EPISODE 56: Spanking the Sofa

Quieting chatty passengers. Is it ever Too Much Trouble to give someone a ride? And there are WAY too many people dropping food in listeners' cars.

Relevent Links:
Trent left a Christmas Manners Wish List over at the Just Not Right Podcast where Jake is just not finished wrapping up his 25 days of podcasting for December.

Brazil

Mathematics

Ranch Dressing (so you know how serious this is!)

The Matrix

Illegal Proceedure foul in American Football


Vocabulary Guide:

Medical Taster (origin: England) In episode #31 Tara talks about a program for students who would are interested in learning more about what it might be like to go to medical school.

Spanking the Sofa (origin: Brazil) In episode #56 Tatiana coins the phrase "spanking the sofa" to mean that she was trying to beat some bran candy out of her car seat. What "Spanking the Sofa" really means is "Wasting Time".

Immaculate Hand (origin: The MannersCast) In episode #53 we learn about a phenomenal salesman who incessantly grooms his hand so it is ready for the moment when he seals "the big deal" with a shake of his Immaculate Hand.

Spot Crossing (origin: The MannersCast) Episode #8 gives us this gem which is used to describe the act of driving one's car over the spaces (or "spots") instead of the legal way which is up and down the rows.



HOLIDAY SHOPPING!
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EPISODE 55: The Stupid Fee

Dumping your Exes and Dressing for Successes!

Relevent Links:
The NEW Rules Advice Blog

Exes

Suit Etiquette for Women

Nashville, TN on Wikipedia

Nashville, TN visitor's bureau

"The South" of the USA

HOLIDAY SHOPPING!
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EPISODE 53: The Immaculate Hand

A discussion of Office Grooming Habits and a Hygienic Disruption of the Choir.

Relevent Links:
Choir

Sensei

Julienning

White Elephant Gift Exchange

Fatbow: Similar to giving someone "Five" or slapping palms. Fatbow is the touching (or bumping) of the tip of elbows in greeting or celebration between two parties.

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A discussion of Office Grooming Habits and a Hygienic Disruption of the Choir.

Relevent Links:
Choir

Sensei

Julienning

White Elephant Gift Exchange

Fatbow: Similar to giving someone "Five" or slapping palms. Fatbow is the touching (or bumping) of the tip of elbows in greeting or celebration between two parties.

HOLIDAY SHOPPING!
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EPISODE 52: Video Rental Stakeout

A fake tip of the week and a heated discussion about returning videos to the store in a timely fashion.

Relevent Links:
Automated Video Rental

Buffy Between the Lines

HOLIDAY SHOPPING!
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EPISODE 51: Public Displays of Hygiene

Public Displays of Hygiene, Does Your Dog Bite, a completely unrelated dog story, Inappropriate Thank Yous. All of this is surprisingly related to taking over the world.

Relevent Links:
Hygiene

"Does your dog bite?" - The Pink Panther Strikes Again

West Side Story (Musical)

Lego Gun

MannersCast Films

How kind is too kind?

Derek and I went to Maximillian's for lunch today, and I noticed a strange feeling. When I was thinking about opening the door for someone and letting them go first, I also thought, "That would put them in line before me!"

So, at that point do I let them go first and get in line or go ahead and enter and then hold the door behind me?

Good thing I didn't get caught in this situation! Crisis averted!

What do you think?

Trent

EPISODE 50: Dumb Fat Teeth

NEWS:
We have NEW ART! Thanks to James Kocsis for the awesome update.

iTUNES:
Now it's time for everyone to head over to iTunes and BLITZ with subscriptions and comments. Get us on the front page! We're counting on you!

IN THIS EPISODE:
Tight Office Spaces, Criticism, Bad-Mouthing, Over-Sharing, and Telling the Same Stories; Being Loud Flipping your Flops and the Manual intercom. And, finally, riding in the car with your ex-girlfriend.

Special thanks to Katie Z. and Michael for the topics on this VERY extended Episode.

Relevent Links:
Kibosh

Flip-Flops

EPISODE 49 - Heroes of The World

Customer Service, Reclining Redux and Stealing Seats are all very popular topics in this the latest episode of your MannersCast.

Relevent Links:
Alaska

Mondegreen
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]
And Lady Mondegreen.

CORRECTION
The correct State for the City of Gautier is Mississippi.

EPISODE 48: Automobile Idol

Another iPhone-ready episode where we discuss Being Wrong, Place Names, and Getting Your Vocals On in someone's car.

We are polling our listeners to see if we should change the album art in order to try and make it onto the iTunes front page.

Please visit http://www.mannerscast.com to cast your vote and The MannersCast page in iTunes to leave your comment!

While you're at it, tell your friends and family and mention us to all the other podcasts you listen to.

Relevent Links:
American Idol

Vibrato

Nevada

How to Whistle

The MannersCast in the Library

EPISODE 46: Country Come to Town

It is a great honor for me to welcome my sister, Traci, and her husband, Leslie, to The MannersCast.

In this episode of The MannersCast we discuss Dangerous Drivers and Getting in the Way ... pretty much getting in Trent's way.

Relevent Links:
Demopolis, AL

Order your Amazon.com purchases through MannersCast.com to support our little podcast.

EPISODE 45: Vampire Manners

Top of the Mornin', everyone!

We've got a little unexpected treat for you this week. I'm trying to deliver The MannersCast on a bit more of a schedule and not miss months at a time as we have done in the past.

So I'm dropping the Special Vampire Manners episode in this slot. This is the episode we recorded for the Buffy between the Lines podcast at Buffy between the Lines dot com. In episode 44 of The MannersCast we mentioned checking it out , and even though you're listening to it now, you should still give a peek over there if it sounds interesting to you.

I realize this content might not interest everyone, but the tongue-in-cheek aspect could still make it entertaining. Plus, it's more of Colin, Derek, and me ... what more could you want?

As always, email comments and feedback to mannerscast@gmail.com.

Relevent Links:
Buffy between the Lines

EPISODE 44: The Theatre

THE LAST EPISODE in a SPECIAL TWO WEEK EVENT - Colin's trip to The Theatre provides a handful of topics for this Episode 43-44 Special Event.


Relevent Links:
Theatre

Chicago, The Musical

The Watch

Traffic

Time Travel

EPISODE 43: Concept Transfer

SPECIAL TWO WEEK EVENT - Episode 43 and 44 were recorded right back to back but have nothing really in common. Episode 43 includes Walking Down Stairs Manners, Correcting Grammar, and a new term "Concept Transfer".

"Concept Transfer": A liberal translation of a situational concept or rule to an unrelated situation.

Relevent Links:
Wall Drug

Pierre, South Dakota

EPISODE 42: Running, Skiing, Biking. Oh MY!

People are becoming more health concious all the time and many folks are picking up running, walking, biking, etc.

In this episode we discuss some of the rules for these activities and how to make things easier on you, the participant, as well as those potential victims of any unmannerly athletics.


RELEVANT LINKS:

Race for The Cure

EPISODE 41: New Orleeens

It's important to learn the pronunciation of a place before you go there and try to talk to the locals. I say this mostly out of respect for the locals and also so you, the learned traveler, do not look like a moron.

This also goes for landmarks, people's names, and menu items. However, if the pronunciation is not accessible until the awkward looks start appearing on the faces of said locals, at least try to pronounce it correctly once they have fed the correct pronunciation to you.

Here is a good place to start!
http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/

Help us all out here! If you live in a place that people frequently mispronounce, help us all out by leaving the correct pronunciation here on The MannersCast Blog!

Trent

Where in the world are YOU?

We're interested in knowing where our listeners hail from, and the email request went unheeded. So we now have a poll on the site asking for our listeners to very annonymously let us know where they are in the world when listening to The MannersCast.

Head over to www.mannerscast.com and weigh in. You can also drop us a comment on the blog if you want to give a shout out.

I'm in Dallas, Texas, USA! Where are you???

Trent

EPISODE 40: Personal Space

Are you standing too close? In Episode 40 we talk about distance from person to person, hygiene, and Inuit Eskimos.

There is a Fake Tip of the Week, and Derek explores the idea of being "Shunned".

THIS WEEK'S PROMO:
Buffy: between the lines

Take Your Mom With You

I pulled out in front of someone today and got "the finger". I partly underestimated the amount of traction I could get from the road and really underestimated the guy's speed (I'm pretty sure he was speeding). Nevertheless, I impeded his progress to the point that he felt it necessary to flip me off.

It got me thinking, and I wondered if he would have done that had his mother been sitting in the seat next to him. And that goes for a lot of the way people talk in public or fuss at someone in the office or a "discussion" between husband and wife.

How much different would our conversations be if we had our mothers in the room (assuming each of us respects our mothers)?

We might just treat everyone a little better if "take our mothers with us" everywhere we go.

Trent

The MannersCast is one year old today!

I noticed that today is the day that the very first episode of The MannersCast was posted one year ago.

A big thank you to everyone who has posted to the blog, hosted on the show, emailed us and left comments on iTunes.

A special thanks should go to Steven Lewis at The Rules Podcast. Without his encouragement The MannersCast might have "faded" only 6 months in.

As it happens, we stuck around and now have a strong group of listeners from around the world.

Happy Birthday to The MannersCast!
Trent

New MannersCast Flash Player!

THE IMAGE TO THE RIGHT IS NOT THE NEW PLAYER. IT IS ONLY A STILL IMAGE OF THE PLAYER. CLICKING THE IMAGE WILL TAKE YOU TO MANNERSCAST.COM WHERE YOU CAN SEE THE REAL THING.

After testing out several options for being able to just listen to the latest episode of The MannersCast online, I have landed on what seems to be a really nice Flash Player.

Many times I get notes from people who are not on their home computer or just can't play one of our audio files, and I think this will get us closer to solving the problem.

Sincerely,
Trent

Top of the Mornin', iTunes!!!

We have had a great response lately from our wonderful listeners and the comments for The MannersCast in iTunes have risen sharply! We're now up to 16!!!

We want to thank everyone for their time taken to leave comments and tell friends. Keep up the awesome work, and if you haven't left a comment in iTunes yet... well, you know! :-)

Sincerely,
Trent

Episode 38: An EPIC Journey

We received a really nice email from listener Bruce that sparked a little more talk about cell phones in movie theaters. Plus, Derek drops a real-life story about a friend of his who went to meet his Facebook sweetheart and was smothered by her sister.

We certainly would like feedback on this one. Are we right in our advice? Has anything like this ever happened to you?

Let us know!!! mannerscast@gmail.com

Taking over the Library, Episode 1

That is not your typical MannersCast Logo! That, my friends, is the totally awesome CD cover art for The MannersCast Library CD Edition of The MannersCast on CD for the Library.

I spent a horrible few "hours" at Macimillian's Copy and Printing today (I really hope you can guess who that really is), and after having several years stripped from my life, I headed up the City of Allen Public Library to drop off the newly mastered CDs and the CD Cover Insert (designed by James Kocsis).

The Library Director seemed pleasantly and only slightly annoyed with me taking up so much of her time. She informed me that it would be about one month from today that The MannersCast will be listed in the Library.

With fingers crossed I will wait until the joyous day when I post the update that The MannersCast is "in". Thanks everyone for any support you have offered.

We are now another small step closer to taking over the world!
Trent

Episode 35: RESEARCH

I was excited to get this comment from David, but thought it might get lost in the comments section. So I'm elevating it to the POST level. It's great info from great research. Thanks again, David!

I'm a lifelong Texan and found this one to be interesting. I found the online pdf document "Texas DMV Driver Handbook". Page 54 (9-2) it states clearly: 1. You must yield the right-of-way to vehicles already on the freeway. 2. Enter the speed change lane, stay to the right, signal left, and when the way is cleaar increase your speed so you can merge with the flow of traffic. Hope this helps!

Here's the link.
http://www.dmv.org/tx-texas/driver-handbook.php

EPISODE 36: Airports

What job? In this episode we discuss doing jobs when you see they need to be done and how to treat others at the Airport.

MANNERSCAST PROMOTIONS DEPARTMENT MEETING:
James has graciously created all artwork so far for The MannersCast! Daniel in Canada has offered his services to create business cards! Who is next?

We are very interested in any ideas or actual hands-on anyone is willing to offer up to promoting The MannersCast. We'll entertain any ideas so email us at the proper address (listed below).

Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

MannersCast Sighting: Blades of Glory

Well, not really a sighting but something that might cause fans of The MannersCast to grin quietly to themselves.

The line happens about half way through the film Blades of Glory starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. Ferrell enters the kitchen in one scene and says, "Top of the Mornin'"!

I was certainly excited since it could be that we are the only folks that say that anymore... maybe us and Ireland.

It's a pretty funny movie and certainly worth the price of admission to hear that line!

Taking over the world? I think so! Ha ha ha ha...

Episode 35: UPDATE!

Well, Colin and I did a little research about YIELDING TO THE MERGER. I came up empty, but Colin says it's in the books that when someone is entering a highway or interstate, it is necessary for the full speed traffic to provide space for the newcomer.

I still would like to get a detailed explanation of this from any of our law enforcement friends. It would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
Trent

EPISODE 35: Felons and Vegetarians

Cammie from Montgomery, AL is pulled over, and one of our vegitarian listeners gets "fed-up"! Sometimes being mannerly is the safe thing to do.

It took WAY too long to get to the email from Cammie... many apologies! I think we all got a little fed up with the comments that have been made to listener Hannah in Alaska about her choice to be a Vegetarian. It's so great when our listeners send us questions and feedback! It makes The MannersCast a better show!

FAKE TIP OF THE WEEK: End a Children's Book Early

This is only for the enjoyment of the adult and should not be applied as the only way to read a children's book. We are certainly not interested in ruining anyone's childhood so maybe it would be a good thing to do under your breath at the appropriate time. Then again, your kid might get a kick out of it!

Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

EPISODE 34: Net-iquette

Jonathan from Mac Tips Daily interviewed me about a brief history of The MannersCast plus online net-iquete for email, instant messaging, and sharing your feelings about your computer. Check out ThinkMac.net to find out more about Jonathan and his podcast.

Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

EPISODE 33: Gifts AGAIN? and My Degree

An email from Diane re-opened the wound so we had to discuss her discussion of Group Gifts. See her whole post HERE.

Also, Derek takes issue with people using their College Degree or Masters to justify themselves for correcting people.

Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

EPISODE 32: Peeing in Planters

We've been on a bit of a break with life getting in the way. Many apologies! We'll make an effort to be more regular with posting The MannersCast. Thanks for your patience.

IN THIS EPISODE: What are people thinking letting their kids do crazy, uncomfortable things in public? Also, are you willing to let someone know when something is wrong with their car? How much information is too much?

"Excuse me! Your car is falling apart."


Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

How to Be a "Good" Person

I noticed on my daily dose of Wikihow.com there are a number of "How To" articles on how to be good at relationships. It is certainly important for the other party in any relationship to be courteous and kind, but we can't wait around all day and expect everyone to be trying as hard as we are!

I think it's most important for each of us to be the one who is "good" in the relationship. It affects our own attitudes for the better and can even (slowly) change the attitude of the other person in the relationship... that is if they are not already as kind and considerate as we are.

We should not expect anything of them and everything of ourselves so I found some great articles on wikihow.com that can point us in the right direction. If you're interested in seeing the list, go to their website and search "be a good". You'll find articles on the following and many more.

It's up to us if we're going to take over the world!

Trent


Learn how to:
Be a Good Kid
Be a Good Customer
Be a Good Boyfriend
Be a Good Sister
Be a Good Parent
e a Good Girlfriend
Be a Good Roommate
Be a Good Child
Be a Good Listener
Be a Good Person
Be a Good Son
Be a Good Father
Be a Good Mother
Be a Good Ninja (very important!)

Another Satisfied Customer

I got a chance to meet up with Eric B. who had the winning entry into The MannersCast t-shirt contest.

SLOGAN: 1 car = 1 parking space

The shirt was designed by James Kocsis, a long-time listener who just recently became the head of MGM's website development.

A big thanks to everyone who entered into the contest! Shirts and other merchandise are on-line at The MannersCast store.

EPISODE 30 - Ummm

It doesn't matter how you say it. Whether it's "umm" or "emmm" or "uhhh", it's still a way to keep people from butting-in to the conversation while you are thinking of something else to say. The problem is that we have used it so much it is a normal part of conversation.

"Ummmmm" has GOT to GO! Let's all make an effort to get rid of space fillers so we can keep our conversations cleaner and more respectful.

Let us know what YOU think! Post a comment on the blog or email us at mannerscast@gmail.com, and we'll make an effort to talk about your comment on the podcast.

Trent

The Second Best Gift

Colin brought a new product to my attention this week. It's called "The Handler", and it is a small hook and key chain. The hook is strong and flips out to offer a good solid gripping mechanism for opening those nasty bathroom doors when you're out in public.

SCIENCE AT WORK: "The entire device is covered with nano-silvers (not slivers) that destroy bacteria and viruses on contact, ensuring that the infected poo particles don't hang out in your pocket." (Borrowed from Gizmodo.com)


It's not The MannersCast Sanitary Restroom Towel, but what do you do?

Trent

Episode 29 is UP!

Hey, everyone!

Discussion about not pitching in for gifts, poaching parking spaces, and how far are you will to let someone go when they are putting you out or asking favors?

Let us know what you think about the situations and if you have similar circumstances.

Thanks again for listening!

Trent

mannerscast[at]gmail.com

(That just seems like the cool, new way to write out email addresses on blogs and stuff.)

SHOW NOTES: EPISODE 28

Table Manners

• Wikipedia Article on Manners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_manners:

• Good info from CuisineNet.com

• Colin's Book Suggestion:

Dinner is Served by Arthur Inch