent a luxurious night at the Hampton Inn in Woodbury, MN. I spent the next night there, after our power was back, because we weren’t able to check out by 1pm at the latest. We would have been charged for that second anyway, so I decided to spend the night there and record the show.
It was a stressful week. But, it’s over now.
That Missing Scene From Close Encounters
This scene was edited out after the film’s original theatrical release.
Whenever we experience a power outage, a scene from one of my favorite films pops into my head. It’s from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The scene shows the film’s main character Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfus) reporting to the power plant as he was called in to help deal with the alien cause mass power outages.
The scene was cut from the film when it was re-released as the “special edition” which showed us the inside of the mother-ship Neary walked into. Seeing the inside was pretty anti-climactic and unnecessary.
There’s another film that I swear has a missing scene from when I saw in its original theatrical release. The film is Silence Of The Lambs. And the scene is…
You’ll have to listen to the show.
No Show Until October
9 cities in 20 days.
Yep. No Dimland Radio until probably the second Saturday of October.
Why?
My wife and I are going to the UK for a three week tour. The photo below shows the cities we will be visiting. I hope you can read my writing. The photo gives a little glance at my show prep notes.
Amy and I are super excited!
I’m Famous!
Why, yes! That is a Google Maps Street image.
I had the occasion to use Google Maps for directions back to my house. I plugged in the address and a map came up, along with a little image of the street on which I live.
As you might be aware, you can select the image and you can move the image around to get different views of the street. You can also zoom in on the image.
I zoomed in…
That’s my back! That’s me! I’m on the Google Maps! I’M FAMOUS!!
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
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 archivespage. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts! 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’d like. I also have a shop at RedBubble!
Collect comic books? Check out Nostalgia Zone! We deal in back issues from the Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Modern Age. We even have a few Golden Age books. Looking to fill a few holes in your collection? Sign up for our Member Ship to save 10% and earn loyalty points to put toward future purchases. Order online! We ship just about anywhere!
After about two months, the road construction is nearly done. There’s still a couple lanes closed at the big intersection nearby, but our street and our alley are no longer dead ends. Sigh. Finally.
They Built A Wall
Skull Island from 1933 version of King Kong.
I had an observation about the classic monster movie King Kong (1933) and its two remakes from 1976 and 2005. That is that Kong could easily climb the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center, why didn’t he ever climb the much shorter wall on Skull Island, Kong’s home, and gobble up all those yummy, yummy villagers?
I went over a couple possibilities.
666! Hail Satan… Wait. Is It 616?
Papyrus 115 shows the Number of the Beast being 616.
666 is the number most people think of when hailing Satan. I know I do. But archaeologists have found fragments of an ancient manuscript, written in Greek, that has the number being 616.
Well, either way, Hail Satan!
Hey Jude Was A Long Song And It was A Big Hit
Last week, I talked about the single edit of The Who’s classic rock anthem Won’t Get Fooled Again. On this show, I reviewed the single edit and I talked about The Beatles’ hit Hey Jude.
The Beatles breaking new ground.
Hey Jude isn’t as long as Won’t Get Fooled Again, but it is more than seven minutes long. It’s a long song and radio stations didn’t play long songs, but they played this one at its full length in 1968, three years before The Who’s rock anthem was released. That’s the kind of clout The Fab Four had in those days.
Fun fact mentioned on the show: There’s an F bomb dropped in Hey Jude. It’s not obvious, but it is there. Go here to hear that naughty, naughty word.
A Convention Of Joy
Our next Vice President and his son.
I’ve been watching some of the speeches from the recent Democratic National Convention on YouTube. I still have a bunch to watch.
One speech I watched live was by our governor Tim Walz. Coach Walz’s family was there and his son Gus went viral with full on joy, pride, and tears. His reaction to his dad’s big moment warmed the hearts of all those who saw him.
All except the MAGAs.
Cicada House
This fellow was right outside our back door.
We’ve discovered the the back door area of our house and the parts of our garage are popular places for cicadas to do their molting. We’ve been finding quite a few husks in both areas.
The other night, we found one right by the back door that was in the process of breaking out of its husk (see pic above). A couple hours after spotting the emerging critter, I checked on it and all that was there was the husk.
We’re empty nesters again.
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
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 archivespage. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts! 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’d like. I also have a shop at RedBubble!
Collect comic books? Check out Nostalgia Zone! We deal in back issues from the Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Modern Age. We even have a few Golden Age books. Looking to fill a few holes in your collection? Sign up for our Member Ship to save 10% and earn loyalty points to put toward future purchases. Order online! We ship just about anywhere!
After consulting with some learned friends, I believe I have come to the proper pedantry on that whole live through decades thing from last week.
Lived in seems a better way to say it than lived through.
Snoop, The Non-Athlete Star Of The 2024 Summer Olympics
Everybody loves Snoop!
Snoop Dogg has a past in which he had some legal troubles and he’s always been a enthusiastic enjoyer of recreational marijuana. He had a dangerousness to him as part of 90’s rap, but time and familiarity has changed the way America sees him.
He became NBC’s ambassador of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Times change.
A Constant Bombardment Of Frenzied Heathen Discord
“If your music ain’t all about obeying Jesus, we don’t want to hear it. And we don’t want you to hear it either!”
I had a lengthy discussion focused on rock music. I talked about the St. Paul, MN evangelical Christian Peters brothers and their part of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 90s. Their part in that bogus panic was to reveal the truth about rock! Thanks, boys. Here’s their infomercial. It’s chock full of sCaRy, ScArY stuff.
Why, those brothers even had a problem with this album cover!
I hope they have some hand sanitizer.
The Peters boys would be none too happy about the music I heard being played live in the parking lot of the megachurch up the block from where I live, as part of an event put on by that church. The church hired a cover band to entertain at their event. And from what I heard, the band was pretty good.
What did they play? Rock ‘N’ Roll. Both in the general sense and specifically in covering this excellent tune by Led Zeppelin.
And then there was The Who.
This album has Who fans asking, “What were you thinking?”
A friend purchased a download of the seminal rock anthem by the greatest rock band ever: Won’t Get Fooled Again
Kudos to my friend. However, he mistakenly bought the single edit, because he had no idea such an abomination existed. Look, I understand why, in 1971, when the label was looking to release a single from Who’s Next they decided to edit an 8 and a half minute song to a mere 3:40 to get a better chance at radio airplay, but, once the full song had risen to the top of the rock anthem heap, a classic rock song if ever there was one, why put that hacked up song on a greatest hits collection?
It makes no sense.
Oh! Before I forget. I mentioned this great later stage Who song. I thought I should share it.
Movie Recommendation: Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
This is a caper story dressed up as a war movie. It’s entertaining, funny, it has loads of explosions, and lots of gold bars hidden in a French bank held by the Germans. A platoon of war weary soldiers follow Kelly (who used to be a lieutenant, but had been busted to a lower rank, because he doesn’t like officers) behind enemy lines to steal $16 million in gold bars.
Do they get the gold? What do you think?
But, I did have one question: What do they do once they got the gold?
Donald Sutherland’s Oddball is so much fun as a hippie in WW2.
Harris/Walz And My Sister
A winning ticket! I hope.
So, VP Kamala Harris is the Democrat candidate for President and she has chosen her running mate. He’s Minnesota’s governor Tom Walz. He’s a good governor. He’ll be a good Vice President. With Biden dropping out and endorsing Harris, there is a huge jolt of energy and optimism and hope for the Democrats (and America and the world). Maybe we can avoid electing the orange dictator wannabe.
There is a sense of joy now in the Democrat Party and in this campaign. I hope they can keep it going and even build on it until November 5.
So, vote blue, everybody! Let’s finally assign Peerless Loser and his MAGAs permanently to the ash heap of history.
And! My sister knows Tim Walz!
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
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 archivespage. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts! 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’d like. I also have a shop at RedBubble!
Collect comic books? Check out Nostalgia Zone! We deal in back issues from the Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Modern Age. We even have a few Golden Age books. Looking to fill a few holes in your collection? Sign up for our Member Ship to save 10% and earn loyalty points to put toward future purchases. Order online! We ship just about anywhere!
My wife and I bring our dog to work and I walk our precious, little darling twice a day. On one of our walks I spotted a plant (see above), growing on city property, that had me thinking, “Boy! Minnesota really has embraced the whole legalized recreational pot thing!”
The plant made it through Pride Weekend and the Fourth of July. But it didn’t last forever (see below).
I’m not certain, but I think the city removed it in preparation for new plants.
A Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: We Haven’t Lived Through The 2020s Yet
On Facebook, someone posted a meme that claimed people of a certain age (hint: 45 to 49) can say they have lived through the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s, which is six decades, and still be under age 50.
I begged to differ in that no one has lived through the 2020s yet. And I wasn’t arguing against someone considering themselves to have lived through the decade they were born in. I can accept that. I lived through the 60s, even though I was born in 1964. I mean, the 60s ended (a long time ago) and I’m still alive, so I lived through the 60s.
In fact, I could say I’ve lived through seven decades and still haven’t turned 60 yet (but I am close). Except, I haven’t lived through the 2020s yet because they ain’t over yet. All those other decades I’ve lived through are over.
Someone pushed back, saying my pedantry was irrational and illogical. Hmmm. Maybe. What do you think?
A Memory Claim By John Entwistle
So far, it’s a good read.
I’m currently reading a biography about John Entwistle, the legendary bassist from the equally legendary rock band The Who. The box is called The Ox and it’s written by Paul Rees.
It’s not an autobiography, but some of Entwistle’s unfinished autobiography and other notes for it are referred to and quoted in Rees’ book.
Entwistle made a claim about losing count of all the times he and his grandfather were kicked out of movie theaters due to his grandfather’s antics.
Lost count?
I got a little skeptical.
Then I talked about which sort of book would be more accurate to what actually happened in the past: a biography or an autobiography.
I think it might be the former.
My Musical Tastes And A Message From An Old Friend
I won’t go into detail here. You need to listen to the show for the details.
But, this message from an old friend I haven’t seen in years made my day when I received it out of the blue…
It’s that nice?
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
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 archivespage. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts! 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’d like. I also have a shop at RedBubble!
Collect comic books? Check out Nostalgia Zone! We deal in back issues from the Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Modern Age. We even have a few Golden Age books. Looking to fill a few holes in your collection? Sign up for our Member Ship to save 10% and earn loyalty points to put toward future purchases. Order online! We ship just about anywhere!
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