The documentary shorts included are as follows:

Martinis in the Bike Lane (11 min.) in which Biel interviews Portland, Oregon municipal workers about the city's distinctive bike lane markings.

Last Train Out of North America (18 min.) includes interviews with Amtrak passengers, employees, and enthusiasts about the history and experience of passenger train travel in the United States. This short includes a significant amount of public domain footage from the Prelinger Archive (Archive.org).

Central Kansas- Canvas Central (11 min.) is billed as a mockumentary, but seems as earnest as any of the other shorts. Biel interviews punks and anarchists about their interest in patches as an expressive medium.

Of Dice and Men (39 min.) documents Biel's friends' games of Risk and Risk 2210, especially the latter. Biel makes some half-hearted efforts to link Americans' obsession with Monopoly and Risk to America's capitalist and imperialistic ambitions, but mostly he's content to record the minutia and monotony of playing Risk 2210. This short goes on and on, and is surely intended as some kind of joke on the viewer.

Cowboy Hat and a Cane (11 min.) has a young punk couple recounting how they reluctantly adopted a stray dog whom they claim to believe, based on the dog's communications to them, was previously owned by an abusive mailman who had a preference for wearing cowboy hats and carrying a cane. If humor was the intended effect, Biel fails to achieve it.

The DVD

The Video:
The standard grade 1.33:1 video content suffers from all the usual problems of no-budget video, but is completely in keeping with the quality and spirit of the shorts themselves.

The Audio:
The disc includes a 2.0 audio mix, but there is no noticeable separation between the left and right channels.

The Extras:
The extras consist of a trailer for Of Dice and Men and several additional excerpts from that short, and a snippet from Martinis in the Bike Lane.

Final Thoughts:
Cantankerous Titles & Obscure Ephemera, Vol. 1 is the kind of DVD that could only be made through self-publishing. The shorts collected here are poorly made and utterly self-indulgent drivel that may amuse Biel, his friends and subjects, but won't hold much appeal to anyone else. Skip it.