Show Prep #16

Greetings and Salutations, people. It’s the show that is currently in negotiations to acquire Jonathan Nalbone from The Ed, it’s Vertically Striped Radio. As always the big show is brought to you by VerticallyStripedSocks.com, your home for choppily animated music videos and overly in depth breakdowns of Denver Broncos preseason games.

Joining us at the tail end of his first week as a college student, it’s It’s the show that’s still working on its degree in Kitchen Utensilry, this is Vertically Striped Radio brought to you as always by VerticallyStripedSocks.com. I am your host Craig Dodge, and joining us from the great state of New York, a man who is ticked that his fantasy football team’s name is not properly respected, a co-host and a gentleman, it’s MJ Amory! How are’s college life treating you you today, sir?

To join in the conversation today…

Give out the phone number - (646) 716-6831 OR 6-HOP-1-MOVE-1
Email address: radio@verticallystripedsocks.com



Today on the big show: No shirt, no thumbs, no service. Don’t drink and chess. Is ESPN mad with power? What are your highest and lowest moments as a sports fan? Plus we may be hearing from The Ed, although I don’t want to promise anything until he actually shows up. We’d love to hear from you and your stories of sports fan highs and lows as well, if you’d like to call in!We will help MJ pick an NHL team to call his own. We have a Magnificent Seven list for you today of underrated movies, Germany and Florida make their triumphant return to the news, why college football is inferior to the NFL,


All of this good stuff and more is on tap, but first…The News…


(Play News Music – Clip 03)


1. BERLIN (Reuters) – Visitors to a tourist attraction in Berlin have been making off with an unusual memento -- the 30 cm long tail of a Lego giraffe.
The Lego tail belongs to a six meter tall model that has stood outside the entrance to the Legoland Discovery Center since 2007.
"It's a popular souvenir," a spokeswoman for the center said Tuesday. "It's been stolen four times now ..."
The tail is made out of 15,000 Lego bricks. It takes model workers about one week to restore it at a cost of 3,000 euros ($4,300), the spokeswoman said.
(30 CM is 12 inches long. So basically this story is saying that a one foot long lego giraffe tail takes a week to restore, and takes 15,000 lego pieces at a value of $4300. This is a Reuters story, published on Yahoo, and yet I don’t think anyone did any fact checking, because these numbers just don’t make any sense. Apart from that…why would anyone want a Lego Giraffe tail?)


2. NICEVILLE, Fla., Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Police in Florida said they arrested a woman for attacking a smoker with air freshener sprayed from a can.
Niceville police allege the woman was waving the can of Glade Potpourri Air Freshener around the other woman's head while dispensing its contents at a Niceville apartment complex Friday, the Northwest Florida Daily News of Fort Walton Beach reported Thursday.
The woman then allegedly pointed the can at the back of the other woman's head and sprayed it for nearly a full minute. Police said she told the victim she would keep using the spray can as long as the victim kept smoking in front of the attacker's apartment.
"I will do it again, and take it to the Supreme Court because I have the right to breathe fresh air," the police report quoted the suspect as saying.
The woman was arrested and charged with battery.
I’m not a big fan of sharing air with tobacco smoke, either. But how messed up in the head are you if you are spraying a can of Glade Potpourri all over someone’s head? That is some serious pent up anger and frustration!
3. MOUNT VERNON, WASHINGTON (AP) A northwest Washington man is recovering after accidentally shooting himself in the leg while hunting an opossum that had been snatching his chickens.

Larry Tenbrink of Mount Vernon was watching TV when he heard his chickens "carrying on" late Sunday. He figured the problem was the opossum that had already killed more than a dozen of his chickens over the past few months.

Tenbrink grabbed his .22 caliber pistol, headed outside and spotted an opossum the size of a large cat wandering his property. But he accidentally pulled the trigger too early, sending a bullet through his lower right thigh.

The 61-year-old handyman told the Skagit Valley Herald on Monday that he's back home after a trip to the hospital. And though the opossum is free for now, he'll be hunting it again. But next time, he says he'll use a trap.
This guy accidently shot himself in the thigh with a pistol and he isn’t going to prison for two years? Plaxico is reported to be furious.
1. Tampa – Bank of America has a policy which requires non-customers provide two forms of identification and a thumb print in order to cash a check. This sounds like a reasonable requirement to fight fraud, but apparently they are not very flexible on it, even when the situation really demands it.

Steve Valdez doesn’t have an account at Bank of America, but he figured he could go in on his lunch hour to cash the check from his wife’s account. Steve tried to cash a check his wife wrote to him on her B of A Account., but a bank branch in Tampa insisted he had to put his thumbprint on the check before it could be cashed.
But Valdez couldn't give a thumb print because he was born without arms and doesn't have hands and fingers. The teller checked with the manager, and she said that since he couldn’t provide a thumbprint, he couldn’t cash the check. His options were to bring in his wife, or open an account.

Valdez says he asked if they were aware of the Americans With Disabilities Act and federal law. The manger said yes, they were offering him accommodations by giving him those two options.
A spokesperson for Bank of America says while the thumb print is a requirement for those who don't have accounts, the bank should have made an exception to accommodate Mr. Valdez. The Bank called and apologized to Steve saying they regret the error.

How sad is it that we live in a world where people can’t make common sense exceptions to policies anymore?

2. CHENNAI, India (Reuters) – A leading French chess player turned up drunk and dozed off after just 11 moves in an international tournament in India, losing the round on technical grounds.
Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev, ranked number 58 in the world, arrived for Thursday's match against India's Praveen Kumar in such an inebriated state that he could hardly sit in his chair and soon fell asleep, resting his head on the table.
Indian papers carried pictures of the world number 58 sleeping and the organizers' futile attempts to wake his up.
The game was awarded to the his opponent on the technical grounds that Tkachiev was unable to complete his moves within the stipulated time of an hour and 30 minutes.
The player was warned and reprimanded by the organizers afterwards but has been allowed to take part in the remainder of the competition.

3. MADISON, Wisconsin - The city counsel of Madison, Wisconsin held a vote last week on what they would designate as the official city bird. The choice that they made an was an unusual one. A measure passed by a vote of 15-4 to make the plastic pink flamingo the city’s official bird. This unusual decision was made to honor a college prank from 1979 in which University of Wisconsin students planted an estimated 1000 of the plastic birds on a grassy incline outside the dean’s office.
Alderman Marsha Rummel told the Wisconsin State Journal the council's 15-4 vote ensured the event was "captured in our imaginations forever."
Although Vertically Striped Radio has been as of yet unable to confirm the follow up to this story it is rumored that Alderman Rummel then immediately invited everyone in attendance to the kegger at the Lamda Delta Phi house and the proceeded to yell the following… (Play clip 16 “We’re going streaking!”)
I’m Craig, and that’s the news…(Play News Music – Clip 03)


(Check the phone lines to see if you have any calls)
Top Discussion: What is your best and worst experience as a fan?

2nd Discussion: Is ESPN mad with power? Are Simmons and Dameshek banned from Carolla’s podcast, or is Ace just quick with a rant?
First up on the docket today is helping pick a hockey team for MJ – Wants a local squad in NYC, so the contenders are: Isles, Rangers, and Devils.


Magnificent 7: Underrated Movies
7. Burn After Reading (2008) – A very smart movie about very stupid people doing very stupid things. It’s the first Coen Bros. flick after No Country for Old Men and it flew a bit under the radar, but it’s hilarious. (John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, J.K. Simmons)
6. So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) – To me, this is the funniest Mike Myers movie ever – The Pentaverate (Clip 18) and Charles Grodin (Clip 17)
5. Big Fish (2003) – Directed by Tim Burton, Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Robert Guillame, Steve Buscemi
4. UHF (1989) – Spatula City – (19) Weird Al and Michael Richards
3. Diggstown (1992) – You are black (Clip 14) (James Woods, Louis Gossett, Jr., a very young Heather Graham, Oliver Platt, Bruce Dern.
2. Roxanne (1987) – Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah star in this modern adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac - 20 Something betters an awesome scene that was just too long, plus this one, which I love (Clip 16 - Earn more sessions by sleeving)
1. Dragnet (1987) – Kids, It’ll grow back (Clip 15) (Tom Hanks and Dan Akroid)



Why the college football is vastly inferior to the NFL.
-Bad matchups – tons of crappy games every season
-Too many teams
-Inferior talent and inferior play
-The way the “championship” is determined
-Very little hope for everyone but a handful of schools to win it all
-Fantasy football is awesome in the NFL and barely possible in college football
-I was watching preseason NFL over Oregon-Boise St.





NBA versus NFL…can you guess which one?
36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71, repeat, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits,
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?
NBA or NFL?

Neither... it's the 535 members of the United States Congress




Extra Topics:

-Colorado Rockies playing some exciting baseball this past week. (2 extra inning wins this week versus teams in the hunt.)

-Electronic Cigarettes – Maybe the dumbest thing ever. “You can smoke anywhere!” Only now you have to come off like a douche, as you explain why it’s okay that you are smoking in your office or at a restaurant, because you’re not really smoking, you’re just being a dork.

-Educational toys – Why does everyone nowadays think that all toys have to be educational. Ugh. Hardly anything gets better if you put the word educational in front of it. (Television, Toys, Software, Video Games, Website.)


-The Treasures which I discovered at Invesco Field…my very productive shopping trip to the Invesco Field at Mile High Gift Shop. Very Good Times!

-My burgeoning animation career with Flipnote Studio. Vertically Striped Animation Studios is really pumping out the quality films. This week I released what I consider my best masterpiece yet with The Ed’s music video. Good stuff!

-ElevationRadio.com a.k.a. Outsiders Edge – I am one of the correspondents over there. John Klein is doing some cool stuff with that website.

-I saw the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson – Intense like a roller coaster, but it’s got really bad acting. 5 of out 10.



-Rundown of the myriad of football contests we are a part of over at Dameshek.com
1. Fantasy Football league – Dameshek.com (ESPN.com)
2. The Ed’s Super Deluxe Football Game – Dameshek.com
3. The Ed’s Super Deluxe College Football Game – Dameshek.com
4. Joe vs. The World – Gambling Title Competition – Dameshek.com
5. UMass Dameshek’s Pick’em League – Yahoo.com
6. Vertically Striped Survivor League on ESPN.com

On ESPN.com, I’ve started an Eliminator Group for the NFL. Pick a team each week to win, and as long as they do so, you stay in. You can only pick a team one time, and there will be some manner of swell prize for the winner!

http://games.espn.go.com/eliminator/en/group?groupID=1116


MJ’s Extra Topics:
-U.S. Unmanned War Drones
-The New Cowboys stadium
-Why CSI sucks




The Vertically Striped Music Recommendation:
Echo Echo by Carbon Leaf (2001)

This is some awesome rock music with definite Celtic and Bluegrass influences. It’s a weird mix of energy, electric and bass guitars, vocal harmonies, mandolin, drums, tin whistles and harmonica. This feels like rock music mixed with the kind of stuff you might only hear if you went to a foreign country. It’s got great hooks, great voices, and it’s interesting music. Carbon Leaf is a band that doesn’t sound like anyone else that I can easily compare them too, but I’m very glad they are a part of my music collection, as their music never fails to put me in a good mood when I listen to it. I like it because it’s just so interesting sounding and different, but still very solid rock music. We’ll play you out this afternoon with a great song off the album called “The Boxer”. There’s a lot of other cool tunes on this album including “On any given day” which is a slower groove, but still good. The band shows their chops with “Mary Mac” as they sing and play faster than my brain can follow at times, “Desperation Song” is another beautifully written song. This is some good stuff.



Shalom and Good evening to you all! (Music Clip 15 – The Boxer)