Unseen Review

This is my 24th podcast of the year. It is currently ranked number 25. The title of the episode I listened to was "Escape from the Schoolgirl Snatcher: How 2 Best Friends Survived the Unthinkable. the Case of Charlene & Lisa." This episode was released February 2nd. Charlene and Lisa were two best friends who lived in a seaside town in the UK. They were ten years old, it was January 19, 1999. They were abducted as they walked to school together. They were kidnapped by a man named Alan Hopkinson. He sexually abused them. He drove them to a seaside cliff and held Charlene off the edge. She thought she was going to die but he said he wanted her for one more day. Meanwhile, this was a big story in the press and there were a lot of people searching for these girls. The next day, a police officer came to Hopkinson's apartment. He was there to question him regarding reports that he was stalking children as they walked to school. The police officer was going to take him for questioning but before they took him he told the police officer that he had Charlene and Lisa in the apartment. They were reunited with their families. The episode first showed the search attempts for the girls and then went to the girls' point of view. Charlene was interviewed in the episode but Lisa was not. Charlene and Lisa have remained friends and have written a book together. The title of their book is, "Abducted: Taken Tortured Terrified." There is also a documentary about this from a TV series "Cutting Edge." The documentary was season 29 episode 6 of this series and is titled, "The Girls Who Were Found Alive." I thought this was a good podcast. It gave good background on the story and I think that it is good for stories like this to be told. It is very sad. This episode is a good way to hear the story in a more toned down version as I understand the book is graphic and would be difficult to read. Charlene and Lisa seemed to act bravely and were able to keep their heads clear in a tramautic situation. I give this podcast 5/5 for telling a story that should be told and giving a voice to these victims.

The Bill Simmons Podcast Review

The Bill Simmons Podcast is my 23rd podcast of the year. This podcast is currently ranked number 15. The title of the episode is "Seattle Spanks the Patriots, Drake Maye's Mystery Stinker, and Parent Corner With Cousin Sal." This episode was released on February 8, Super Bowl Sunday right after the Super Bowl. This podcast was released on Netflix. Bill Simmons is the host and Cousin Sal is the guy talking to him. The show began with Cousin Sal taunting Bill Simmons about the Patriots losing. Apparently, Bill Simmons is a big Patriots fan. They talked about Drake Maye's poor performance. They talked a lot about gambling. He gambles on everything including the length of the national anthem, the coin toss, and how often celebrities are shown on television. I am really against this culture of gambling on everything. I think it is bad and it is harmful to sports. Gambling has a corrupting influence on sports and as more and more people do it and it is more and more mainstream, the corrupting influence will just be larger. The sports leagues acceptance of gambling just invites scandal. They have had plenty of scandals so far in sports and I suspect the scandal is just beginning. The gambling on everything invites more scandal. If people are just gambling on wins and losses there would be less corruption. But as they gamble on everything, everything is suspect. Players will feel like they can do small things that don't harm their team to make some gambling money. This already has happened with baseball players who pitch certain pitches at the beginning of the count in coordination with gamblers. A lot of the podcast seemed liked it was more a podcast for gambling addicts than sports fans. One thing I did agree with was towards the end of the podcast they had parents corner. Here they talked about some experiences as parents. One of them mentioned sports pictures and how it is just a money grab. Which is a funny thing to complain about when you are gambling about how long the national anthem is before the Super Bowl. But I did agree. He said instead of going on a different day and driving way out of your way to get a team picture, they should just take a few minutes before a game and have people take pictures with the team with their phones. I say this same thing every time we have team pictures. It is hard to do when nobody else even thinks about it and just wants to pay money to a photographer. Phones are pretty high quality now and I think it is such a waste of money. I give this podcast 1/5. I give it low points mostly due to the gambling content that I think is very harmful not only to individuls lives, but to the integrity of sports. They also had some profanity that I am not a fan of. They get one point for the comment about team pictures.

The Mel Robbins Podcast Review

The Mel Robbins Podcast is my 22nd podcast listening to on the year. It is now ranked number 18. This episode was recorded on February 2 and I started listening to it on February 4. The title of the episode was, "How to Take Control of Your Time: 9 Poven Strategies That Work (Even When You Have No Time)." But when I checked back I noticed the episode title had changed to, "Stop Wasting Your Time: The Scientific Way to Stop Procrastination and Get Control of Your Day." This was an interview with Laura Vanderkam. She had studied time management and is sharing what she learned. She says that we should look at our life in 168 hour increments. 168 hours is one week and it is weeks that make up our lives. She says we should keep track of how we use our time so we can understand it. Understanding time usage helps us find pockets of time. She has nine rules to live by. Here are the rules: 1. Give yourself a bedtime. I think this is a good rule and my bedtime should be midnight. 2. Plan on Fridays. I think this is a good idea. I often plan on Sundays but it doesn't always work because I don't think I should be working on Sundays so it stops myself if it involves work. It is good to plan before the week starts. 3. Move by 3 pm. She says do some physical activity for at least ten minutes before 3 pm. I typically exercise in the morning. 4. Three times a week is a habit. She says make habits for things to happen at least three times a week. I am not sure this is necessarily important. It depends what it is. The important thing is to plan and stick to it. If something should happen twice or once a week then that is fine. 5. Create a backup slot. Schedule time in your week to do things that you planned to do at other times but it fell through. This could be good. I need to still get better at scheduling in the first place. 6. One big adventure, one little adventure. Each week do two things that will be memorable for you. This is something out of the routine. For me, I think this is often what we do with the Get Out Pass for Family Home Evening. I don't think I would have two things normally but one thing. 7. Take one night for you. Here she says you should have an activity that you do for yourself and that involves committing to other people. Committing to other people is so that you actually do it. She did say it should be something where you leave the house. But I think Dominion Night, where I play online Dominion with family members and friends works for me. 8. Batch the little things. She says make lists of small tasks and schedule a time to do all of them at once. This sounds good as well. 9. Effortful before effortless. When you have free time it is better to do active things than passive things. It is better to get out and do something than to scroll on your phone because that is easier. I really liked this podcast and thought it was useful. Robbins did a good job with the interview and getting the information out of Vanderkam. It was a good discussion that people could apply to their lives. I want to apply a lot of this and want to plan for next week this Friday to get the ball rolling. Laura Vanderkam wrote a book called "Tranquility by Tuesday: The 9 rules." I give this podcast 5/5 for being useful and interesting.

Smosh Reads Reddit Stories Review

This is my 21st podcast and was ranked 21 when I finished it. It is currently ranked number 19. The title of the episode was, "Reddit is the Best Medicine." The podcast was recorded on January 31st. They read stories from Reddit, discuss them, decide who they think is right in different situations, and tell jokes about them. They discussed six stories. Stories included some bathroom humor, embarrassing moments with the doctor, a woman wanting her medical bills paid for from a dog owner because she tripped over a dog, and a sister being mad at her sister for revusing to remove diabetes equipment from her arm for a wedding photo, and surgeons making fun of a patient who they think is unconscious. I am kind of disappointed in myself here because I know there were a few funny jokes but I can't remember them at the moment. The humor was based on the conversations reacting to the stories. It was more funny towards the beginning of the episode and less funny toward the end. I give this podcat 3 out of 5. It gets points because it was amusing and somewhat funny at times. Minus one point for some profanity and minus one point for being less funny toward the end.

Directed By Review

This is my 20th podcast listened to on the year. It was recorded on January 26 and I listened February 2nd. Like the Billions Club, this is a podcast that is produced by Spotify and got a temporary boost due to Spotify promotion. It was ranked number 7 when I listened to it. The title of the podcast was "Inside Maisie Peters 'Audrey Hepburn' & 'You, You, You' Videos." This was the first and so far only episode of this podcast. It is no longer in the top 100. They talked about the making of two music videos performed by Maise Peters. I had never heard of Maise Peters. I'll give this 4/5. Four points for obviously being talented. Minus one point for not exactly being my cup of tea. I watched the music videos after because after the making of podcast I wanted to see what was made. Here is the end result of her two videos:

Morbid Review

This is my 19th podcast. As of this writing it is ranked number 17. The title of the podcast is "Listener Tale 106: Comfy Queens." This episode was released January 29th. This podcast is about ghost stories and this episode was about listener submitted ghost stories. They read and commented on them. Ghost stories aren't my favorite topic. I think the most interesting one was about a kid who died when he was four years old. He was said to live and play in a house as a ghost after he died for years. He did this all the way until his Dad's funeral. Obviously, my summary doesn't capture the presentation of the story. I give this 3/5.

NPR News Now Review

This was my 18th podcast listening to this year. The episode name is "1-29-26 2 AM EST." NPR News Now is ranked 20th as of this writing. This is a podcast released every hour and has five minutes of news. They reported the officers who shot Alex Pretti were placed on administrative leave. I was not a fan that they reported this as a fact when I think you should report it as what the government sources are saying in the context of lying about so many things. The government lied about Alex Pretti being there to kill as many ICE officers as he could when video showed that he was gunned down as he was videoing with his cell phone and trying to help a woman who was being pushed to the ground by ICE. I'm not saying the reporting was wrong, just that I don't like how it was presented. It is always important to provide context in reporting. Several publications have reported they are on leave. I give them 3/5. Three points for telling me about the report of the officers being on leave and minus two points for uncritically reporting untrustworthy sources.