Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Emails of Interest - Dirt from September 1st, 2026

Transcript

Emails of Interest - Dirt from September 1st, 2026 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I have two, not one, but two emails of interest here.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: How interesting are they?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: One of them is just from an old friend of ours.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't know we had any friends.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Friends of the program, Kerry.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Those are my friends. And then one of scientific interest. Okay, well.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Emails of interest.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Just briefly... I got this little note from Dr.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Paul.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Oh. Hi, Bill. Hope you had a good time on
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: your trip. We went to Bear Lake. I forgot to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: tell you, on my first day back teaching undergraduates last Tuesday,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: after a year's sabbatical, I wore the Opiniondo T-shirt. Oh, good.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: It seemed appropriate.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Also, I started watching Veep for the very first time
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: this summer.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, what a joy.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And I saw the meatball drop that Kerry plays yesterday.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to believe that some folks in the current
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: federal administration watched that show and took it as a manual,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: not a parody.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me listen, Paul. And it's always nice
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to hear those f * * * ing meatballs away
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: from me.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: That show I don't think would hit the same if
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: it just came out now because the ridiculous things that
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: happen on that are very similar.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: And Julia Louis-Dreyfus even said we had to stop because...
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: They were outdoing us. We couldn't go any further.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And now here's an email of scientific interest and it's
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: accompanied with pictures. We have pictures at x96. com slash live.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: This letter begins, Diatomaceous Earth is cooler than you think.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I heard you honoring Diatomaceous Earth Day yesterday and felt
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: that the most interesting part of it was overlooked. Now
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: what we did discover yesterday is that Diatomaceous Earth is
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: something that is that's dug up out of the earth
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and it's some sort of, well, he's going to explain
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: exactly what it is, but mostly people use it in gardens.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: They sprinkle it around and it kills slugs and earwigs
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And how it does it is
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: by chopping them up. So he says this mineral is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the remnants of something called diatoms, a single cell form
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of algae that grows a skeleton of glass. There are
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of different species. each one essentially generates
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: an intricate glass chandelier around its soft cellular parts. See
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the pictures attached. Then there was another picture there of them, too.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: When they die, the glass skeleton sinks, and in places
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: where there used to be an ocean, we dig up
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: their skeletons and use these ridiculously small and sharp shards
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of glass, it's actually silicon dioxide, as an abrasive, Or
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: as a pile of shiv powder to slice open slugs, snails,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and insects. Anyway, I'm too much of a dork to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: let that humble diatom come up as a topic and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not give the diatom some props that they deserve. Thank you, David.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Shiv powder is a good band name if somebody wants that.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. So that's what they were little... And
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I guess....
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: It's just like spreading broken glass in your garden.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: So when the snails crawl over it.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: The slugs, yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: They cut themselves.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Cuts their bodies up. And I don't know if it
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is a finite resource. It must be. I'm getting the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: impression that it was, yeah, these are prehistoric. Little prehistoric creatures.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I feel bad for the slugs. They don't know what's coming.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: They're just crawling along the ground.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Gina, would you ask Jeeves.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Diatomaceous earth near me?
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: I'm wondering if we can buy it in bags.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I bet. Yeah, no, I think you can get it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: at a garden. I've never seen it at a garden department. Oh, yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: they got it at Smith's. Smith's.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Or the Ace Hardware.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get a box of diatomaceous earth. Well.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. I don't know why you'd want it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: To kill the snails.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Do you have a lot of them? No. Just in case.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Just in case.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: It's perfect at the Stabby Smiths. This is just stabby
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: for snails.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: In the garden department up there, I'm sure they have it.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: And it's, I don't know if it's expensive. Is it expensive?
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: It's $ 11.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: 49 for a bag. How big of a bag?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's see.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: You can pick it up today, they say. Well, yes, but.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: It's, uh... Why don't you order it for me now,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and I'll pull in and have them put it in
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: my car?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Item won't load.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: A four-pound bag.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Four-pound bag for that?
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: That'd go a long way.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: It says, order a safer brand crawling insect killer dust
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: in a four-pound bag.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: That sounds really scary.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Demetra says it's labeled as slug and snail powder.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Hmm.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: But that's what it is.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't want any, you know, chemicals or
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: anything in my.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a... You know, my wife used to put out,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: it was thought that slugs would be attracted to beer. Yeah,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: that's what I heard. And you put a little container
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of beer in the garden, and then they go and
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: drown themselves in it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It doesn't work?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Not so well. And she would always get mad at
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: me because she'd buy the cheapest beer possible, and she
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: called it slug beer. And then if I run out
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of stuff to drink, I would drink the slug beer
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that was in the refrigerator. Did you drink the slug
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: beer again? Bill, stop drinking the slug beer. It's headly.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I've used it. Don't breathe it. Be careful around animals
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: with it. And you can find it in the West
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Desert near Delta.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, so we have deposits of it here.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Sid says I'm at the Stabby Smith's now.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Would you like me to? No, no.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: No, no, Sid.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: We're fine. That's okay.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I don't have any garden area or anything like that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Are you growing tomatoes in pots even? You're not even
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: doing that.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: No.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: You usually do a tomato pot.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I did until I realized that the pot needs to
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: be twice the size in order to get a decent-sized tomato,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: and they're already too big.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: So you go to the farmer's market in Midvale.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And the jerk squirrels are ruining all of our tomatoes. Really? Oh, God,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they're awful.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Are they eating them?
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the apples, they take a bite out of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: one apple and then they move on to another one.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Jerks. They should just finish the apple. They're going to
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: take a bite, finish the apple.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think they have a conscience, Gina.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: No?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: No. And they don't have manners, that's for sure. They
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: don't have manners. Not at all.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: Do you know what must go is when you're walking
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: your dog and one of those jerk squirrels comes running
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: out of a tree and a dog pulls your arm
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: out of the socket because the squirrel waits until you're
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: right close and then....
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: So there's a sign somewhere around my neighborhood that says,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: please be careful, don't run over our squirrels. Listen, if one's...
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I'll aim for it.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: We have plenty of them.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: We got a squirrel or a bird living in this
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: pine tree in the backyard.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And I.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Don't know because all I've seen is motion. And Hudson
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: is freaking the F out. He just, he's barking and barking.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: And I think, I bet it's a squirrel because I
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: think they know and I think they like to antagonize dogs.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they chatter.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: They stand up there and eee.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Although birds, so my, when I was a kid, our
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: cats would try to, we had blue jays in our
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: yard all the time. Yeah, we get those too. And
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: they would torment the cats. One blue jay would get
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: down on the ground in front of the cat and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: just kind of back up as the cat stalked him.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And then another one would come swooping down at the cat.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They teamed up.
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: About once a week, there's a whole gang of blue
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: jays or crows that will come by the house and
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: set off the motion sensors and just, you know.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Generally be rude.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: They're jerks.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: They're jerks. I'd kind of like to have some crows.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I know my child would really... A murder of crows?
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: My child would really like to have, not a pet crow, really,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: but a crow that would visit, you know, and eat
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: off of a feeder there. We used to have blue
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: jays in our yard where we live now. They haven't
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: been around for a long time, and I could get
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: them to come swooping down and take a peanut out
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: of my hand. Oh! And they would, you know, I'd
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: just sit in a chair and hold out a peanut,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and they'd, mm, okay. And they'd come and take it
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: out of my hands. All right.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Email of interest.