Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd Review

My tenth podcast is Armchair Expert with Dax Shepherd. It was tenth when I listened to it, it is the eleventh right now. The show was hosted by Dax Shepherd and Monica Padham. They interviewed country music singer Christ Stapleton. Dax and Monica said one of the goals they had with this podcast is that they don't want to be a part of the division. Chris Stapleton gave some background information on his life. He said he doesn't like deadlines and that there is no such thing as a country music emergency. They asked him what he listened to and he said he doesn't listen to anything because he likes the silence. Ideas for his music come during silence. I see the value in silence though I also see the benefit of what I do. Currently, I am learning through listening to different podcasts. I am trying to add some silent contemplation through my meditation goal. I have found it easier to meditate in the morning than at night my first night meditating. My meditation goal involves listening through prayer. I believe giving some time to silence will help me to hear what God wants to tell me. Dax told a story about people trying to provoke him in the streets. They were taking his picture and attempting to provoke him by yelling at him about if he was still trying to freeze his eleven year old daughter's eggs. He said this was completely made up and they were just trying to get a reaction out of him. He says he views this kind of harassment as a sign that he has been successful so he should not be angry with it. I give this podcast a 3/5. It got 3 points for being interesting some of the time. One point off for some cursing and one point off for times that I was not interested.

Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast Review

Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast is my ninth podcast. It is still ranked number nine on Spotify's podcast list. It is quite the switch to go from the Huberman Lab to this. The hosts are "comedians" Matt McCusker, Shane Gillis, Steve Gerben, and Billy. This podcast reminded me of This Past Weekend with Theo Von in that both podcasts were unfunny comedians trying to get laughs with shock value. I listened to a talk from Spencer W. Kimball today that reminded me of this podcast. In the October 1974 Friday morning session he said, "Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly." I would say the same goes for comedy and would alter the quote to say, "Profanity is the effort of an unfunny comedian to get a laugh." Jerry Seinfeld said "Most of the time, when you hear the dirty words sprinkled in, it’s someone who’s lost and scared and uses swearing to save their tail." I can't find the quote but I have a memory of Seinfeld saying that a comedian cursing is cheating, it is like a baseball player corking his bat. Aside from the bad comedy, another thing I thought was annoying in the podcast is when they got political and said that the tariffs must have worked because if they didn't people would be talking about it but it is never brought up. This comment is dumb because he assumes that because he hasn't heard something means nobody is talking about it. If he would go to google.com he would be able to get out of his bubble and see the negative effects of tariffs. I worry that ignorant listeners of this podcast who get limited news are influenced by small comments like this. I give this podcast 0/5 for unfunny comedy and uninformed political commentary.

Huberman Lab Review

My ninth podcast is Huberman Lab. It was number nine when I listened to it and it is now 18th as I write this post. Huberman Lab is hosted by Andrew Huberman who is a professor at Stanford University. He interviewed Wendy Suzuki who is a professor at New York University. The title of this episode is "Essentials: Tools to Boost Attention and Memory." She talked a lot about how exercise improves your brain. She says it helps you grow a fluffy hippocampus. The more you exercise, the more it will help your brain. Exercising throughout your life will help delay the affects of dementia as you get older. She did a study and found low fit individuals who exercised two to three times a week that this improved their brain. She was mostly focused on exercise throughout the episode but she mentioned three things that helped brain health: exercise, meditation, and sleep. I do exercise regularly, I feel pretty good about that. I think I get enough sleep because I have a sleep plan that even when I work in the night I make up my sleep during the day. She mentioned meditation as well. I think I can work on this. I am sure this is not what she means but for me how I want to improve meditation is to engage with God in prayer. I think currently my prayers are too one sided. I have been better at praying at different times of my life but now I have been doing the talking and not enough listening. Kind of crazy to tell God what I think but don't listen to what he says. My new goal is to pray morning and night and to take at least five minutes for each of these prayers to listen. What God says to me is more important than what I say to him. Not sure if Suzuki would agree but I think the inner reflection involved in listening to God is a form of meditation that would help my brain health. But more importantly, I believe listening to God will help my spiritual health. I thought this podcast was interesting. It is nice to hear a conversation between two educated and informed people to help to learn about a topic. I give it 5/5 for being educational and interesting.

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

My eighth podcast is Good Hang with Amy Poehler. It has moved to number two since I listened to it. She interviewed Ryan Coogler. They taled of his background and different things he has worked on, but what I found most interesting was when he talked of directing Black Panther and and Chadwick Boseman. I am a big Marvel fan and am trying to watch all Marvel movies and shows. I saw Black Panther before I really got into Marvel because I was watching mobies in IMDB's top 250 and I thought Black Panther was in there at the time, but I just checked and can find no evidence it was ever in there. Black Panther is 7.3 and the lowest in the 250 is 8.6. Coogler talked about how he felt like he had imposter syndrome and was worried he would get fired. Boseman told him to never say that, and that Boseman would never let them fire Coogler. Poehler asked Coogler if there was going to be another Black Panther movie and he said yes. She was asking him what musical instrument he thought of with three different movies he made. In the other movies it was a guitar, but in Black Panther it was a talking drum that was used for communication forever ago. They went and found drummers in Africa to perform. Pretty cool I say: Coogler also mentioned randomly that he likes the Jake from State Farm SNL skit. I looked it up and thought it was pretty funny: I thought Amy Poehler was a good interviewer. She put Coogler at ease and got him to feel comfortable and share freely. The podcast was interesting. 5/5.

Up First from NPR Review

My seventh podcast is Up First from NPR. It is currently in the eighth spot. The title of the episode I listened to was "FBI Search Journalist's Home, U.S. Greenland Talks, Mental Health Funding." They started off talking about the FBI searching a Washington Post journalist's home as part of a leak investigation. They talked about the threat this poses to journalism. The Trump administration says it is about investigating a leak but it in reality Team Trump care nothing about such things as Trump was busted hiding a bunch of classified documents in his bathroom when he was not president and was not authorized to have the documents. Next they talked about how the U.S. talks about Greenland haven't yielded any results. It's just embarrassing that we are in a place where the U.S. is making everyone waste their time talking about how the U.S. can't just steal Greenland. The they talked about some mental health funding that had been cut off had been restored after a news story about it. I liked this podcast, it was brief information about important stories. I hadn't heard the FBI searching the journalist's home when I listened to this so it was informative. The Greenland issue, I had obviously heard of but it was an important story to hear about and a story that just shows the immorality and danger of the Trump administration. The health funding just showed more chaotic government where nothing is thought through. I give this podcast 5/5 for being an informative listen. It's just insane that we have a president right now who is threatening to take over Greenland and it doesn't make people change their mind about supporting him. The problem with our country isn't that we have Donald Trump. Having plenty of villains of course will be happening with a country this size. The problem is the people who support Donald Trump, who don't care about how awful he is, and will never condemn him. Insane that him trying to steal Greenland doesn't cause any Republicans to think he is unfit for office.

Ice Skating in Idaho Falls

One cool thing that Santa gives us every year is the Getout Pass. The kids love it and so do we because we get to keep doing so many fun activities. Ours expires later this month and the new one will start up. The Getout Pass gives us admission to all sorts of different types of things. The Idaho Falls ice skating rink is on the Getout Pass for once a year. We went ice skating at the beginning of our first Getout Pass in January 2024. Last year, we attempted to go in January, but the day we wanted to go was the first day of our GetOut Pass and it was impossible to tell what time it started. That's when we learned that there is one day a year that we should not use this because nobody can know what time it starts at. So on Friday we used our ice skating GetOut Pass a week before it expired. Our kids all loved ice skating this time. Here are some pictures and videos:

This Past Weekend with Theo Von Review

My sixth podcast is This Past Weekend with Theo Von. In this podcast Theo Von interviewed Trevor Wallace. This was a very unfunny conversation between two alleged comedians. They attempt to use shock value and crudeness as a substitute for humor. They weren't political except for a couple jokes about Biden falling off his bike and referencing something weird going on with Somolis in Minnesota. It is pretty ridiculous to be joking about Biden being an old person and ignoring the clown in the White House. Of course the Somoli reference is recent obsession of MAGA as Trump is leading them so they all know the current group they are supposed to hate. This podcast was actually the most torturous to listen to so far. I give it 0/5 for crude, mindless, and unfunny conversation.