Dimland Radio

dimland radio 5-14-16 show notes

This Skeptic Poops His Own Party

Being a skeptic sometimes means you poop the occasional party. You tell how that excellent, hilarious story that happened to a friend of a friend is just an urban legend. You let people know that green tea isn’t a miracle weight loss product and/or it doesn’t cure cancer. And that emergency room visits are no higher during a full moon than they are during any of the other phases of the moon.

But, sometimes, a skeptic can poop his own party. Last week I raved about The Who, the greatest band in the world. I talked about the concert I’d just seen and I pointed out how Roger Daltrey nailed the “YEEEAAAAHHH!” at the end of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.

I was impressed, but it was also quite jarring that he nailed it so well. I even made an aside during the show wondering if they had somehow “sweetened” the scream.

Well, that wondering got this skeptic doing the skeptical thing: Trying to find an answer to this probably better left unanswered question.

I think I found an answer. There is a video of the entire concert I attended in Minneapolis. It’s not the best audio and video quality, but it did confirm that that scream sounded damn good. Maybe too damn good.

I then found another video clip of the band performing the same song nearly a year earlier. There were a couple clues that made it clear to me. The scream was EXACTLY the same as when saw them two weeks ago. Also, that second video clearly shows Roger not quite getting the lip sync right.

Well, Roger is 72 and he sang everything else, so I’ll cut him some slack and overlook being fooled this one time.

Alex Jones Is On Z Talk Radio Now…

..and I let station owner, Scotty Rorek, know that I intend to keep talking shit about the king of the conspiracy nuts. Mr. Jones hasn’t met a conspiracy theory he doesn’t at least think has some merit. Chemtrails, New World Order, mass shootings, etc. all fall under his paranoid gaze. And I will call him out whenever I can.

Scotty said, “No worries at all. Keep going.”

All right. I will.

Dimland Radio ARGH!

I had an ARGH! this week dealing with what I call “I’m the only person in the world” syndrome. I had a few example, but the main ARGH! was aimed at people who park on a side street and throw their door open without checking for traffic.

That’s a good way to lose a door.

Dimland Radio Pedantic Moment: Tigra The Were-Woman

Marvel Comics Group

An old comic book character caught my eye while cataloging comic books the other day. This female superhero was introduced to Marvel Comics fan as The Cat in 1972 and a couple years later she was transformed into part woman, part cat; thus came Tigra.

The pedantic moment comes from her subtitle “the Were-Woman”, which is a play on the word werewolf. Well, the prefix “were” is Old English for man, so she’s Tigra the Man-Woman.

Hmmm.

Movie Recommendation: Argo (2012) & Bridge Of Spies (2015)

Warner Bros.

I did a quick comparison of these two films depicting historical events. Both are good, but Argo does a much better job at building tension even though most viewers should already know the outcome.

DreamWorks Pictures

Both are well made and enjoyable, but I think Argo edges out Bridge of Spies.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Houses In Motion‘ by Talking Heads & ‘Go‘ by The Replacements

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Move Me‘ by The Woodentops & ‘Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)‘ by Kate Bush

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 5-7-16 "the who show" show notes

Second Easiest Show Notes I’ve Ever Done…

Photo credit: Steve Cohen/CityPages

Honestly, I had not intended for the show to be solely about the greatest rock band ever: The Who. I even had notes prepared for a few other non-Who related topics, but I just couldn’t help myself. I just had to gush about my all-time favorite band.

I talked about the first time I saw The Who. I hadn’t planned on it, because I wasn’t much of a Who fan then. But, my friend had an extra ticket and asked if I would go. I said yes and my life has been a love affair with the band and Pete Townshend in particular ever since.

I also covered the other times I saw the boys in concert. Each concert was thoroughly enjoyed by me, but then why wouldn’t they be? I’m a massive fan and The Who are the greatest rock band ever. Have I mentioned that?

As part of my Who indulgence show I included the story behind this current tour and it’s postponement due to Roger’s illness in the fall of 2015. That illness added close to seven months to what would have already been a yearlong wait. The tickets went on sale in October 2014 for a show that was originally scheduled to take place in October 2015. The concert was to be part of Amy (my wife) and my 14th wedding anniversary celebration, but, because of the postponement, it became part of our Mother’s Day celebration.

Photo credit: Steve Cohen/CityPages

The concert took place in the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. The Target Center is located across the street from the legendary nightclub First Ave & 7th Street Entry. Before heading into the stadium, Amy and I went over to see the temporary memorial that has been put up by Prince’s star on the wall of First Avenue. There was a posting on the wall from The Who paying tribute to Minnesota’s musical genius.

I described the show. I talked about my favorite moments and about the crowd. I speculated about those elderly audience members and how they may have conducted themselves way back in the 70s when they were young and going to concerts.

There are two versions of my review of the concert online. A shortened version for the Stuck in the 80s blog and a more verbose version on my weekly blog at Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone. And was able to find a YouTube video of the ENTIRE concert! It’s not the best quality video or sound, but you will be able to see what I was talking about.

Movie Recommendation: None

I ran out of time, so no recommendation this week. You are on your own.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Another Tricky Day‘ & ‘Athena‘ by The Who

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Cry If You Want‘ & ‘You Better You Bet‘ by The Who

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 4-30-16 show notes

What?! Ridiculous Notions Talked About On Z Talk Radio?

First off, sorry for the delay in posting the show notes. It was a pretty busy last few days.

Z Talk Radio is an internet radio station with programming that primarily appeals to believers in the paranormal. Psychic, ghost, UFO, cryptid, and lots and lots of energy talk fill the day at Z Talk Radio. Except when Big Picture Science or Dimland Radio are playing. That’s when a skeptic can breathe a little easier.

As Z Talk’s resident skeptic, I hear a small amount of the usually eye-rollingly unsupported by science claims on the station, but I don’t listen very often. Those claims tend to get tiring, but what can I do? I’m just one lone skeptical voice in a paranormal crowd. I try to tell it the way it is, at least, the way that is as supported by science.

So, when I get to the chat room on a Saturday night, minutes before my show, I’ll hear some pretty silly stuff. (Unless I’m lucky enough to have the Auto DJ playing Big Picture Science or my show, that is.) The previous Saturday, I heard something quite upsetting.

I don’t recall what show it was. I believe it was an old show no longer being produced on Z Talk. I, also, don’t recall the names of the hosts, not that I would say them if I did. I heard something that made my jaw drop.

The two hosts had just wrapped up an interview and “reading session” with a “psychic” when I tuned in. The hosts talked about how interesting the guest was and the male host mentioned that the guest had addressed his co-host’s missing cat. The co-host acknowledged that the guest was probably right about her missing cat not coming back because it was likely dead.

This host said she lived in a rural area with predators such as coyotes. Her missing cat probably came to a bad end from a meeting with a coyote. That’s sad and I was starting to formulate a thought in my head about not letting cats outside, when she let loose with this goodie: This missing cat was the FOURTH cat she’d lost in this manner.

My wife, who is way more of an animal person than I am, summed it up best. She said, “This lady should stop feeding her cats to the coyotes!”

Keep your cats indoors.

Prince And Chemtrails

The conspiracy theory king know as Alex Jones has linked Prince’s death and his mentioning of chemtrails with the death of Merle Haggard and his song about chemtrails. It appears Mr. Jones thinks Prince and Haggard were killed by the “them” behind the chemtrails.

OK, Prince and Merle Haggard are ignorant about contrails. What can you do? They’re dead now. But Alex Jones? If “they” are killing of celebs who mention grand conspiracies, why are you still alive?

Oh, and when you watch this link, be sure to watch the ad at the end. Mr. Jones has some snake oil he wants you to waste your money on.

Facebook Meme Round-up

I had a couple Facebook memes to examine. One dealt with transgender and restroom use, while the other was about sexy zodiac personality traits.

The first:

There are a couple things to be pedantic about in this image. I questioned claiming the woman was “forced”, while the man was “obligated” as to which restroom they could use. That seemed weird to me. And who still calls it the “ladies’ room”? I’ve been calling it the women’s room for decades. I suppose there are plenty of people still calling it the ladies’ room. Also, I think it’s more accurate to say these two were born biologically male or biologically female. Or, maybe, they were born with male genitalia or female genitalia, whichever the case may be.

But the thing that I think is the biggest problem with this meme, as is the problem with so many memes, is there is no source citation. I don’t recognize the two people in the pictures, my guess is most people are like me in that respect, so we just have the word of this meme that the people are what it claims they are.

I mentioned this problem in the FB comment thread connected to this image. And a very nice and well-informed person let me know who these people are. The young woman with the red hair and the huge rack is Sarina Valentina. (Warning: The link for Sarina is to a porn site for her. It’s the you must be 18 to enter page, so there is nothing naughty on the page. It’s just enough to show that she is what the meme claims.) The young man with the shaved head and the impressive guns is Buck Angel.

These two people really are what the meme says they are, but would it have been so difficult to include their last names, so the claim could be fact-checked?

The second:

Yes, I know this is meant as a joke. At least, I hope it is. But, astrology is such bullshit even joking about lends it some credibility. And you will note there isn’t a lousy lay in the bunch. Puh-lease!!

I mentioned that I hope my son grows up never knowing his sign. I do not intend on ever telling him. In fact, I have a dream that one day children will be born into a world in which they can grow up never knowing their sign. I have a dream!

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Some Journey‘ By Suzanne Vega & ‘Somebody Put Something in My Drink‘ by Ramones

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Somebody Got Murdered‘ by The Clash & ‘Something I Learned Today‘ by Husker Du

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 4-23-16 show notes

Easiest Show Notes I’ve Ever Done…

A crowded First Avenue celebrating Prince’s music. (ABC News)

It’s not because of the topic that these show notes will be so easy. The topic is tragic and sad, but it was pretty much the only topic of the show: The mega-talented, singer/songwriter, musician, producer, pop superstar Prince died unexpectedly on Thursday April 21, 2016.

I talked about how I found out and how stunning the news was. I talked about the internet’s reaction. I told a few stories: The first time I became aware of Prince. The road trip in the early ’90s with a stop at a bar in Flagstaff, Arizona after a long day of driving and having a beer while listening to Prince on the jukebox. And there was the story of my DJ fail at the Halloween party my second year of art school.

I blogged about my memories of Prince for Warehouse Find, the official blog of Nostalgia Zone.

I talked a little about the speculations on the cause of his death. I didn’t want to go too far, because, at this point, we don’t know. The coming weeks may see an answer to how he died.

I also tried to figure out why I had never seen him play. It’s strange, but I never did.

I also did a special tribute to him by loading my breaks with all the Prince bumpers I have. There will be no links to the songs, because Prince was very protective of his material. He made sure that none of it is available on YouTube. At least not for very long.

Movie Recommendation: None

I didn’t get to recommending one, but, in keeping with the theme, it wouldn’t hurt to watch Purple Rain.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Controversy’, ‘U Got The Look‘, ‘Raspberry Beret’ & “Dirty Mind’ by Prince

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Kiss’, ‘Sign O The Times’, ‘Delirious’ & ‘Little Red Corvette’ by Prince

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle

dimland radio 4-16-16 show notes

Some Customers Are Just A Bit Too Demanding Too Soon

I told the story of a recent customer for whom we only cleaned once and they were already making demands. They didn’t think one cleaning person was enough. They wanted our cleaner to use a back pack vacuum cleaner to do the full vacuuming. That’s not what they are made for. It would take forever. They were worried we’d be using the same mop in the restrooms and in their suites. We wouldn’t be, but what difference would it make?

It became clear we wouldn’t be able to meet their expectations, so we dropped them. When I returned the keys, the assistant to the boss making all the demands apologized to us about the whole thing. She seemed weary from having to deal with this issue and told me this problem went back to the building they had been in before.

We hate to turn away business, but I think my boss made the right decision.

Another Fallacious Meme

Take a look at this graphic I spotted on Facebook…

This immediately set off my “Really?!” response. Do the fine folks at Occupy Democrats think there are companies in America that require a college degree and six years experience and only pay $7.25 an hour?

Perhaps, as it has been suggested to me, I am too literal-minded on this one. Maybe Occupy Democrats were trying to be extreme to make a point. Maybe, but they commented, “Too true!” in their original posting of the image.

I am concerned that other literal-minded but less skeptical folks will think there are fat cat business owners in our country who are doing just what the graphic states. They aren’t. They might want to, but they aren’t.

Five Years Of Not Finding Bigfoot

An article on io9 asked a couple of the (not) Finding Bigfoot fellows why, after five years (!), have they not produced any good video footage of a bigfoot. They, of course, had their reasons: There are only 10,000 or so. They live in vast areas that are very remote. They are intelligent and avoid cameras.

Well, maybe. But maybe they just ain’t there. Maybe these guys are just chasing phantoms (and ratings).

This led me to wondering about all the wonderful photographs of rare and/or endangered animals in the world. Their numbers are small and they live in remote areas, some vast. Obviously, they aren’t smart enough to avoid having their pictures taken:

The tiger.

The giant panda.

The mountain gorilla.

The wolverine.

The blue whale.

Nice pictures of these animals. Yet, still no pictures of bigfoot. Well, no good ones. Plenty of fuzzy photographs and shaky videos exist.

Homeopathy Is Still Silly And Still Doesn’t Work

And it’s still a waste of your money. I found out about two more homeopathic “remedies” that are quite baffling: One relieves symptoms of EMF sensitivity, but what is the active ingredient? The other is a sleep “remedy” derived from owls. I’m not making this up, but someone is and they are making money off of, at best, the placebo effect.

Straight up! Homeopathy has no active ingredients in it. It’s just water. There is no mechanism by which it could work. Stop wasting your money.

A Couple Wins For Skepticism

Travis of the Minnesota Skeptics group told me about two cases in which skepticism managed to win the day. One involved a 9-11 Truther attending several MN Skeptic meet-ups and having discussions with the skeptics about how the standard model explanation of that day is supported by all of the evidence. They were gentle and respectful in their making the case with this fellow. He looked into it a little deeper and examined the evidence. Eventually, he came around to seeing how the Truthers were seeing conspiracies everywhere and they were wrong. A win! However, he never attended another meet-up after he said he was convinced by the skeptics.

And, more personally, Travis told me about how he convinced a friend from high school that Ouija boards are bullshit. They have no abilities to connect with the other side (if there is one). They are not portals through which demons can enter our realm.

He wasn’t having much luck, until he hit on an argument that worked right into her professional expertise. She was a lawyer working in patent law. Travis asked her if she really thought that Parker Brothers (owners of the Ouija board trademark) would be so willing to open themselves up to lawsuits, if they actually believed their product (a poster adhered to a piece of cardboard) could summon demons.

The light turned on and she was convinced.

10 points, Travis!

Pertussis On The Adam Carolla Podcast?

I’m not a doctor. Really. I’m not. But I heard something on a recent Adam Carolla podcast that made me recoil in horror. No, it wasn’t hearing Adam go on (goon?) again about how he thinks the classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are is terrible. (Although that does tick me off. I talked about it at length on show 232 from 6/20/15.)

What I heard was in the background of a call into the show. A young father called to take part in a comedy segment, while in the background we could hear a young child hacking up a lung. It was not the typical kid’s cough. This sounded to me like the cough people get when they have pertussis (whooping cough).

No one, not the father on the phone or anyone on the show, Adam included, took any noticed of that cough. I sure hope that child is getting the proper care, if he in fact has pertussis.

That made me wonder if that father was anti-vax. It is possible the child was too young to be vaccinated. That made me wonder about the herd immunity of the community in which that child lives.

Vaccinate, people!

Here’s an open letter from a pair of Australian parents who thought they were doing everything right, but because of the extremely low vaccination rate where they live their new-born daughter contracted pertussis and died.

Movie Recommendation (TV Movie Edition): Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004)

A&E Televison/Sony Pictures Television

You’ll have to send away for it on Netflix, but it is worth it.

This World War II drama doesn’t feature any battles other than political ones. It follows General Eisenhower from convincing Winston Churchill that he should be the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe to the day of the invasion of the continent of Europe in June, 1944.

It stars Tom Selleck as Ike in a wonderfully understated performance. Ike was not a demonstrable guy. He was calm and cool headed and Selleck plays him brilliantly. This is a fascinating film with fine performances throughout.

Put it in your queue.

Music heard on the show…

Dimland Radio opening theme song: ‘Ram’ by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: ‘Message of Love‘ By Pretenders & ‘Rock’n’Roll High School‘ by Ramones

Second ad break bumpers: ‘Tony’s Theme‘ by Pixies & ‘It’s Obvious‘ by Au Pairs

Closing song: ‘Angler’s Treble Hook’ by $5 Fiddle