The Tim Dillon Show Review

This is my 26th podcast. I listened to Episode 482 titled, "Epstein Files & A Head In the Fryer." This episode was released February 7. I started it a few days ago and finished it yesterday the February 16th in the car. The Tim Dillon Show is currently ranked number 19. Tim Dillon was the only one speaking in this episode. He played a clip of FBI Director Kash Patel saying there was no credible evidence that Epstein trafficked girls. Dillon correctly called Patel out for being a liar as some of the Epstein files have been released show that there is plenty of evidence of this. Also, it is clear that the U.S. government is protecting pedophiles as it blacks their names out in the Epstein files. Dillon used an analogy of an Olive Garden employee who killed himself by putting his head in the fryer as what he believes Hillary and Bill Clinton are going to do. He thinks Hillary and Bill Clinton are going to destroy their own reputations in order to destroy Trump. They will confess of their own crimes with Epstein in order to also expose Trump's crimes with Epstein. Dillon think the Clinton's have nothing to lose because they are not in power and they are toward the end of their lives. He thinks Trump is scared of the Clinton's because Trump knows the Clinton's can destroy him. I doubt they would do this if they could because I believe they would still care about their own reputations and legacy. Dillon talked for a good portion of the show about how the Clinton's will destroy Trump with some Epstein revelations at the hearing. The hearing is scheduled for February 27, 2026. Dillon did some rapid fire conspiracy theories in the show. He did not seem particularly interested in evidence. I am giving The Tim Dillon Show a 2/5. He gets two points for calling out Kash Patel and Donald Trump. He does not get more points because of his conspiracy theories that I believe don't have merit. Also, a big portion of the show was talking about a future event of Hillary and Bill Clinton destroying themselves and destroying Trump in the process. I did not agree with the chain of logic that came to this conclusion. If he is right, I will change his podcast score to 5/5 for getting an amazing prediction right. Stay tuned for Feburary 27.

Dateline NBC Review

This is my 25th podcast. It is currently ranked 24. The episode I listened to aired February 11th. This means I am finally catching up as this is the last podcast I have listened to. I want to write about these soon after I listen to them so I don't get a backlog. The title of the episode is, "Talking Dateline: The Thing About Helen & Olga." Lester Holt interviewed Keith Morrison and Susan Leibowitz who have been working on reporting about this Helen and Olga case. Dateline NBC had just released the day before six episodes about the crimes of Helen and Olga. This episode is an interview with the people who made these podcasts and who have spent a long time investigating these crimes. Helen and Olga are two old ladies who act as if they are volunteering to help homeless people but they are really just doing life insurance fraud and do years long plots to kill the homeless people and get on their life insurance. They do this multiple times. They also do some lawsuit fraud by faking incindents to sue companies. They are currently in prison. Morrison and Leibowitz were interviewed about their experiences making this. One part made me laugh. That was when Susan Leibowitz talked about going to the church to work on this case, this church is where Helen and Olga found homeless people for their plot. While there someone told her about the preschool there and said she put her kids there. Initially, she said no way she would put her kids in the preschool at the church where Helen and Olga were finding homeless people to kill but then it was just perfect so she did. Even though this podcast was really about the making of these other podcasts, I still got a good idea of the gist of what Helen and Olga were doing. I thought it was an interesting podcast and crime story. I give this a 5/5. I am officially all caught up. I will plan on writing about the podcasts in the future soon after I listen to them.

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.

Call Her Daddy Podcast

This was my 17th podcast of the year. It is now ranked 24th. The title of the podcast was, "Anna Kendrick: Pitch Perfect, Twilight, and Relationships." I was kind of nervous going into this one because of the title. I thought it might be some weird sexual podcast, but they didn't even talk about sex except for during the commercials. I am sure this varies by episode. This episode is directed to women but I still found some of it interesting, particularly Kendrick's backstory. She talked about going to New York City when she was 12 years old with her brother who was 14 years old. Her parents let her go to audition but they didn't want to have to go themselves. She went on a bus with her brother. She ended up staying two nights. She booked a hotel, her parents called and gave the credit card to the hotel and she acted as if her parents would be there later. Then she talked about her dating life. She said she isn't dating anyone right now but if she were to date she would only date someone who would immediately agree to go to couple's therapy with her. Personally, I would hate that idea. They talked some about how much the Pitch Perfect cast likes each other. I have seen parts of this movie while donating plasma in Utah before we moved. The one movie that I really liked that she was in they didn't even talk about. That was Trolls. She plays Poppy in trolls. I give this podcast 3/5. It gets some points for interesting conversation. A minus point for profanity. Another minus point for the name of the podcast. Here is my favorite Trolls song. Anna Kendrick sings this:

Billions Club: The Series Review

My 16th podcast of the year was Billions Club: The Series. This episode was titled: "Billions Club Live with Ed Sheeran: A concert film." As of writing this, the podcast is now ranked 71st. Spotify gives its own series a boost by promoting it which can make some things move up for a short time. This podcast series is Spotify getting people who have songs with more than a billion downloands to do a concert where they can only perform songs with more than a billion downloads and they talk about it. I didn't know anything of Ed Sheeran before this. He performed: Shape of You, Thinking Out Loud, Galway Girl, Perfect, Azizam, and Parting Glass. I am definitely the last person a person who likes music would want to listen to about music. I don't go out of my way to listen to music, I have never been big into it. I do like music sometimes. But when I wanted to listen to something in the past I used to listen to talk radio of politics or sometimes sports. More recently, I have been listening to books for the last few years. This year I have been listening to podcasts. I did like the tune of his music and I liked how I could understand the words. I always like music better when I can understand the words. There was too much meeting in a bar that I could not relate to. I will give this a 4 out of 5. Anne had heard of Ed Sheeran and his song Perfect. I thought it was a pretty good song:

The Journal Review

The Journal was my 15th podcast of the year. The episode I listed to was released January 26th and titled, "Are We at a Turning Point in Minneapolis?" As of writing this post, The Journal is ranked 13th. Don't tell Rupert Murdoch but this was actually a good podcast. There were some interesting tiddits. They mentioned how there were 300 to 600 agents sent to Chicago which is a population of 2.5 million people compared to 3000 sent to Minneapolis which is a population of 450,000. They talked of the massive welfare fraud that had taken place in Minneapolis and how MAGA used the fact that some of the perpetrators were Somoli to demonize the entire population. They talked about how ICE quotas were made by working backward from a statement made by Trump that he would deport a million people in the first year. Because of this they have a quota to arrest 3000 people a day. They never have come close to achieving their goal. Their performance evaluations are based on how many arrests that are made. Even if a person is later let go, it counts as an arrest so they are incentivized to make arrests even wrongful ones. They don't even wait before smashing a window. They do profiling. In the past, ICE would have been looking at specific people to arrest, but now they are just on the streets looking for people to arrest without having an idea who. I give this podcast 5/5 for being informative and helping me to learn new information about how our corrupt government functions.

Pardon My Take Review

Pardon My Take was my 14th podcast listened to this year. The title of the episode was, "Indiana Wins the Natty, Adam Thielen on Retirement, Paddy Pimblet Ahead of UFC 324, Coaching Carousel + Listener Pardon Your Takes." The episode was recorded on January 21st.This is hosted by Barstool Sports. As of this writing, Pardon My Take is ranked 18. They talked about Indiana's odds of winning the college football championship at the start of the season was 150 to 1 which they said was the same as Utah State's odds to win March Madness. They said they would remember this 4th and 5 touchdown by Fernando Mendoza forever. It was pretty sweet:

They praised Indiana's coach Curt Signetti a lot. They said if you are watching a game and you think he made a wrong decision, then you are wrong. They mentioned that aliens might be announced to distract them more from the Epstein files. The podcast started getting less interesting as they started interviewing a UFC guy. I really don't like UFC. I think it is awful to just be rooting for people to get hurt. I don't like the violence of it. I give this podcast 3/5. It had some interesting football talk, though I give it minus one point for profanity and minus one point for being so excited about the UFC.

Bad Friends Review

This is my 13th podcast I listened to. As of this writing it is ranked number 15. This episode is titled, "Rudy Shoots Her Shot with Marcello Hernandez. Podcast was recorded January 19, 2026. The main hosts are Bobby Lee and Andrew Santino. Rudy Jules and a couple guys who I don't remember would comment occasionally. The guest was Marcello Hernandez from Saturday Night Live. These guys are just funny. Santiago referred to January 6th as Insurrection Day and said it was his favorite holiday. The title of the episode is because the hosts kept telling Hernandez how much Rudy liked him and were pressuring her to "shoot her shot with him." She responded by trying to make a connection with him saying they both come from cultures who eat dogs but Hernandez said he doesn't come from a culture that eats dogs. That was that. The part of the episode that made me laugh the most was when one of them was reading a headine that said, "Head transplant two years away, doctor says" and the other was saying that was good and then the guy said, "That was ten years ago." I give this podcast 4 out of 5. I think it was funny, the hosts were entertaining, the conversation was engaging. I took one point off for some profanity.

The Diary of a CEO with Steve Bartlett

The Diary of a CEO with Steve Bartlett was number 12 when I listened to it. It is ranked number 15 now. The title of the episode I listened to is, "The Diary of a CEO with Steve Bartlett: CIA Whistleblower: They Can See All of Your Messages! I Was Under Surveilance in Pakistan! Interview with John Kiriakou." In this episode the host Steve Bartlett interviewed former CIA agent John Kiriakou. I thought it was an interesting inverview with Kiriakou talking about a lot of things including his personal career, intelligence agencies more generally, and some current events. He had been convicted previously for revealing some classified information regarding the waterboarding program. Kiriakou says he would do it again because we should not be doing torture. He did not mention in this podcast how he also was convicted for revealing agents names. Kiriakou seems likeable but I do have some issues. Mainly, he says he would go to prison to expose torture again but I believe his attempt to get a pardon from Trump makes him not speak the truth now. He sounded exactly like Tucker Carlson concerning Venezuela. He says whether you think it should happen or not, it's happened and there is no reason to talk about it because it's already happened. Like Carlson, Kiriakou has all sorts of criticisms for things that have already happened, but when it involves Trump there is no point to talk about it. According to this Wikipedia article Kiriakou paid $50,000 to a former Trump campaign advisor for a pardon but it wasn't enough. Later, he was told by Rudy Giuliani that a pardon would be $2 million. He wants a pardon to get his $700,000 pension back so that level of money wasn't worth it to him. I give this podcast 4/5. Bartlett asked questions to get Kiriakou to talk but I am taking one off due to it being unchallenged. Interviewing people without challenging them can be damaging if the guest lies. I do think Kiriakou speaks truth sometimes but is also a shady character who is currently seeking to bribe the president for a pardon. When interviewing such a figure there is value in challenging them but I think Kiriakou could say anything.

February Cabin Trip

We typically go to the cabin four times a year. We have our Christmas trip, our February trip, our summer trip, and our fall trip. Our February trip takes place usually during parent teacher conference weekend because the kids get Friday off of school. This year parent teacher conference was earlier than normal so our February trip was moved to the last weekend of January and yet I still call it the February trip for the sake of consistency. The photographic and video evidence of the fun we had is on Instagram. I decided I shouldn't post pictures and videos here when other people's kids are in it, but with Instagram I can limit who sees it. Kids had a lot of fun sledding. The saddest part was when Kaylee crashed into the wire fence. She was attempting to go under it. Her face took a beating. But today, when I asked who had the most fun at the cabin all of the kids, including Kaylee's, hands shot up. Here is Kaylee's injury: