Podcasts about Christmas Eve

A gust of wind shuts John Greenwood out of his own Christmas Eve party, and the constable who finds him climbing back in through a broken window says the house has been empty and shut up for years.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Vanishing Point” (July 31, 1978) ***WD00:45:34.754 = BBC Radio 4 / Radio 7 Ghost Story, “The White Carnation” (December 16, 1990)01:43:08.351 = Night Beat, “Long Live The Clown” (May 08, 1952)02:11:42.011 = The Black Book, “Vagabond Murder” (March 02, 1952) ***WD02:26:11.875 = Let George Do It, “Ghosts On Bliss Terrace” (August 16, 1948) ***WD02:55:51.297 = Box 13, “Delinquent's Dilemma” (February 13, 1949) ***WD03:22:18.967 = Calling All Cars, “Killer Hudson” (February 28, 1934)03:50:46.096 = Casey Crime Photographer, “Surprising Corpse” (January 16, 1947)04:20:12.992 = CBC Mystery Theater, “The Monkey's Paw” (May 05, 1938) ***WD04:47:24.619 = Incredible But True, “Human Atmosphere” (1950-1951)04:51:16.534 = Strange Adventure, “Oasis of Death” (1945)04:54:29.772 = Tales of the Frightened, “Don't Lose Your Head” (December 17, 1957)04:59:00.479 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0758

Most churches don’t start thinking about leadership development until a key person resigns. By then, the only real option is to post the role and hope someone qualified applies. In this special compilation episode, we’ve pulled together four conversations with leaders who have built the habit of developing people long before the seat opens up. The churches growing fastest right now are rarely the ones with the best job postings. They’re the ones who already know who’s next. Don’t miss the four critical lessons every church should consider as they head into fall hiring and budget planning. From the leadership model that quietly keeps benches empty to a mindset shift about where leaders actually come from to a challenge you could give your team on Monday to the structure that produces people you can genuinely put on payroll, each conversation offers a practical step forward. The Model Nobody Names Out Loud Tim Foot explains what he calls hero-driven leadership: the habit of relying too heavily on standout individuals to carry the mission. It produces short-term results, but it creates burnout, unrealistic hiring expectations, and fragile systems. What makes it so hard to escape is that it feels good. It feels productive to be the person who solves the problems and holds the answers. Foot also names the “shiny object trap,” where churches chase talent from larger organizations only to discover that the leader arrives with a playbook that doesn’t fit and no systems to support them. Key Takeaway // Hero dependence is a staffing strategy, whether or not anyone chose it on purpose. Healthy teams are built when leaders get comfortable saying they don’t know what to do next, because that’s what opens the room for collaboration. Listen to the Full Episode // Hero Dependence Is a Terrible Growth Strategy with Tim Foot (June 18, 2026) The Leaders Are Already in Your Building Spence Shelton draws a parallel most church leaders have never made. We all agree that growing a church by reaching lost people beats growing it by transfer from other churches. Then, when it comes to leaders, we reverse the logic and look for someone who’s already trained elsewhere. Shelton makes the case for the shoulder tap: intentionally asking someone whether God might be calling them into ministry. At Mercy Church, both executive pastors and two of three campus pastors came out of the marketplace, from banking, plant management, and physical therapy. None of them would have applied. Somebody had to ask. Key Takeaway // Many future ministry leaders never consider vocational ministry because no one ever raised the possibility with them. Developing from within takes longer than hiring from outside, and it produces leaders shaped by your church’s culture rather than someone else’s. Listen to the Full Episode // Stop Plucking Talent, Start Developing It with Spence Shelton (August 6, 2026) The Challenge That Costs Nothing Chris Vaught faced the constraint every growing church knows well. Connection Point was growing fast, but budget always arrives last, and southeastern Missouri isn’t a place people relocate to for a ministry position. So the church started looking at its own congregation and treating volunteers as unpaid staff with real roles and responsibilities. The starting point was a single challenge to every staff member: go find your Timothy. One person you invest in deeply enough that if you were out on a Sunday, the ministry would still run. Key Takeaway // A leadership pipeline doesn’t have to begin with a budget line. It can begin with one question asked of every staff member about who could carry their ministry if they weren’t there next weekend. Listen to the Full Episode // From 300 to 2,500: Building a Leadership Pipeline That Fuels Growth with Chris Vaught (September 25, 2025) Training Is Not Development Dave Miller draws a distinction that reframes what most churches call leadership development. Churches are excellent at training: the sermon, the class, the book of the month, the small group discussion. All of it is content delivery, and content has never been more available. Development is something else. Miller’s team identifies seven ingredients: training, spiritual formation, soft skills, ownership, mental wellness, and developmental conversations. He also challenges leaders on where accountability sits. When a sports team wins, we talk about the players. When it loses, we replace the manager. Church leaders should apply the same standard to the people they’re developing. Key Takeaway // If content were the key ingredient, leadership development would already be solved. What emerging leaders need is proximity, ownership, and someone willing to slow down and have the conversation. Listen to the Full Episode // Who’s the Next You? Building a Gen Z Residency Pipeline with Dave Miller (September 11, 2025) These four conversations form a ladder, and you don’t have to start at the top. Most churches never start at all because they assume the only real option is a residency program they can’t yet afford. Tim named the model keeping your bench empty. Spence gave the mindset shift and the shoulder tap. Chris gave the first move that costs nothing. Dave gave the structure that produces people you can hire. As you head into this fall, the question worth bringing to your next staff meeting is simple: who on our team has never been tapped on the shoulder, and what would it take to have that conversation this month? Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way.TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow. TouchPoint is trusted by some of the fastest-growing and largest churches in the country because it helps teams stay aligned, understand who they're reaching, and make confident ministry decisions week after week. If you've been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — At the beginning of 2026, we surveyed executive pastors like you and nearly one in four named that staff health and structure, how we get our teams to work together was your top fear going into 2026. You know and I know it, you probably have an open role at your church that you’re trying to fill, or you’re maybe about to have an open role. When a key person leaves your team and your instinct is just to post it, what can we do?Rich Birch — Finding, releasing, equipping leadership is critically important. Welcome to the last compilation episode of summer 2026 here on the unSeminary podcast. Super excited about today’s conversation, all about developing leaders within our organizations.Rich Birch — I know that in many churches, we think of this as a season where new staff are hiring or we’re hiring them into new roles. We’re working on budget planning for next year. There’s all the fall ramp up.Rich Birch — All four of these conversations are going to be helpful for you. The first one, we’ve got Tim Foot. He is the CEO of Slingshot, has nearly 30 years in ministry leadership, and his team has literally worked with thousands of churches on staffing.Rich Birch — Listen to this kickoff to today’s conversation, really setting up the tension that we find ourselves in. He names the leadership model that most of us have absorbed without anyone talking about it out loud, and it could be derailing your church and my church. Let’s listen in to what Tim has to say about developing leaders. [Clip 1 Begins]Tim Foot — Yeah, I mean, the model we see is hero-driven leadership. It’s when we rely too much on individuals to actually carry the mission. And I think the cracks have happened.Tim Foot — I mean, we’ve seen it, Rich. You and I are similar ages. I think the cracks are happening generationally.Tim Foot — The builders and boomers were wired differently for a different time and culture. And us Gen Xers, we can code switch. I mean, we see that happening all the time.Tim Foot — And as we stepped into leadership, the cracks started to appear. I mean, we see it every week, another leader burning out, doing stupid things because of too much pressure. Then Millennials and Gen Z are now leading in a new way that we need to embrace.Tim Foot — And so I think we’re seeing those cracks around that hero dependence, and we’re starting to see the need more than ever to have a team awareness, a holistic approach, or we’re just going to have leaders continue to burn out. And we see it around unrealistic hiring expectations, lack of support for great leaders when they’re hired, a lack of development. Hero dependence is a terrible staffing and growth strategy and becomes a massive trap when it comes to a number of the key focus areas or patterns we’ve seen that healthy teams focus on a move mission forward.Rich Birch — Yeah, see, this is the thing when you I heard you say that once and it literally I sat up and I was like, oh, man, I’ve seen that in my own, you know, my own hiring. I’ve seen that in the way I’ve talked with, you know, I see the leaders around me. You see these people who they’ve kind of built the entire ministry around themselves and they’ve built it’s like it doesn’t work if they don’t. It’s like they’re such a unique individual. They have to lift it all. Rich Birch — Like, why do we keep coming back to that? Why? Even if we know like intellectually in our heads, yeah, that’s not a good idea.Rich Birch — But what makes that model so sticky? It feels like we just keep coming back to this same thing time. In fact, we actually reward it. We’ll be like, wow, isn’t that great? This person’s amazing. And we just kind of keep moving on. Why is that?Tim Foot — It’s the shiny object trap. I mean, the shiny object, aka the talented leader that we think is going to catapult the ministry. Often we see it in hiring conversations when a particular organization wants to go after somebody that’s been in a much bigger organization than them.Tim Foot — And often that person, if they can attract them, will come in with a playbook that isn’t uniquely suited to the organization they’re stepping into. Or there aren’t systems to support that new leader and the growth that’s going to happen. And burnout happens at every level.Tim Foot — But we both know, Rich, busy work makes us feel productive. But is it the right work? And we know that we can be ourselves the shiny object. It feels good to be the hero. It feels good to be the one that’s solving problems. It feels good to be the one that has all the answers.Tim Foot — And I think that’s one of the biggest threats in healthy leadership today, is feeling like you have to have all the answers. Because I think one of the most powerful statements from healthy leaders and healthy teams is, Hey, we don’t know what to do next. Because it actually opens up the room for new thought. It opens up the room for collaboration. And it opens up the room for teamwork. Tim Foot — But it’s easier to move quick. It’s easier to move quick and be surrounded by people who agree and play it safe. And then down the road, we realize that we weren’t growing in every sense of that word. And the mission was stalled out.Tim Foot — We know we often have to slow down, re-strategize, look at who’s around the table, work out how we work together to move faster in the long term. We have to be vulnerable to make a team work. And sometimes it requires us to actually help others win than focus on heroes.Tim Foot — I mean, you think about a winning sports team. It’s not about just one person out there doing all the work. We’ve got to work together as a team.Tim Foot — You know, it’s how do we work together and have less dependence on that shiny object, those standout leaders or those heroes. [Clip 1 Ends]Rich Birch — Oh, so good. You know, Tim named something there. Man, it feels good to be the person with all the answers.Rich Birch — Can I have a little confessional time with you, friends? Earlier parts of my ministry career, I have really struggled with that. I wanted to be the person who had all the answers, but it’s a trap. And most of us find ourselves in it. Rich Birch — We’ve got to move beyond hero dependence, either wanting to be the hero or to find heroes. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a system that ultimately rewards the wrong thing. Rich Birch — So the question that I have is what is the alternative? Where do we go if we’re not just trying to hire the next shiny object?Rich Birch — The thing that will, the person that will, you know, plug in like a thing, where do leaders actually come from? I love this conversation coming up with Spence Shelton as the lead pastor of Mercy Church in Charlotte, planted in 2015, now three campuses online, plus launching a family of churches. I want you to listen for a few things.Rich Birch — First of all, Spence parallels, makes a parallel that I really have not heard many people say between how we think about reaching people who are far from God and how we think about finding leaders and how these two are connected. Listen carefully for the shoulder tap that he talks about. You know, oftentimes one of the things I find most revealing about podcast interviews is people say things just in the sides that really do under that, that give you a sense of what’s actually going on under the hood and pay attention to where his executive pastor campus pastors come from.Rich Birch — Let’s listen in to what Spence Shelton has to say. [Clip 2 Begins]Spence Shelton — I think that mentality starts all the way down to the idea of reaching people that don’t know Christ versus just sheep swapping from one church to the other church, right? So you can grow your church by transfer growth, which I actually am one who, hey man, if somebody’s on the sideline in one church and then they plug into your church, I’m all for it. And if the same thing happens with Mercy, all for it.Spence Shelton — But our aim, what we all know as pastors and ministry leaders is our aim is, man, let’s reach lost people and then disciple them, right? The same thing I think should be true with leadership development. For some reason, when it comes then to developing leaders, we tend to go a different direction and think, well, let’s just go find where some leaders are and get them to plug in.Spence Shelton — It’s like, we don’t do that even with discipleship. Why are we switching our mindset? And so I want to just kind of, I have to, I was convicted and wanted to call our church and I would call others to the same mindset that you have with discipleship.Spence Shelton — Let that carry over into your leadership and your leadership development as well. And I think that’s how we’re going to grow, just as how we’re going to grow the kingdom by reaching lost people, how we’re going to grow the leaders in the kingdom, the number of leaders we have, it’s going to be developing them in our church. And I just, I don’t know that we’re even thinking that way and asking the question, is the guy who’s a 27-year-old physical therapist in my church, has anybody ever bothered to tap him on the shoulder and ask, Hey man, could God be calling you into ministry because I watch you?Spence Shelton — And no, we’re not doing the shoulder tap, man. And so, um, our right now, I just, I love it. I’m just a little bit of the story of our church. Our exec, both of our executive pastors and two of our three campus pastors were all in the marketplace. Spence Shelton — One of our executive pastors was in banking. Another was a plant manager. We have two campus pastors who were both, I use physical therapists cause they’re both former physical therapists. And you know, we’re sitting there having these conversations. You know, what makes a great pastor is someone who has sat with person after person, told them, Hey, you should do this to feel better.Spence Shelton — And then they come back to you later and say, Hey, I don’t feel better. And you say, did you do the thing I told you to do? And they say, no. And you say, well, you should have done that. Spence Shelton — And a patient long suffering physical therapist turns out to be a great pastor, but somebody has got to tap him on the shoulder and say, Hey man, I think God might be calling you into this. Spence Shelton — And so my, my encouragement to anybody who’s in ministry right now, kind of in that leadership development role. And you’re like, I don’t know, we’re going to have to go outside to find some talent. I promise it’s going to take longer the way I’m talking about. But if you will seek the Lord, ask the Lord, and then start shoulder tapping and giving some opportunities for guys to lead for men and women to lead there in your ministry and whatever the leadership roles might be. I think there might be more people in there than you realize, because I believe that God provides for the church that he’s growing, that he’s called you to lead. And so I think that’s true with leaders as well. [Clip 2 Ends]Rich Birch — Hey, friends, 9 out of 10 campus pastors, they do come from within. So if you are launching new locations in the future, man, we got to start developing campus pastors today. Rich Birch — But I know some of you are saying, listen, listen, listen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That all sounds good. Shoulder tapping. Great, great, great. Rich Birch — But how, how do I do it? How do I train my team to do it? How do we motivate, stay focused on this? Rich Birch — The gap that my, what I have found, it’s not desire. It’s not even understand that people don’t understand that that’s how we do it. It’s not a resistance to those things. It’s none of that. It’s just that nobody owns it because you see development is everyone’s job, which means that it’s nobody’s job.Rich Birch — It’s easy for this to fall through the cracks. Aren’t we all supposed to be developing leaders? So if we’re all developing leaders, my experience has been that means that really none of us are or we’re not doing it in a systematic way.Rich Birch — Super excited to have Chris Vaught with us. He is the lead pastor of Connection Point Church in Missouri. Listen, it grew from 300 people in 2011 to 2,500 today across multiple campuses.Rich Birch — And he outlines one challenge that Chris gave every staff member. And I really want you to listen carefully for this, because to be honest, this is pure unSeminary magic. This is like what I love about our podcast.Rich Birch — You could take this out of this interview today and put it into your next team meeting on Monday. Apply it to your church. Let’s listen in for what Chris wants to say to you about how we train people to shoulder tap, find leaders and release them. [Clip 3 Begins]Chris Vaught — You can only hire out so much, right? Because even though our church has grown fast, budget always comes up last. But you have to look at other avenues other than just, oh, I’ll hire another position.Chris Vaught — So we started looking at congregation. We began to develop our own leadership pathway or pipeline to develop not only volunteers, but our future staff. We knew we grew really fast. We need to hire from within, but we still couldn’t hire every position. Chris Vaught — So we started looking at our volunteers as almost as non-paid staff positions. And so we have an atmosphere of expectation of roles and responsibilities and also the value of what they’re doing.Chris Vaught — That the kingdom is dependent upon all of us using our gifts and talents. And so we started this pathway. And at first it was simply a challenge to every staff member. You go find your Timothy. You go find one other person that you can invest yourself into, a volunteer. Chris Vaught — So that if on Saturday night, and here was kind of the criteria for us: if on Saturday night, something were to happen and you catch COVID. Okay. We’re at that time. Could this ministry run the next day because of the person you have personally equipped… Rich Birch — I love that clarity. Chris Vaught — …to hold the ministry.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.Rich Birch — We began to put those pieces together. That’s right. You go ahead. I cut you off there. Chris Vaught — No, no. I was just saying that’s what we began. We began this pipeline and that was really the basic level at first. Every staff member finding that one Timothy, if you will, if you want to use that terminology, that could run that ministry if you were out. [Clip 3 Ends]Rich Birch — See what I told you? The Saturday night test is literally the cheapest leadership development tool in this entire episode. If you do nothing else out of today’s episode, do that.Rich Birch — But I know, listen, there can be a gap on that, a ceiling. Finding your Timothy fills gaps, but it does not produce people necessarily kind of week-in, week-out that you could put on print a payroll. You need to also do some development. You need to have some intentional leadership development.Rich Birch — Most churches, again, think that they’re developing leaders, but they’re really just handing out books or running a monthly team meeting, that sort of thing. I want to introduce you, reintroduce you to my friend Dave Miller. He’s a former worship and creative arts pastor in Las Vegas, in Kentucky, in Michigan, and he and his team have worked with over 150 churches and over 160 residents.Rich Birch — What do we mean by residents? These are people that are in the pipeline for thinking clearly in their lives about joining your staff team or staff teams of another church somewhere across the country. He defines seven ingredients.Rich Birch — Listen, I had the honor of writing the foreword to Dave’s book, Who’s the Next You? I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of that and think through that. But let’s listen in a little bit of what Dave has to say today. [Clip 4 Begins]Dave Miller — Well, we would say there’s seven ingredients. There’s a chapter in the book, seven ingredients. You can get it on our website right now.Dave Miller — Seven ingredients of what we would say is leadership development. So what you’re talking about, really, a sermon is training, if you think about it, like in a, in a market sense, I’m going to talk at you for 35 minutes. There’s four points. It’s very good. It’s inspired. It’s like Ted, Ted, long Ted Talk every 52 times a year, plus Christmas Eve and whatever.Dave Miller — And I would just say, we call that training. Churches for a long time have done really, really well with training, right? It’s either it’s the sermon or it’s Sunday school. It’s even the AI delivered small group questions I get from my men’s group, right? Dave Miller — It is staff. When I say, do y’all do leadership development? Yeah. Tell me about that.Dave Miller — And they start talking about your book or Carey's book or Craig Groeschel's book. It’s a book of the month. It’s conversation. Even now, now we’ve taken training and we’re still delivering the content, but we’re discussing it and we’re filling in blanks. Right. And we do that. Dave Miller — And, or spiritual formation. I had a well-known keynote kind of person. We just need to disciple these kids and get out of their way. And I was like, Oh, neat. Actually we don’t. Dave Miller — We did that once. It’s called the Jesus movement. I think that was the Jesus movement or the Jesus people in the early seventies, which kind of mirrors what’s going on on college campuses, you think. Dave Miller — We don’t need to just disciple them and get… We got to go with them. So, so training, spiritual formation, soft skills, which is the pain point of all the bosses, the emotional lack of intelligence of things. Those would be the three core ones.Dave Miller — And then we have to provide best practices. We have to, we have to provide ownership, which is a big thing for us in our small business, small church world at the 12 month mark. When we’re saying, well, she just doesn’t get it. She didn’t get, Oh, what doesn’t she get? Dave Miller — He just doesn’t understand what… We talk about our downline people as if they’re executive leaders with 20 years of experience. It would be totally fine for someone to accuse me of something like that.Dave Miller — But like when we think of sports, we don’t talk about individual players. We talk about the coaches. When the team’s losing, whose fault is it? As a lifetime Cincinnati Reds fan we change the manager. We don’t talk about number 78 and 14. Dave Miller — When the team’s doing amazing, it’s about the player.He’s killing it. She’s killing it. He’s killing it. When the team is losing, we have to own it similarly.Dave Miller — This is on us. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Dave Miller — Mental wellness. One of the seven things, mental wellness. If you can’t prove to me that you know, I’m not, I’m not here giving you even a theological construct. Cause we work with all sorts of churches that believe all sorts of things, right? But mental health, if you can’t prove to me that you have a plan, at least, or you’ve thought about it, that’s gonna be a problem. We’re checking it on. Dave Miller — And then finally developmental conversations. This is not delivered only through training to your point. [Clip 4 Ends]Rich Birch — What a fantastic group of conversations. Just a thin slice of so many of the conversations we’ve had over the last year in this whole area. Rich Birch — Tim, he named the model that can keep your and my bench empty. Spence gave us the mindset shift and the shoulder tap. Chris gave us the simplest form of the really first move that costs you absolutely nothing. And Dave finally gave you the formal structure that produces people you could hire, put on your team long-term.Rich Birch — Listen, you do not need to start at the top. Most churches never start at all because they only think the real option is just going out and hiring people externally. Listen, really the question I want to leave you with is where Tim started us at the beginning.Rich Birch — Maybe dear listener, you are listening in today and you have the hero mindset. Maybe you need to start with you and figure out what you can do in your area to pass it all along. Listen, we’ve got links for all these four episodes in the show notes here at unSeminary.Rich Birch — We’re on a mission to help 100 churches grow by a thousand people. We do that through these free podcasts, courses, coaching, cohorts. We do a lot to try to get in your corner.Rich Birch — We’ve got so much coming up this fall. Stay tuned. Some great stuff coming your way to see your church be more effective.Rich Birch — Thanks so much, friends. Take care.

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Antonia Gorga sits down with her cousin Gia for an emotional conversation about the Gorga-Giudice family finally coming back together after years of very public estrangement. She opens up about the Christmas Eve reconciliation, watching her dad Joe get his sister and nieces back, and why she believes this time it's for good. Antonia also gets candid about her nose job and why she stayed open about it, growing up with the family drama playing out on television, navigating college life as a Housewives kid, and building her own path in lifestyle and beauty content beyond the Gorga name.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Antonia Gorga sits down with her cousin Gia for an emotional conversation about the Gorga-Giudice family finally coming back together after years of very public estrangement. She opens up about the Christmas Eve reconciliation, watching her dad Joe get his sister and nieces back, and why she believes this time it's for good. Antonia also gets candid about her nose job and why she stayed open about it, growing up with the family drama playing out on television, navigating college life as a Housewives kid, and building her own path in lifestyle and beauty content beyond the Gorga name.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Booker T. Washington.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Booker T. Washington.

Festive Friday is back with an action-packed holiday thriller! ABOUT DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW A US Marshal gets stuck on Christmas Eve protecting a pregnant fugitive from a bounty hunter and a hitman Santa with his henchmen of elves. AIR DATE & NETWORK FOR DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW November 13, 2025 | Streaming CAST & CREW OF DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW Director: Prince Bagdasarian Writer: Stephen Chrabaszcz Cast: Gillian White as Mary Newton Scottie Thompson as Joanna Johnston David Koechner as Frankie The Slay Bell Isaiah Washington as Deputy Director Winters BRAN'S MOVIE SYNOPSIS The movie kicks off with a Santa and his elves (in costumes, of course) getting ready to snipe a woman from a long ways away. 12 hours earlier, we're gonna find out how we got in this pickle! We meet Mary. She's pregnant and single and spending Christmas in the woods. We then meet Jo, who is a US Marshal. Well, she was a US Marshal. She ends up getting fired. But also maybe she's not fired? She is going to find the wife of this fugitive that they just captured. Well, they didn't capture him. A bounty hunter did. But that's neither here nor there. So Jo gets to Mary's place and Mary is PUMPED to see her because she thinks she's her midwife. Mary realizes that she's not a midwife and Jo tells her who she is. She tries to make a run for it but when she gets outside, the bounty hunters are there. To make matters worse, Mary's husband hired hitmen to kill her. So Mary & Jo have to work together. They're able to fend off the bounty hunters and the hitmen for a while. The bounty hunter offered Jo $100k to help them but she can't be bought! Unfortunately for her, her partner can. Turns out, he's been working with the bounty hunters for a while - giving them tips and what not. It all comes out when Jo is on a FaceTime call with her doctor brother who is helping her walk through how to check how far along in labor Mary is. Now her partner is holding her family hostage as the bounty hunter comes in and shoots Jo and takes Mary. She tracks them down at the nearby airport and calls her boss for backup. Unfortunately, Mary goes into labor and Jo helps deliver the baby. The ex-husband's new boo thang is actually the one who put the hit out, so she ends up taking the baby but it's a fake baby and the plane ends up crashing. Everyone else is safe, YAY! The movie ends with the original Santa hitman opening his eye. HE'S ALIVE! Watch the show on Youtube - www.deckthehallmark.com/youtubeInterested in advertising on the show? Email bran@deckthehallmark.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Christmas Eve 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded LANSA Flight 508 with her mother, bound for the Peruvian city of Pucallpa. She could never have imagined that within hours, she would be the sole survivor of one of the most extraordinary aviation disasters in history.When the aircraft broke apart during a violent thunderstorm, Juliane fell thousands of feet into the Amazon rainforest — still strapped into her row of seats.Somehow, she survived.Injured, completely alone and surrounded by one of the most unforgiving environments on Earth, Juliane now faced an extraordinary fight to stay alive and find her way back to civilisation.This week on Seeing Red, Bethan leads us through the devastating story of LANSA Flight 508 and the almost unbelievable survival of Juliane Koepcke — a story of tragedy, resilience and one young woman's determination to live.http://www.youtube.com/@seeingredtruecrimepodcastwww.patreon.com/seeingredpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/seeingredtw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.seeingredpodcast.co.ukTheme music arranged and composed by Holly-Jane Shears: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.soundcloud.com/DeadDogInBlackBag⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Christmas Eve 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded LANSA Flight 508 with her mother, bound for the Peruvian city of Pucallpa. She could never have imagined that within hours, she would be the sole survivor of one of the most extraordinary aviation disasters in history.When the aircraft broke apart during a violent thunderstorm, Juliane fell thousands of feet into the Amazon rainforest — still strapped into her row of seats.Somehow, she survived.Injured, completely alone and surrounded by one of the most unforgiving environments on Earth, Juliane now faced an extraordinary fight to stay alive and find her way back to civilisation.This week on Seeing Red, Bethan leads us through the devastating story of LANSA Flight 508 and the almost unbelievable survival of Juliane Koepcke — a story of tragedy, resilience and one young woman's determination to live.http://www.youtube.com/@seeingredtruecrimepodcastwww.patreon.com/seeingredpodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/seeingredtw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.seeingredpodcast.co.ukTheme music arranged and composed by Holly-Jane Shears: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.soundcloud.com/DeadDogInBlackBag⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twenty-three years after the murders of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, the case against Scott Peterson is once again under scrutiny.In January 2024, the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced that it was representing Peterson and investigating his claims of actual innocence. Since then, his attorneys have filed new challenges to his conviction, arguing that previously overlooked evidence and new scientific analysis undermine the prosecution's case.In July 2026, A&E aired the two-part documentary Scott Peterson: The New Evidence, produced by the Los Angeles Innocence Project, bringing many of these claims back into the national conversation.In Part One of this two-part series, we'll revisit the case from the beginning and examine the evidence that originally led investigators to focus on Scott Peterson.We review the timeline surrounding Laci's disappearance on Christmas Eve 2002, Scott's secret relationship with Amber Frey, the investigation that followed, and the discovery of Laci and Conner's remains months later near the area where Scott said he had been fishing.We'll also look at the legal history of the case after Scott's conviction, including the California Supreme Court's decision to overturn his death sentence, his resentencing to life without parole, and the more recent efforts by the Los Angeles Innocence Project to reopen the case.Content warningThis episode discusses the murder of a pregnant woman and the death of an unborn child.Sources and further listeningThis episode revisits research originally presented in Episodes 71 and 72 of Once Upon a Crime in 2017, along with subsequent court rulings and the claims presented by the Los Angeles Innocence Project in Scott Peterson: The New Evidence.Links to our original episodes: https://www.truecrimepodcast.com/s2-ep71-the-12-crimes-of-christmas-laci-peterson-part-1/https://www.truecrimepodcast.com/s2-ep72-the-12-crimes-of-christmas-laci-peterson-part-2/Coming nextIn Part 2, Esther and her sister, Yolanda, evaluate the new innocence claims one by one and discuss whether any of them materially change the evidence against Scott Peterson.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Discover the chilling tale of the White Lady of Worstead on this week's #GhostReport with Lisa Morton!

Skip the banter: 00:05:33Kevin Bacon disappeared on Christmas Eve after telling his roommate he had met someone through a dating app. As investigators followed his digital trail, they discovered that two other men had recently fled the same man's home and called 911. Allison tells Kevin's story and examines the warning signs that were already documented before police arrived there looking for him.Over 150 bonus episodes waiting for YOU: https://www.patreon.com/crimeandcoffeecouple Our Amazon Shop (stuff we like that we share on the show): https://amzn.to/48mohHX All our links (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Merch, etc):https://linktr.ee/crimeandcoffee Facebook Group to discuss episodes:www.facebook.com/groups/crimeandcoffeecouplepodcast/ References available at https://www.crimeandcoffeecouple.com a few days after this podcast airs. Case Suggestions Form: https://forms.gle/RQbthyDvd98SGpVq8Remember to subscribe to our podcast in your favorite podcast player. Do it before you forget!If you're listening on Spotify please leave us a 5-star review, and leave a comment on today's episode!If you're on an iPhone, review us on Apple Podcasts please! Scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the stars ;)Ma and Pa appreciate you more than you know.Reminder:Support us and become a Patron! Over 100 bonus episodes:https://www.patreon.com/crimeandcoffeecouplePodcast Intro and Outro music:Seductress Dubstep or TrippinCoffee by Audionautix http://audionautix.comCreative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hughesy!This was meant to be a chat about booze… but somehow Vic ended up being spiritually mentored by this legendary Aussie larrikin!Dave Hughes gave up alcohol at just 21 years old, after years of binge drinking, blackouts and waking up with no idea how he had got home. He had watched alcohol control his dad's life, and one Christmas Eve in 1992, he realised he didn't want it controlling his future too.Nearly 34 years later, Hughesy joins Vic to talk about growing up in Australia's deeply ingrained drinking culture, why accepting that he would never drink again made sobriety easier, and how giving up the grog gave him the stability and confidence to begin his comedy career.They also chat about coping with criticism, managing the addictive buzz of applause, and why getting sober dosnt always have to be about getting help - it can just be a really smart choice!But this conversation becomes about much more than booze. Dave shares what getting sacked from radio taught him about ego, why grudges disappear when you stay present, and how real freedom comes from remembering that most of the things we worry about do not matter nearly as much as we think they do.Can giving up alcohol teach you how to stop living in the past, worrying about the future and finally relax into the life happening right now?Listen to find out! - (but if you don't have time the answer is yes!)@dhughesyGo and see Dave in his Australia stand up tour - https://davehughes.com.au/

On Christmas Eve 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia, a fire destroyed the Sodder family home. Parents George and Jennie escaped with four of their children, but five others: Maurice, 14; Martha, 12; Louis, 10; Jennie, 8; and Betty, 5 vanished without a trace. No remains were ever found, despite official claims the fire consumed them completely. Suspicious details piled up: a cut phone line, a missing ladder found far from the house, trucks that mysteriously wouldn't start, and prior threats tied to George's anti-Mussolini views. The family believed the children were kidnapped, possibly by the Sicilian Mafia, and spent decades seeking answers with a roadside billboard offering a reward. This cold case still haunts true-crime fans. In this episode of Unsolved Mysteries Rewind, Diana guest hosts with Mark to dig into one of America's most baffling disappearances. Enjoy the show and subscribe if you enjoy it! Thank you to Mat Graham from Artificial Fear for allowing us to use his amazing cover of the Unsolved Mysteries Theme Song! Check out his YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoQNyGGSIl_ZbEDq-teZDWQ And thank you to Ryan Hughes from Planet H for lending us his spot-on “Stack Voice” and working with us to have such a cool intro and outro! Check out his YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYrlNAFRMlWQN1rhWboZh2g

Sarah O'Donovan joins Phil Egan and Rachel Sheehan to look ahead to Sunday's All Ireland Senior Camogie final between Cork and Galway, a repeat of the previous two finals, with both counties winning one each!

When physician and writer Shanda McManus was fourteen, her mother died after living with ovarian cancer. Three years later, her grandmother - the person who became home after that loss - was killed by a drunk driver. Then, while Shanda was in medical school, her younger brother Monir was murdered on Christmas Eve.  For years, surviving meant staying busy. Planning funerals. Managing paperwork. Pushing forward. The grief itself was boxed up, held in place by what Shanda describes as an emotional tourniquet. It kept her moving, but it also kept her separated from memories of her mother, grandmother, and brother - and even from parts of herself.  In this conversation, Jana and Shanda explore what finally made it possible to take off the tourniquet. They talk about how writing became a gentle way back into grief and how reconnecting with that grief also helped Shanda reconnect with the people who had died.  Together they also explore the larger forces that shape grief: the myth of the "strong Black woman," the culture of medicine that rewards emotional restraint, the isolation that follows homicide loss, and the ways race, class, and stigma influence whose grief is witnessed and whose is questioned.  This episode considers what can happen when we stop asking grief to disappear and instead start tending to it - creating space for tears, memories, stories, and relationships that continue long after someone dies.  In this episode, we discuss: Growing up in North Philadelphia and the lasting influence of Shanda's mother, grandmother, and younger brother. Becoming the family caretaker after her mother's death at fourteen.   How repeated losses led to decades of suppressing grief in order to survive.   Why writing Brother Epistles became a pathway back to memory, relationship, and self.   The unique challenges of grieving after homicide and the stigma that often accompanies violent loss.  How racism, gender expectations, and medical culture can leave little room for grief.   What it means to tend grief rather than trying to finish it.   Finding permission to speak about the people who died as an everyday grief practice.  Connect with Shanda McManus, MD https://www.shandamcmanus.com/ @shandaMDwrites Weatherproof Substack Learn more about Dougy Center's grief education & training offerings: https://www.dougy.org/professionals-trainings

Twelve years of practice, and one of the worst nights of his life, met in the same body. In this episode, Emily Fletcher sits down with Oliver Lehne, an actor, playwright, and Ziva meditator she's known for over twelve years. Oliver came to meditation, by his own admission, to impress people. He arrived anxious, low on self-esteem, and constantly deferring to everyone else's opinion. What's emerged since is a man who trusts himself enough to create from that trust, including a play that landed a London producer within days of one conversation. Oliver and Emily trace his path from meditation into embodied manifesting, and he shares the exact phrase that came through in his first real pleasure prayer, one he still writes in his journal every morning. He also opens up about the night his husband had a brain injury on Christmas Eve, and how the steadiness he'd built over a decade of practice carried him through it. In this episode, Oliver explores: Why he first came to meditation to impress people, and what he found underneath that What adaptation energy is, and why running out of it launches the body into fight or flight How surrender changed the way he shows up with his own parents Why visualizing was always the hardest part of manifesting, and how feeling replaced picturing The shift from performing his emotions as an actor to simply letting them move The mantra that came through in his second pleasure prayer, and why he still journals it daily How his play found a London producer within two days of one conversation The night his husband had a brain injury on Christmas Eve, and the steadiness that carried him through Why he believes meditation and manifesting compound each other Key Moments: 00:33 – Life before Ziva: anxiety and chronic people-pleasing 05:08 – Why he first came to meditation: wanting to impress people 09:52 – Adaptation energy, defined 12:59 – How surrender changed his relationship with his parents 16:31 – The embodied manifesting formula: visualize, alchemize, magnetize 20:03 – Permission over performance 24:12 – The pleasure prayer that gave him his daily mantra 27:02 – How his play found a London producer in two days 31:06 – His husband's brain injury on Christmas Eve 34:09 – The miracle: walking out of the hospital alone 36:33 – His invitation to anyone still on the fence

The investigation is under attack. What if we got it wrong 20 years ago? At one time Scott Peterson was the most hated man in America for his conviction of murdering Laci Peterson and his unborn child. Today there is a new look at the critical timeline in the case. In Modesto on Christmas Eve, Laci Peterson went missing. What did the Witnesses say? There were witnesses vital to the case.  There was a burglary in the same area, what did that mean? Why is it that after 20 some years this case is more popular now? Was there discovery violations? Was evidence destroyed? These questions and a whole lot more will be covered in this series. Join us now as we follow the evidence, piece by piece and put together a proven timeline to the murder case perhaps of the new century.  Contact Charlie: charliecrimebuster@gmail.com Support: https://peacemakernetwork.com youtube: www.Youtube.com/@charliecrimebuster Music and Sound Effects: www.pixabay.com Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)

More than twenty years after Laci Peterson's murder captivated the nation, one of America's most infamous true crime cases is back in the spotlight.In this upcoming special two-part series, Once Upon a Crime host Esther Ludlow revisits the case with fan-favorite co-host Yolanda, taking a fresh look at the investigation, the evidence, and the questions that continue to divide the public. Originally covered by the podcast in 2016, this updated series examines what's changed, and why so many people are debating Scott Peterson's guilt once again.The disappearance of eight-months-pregnant Laci Peterson on Christmas Eve 2002 sparked a media frenzy unlike anything seen before. As investigators uncovered Scott Peterson's affair with Amber Frey and his shocking lies about his marriage, public opinion quickly turned. Months later, the bodies of Laci and her unborn son, Conner, were discovered along the shores of the San Francisco Bay, leading to Scott's arrest, conviction, and death sentence.But the story didn't end there.With new legal challenges from Scott Peterson's defense team, renewed attention from the Los Angeles Innocence Project, and recent documentaries reigniting debate, the case has become the subject of fresh scrutiny. Could key evidence have been misunderstood? Were important leads overlooked? Or does the original investigation still point to the same conclusion?Subscribe to Once Upon A Crime so you don't miss this upcoming series. Next episode drops Monday August 10, 2026See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Am I the Jerk? is the show where you can confess your deepest darkest secrets and be part of the conversation.

It's Christmas in August, y'all! Fantasia International Film Festival mercifully brings UNHOLY NIGHT to us, likely to get our minds off of this 100-degree (37-degree, for you Celsius-users) weather.At an Italian family's Christmas Eve dinner, festivities are interrupted when the grandmother, deceased for a few years, returns, with an undead look and feral rage. It's then up to the awkward 30-something Gino (Marc BenDavid) to muster up some cojones and save not only his family, but his ex-girlfriend Rene (Shailene Garnett), who lives next door and may be confronted by some other undead elders...The movie seems like it'll be a goofy, zombie-splaterring time and, in some ways, it is. But what I loved about Gabriele's screenplay and direction is how it uses the concept to pursue questions of familial expectations, managing a set of regrets, acquiring the bravery needed to stand up for oneself. It dips toes into multiple genres and tones, succeeding on all fronts.I talked with Gabriele about his movie's themes, the experience of designing a set with 3+ generations' worth of family history, the demanding camera work, and so much more.---More info on UNHOLY NIGHT's Fantasia premiere can be found here.Follow The Movies on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Throw a couple dollars in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tip jar!

This episode covers real-life horror far more extreme than usual, including a Russian professor arrested in 2011 for keeping the mummified corpses of 29 women and girls in his apartment, each one fitted with a hidden music box. It also includes the story of a 19th-century whiskey heir who paid six handkerchiefs for a 10-year-old girl so he could watch cannibals kill and eat her, and the theory that Alexander the Great was declared dead nearly a week before he actually died. Content is more graphic than usual, so listener discretion is advised.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/necropolystREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8e5emeCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:00:47.354 = Show Open00:01:58.356 = Alexander the Great00:05:52.710 = The Ravenous Beast of Gévaudan00:09:41.943 = The Rape and Burial of Jessica Lunsford ***00:11:55.911 = The Dyatlov Pass Incident00:15:29.080 = The Torture Dungeon of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng00:19:10.197 = Robert The Doll00:23:08.785 = The Disappearance and Eerie Return of Bobby Dunbar ***00:26:33.271 = Albert Fish – The Brooklyn Vampire00:30:06.498 = The Strange Disappearance of the Sodder Children00:34:28.570 = Anatoly Moskvin, The Russian Who Mummified Dead Girls00:38:41.505 = The Jameson Whiskey Cannibal ***00:42:29.572 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Real-Life Horror Stories More Freaky Than Fiction” by Marco Margaritoff for AllThatsInteresting.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8p9c72(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: March 2022Weird Darkness this episode gathers real-life horror too extreme for scripted television, spanning from ancient Macedonia to the Congo basin and landing, along the way, in a Russian apartment stacked with mummified girls.It opens with Alexander the Great, who collapsed in Babylon in 323 B.C. after a 24-hour drinking binge triggered a sudden fever, a stabbing pain in his back, and creeping paralysis that eventually left him speechless; doctors pronounced him dead at 32. His body reportedly stayed "pure and fresh" for six days afterward, evidence ancient Greeks took as proof of his divinity. In 2019, Dr. Katherine Hall of New Zealand's University of Otago proposed in the Ancient History Bulletin that Alexander actually suffered from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that paralyzes the body while leaving the mind fully intact; since fourth-century-B.C. doctors checked for breath rather than a pulse, Hall's theory suggests Alexander may have been declared dead nearly a week before he actually died, and was buried alive.From there, the story moves to 18th-century France, where a wolf-like creature killed or mauled close to 300 people across three years in the Gévaudan region, most of them women and children. Fourteen-year-old shepherdess Jeanne Boulet was the first confirmed victim in 1764; a fifteen-year-old girl killed a month later survived long enough to describe her attacker as "a horrible beast". Militia leader Jean-Baptiste Duhamel organized a 30,000-strong hunting party, and King Louis XV eventually dispatched his own bodyguard, François Antoine, who killed a large wolf in September 1765; the attacks resumed within months regardless. A farmer named Jean Chastel is credited with killing the actual beast using silver bullets, reportedly after finding human remains inside its stomach.Next, the episode turns to the 2005 murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford in Homosassa, Florida. Convicted sex offender John Evander Couey broke into her family's home, took her to his trailer, raped her over three days, sealed her inside garbage bags, and buried her alive in his yard while she still clutched a stuffed dolphin her father had won her at a state fair. Prosecutors later determined Jessica may have still been alive in the house during Couey's first police interview. Couey was convicted of first-degree murder and kidnapping in March 2007 and died on death row of natural causes in 2009.From Florida, the episode jumps to the Ural Mountains and the Dyatlov Pass incident of January 1959, when hiking leader Igor Dyatlov and eight fellow students from the Ural Polytechnic Institute died during an expedition toward Otorten Mountain. Investigators found their tent slashed open from the inside and shoeless footprints leading nearly a mile into the forest; the first bodies recovered, dressed only in underwear despite temperatures near negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, were ruled hypothermia deaths. Two of the last four bodies found, Lyudmila Dubinina and Semyon Zolotaryov, were missing their eyeballs, Lyudmila was also missing her tongue, and both had clothing that tested positive for radioactivity. More than sixty years later, no single explanation, from avalanche to secret Soviet weapons testing, has been confirmed.The episode then moves to a cabin in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, where Leonard Lake and Charles Ng tortured and killed as many as 25 people between 1983 and 1985. Lake, a Vietnam veteran discharged for psychological reasons, built a cinderblock bunker behind a one-way mirror where he and Ng held women as sex slaves before killing them, dismembering the bodies, and dissolving the remains in acid; investigators eventually recovered twelve victims' remains along with roughly 40 pounds of charred bone. The pair was caught in June 1985 after Ng tried to shoplift a bench vise; Lake swallowed a cyanide capsule sewn into his jacket lining and died in custody before trial, while Ng was convicted of eleven murders in 1999 and remains on death row at San Quentin.Next comes Robert the Doll, manufactured by Germany's Steiff Company in 1904 and given to a Key West boy named Robert Eugene "Gene" Otto, who reportedly carried the doll everywhere and spoke of it in the first person. After Gene died in 1974, new owner Myrtle Reuter said the doll continued moving through her house with no explanation and eventually donated it to the Fort East Martello Museum, where curator Cori Convertito now oversees a steady stream of visitors who claim their cameras stop working in Robert's presence.From there, the episode circles back to 1912 Louisiana and the disappearance of four-year-old Bobby Dunbar from Swayze Lake. Eight months later, authorities found a boy matching his description traveling with a man named William Cantwell Walters, who insisted the child was Bruce Anderson, son of field hand Julia Anderson; the Dunbar family claimed the boy as their own anyway. It took until 2004, after years of research by Bobby's granddaughter Margaret Dunbar Cutwright, for a DNA test to prove the man raised as Bobby Dunbar shared no blood relation to the Dunbar family, meaning the real Bobby likely died in 1912 and the family had unknowingly raised Julia's son instead.The story turns next to Albert Fish, born in 1870 and later known as the Brooklyn Vampire, who spent decades torturing, killing, and cannibalizing children after enduring severe abuse in a New York orphanage as a boy. In 1928, posing as a farmer named Frank Howard, Fish lured ten-year-old Grace Budd away from her family and killed her; he wasn't identified until November 1934, when a letter he sent to Grace's mother describing the murder in graphic detail was traced back to him. Fish was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on January 16th, 1936.Following that, the episode covers the unresolved 1945 Sodder children case in Fayetteville, West Virginia, where a Christmas Eve house fire killed, or apparently killed, five of George and Jennie Sodder's nine children. No bones were ever recovered from the wreckage despite a coroner attributing the deaths to the blaze, and the family spent decades chasing tips and alleged sightings after strangers had made ominous threats about the house burning down in the months before the fire. George and Jennie erected a billboard along Route 16 asking for information and died in 1968 and 1989, respectively, without ever learning their children's fate.From there, the story turns to Anatoly Moskvin, a Russian journalist and college professor fluent in thirteen languages who dubbed himself a "necropolyst" and visited 752 cemeteries around his hometown of Nizhny Novgorod. Moskvin was arrested in 2011 after police investigating the desecration of Muslim graves found him painting over photographs of the dead; a search of the apartment he shared with his parents turned up the mummified remains of 29 women and girls, dressed, made up with buttons for eyes, and fitted with music boxes inside their chests. Moskvin told investigators he dug up the bodies because he was lonely and confessed to 44 counts of abusing graves and corpses.The episode clos

Vegas Ky breaks down how he built a livestreaming career from scratch in Las Vegas with no team, no budget, and over 700 hours of streaming in a single year — revealing why most streamers quit after 30 days and what separates the top one percent from everyone else. The born-and-raised Las Vegas native explains the mechanics behind Twitch versus Kick revenue splits, why clips drive more growth than the streams themselves, and how one Christmas Eve giveback stream earned him a surprise $1,000 donation from a stranger.The conversation covers the specific production differences that separate small streamers from creators like Kai Cenat and DDG, including camera quality, IRL backpacks, and the critical role clippers play in turning raw streams into viral short-form content across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Vegas Ky details his audition experience at Kai Cenat's Streaming University in Los Angeles, where roughly 3,000 people showed up and fewer than 100 were interviewed — he was number 39 after driving from Las Vegas at midnight and waiting eight hours.The episode maps the emerging economics and culture of livestreaming in Las Vegas, positioning the city as a growing hub for content creators navigating sponsorships, streamer houses, and the tension between entertainment and authenticity.

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I get personal in this episode, in order to ask questions about the nature of what is called the “housing crisis.” Are we all just doom-pilling way too much?As a case study, I talk through the life and history of my parents, and discuss whether or not their life and lifestyle is still available today. I discuss house sizes, mortgage rates, lifestyle choices, lifestyle inflation, and more.Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin's Substack page.Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you'd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.Intro: “Why Be Friends”Outro: “Fairweather Friend”AI TranscriptIntroductionWelcome back to The Messy City Podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg. I'm going to do something a little different today and just talk without a guest about the topic of housing in particular and how it ties into a few other kind of hobby courses of mine. Why Challenge the Housing NarrativeReally what I want to spend some time doing is taking a contrarian view of how we talk about the so-called housing crisis. And in one sense, this is kind of fun for me to do. One of the things I really loved about my father is when we would have our discussions or debates in the family about various things that were going on, he would often take an opposite view of Almost just for the sport of it. And the truth is, there are a lot of times he was so good at it, you didn't really know if he felt that way or not. Because he could do really well to argue multiple sides of an argument. And that was really a lot of fun. It was an education for me. It's something I wish more people would just do generally and try to see an issue from multiple perspectives and try to steel man different perspectives or perspectives that are different from your own. And so I've kind of taken to obviously do that if you know me at all.You know I've done that a fair amount in my own life. Not nearly as good as my father was at it, but it has been fun to do occasionally. And I really wanted to apply this to the topic of housing. And there's a couple of reasons for this. And this also ties into a story. I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story about my parents and how they grew up and their trajectory through life, because I think it's actually very relevant to this topic. And whether or not we have a housing crisis at all in America, or if we do, what is the actual nature of of that crisis. And I want to talk about this because I just see so much online and in person conversation that I just feel like there are too many people, especially too many young people that have been kind of doom pilled on life today and life in America generally.And the thing that I want to start out that I really want to propose to everybody and talk about is the life that my parents had And their trajectory through life is still available today. It is absolutely and unequivocally still available to anyone who wants to choose the life that they lived. And in my opinion, obviously, I knew them really well. In my opinion, they had a tremendous life. They had a great life. They've both passed on in recent years. And so I have to talk in the past tense. But by any measure that matters, they had a great life. They lived well into their 80s. They had four kids. We actually all like each other. So it's not just like a, you know, there are some families where you can say, well, I love my family. But as my brother used to say, or after my dad passed, he would say, you know, that... We didn't just love our parents, we really liked our parents.And I think if you're fortunate to be in a family like that, you know a little bit of what I'm talking about. And the four of us as children all... We get along. We're still all friends with each other and get along. We enjoy being together. We're all very different people with different interests and different worldviews. In some senses, we had pretty different childhoods, interestingly enough, because there's a big age spread in our family. So my parents had four kids that they raised. They had a long, stable marriage. They were able to get consecutively better houses as they aged. And then by the time they hit retirement age, they had saved enough money to be able to do other things that they wanted to do. Along the way, they traveled when they wanted to. They really wanted to get out and see the country, see the world.When we were young, that traveling mostly involved just driving around the United States and going to national parks and big cities and seeing the sights. As they got older and had a little bit more disposable income, they would join tour groups and go or sometimes with family to foreign countries and places they really wanted to visit. And I want to give you some context because my parents were not people that grew up with money at all. And I'm going to share some of this because I think it's important to understand. How they came to be where they were and some of the choices they made and how it might impact choices that young people especially could make today.My Parents' StoryMy mom grew up very poor. She spent a part of her childhood living in a housing project in Syracuse, New York. And she was one of five kids and they, you know, her whole childhood they never had any money for much of anything. And they often lived in not the greatest part of town, in Syracuse, even when they got out of the housing project. And my dad grew up in a small town in Kansas called Baser, which is just outside the Kansas City area. But at the time when he was growing up, it was a dusty little town of like 600 people. And, again, one of five kids. And his dad was an auto mechanic, had his own garage, but also just, you know, like people do in Little Towns, did a little bit of everything. He drove a school bus. We helped out with the mail. We did a lot of different things in the town. But it's not like they ever really had any money.My Uncle George, one of my dad's brothers, used to say that they were all poor, but they didn't know it. And part of that is the nature of living in a small rural community. They had a lot of spare time and freedom to roam. And so they probably were able to, you know, occupy themselves with a lot of things that maybe other kids weren't. My mom's father, my mom's parents had a really difficult marriage. My grandfather, her father basically worked in a deli in Syracuse and he And so he worked in a Jewish deli. He was a very, very personable guy, made a lot of his own, made his own corned beef and bagels and everything. And a lot of the customers liked him, but it's not like he ever really made a lot of money. And he and his wife, my grandmother, had a really difficult time, eventually ended up divorcing.And my parents ended up meeting each other in sort of a star-crossed romance that I don't really have time to tell the entire story. But it ended up that they met when my mom was visiting a friend in Leavenworth, Kansas. And... Not too long after that, a romance ensued and eventually a marriage. My parents were born in 1935 and 36, so they're not boomers. They're sort of, I guess, what you would call as greatest generation. But they were too young to be deeply invested in the Great Depression or World War II. They were little kids, really, when all that was going on. So I guess in a sense what you could say is they had the cultural memory of those things. They grew up understanding what life was like in the Great Depression. They grew up poor. They grew up during the war and they knew all that that was going on and they were very well attuned to it, but they weren't part of it.And I think like a lot of people who grew up in that era, they were really affected, especially by the poverty of what was happening. So one of the things that we used to always say about my mom is she could stretch a nickel like anybody's business. She was frugal her entire life. And that really came from growing up with next to nothing. And then for many years... After they were married and started having kids, they were living off basically one salary, not like a big salary or anything, for a long time. And so my mom really had to stretch everything to make ends meet. I'm going to come back to the housing part of this because I think there's some importance to all this.The Housing LadderMy parents got married in 1957, on Christmas Eve of 1957, and then right after that, flew off to Germany. My dad at the time, 21, 22 years old, he had been working a little bit, but he decided he wanted to enlist in the Army, and they spent two years in the Army. He was basically sent off to Germany. And so obviously, you know, late 50s, a great time to be sent off to Germany. No active fighting or anything going on. And they spent two years there. My oldest sister was born in Germany. And then my next sister, I guess you could say, was conceived in Germany. And... And then born back here in the United States when they came back. So by the time they came back to the United States, it's about 1960, and they've got two little kids. And at that time, shortly after they bought their first house, which was in a not so great part of the Kansas City area. It was in Kansas City, Kansas.It was not a terrible area, but not like the greatest. And they bought a small house. And I've had some trouble finding out the exact details in this house, but I think it was probably a two or three bedroom with one bath. It's since been added on to, so it's hard for me to know exactly. But in this period of time, 1960 or so, that would have been their first house. And, you know, my siblings are just going to really... I want to mock my lack of understanding on some of these details, but I think by the time they left that house, my brother had also been born. So there were three kids there. And I want to trace this trajectory a little bit. There's a story here that I think we don't talk enough about that was very common and kind of understood in my parents' era. Which was the idea of buying a small house. New houses were all generally smaller than they are today.There's no question about that. We've had a lot of growth in the average size of houses. So houses were smaller. But it was also kind of understood that you were going to buy... A small house, you were going to build some equity in that, and then you would eventually buy a bigger house. And as you went through the progression of life, as you could afford more, you would buy more. And I'm not entirely sure how... I see a lot more people who are looking to buy their first house who want it all right away. They want that four-bedroom house at the right price, and they're unhappy that they can't get that. I don't want to overgeneralize, but this was something that was really common, certainly in my parents' era. So my dad, after he came back from the Army, he ended up working for a company called Wilson Foods. Wilson Foods was a meatpacking company.So at the time, one of what they called, I think, the big five meatpacking companies that were in the United States that dominated the field was, Wilson's was headquartered in Oklahoma City, but it had plants all over the Midwest. And so he started out as a clerk in the office in Kansas City. So he was on a management track, not on the factory track, but he started at a very entry level position. And then the way it kind of worked in our family and with that company was Again, this was an era where people tended to be a lot more loyal to a certain company. And there was more the idea that you find a good company to work for and you might spend your whole career there. So whenever he wanted a promotion or had the opportunity for a promotion, we typically had to move. So this story is going to sound a little crazy because we moved a lot.And people often thought that we were like a military family, that we were military brats. And we used to say, no, we're not military, we're meatpacking. And of course, people didn't have any idea what we're talking about, but another just little inside joke we had. So I want to talk a little bit as we trace this and think about house size, but also mortgage rates. Because as we talk about housing availability today, especially for sale housing, we're really stuck on the conversation about house size and about mortgage rates. Well, I think it's interesting to look at the trajectory that my parents went through and something very similar to millions of people in that generation today. Went through as they started to move on. So I think it was aboutMortgage Rates in Historical Context1966 or so that we moved to Omaha. Uh, and I went back and I just did some historical, uh, tracking of, uh, mortgage, typical mortgage rates in 1966, the typical mortgage rate was about 6%. So that's really not very far off from where we are today. Uh, depending on what you're looking at today, A lot of the standard kind of 30-year mortgage rates are around 6.5%. It fluctuates from week to week, month to month, but we've kind of been in that zone now for two or three years. And the conversation is very much about how high the mortgage rates are. Um, because we had such a sustained period of very low mortgage rates, such that people like myself, when, uh, we purchased and we, when ultimately refinanced our house in 2021, I think our mortgages, our rate is like 2.75%. So we had millions and millions of mortgages at like 3% or under. And then obviously the rates, uh, went up dramatically.Uh, they went up very, very quickly. Some of the quickest in history. And they've more or less settled into where they are the last two or three years, which is about 6.5%. But again, if you look back historically, one of the stories you can tell is that 6.5% is not like an unusually high mortgage rate. It's just not. You know, I know nobody wants to pay more than, you know... And so why don't I track here, just by way of example, some of the moves my family made. 1966, that more average mortgage rate was about 6%. In 1970, we moved from Omaha to Dell City, Oklahoma, which is a suburb of Oklahoma City. And the average mortgage rates then were closer to 8%. In 1972, we moved to Oklahoma City itself, and the rates came down a little bit, about 7.4%. In and around 1973, then we moved to Overland Park, Kansas, and mortgage rates had gone up again, a little bit more, closer to 8%.In 1975-ish, maybe 76, we moved to Albert Lee, Minnesota, where there was a meatpacking plant that my dad became the superintendent for. So this started an era where mortgage rates were really rough. So in 75, the average rate was about 9%. It went up from there. You know, in 1980, it was over, in 1980, it was almost 14%. 1984, my parents were able to, my dad was able to get a job in Marshall, Missouri. So we left Albert Lee and moved to Marshall. 84, it was still 13.88% average mortgage rate. And then by the end of that decade, 1990 had come down to about 10 and a quarter percent. And then 94, my parents, right around that period where my parents, um, Bought their final house in Lenexa, Kansas in their retirement. They weren't quite retired yet. That's a different story. But in 94, it was about 8%. And so there was a little blip again in 95 or so is about when I bought my first house.That was about eight and a half percent was a typical rate. And then it kind of went on a straight line down more or less from 1995 till about 2021 down to about that three percent rate. And so, again, this is kind of, you know, it's a bit of a long story. But if you can trace these things historically, you can see that the expectation of paying a six, six and a half, seven percent interest rate is just historically not that high. Now, I know historic doesn't matter when you're trying to buy a house today and they're not as much churn in the housing market. But I mean, that's just part of the reality that many, many families paid much higher mortgage rates. Now, what about the houses themselves? Well, this is also interesting. When we lived in Omaha, That's where I was born in 1969. Our house was a three bedroom, one bath ranch with a basement. Um, uh, sort of like a basement playroom.Uh, that was very typical for that era. So there were six of us living in a three bedroom, one bath house. When we moved to Oklahoma, the first house we had was three bedrooms, one and a half baths. And then when we moved to Oklahoma city, again, sort of within the same Metro at that point was our first four bedroom house. So here we are early seventies. Uh, my parents at that point had been married, uh, For 15 years, they had four kids at home. The oldest was now in high school or about high school age. And that was our first four bedroom house. And I think we had two and a half baths in that one. When we moved back to the Kansas City area in 73-ish, we also had a four-bedroom house. So that was a more comfortable kind of a split-level house at that point. And we're getting to the point there where almost all of us had our own bedrooms, but not all of us.I shared a bedroom with my brother in that house. I shared a bedroom with my brother for quite a long time. And when we moved to Minnesota in the mid-70s and then lived there for about eight years, we had a ranch house in Albert Lea. Housing costs everything. I will say this was my parents' experience of living in Minnesota was everything was a lot more expensive than they were used to. You couldn't, in their opinion, couldn't get as much house for your money. The taxes were a lot higher in Minnesota than in other states. The utility costs were higher. And so we had a ranch house that I think had three bedrooms and then it had a finished basement that we finished. And We put a bedroom in the finished basement that would not meet code today. It did not have the proper exiting. But that was something we did. And it was to the point where Minnesota, the winters could be pretty harsh.And so we would commonly close off the family room for the winter in Minnesota and just not use it. We had another room that had a TV where we spent the winter with But again, this is just kind of indicative of the frugal mindset that my parents had. AndLifestyle and FrugalityI want to say that because I think it's important when you're thinking about lifestyle differences in their generation versus today. And I'm not here to pass judgment on anybody necessarily necessarily. But that frugal lifestyle that they lived for many, many years enabled them to have the things that they wanted to have and do the things that they wanted to do. So what are some examples of that? Well, we almost never ate out. So I can barely even remember times as a kid that we would go out to a restaurant. My mom bought generic brands of food. She used coupons regularly. When we took vacations as a family, they were typically driving vacations. And my mom would pack a cooler full of food and we would stop at highway rest areas and eat our meals there. And we stayed in very cheap motels. Sometimes there was camping, not a lot. My mom did not like camping. But...And I'm here to tell you my memories of those trips were great. As a kid, I loved those trips. We would start, you know, for example, in Minnesota and we would drive all the way to the West Coast and we would go to the national parks in Washington State and Oregon and, you know, went to Redwoods National Park in Northern California. Or we would start in Minnesota and we would drive all the way to Disney World and we would hit sites along the way. And to me, those trips were magical and wonderful and a lot of fun. And I think for my parents, they were really great trips as well. But we did things on the cheap. And we just did not waste a lot of money on things. But it didn't stop my parents from Seeing the things they wanted to see and enjoying the things that they wanted to enjoy in life.And today, the term that we have for kind of that approach, because we have to have a term for everything, is FIRE or FI, Financial Independence or Financial Independence Retire Early. And so that's become kind of a thing that quite a number of people have latched onto. Which is terrific. And I'm a big fan of a lot of people in that world. It's also true that that was just kind of the way life was for an awful lot of people of a previous era. And that was just life. I remember my dad telling me one time that they never saved any money or weren't able to save any money until he was about 50 years old. And he had, you know, by the time he was 50 years old, at that point, he'd had decent jobs. And my mom started, she worked when she could in between raising four kids.And so as the kids started becoming more self-sufficient, she was able to work different jobs and bring in some extra money. But yeah, he had told me they really were almost never able to save money until, frankly, we moved back to Marshall, Missouri, and he had a better job. And things were cheaper. They felt like they got a big pay increase when they left Minnesota and moved to Missouri. And so not long after that, then when they were able to retire, even in retirement, even at that point when they had Enough retirement income to rely on. My mom still could never, she just did not have it in her to like overspend for anything. And she still kind of questioned every purchase that she made. But they were also really happy people. It's funny how we have often such a consumerist mindset that we feel like if we're not consuming a lot of things, that means you're not happy.My parents were very social. They had a ton of friends. They stayed in touch with their families, an extended family. And they were just very active, fun, social people. So not being able to spend a ton of money just didn't stop them from doing things. By the time that I was in high school, my siblings were all out of the house. My oldest sister was already married. Teresa was well on her way in her education and career. Dean was also already well on his way in his college education and then later working after college. But I was actually the first one that they were even able to help with a little bit of money for going to college, which of course my siblings gave me a lot of crap about. And would call me spoiled. But that was just the first time that my parents had had enough little extra money to even be able to help any of their kids at that stage.What This Means TodaySo it's just really, to me, a story of living what at that time was a pretty patently kind of common or normal life, which was you buy a small place. Maybe you start in not the greatest part of town. And then eventually you start making more money and you work your way up until you can buy bigger places and nicer places. And I think this is a story we just don't talk about very much. As your family grows, as you grow in your career, you can afford more of a house. I think there's this sometimes doom-pilling that that's just not possible today. I wanted to test this a little bit, and I just did a little bit of playing around on Zillow. Looking at what houses were available that were anything similar to what my parents might have bought as their first couple of houses.Lo and behold, in some areas that are not the nicest, newest, greatest part of town, but not bad areas, you can find those small two and three bedroom houses, at least in my metro area here in Kansas City. For $250,000 to $300,000. And there's nothing wrong with these houses. They're smaller than normal. They're not a big four-bedroom, four-bath house. But they're perfectly livable homes in decent areas. If you want to go to even less fashionable places, you can find that same house. And houses that have been remodeled for under $200,000. So, you know, yeah, you're probably going to deal with higher crime. Maybe the schools aren't, it's not the school district you want to be in, but these are livable houses that are there. And they're also the kind of places like they're not, they're not horrid places to live.Like if you got some of your friends and you all convinced each other to all move to that part of a town, you could, you could make it better by buying these properties, uh, and real estate, um, And, you know, we don't like to talk about this very much as Americans, but the truth is by like global standards, any of these houses are very luxurious. We're all very lucky to live in a place where we could live, where you could own like a two bedroom, one bath house that is modern and nice with great appliances and everything else and complain about it, that you really wish you had more. So anyway, here's a few of the numbers. Just out of curiosity, if you're wondering, if you take like a $250,000 house, if you put 5% down on it, that's $12,500. And if you have a mortgage rate at 6.65%, that's about $2,000 a month with taxes and insurance.So I'm here to tell you that $2,000 a month is cheaper than almost all of the brand new, quote unquote, luxury apartments. That are all over my city that are renting with no problem. And I know they've got a pool and they've got a fitness center, but you're also paying somebody else to live there. You're not building any kind of wealth or equity for yourself. That's the sort of thing, that's the sort of a house that you can easily do on a salary of $80,000 a year, whether it's one person or combined. And by the way, I just, I was curious about this. The average 25 year old in my metro area makes 40,000 bucks a year. So you put two 25 year old salaries together, average ones, that's 80 a year. You can buy that house. And then you can start on that process that is similar to what my parents were on.And so again, I, you know, If you were to tell me, I'm not here today to argue that there aren't changes that need to be made in our cities with our regulatory apparatus or any of that. If you've listened to this podcast at all over the last few years, you know how passionate I am about all of that. I am very much in the camp that the administrative and regulatory apparatus that we created in the 20th century for our cities has failed by every measure. That doesn't mean the people in them are necessarily bad people or dumb or anything like that. It just means that we have, we created systems that just do not work and do not produce good outcomes. And any rational person or group should be able to say, we need to junk that and start over and rethink what we're doing.And so I'm very much in that camp that there's an awful lot of what we created in the 19-teens and 20s in terms of the city planning apparatus and zoning that has been a complete failure. And we need to start over, rethink all that. It's not working. So, you know, I have that as a baseline, but I just don't think so many I don't think especially young people should be so black-pilled on everything or doom-pilled on everything. The opportunities that previous generations had are still available. Now, are they going to be available everywhere in every market for every career path? No. I mean, I get it if you live in really high-cost markets like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, LA, wherever. I have no doubt it's a lot harder. I do think there probably are less fashionable places that people overlook. That would probably be just fine.I have no doubt that that's the case in every city in the country, every region in the country. There are perfectly nice houses, but they're not the newest, most fashionable, cool location. And, and we have had such a lifestyle inflation. We don't want to necessarily go there. I get that. But the truth, the question is, do you want to get there or not? Do you want to start on that path or not? And the other thing I would tie into that is like I've mentioned on multiple podcasts here, let's say that you don't want to do that two bedroom, one bath house. You want something a little bigger. Well, you could also combine it with the house hacking approach, which I have done in my lifetime, multiple times. The first house I bought was actually built as a single family house in the 19 teens. But by the time I bought it, it was actually a triplex. It was one unit per floor.And I lived on one floor and rented out the other two. It was not in great condition. I got it pretty cheap. It was not in the best neighborhood at the time, but I got a good deal on it. I put a lot of sweat equity and work into improving it and was eventually able to sell it for a good profit and move on to the next house, which was much nicer and where I also house hacked. In that case, I had an apartment over the garage, what we call an ADU today, that I finished out as an apartment and I rented that out. And helped offset the mortgage. So there are plenty of ways that you can get creative. You could buy a three-bedroom house and rent a room out to a friend or a family member or somebody else. There are ways that you can leverage house hacking to get into the house that you might want sooner. But the main message I would have is that those things are still possible.Practical AdviceThe basics that enabled previous generations to live a good life in this country are still here. If you have a strong sense of family, if you get educated or have a trade or a skill that is tangible, that is marketable, for example, try not to enter a field of work that is overly academic or philosophical in nature. You need to have a real skill. If you have a good work ethic, If you do get married, stay married. Again, I'm not going to moralize on any of that, but the data is super clear that people who get married and stay married almost always end up in the middle class or better in this country. Make yourself valuable to others, you know, from family to neighbors. Get involved in your community in some fashion, you know, in the real world and Be frugal. Save your money. Don't waste it until you can afford to waste it.And if you have any sense of frugality when you're a younger person and you can put money away in your 20s and 30s, you will get older. And by the time you hit your 40s, 50s, or 60s, you're going to find you're going to have maybe some money, more disposable income, At that point that you can really enjoy and you're still young enough to enjoy it. And health care these days is so good and health science is so good that you should be able to stay healthy for a much longer period of time. Buy a small house, take care of it, and then either add to it or sell it and buy a bigger one when you can. That is part of the process that we just don't talk very much about today. So I think in general, I would suggest let's stay away from, try not to lean too much into doomerism.Regardless of your own personal feelings, you know, how you see the world today or not, focus on yourself, what you can control, and what's possible. And figure out how to create your own life trajectory that is valuable and great for you.What's NextI'm going to tackle a couple other subjects in future episodes. I want to talk a little bit more about how I think the... The administrative and regulatory processes we created over 100 years ago have failed us and what's to be done about that, like what's a different idea or path. And then I also want to touch on a little bit, there's a whole other subject. There's a big part of what we call the housing crisis that is really driven by a series of policy choices we've made for the last 50 years or so. That have really benefited a small number of cities and the professional class in those cities. And it's really hard to uncouple these realities that we have what a lot of people have described elite overproduction today. We have been emphasizing for 50 years to tell everybody to go to college and get a degree, any degree. And I understand why we did that at the time.I went to college and I think going to college to get a degree. To go for higher education and get a really great skill is a great thing to do. But we have a lot of people who went to college and don't really have still very marketable skills or degrees. And they're all kind of following a path that I think they were told to follow by parents and grandparents and counselors, which was go to college, go move to one of these really great cities where there's a lot of jobs for college graduates. And starting your path and what you end up with is you have too many people chasing housing and jobs in too few cities.That has led to a lot of what we talk about as the housing crisis, but there's the flip side of that we don't talk very much about, which I'll also delve into in a future episode, which, in my opinion, is the true housing crisis, and that is that we have too many places in our country that have been in terminal decline for decades. They often are well located neighborhoods. Or well-located communities, but they have been dying. And this proliferation of dying and derelict communities and neighborhoods is really at the heart of a terrible, terrible problem where people are just more bent on trying to figure out survival. Because there's not an economy to attach themselves to that gives hope for the future. So we've got two sides of the same coin with very different concerns.One is we have an awful lot of people chasing a certain lifestyle in a very small number of places that is driving price increases in those places. And then we have actually a much larger number of places that have basically been abandoned. Some that could really have hope for the future and others that there are not great answers for, at least today. And that's a subject that I'll try to tackle a little bit more for a future day. So at any rate, I hope this has been interesting for you. If you've listened to this podcast at all since I've been doing it, you know I actually really enjoy talking about my family and talking with my family members. And I've had my brother and one of my sisters on here before. And I'll be having my brother on again very soon because he's got a new book out that I think you'll be actually very interested in. So that's all for today.I hope everybody's having a good summer and we're dealing with the full breadth of the Midwest heat at the moment, but it'll be over soon and then fall is right around the corner and on into another year. Thanks so much for listening. As always, if you enjoy it, please hit like, leave a review, follow, whatever it is. I am terrible about marketing this podcast since it's something that is basically a hobby for me. But if you enjoy it, please help me out and help spread the word. Thanks so much. Bye. Farewell, farewell with a friend, farewell. Farewell, farewell with a friend, farewell. Farewell, farewell with a friend, farewell. Farewell, farewell with a friend, farewell. Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

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In Charlie Investigates this week, we begin the real investigation into the case of Scott Peterson and the murder of Laci Peterson. Because of Brand New Evidence introduced by the Innocent Project, we must take another closer look at what happened in Modesto that developed into the Scott Peterson case. In our investigation we will take a closer look at the Berkeley Marina and what happened on Christmas Eve, 2002. We will follow a carefully constructed timeline that is vital to a successful investigation. You will hear from Witnesses and follow the Modesto detectives as they work to find the answers that the whole country is asking regarding this case.  And...you will see it in the eyes of an Investigator who is simply looking for the truth. This is not simply telling of a crime story. This is an investigation that will not only investigate the case, but will eventually investigate the investigation. Did the investigators withhold valuable discovery from the defense? Did the investigators destroy evidence? Did they develop tunnel vision? Was there a Rush to Judgment?  All of these questions will be answered and more on Charlie Investigates. So buckle up and join us on an investigation into the most talked about investigation in history.... "The Disappearance and Murder of Laci Peterrson." What if after 20 years, we got the investigation and conviction wrong?  Contact Charlie: charliecrimebuster@gmail.com  Support: www.peacemakernetwork.com  Youtube: www.Youtube.com/@charliecrimebuster  Music and Sound Effects: www.pixabay.com

On this episode, it's our 11th anniversary listener feedback special. I'll be reading your messages from you and we'll be talking about the phenomenon of the little red truck hauling a Christmas tree. We'll give you a way to virtually enjoy some German Christmas markets, we'll add one more thing to several of our past five golden things, and we'll kick off the first round of voting in Scrooge-a-paloza. Download here! 00:00 – 02:23 Intro 02:23 – 04:15 We Need A Little Christmas Now 04:15 – 13:48 5 Golden Things – Things Left Off Of Previous 5 Golden Things Lists 13:48 – 15:35 All I want For Christmas Is News 15:35 – 18:38 Santa Babb’s Mail Bag 18:38 – 27:54 Little Red Truck Hauling a Christmas Tree 27:54 – 31:35 Scrooge-a-paloza Round 1, Part 1 31:35 – 34:29 Wrap Up 34:29 – 37:40 Outtakes “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” United States Marine Band “Jingle Bells” Performed by Kristen Nowicki (The embedded player for the episode is bellow the links and the poll) Videos of German Christmas Market Videos https://youtu.be/l6aGKVxo2kw?si=qtUsk2PoX7V2LDUj https://youtu.be/wzZ9hdyTl8w?si=o51CO1bsd4EoUteb https://youtu.be/DssVino8XPo?si=XUu-TDofSm60vlXs Alonso and Tim’s Lists of Modern Christmas Movies from Episode 149 Alonso’s List 5. See You Next Christmas (2021) 4. Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024) 3. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024) 2. Krampus (2015) 1. Arthur Christmas (2011) H.M. Feast of the Seven Fishes Tim’s List 5. Noelle (2019) 4. Godmothered (2020) 3. The Christmas Chronicles (2018) 2. Red One (2024) 1. Spirited (2022) H.M. Iron Man 3 (2013) H.M. Shazam (2019) JIMMY – Official Trailer https://youtu.be/EURriesRel0 Advent Calendar House Episode on M*A*S*H – Death Takes a Holiday (featuring Tim) https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/mash-death-takes-a-holiday urg00phy_unkl – Little Red Truck Hauling a Christmas Tree video https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8tevo87/ There I Ruined it – Little Red Truck Hauling a Christmas Tree Mega Remix https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8teWFax/ “The Ford Truck saves valuable minutes” Ad from 1930 (It’s the 7th one down on the page) https://www.oocities.org/the_new_ford/Commercials/1930commercials.html New Yorker December 10th, 1984 (Art Print) https://fineartamerica.com/featured/new-yorker-december-10th-1984-anne-burgess.html Little Red Truck Christmas Tree Hauling Co. Two-Tone Coffee Mug https://www.zazzle.com/little_red_truck_christmas_tree_hauling_co_two_tone_coffee_mug-256077683458239194

I had the great experience of sitting down with Jeralyn Glass, an internationally acclaimed opera star turned sound healing pioneer and author of Sacred Vibrations. Following the tragic loss of her son, Jeralyn transitioned from the stages of Broadway to the forefront of holistic medicine, discovering how crystalline sound can act as a powerful healing tool for the mind and body. From a scientific perspective, sound healing is rooted in the principles of entrainment and vibro-acoustics. Every organ and cell in the human body vibrates at a specific frequency; when we are stressed or ill, these frequencies can fall out of "tune."  Jeralyn explains how coherent sound waves can physically interact with the nervous system to shift brain states from active Beta waves to restorative Alpha and Theta patterns. This process measurably lowers cortisol, reduces blood pressure, and stimulates the vagus nerve, moving the body out of a "fight or flight" response and into a state of cellular repair. We dive into the science behind Alchemy Crystal Singing Bowls and how specific vibrational frequencies can lower blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, and assist patients ranging from veterans to those in hospice care. Jeralyn—who has shared her expertise on The Kelly Clarkson Show and worked with icons like Jhené Aiko, SZA, Bruce Lipton, Greg Braiden and Kobe Bryant—shares how to treat your own body as a "vibrating instrument." Tune in to learn how to integrate "Music as Medicine" into your daily life through simple humming, movement, and intentional listening. If you listen to the end, in the audio podcast version, not the YouTube one, you will be able to enjoy Jeralyn's amazing voice in five musical pieces (One being a meditation) ————————————————————————————————————— Also, there is a small but important correction I wish to make. Talking about the power of music and how it is often divinely inspired, the story came to my mind of how Naomi Randall composed the beloved hymn, 'I am a child of God.' Thanks to my fashion design focused mind, I instead said it was Naomi Campbell, who is a great model but *not* the composer of this hymn, bless her.  For those who might be interested, here is how the hymn words came to the original Naomi: "That evening, I got down on my knees and prayed aloud, pleading that our Heavenly Father would let me know the right words. Around 2:00 A.M. I awakened and began to think again about the song. Words came to my mind. . . . I immediately got up and began to write the words down as they had come to me. Three verses and a chorus were soon formed. I gratefully surveyed the work, drank of the message of the words, and returned to my bedroom where I knelt before my Father in Heaven to say 'Thank you!'" (Source: https://www.ldsliving.com/the-powerful-stories-behind-i-am-a-child-of-god-i-need-thee-every-hour-3-other-beloved-hymns/s/88514_)  Copyright note: the copyright to "I Am a Child of God" is owned by Intellectual Reserve, Inc., a corporation established by the LDS Church to hold its intellectual property. Intellectual Reserve allows copying or downloading of the music and lyrics of the song for incidental, noncommercial church, or noncommercial home uses.   I also mentioned the Christmas Truce. During the recording, which is not scripted, I could not remember any details about it, as this idea came as we were talking. However, the Christmas Truce recounts the story of German and British soldiers who sung together Silent Night at Christmas. During the editing process, I found a Sainsbury's advert made with the Royal British Legion, which accurately describes how the scene unravelled. I dare you not to cry when you watch it and think of how the power of music brought these brave young men together that week. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carolling. Watch the Sainsbury's advert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM  I am in no wya affiliated...     Topics Covered Definition of music as medicine, The origins of sound healing, Science of crystalline sound and singing bowls, Vibrational frequencies for mental focus, Music as a prescription for stability, Physical health benefits of sound, journey through grief, Using the human voice as a healing tool, Mindfulness in musical consumption, Highlights from the Source - Be Inspired App, I am a child of God, how music touches the soul, music as connection. Watch this episode here: https://youtu.be/fgDyxEFX0Xc   The Source - Be Inspired app is available for download. Sacred Vibrations is now available anywhere you buy books. Affiliate Amazon Book Link: https://amzn.to/4uvoCT1 Jeralyn Glass Website: http://www.jeralynglass.com/ Crystal Cadence Website: http://www.crystalcadence.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystalcadencela/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalcadencela/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeqJQkuTKj6u8ZiUAFGVC3w  

In today's homily, Fr. Chris Alar reflects on the extraordinary life of St. Charbel Makhlouf, a Maronite Catholic monk formed by poverty, prayer, silence, and sacrifice. After leaving home at age 23, St. Charbel dedicated himself completely to God through a hidden life of humility and penance.His holiness became a powerful bridge between Christians and Muslims, drawing people of different faiths together through prayer, healing, and respect. Even after his death on Christmas Eve, remarkable signs surrounding his incorrupt body strengthened devotion to him.St. Charbel remains a powerful intercessor, especially for the sick, reminding us that a life completely surrendered to God can bring healing, unity, and hope to the world.Readings for July 24th. 2026: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/072426.cfm© 2026 Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. All rights reserved. ★ Support this podcast ★

Send us Fan MailA hermit in the mountains of Lebanon doesn't sound like the start of a global story but Saint Charbel Makhlouf proves how wrong that assumption can be. We follow his path from a poor village childhood marked by the rosary and early loss to a Maronite monastery, and finally to a tiny stone hermitage where silence, fasting, and manual labor become a total offering to God.What stays with us most is how intensely Eucharistic his life is. Hours before the tabernacle, daily Mass, and a steady devotion to Mary shape a spirituality that feels both ancient and startlingly relevant. If you've ever wondered why Catholic tradition places such weight on adoration, sacrifice, and fidelity, Saint Charbel's witness puts skin on those words and raises an honest question: are we willing to step away from noise long enough to hear God's whisper?We also explore the Maronite Church and its Antiochene roots, the sense of the divine liturgy as “heaven made visible,” and the reports of miracles that surrounded Charbel during his life and after his death. Healings, signs, and even the testimony of mysterious light on Christmas Eve 1898 are presented not as spectacle, but as an invitation to deeper faith and conversion.If this story sparks a hunger for holiness, subscribe so you don't miss what's next, share the episode with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review that helps more listeners find these journeys of faith.Open by Steve Bailey Support the showJourneys of Faith brings you Super Saints PodcastsChat with US 24/7 Ask us anything https://chatting.page/mjxs9aerrtgm3lmpndlcepmbyosntrjnDownload Journeys of Faith App for Iphone or Android FREE https://journeysoffaith.com/pages/download-our-appPlease consider subscribing to this podcast or making a donation to Journeys of Faith Help us Grow!Journeys of Faith is blessed to provide Catholic media, including podcasts and inspirational content, free of charge across multiple media platforms for viewers and listeners around the world. While access to this content remains free, there are significant and continually increasing costs associated with producing, hosting, and distributing these programs. Your support helps us continue sharing the beauty of the Catholic faith with souls everywhere. We want to reach more souls and you can help us do that by becoming a Mission Angel. Make a Donation Any AmountRefer a FriendYou can help us ...

Full Text of Readings Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 399 The Saint of the day is Saint Sharbel Makhlouf Saint Sharbel Makhlouf's Story Although this saint never traveled far from the Lebanese village of Beka-Kafra where he was born, his influence has spread widely. Joseph Zaroun Maklouf was raised by an uncle because his father, a mule driver, died when Joseph was only three. At the age of 23, Joseph joined the Monastery of St. Maron at Annaya, Lebanon, and took the name Sharbel Makhlouf in honor of a second-century martyr. He professed his final vows in 1853, and was ordained six years later. Following the example of the fifth-century Saint Maron, Sharbel Makhlouf lived as a hermit from 1875, until his death. His reputation for holiness prompted people to seek him to receive a blessing and to be remembered in his prayers. He followed a strict fast and was very devoted to the Blessed Sacrament. When his superiors occasionally asked him to administer the sacraments to nearby villages, Sharbel did so gladly. He died in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Christians and non-Christians soon made his tomb a place of pilgrimage and of cures. Pope Paul VI beatified Sharbel in 1965, and canonized him 12 years later. Reflection John Paul II often said that the Church has two lungs—East and West—and it must learn to breathe using both of them. Remembering saints like Sharbel Makhlouf helps the Church to appreciate both the diversity and unity present in the Catholic Church. Like all the saints, Sharbel points us to God and invites us to cooperate generously with God's grace, no matter what our situation in life may be. As our prayer life becomes deeper and more honest, we become more ready to make that generous response.Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

In light of the recent A&E documentary about "new" evidence in the Scott Peterson case, we wanted to share our 2018 episode about the murder of his wife, Laci, and son, Connor. Even though this doc promises new findings, not much has changed from this recording aside from better recording equipment. On Christmas Eve of 2002, Scott Peterson left his pregnant wife, Laci, at home to go on a fishing trip. Scott returned home later that day to find his wife gone with no indication of where she may have gone. Police found no evidence of foul play at the house, but clues quickly emerged to call Scott's alibi into question. Did Scott Peterson murder his wife? Or is he, too, a victim in this scenario? --For early, ad free episodes and monthly exclusive bonus content, join our Patreon! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Booker T. Washington.

Well now, gather ’round the fire, friends, because this week on the Scary Spirits Podcast, we’re unwrapping a special listener-requested holiday horror treat! Longtime listener Tania and her sister Sonya asked us to take a look at the darkly comedic 2018 Christmas slasher, Secret Santa, and we couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas in July. Join your hosts Karen and Greg as they venture into a holiday gathering where family tensions boil over, secrets come to light, and the season of goodwill takes a wickedly sinister turn. From shocking kills and sharp humor to plenty of festive mayhem, they’ll explore what makes Secret Santa (2018) a memorable entry in the world of Christmas horror movies. Of course, no Scary Spirits celebration would be complete without a themed cocktail in hand! This week’s frightfully festive companion is the “Murder & Mayhem“ cocktail, a delicious concoction designed to capture all the chaos, mystery, and holiday spirit of the film. So pull up a chair, pour yourself something merry, and join us for a fun-filled discussion packed with holiday horror, Christmas slasher movie thrills, behind-the-scenes insights, and plenty of seasonal scares. Whether you’re a longtime fan of Christmas horror films or discovering Secret Santa for the very first time, this episode is sure to make your Christmas in July celebration a little more spirited. Listen now and celebrate the season with Scary Spirits, where horror movies and handcrafted cocktails make the perfect holiday pairing! Murder & Mayhem Cocktail • 1/2 a lime (plus a slice for garnish)• 2 oz amaretto• 1 1/2 oz brandy• 1/2 oz cherry liquor• black cherry cub soda• fresh cherries for garnish Instructions: Squeeze 1/2 a lime into a cocktail shaker, throw limes into the serving glass (use a Collins glass). Cut 4 cherries (removing pits) and add them to the bottom of the serving glass. Add the amaretto, brandy, cherry liquor and ice to the shaker and shake (like I've said before….shake the shit out of it, shake the ever-living-shit out of it, then kill it…basically shake it way more than you think you should). Add ice to the serving glass and pour in the contents of the shaker. Top the glass with black cherry club soda, stir gently. Garnish with a slice of lime and a couple of cherries. Source: enchantedconservatory.com A Brief Synopsis: A bitter and estranged family comes together for Christmas Eve dinner and a game of Secret Santa, hoping to heal old wounds, put their past behind them, and renew their love as a family. However, the night soon turns more bitter, more vulgar, more violent, as angry accusations, threats, and outbursts start to fly, followed by bloody clashes, injuries, and murder. Most of the family members have gone completely insane and murderous. Will anyone make it out alive and unscathed, and figure out the mystery behind this shocking, blood spilling ordeal? Some of the topics discussed and highlights of this episode include: Can you really tell the sex of turkey by the way their poop looks? Dr. Karen tells us about sodium pentothal. Does putting your cell phone in rice help it dry? Our rating of the film: This movie was OK. It took us 3 cocktails to get through it. Take our online survey! We want to know more about you! Please take our survey. All questions are optional and you can remain completely anonymous if you prefer. Tell us what you like or would like to hear more of! All music on the Scary Spirits Podcast is provided by the band “Verse 13”. Please check them out. You can listen to all their music on their Bandcamp page. Get social with us! Connect with us on Facebook and Instagram Subscribe on YouTube to watch Greg attempt to make all the featured cocktails Follow @ScarySpiritsPod Questions, comments or suggestions? Shoot us an email at info@scaryspirits.com As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small percentage of qualifying purchases through our links.

While the focus of Operation Merry Christmas this year seems to be dominated by Santa's new sleigh there is another sleigh in the skies on Christmas Eve – the one used by Elf Crash Murphy to chase Santa in the skies. His job is to observe Santa, measure his progress and position, and to report via North Pole Radio News from his chaser sleigh every Christmas Eve. Elf Crash draws more mail than just about any other elf at the North Pole due to his dual jobs of chasing Santa as an Eye in the Sky reporter and as International Director of Santa Trackers. They don't call him the Ultimate Santa tracker for nothing. He literally works tracking Santa for Santa all year long. And that is why he gets so much mail. In this episode of the North Pole Podcast we explore the questions people have about following Santa on Christmas Eve. And we get into the deep water of why Norad isn't exactly helpful in tracking Santa. Please click on the player above to hear this surprising episode.

A Christmas Eve margin call sends a rich man's nephew scrambling for six thousand dollars he doesn't have, with a voice in his head whispering that theft and worse would be so easy.Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTRCHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Murder at Troyte's Hill” (April 17, 1978) ***WD00:45:26.180 = Weird Circle, “Markheim” (May 20, 1945)01:13:15.849 = The Whistler, “Return of Innocent” (April 02, 1945)01:42:35.169 = Strange Wills, “Margin For Love” (September 07, 1946)02:12:13.142 = Witch's Tale, “Suicide” (January 22, 1937) ***WD02:35:32.097 = X-Minus-1, “The Moon Is Green” (January 02, 1957)03:03:54.289 = Zero Hour, “Mind of the Beholder” (May 21, 1974) ***WD03:21:09.669 = ABC Mystery Time, “My Adventure in Norfolk” (1957) ***WD (LQ)03:45:10.191 = Strange Adventure, “The Friendly Ghost” (1945) ***WD03:48:27.530 = Arch Obeler's Plays, “Another World” (July 29, 1939) ***WD (LQ)04:17:11.933 = Barrie Craig, “The Case of the Borrowed Knife” (November 07, 1951)04:45:37.476 = Show Close(ADU) = Air Date Unknown(LQ) = Low Quality***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0721

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Booker T. Washington.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and three-time NAACP Image Award-winning television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Booker T. Washington.

Hey folks! Today on the feed we're continuing our Half-Christmas celebration by featuring an orbiting holiday audio drama called: Joy to the World. The folks at Joy to the World were kind enough to help us out during our launch for Christmas Diner and not it's our turn to repay the favor.  Joy to the World follows Joy, an astronaut alone on the ISS, as they take calls from around the world on a lonely Christmas Eve. It's about end-of-year holiday spirit in general, exploring different experiences of what makes this time of year special. Joy to the World is a Limited series, 12-episode production.  In this Episode: Iggy's car breaks down in the snow. This episode was written by Andrew Siañez-De La O and directed by Hannah Wright. Dialogue editing and sound design by Brad Colbroock. Iggy was played by Andrew Siañez-De La O. The Radio and Car Voice was played by Brad Colbroock. Joy was played by Tal Minear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's another throwback to a heartwarming 90s Christmas classic thanks to Ry-Guy! ABOUT SANTA AND PETE It's the first Christmas without Grandma and a difficult time for the family, until Grandpa (James Earl Jones) decides to share a story with his ten-year-old grandson Terence. AIR DATE & NETWORK FOR SANTA AND PETE December 5, 1999 | CBS CAST & CREW OF SANTA AND PETE Director: Duwayne Dunham Writers: Greg Taylor, Christopher Moore, Pamela Johnson Cast: James Earl Jones as Grandpa Nicholas Hume Cronyn as Saint Nick Flex Alexander as Pete BRAN'S MOVIE SYNOPSIS The movie kicks off with Santa doing Santa stuff. Checking that list twice. Looking at a globe to see if anything's changed. You know the stuff. We meet Grandpa Nicolas decorating his house for the first Christmas since his wife passed away. His daughter Cassie shows up with her husband James and son Terence and they all start to decorate the tree. Little Terence pulls out a Santa ornament. Grandpa insists there's one more ornament in there that goes with Santa. Sure enough, there is one more ornament of some random dude. Terence is like who is this? Grandpa Nicolas is like well have I got a story for you. Before Santa was Santa, he was Saint Nicolas, a Christian Bishop and Patron Saint of Children who would travel around, giving presents to children. One day he is arrested by the Spanish government who suspect he is actually a spy and their concerns only grow when they discover that he carries around a book called The Book of Life that has a ton of names in it and stuff about each of those people. Gotta be honest...sounds like a spy. While in jail, he meets a guy named Peter who is shocked when this old dude knows his name and knows that he wants to travel the world. When Pete finds out that he's St. Nicolas, they spend the night talking, and Pete decides to bust St. Nick out. They become partners and years later they decide to head to the New World. Before they leave they are approached by a dude who wants them to find someone named Elizabeth Van Olden to give her an engagement ring and a promise to join her as soon as he can. Santa and Pete are shocked to find out that the New World is not the perfect paradise they had heard about. People are too busy to celebrate Christmas and there's hostility between the settlers and the Native Americans. There's no open lodging for the famous Santa and Pete, so they're forced to sleep in a barn for the night where they find a little girl named Marlene. She tells them that she lost her parents while they were building a cabin in the woods. Santa promises that they'll find her parents and Pete is like whoa that's a big promise. Santa and Pete meet with the governor to ask for help finding Marlene's parents. He tells them that the Native Americans took them and he's planning an attack. So that's not great. On Christmas Eve, they travel by carriage and reindeer to go visit the Dangola family, including Janet who Pete thinks is FINEEEEE. On the way back, they are stopped by the Native Americans. They say they've been waiting for the man with the white beard to fulfill the prophecy. Santa requests they return Marlene's parents and they give Santa a bright red coat. Santa and Pete begin delivering presents and find that the village boot boy has made Nick some black leather boots. Arriving at the governor's house they realize there are no traditional wooden clogs to put gifts in and end up going down the chimney and leaving gifts in stockings instead. They also meet the governor's maid, who turns out to be Elizabeth Van Olden, and after giving her the engagement ring she gives Nick a bright red hat. Returning to the Dangola house, the Native Americans appear with Marlene's parents. The snow starts to come down super heavy and they're now unable to navigate the snow in their carriage. Maria's husband, Big Manuel, replaces the wheels with runners, transforming it into a sleigh, now with 6 reindeer. As Santa and Pete leave, the sleigh suddenly lifts into the sky and they fly away into the night. Back in the present, Terence wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that the Book of Life is in the living room. He finds his name inside and finds out that he is related to Pete. But when he tries to tell Grandpa Nicolas, the book disappears and he cannot remember anything he read. Classic Santa. Watch the show on Youtube - www.deckthehallmark.com/youtubeInterested in advertising on the show? Email bran@deckthehallmark.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Spending a few months at her grandparents' house seemed like a welcome escape from everything happening at home. But a quiet Christmas Eve changed that when she was awakened by the sound of someone crying just outside her bedroom window.By morning, she was ready to convince herself she'd imagined it—until her grandfather casually mentioned hearing it too.That should have been the end of the mystery. Instead, it became the beginning.Because the more she asked questions, the more it seemed everyone in the family knew something... and no one was willing to tell her what it was.#RealGhostStory #ParanormalEncounter #UnexplainedVoices #CryingInTheNight #HauntedHouse #FamilySecrets #SupernaturalExperience #ThingsThatCantBeExplained #ParanormalActivity #WhatDidGrandpaKnow Love real ghost stories? Want even more?Become a supporter and unlock exclusive extras, ad-free episodes, and advanced access:

Flying jackets, faces frozen mid-scream, a coven convinced they needed David Bowie's blood, and a demon that crashed a text at exactly 666 megabytes — these are the paranormal encounters the famous swear actually happened to them.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/CelebrityGhostEncountersREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ff82f8yuFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Don't try and tell some celebrities that ghosts don't exist, because they've seen all the paranormal proof they need to believe. (Celebrity Encounters With The Paranormal) *** A prayer for food resulted in fish raining down from the sky in Yoro, Honduras. And now it happens regularly – sometimes twice a year – with still no definitive explanation. (Cloudy With a Chance of Sardines) *** Is it possible that UFO sightings and sightings of the Chupacabra are somehow related? Even stranger – is it possible the strange dog-lizard-like creatures came from crashed spaceships? (UFOs And The Chupacabra) *** Weirdo family member Laura tells a strange story about a candy store – and its resident ghost. (Haunted Candy Store)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:13.649 = Show Open00:02:50.627 = Celebrity Encounters With The Paranormal00:31:59.645 = UFOs And The Chupacabras ***00:39:37.674 = Cloudy With a Chance of Sardines00:46:26.106 = Haunted Candy Store ***00:50:58.248 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Celebrity Encounters With The Paranormal” by Brent Swancer: http://bit.ly/2ZAzYGX“Celebs Who Have Had Ghost Encounters by Lydia Price: http://bit.ly/2Iq0bCm“UFOs And The Chupacabra” by Nick Redfern: http://bit.ly/2XS41cy“Cloudy With a Chance of Sardines” by Panchali Dey: http://bit.ly/2IQ9p9Y“Haunted Candy Store” by Weirdo family member, Laura(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2021This episode of Weird Darkness gathers famous names who swear the paranormal found them, a Puerto Rican legend that ties dead Chupacabras to a crashed UFO, a Honduran town where fish fall from the sky, and a Wisconsin candy store with a listener's uneasy childhood dream folded in.It opens with celebrities who came away convinced. Carrie Fisher described lights and electronics switching on and off in her Beverly Hills home after her friend R. Gregory Stevens died there; Matthew McConaughey named the blue-dressed spirit he confronted in his house Madame Blu; and a young Keanu Reeves watched an empty jacket drift through a doorway in his New York apartment, the reality of it confirmed only by his nanny's face. Patrick Stewart saw a man in a beige coat vanish in the wings of the Theatre Royal Haymarket during Waiting for Godot, later matched to the ghost of 19th-century actor-manager Baldwin Buckstone, who died in 1879. Peter Jackson woke to a woman with a screaming face at the foot of his bed near London's St. James Theatre, a ghost his wife had seen two years earlier. Miley Cyrus fled a London flat over a boy she kept seeing on the bathroom sink; Ariana Grande photographed what she called textbook demon faces at Kansas's Stull Cemetery and found the file measured 666 megabytes; and David Bowie spent much of the 1970s certain a coven of witches wanted his semen, lighting black candles and hiring white magician Walli Elmlark to exorcise his swimming pool. John Lennon, by Uri Geller's account, described bug-like beings outside his apartment and an alien metal egg left in his hands, while Sammy Hagar claimed aliens plugged his sleeping brain into a machine and uploaded numerical code in 1967. Shorter accounts follow from Megan Mullally, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Chloe Sevigny at the Lizzie Borden house, NASCAR's Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Lucy Hale, Laura Linney at Broadway's Belasco Theater, Claudia Schiffer, Emma Stone, Selena Gomez, Alyson Hannigan, Demi Lovato, Jenna Bush-Hager in the White House, and Megan Fox.From there the episode travels to Puerto Rico, where writer Nick Redfern chases the claim that the shuttered Roosevelt Roads Naval Station once held the bodies of dead Chupacabras the way Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is rumored to hold dead aliens. On visits between 2004 and 2015, Redfern and monster-hunter Jon Downes collect accounts of a 1957 UFO crash in the hills of Canovanas, sealed off by the military for roughly three weeks, and a second reported crash in the El Yunque rain forest in February 1984 — both said to have left dead Chupacabras in the wreckage, though the creature angle only attached itself to the older case after the Chupacabra panic began in 1995.Next comes Yoro, Honduras, and the Lluvia de Peces, the Rain of Fish that residents trace to Father Jose Manuel Subirana, a Spanish missionary who prayed three days and nights over the region's hunger in the 1850s or '60s. Once or twice a year after a heavy May or June storm, live sardine-like fish cover the streets of a town more than 100 miles from the ocean, and a National Geographic team in the 1970s found the stranded fish were completely blind, hypothesizing underground rivers forced above ground by flooding rather than the waterspouts others propose. The town of roughly 93,000 celebrates with a festival, a parade, and a Miss Fish Rain crowned to ride a float dressed as a mermaid, and locals refuse to sell the catch, sharing it instead as a blessing.The episode closes with Weirdo family member Laura, who worked summers at a haunted candy store in a Wisconsin tourist town, a converted house where a ceramic jar once flew across a room at a coworker. That coworker, a Canadian tribeswoman from a family with the 'sight,' listened to Laura describe a dream that returned every Christmas Eve until she was six or seven — a black, pulsing void of indistinct voices that rose to screams and a pressure closing on her chest, replaced in its final occurrence by an overhead view of a storage yard before it stopped for good. When Laura finished, the coworker told her it was a good thing she never listened to the voices, and suggested Laura had unconsciously sealed off her own ability to sense the spiritual after something that was not benevolent kept trying to reach her.

Christmas in July is here!  ABOUT RENOVATION ROMANCE When Chelsea is forced to go to New Hampshire, she finds herself in a precarious situation with her career and relationship. AIR DATE & NETWORK FOR RENOVATION ROMANCE November 1, 2024 | Hulu // July 4, 2026 | Hallmark CAST & CREW OF RENOVATION ROMANCE Director: Robin Dunne Writers: Julia Benson, Peter Benson, Robin Dunne Cast: Jessica Lowndes as Chelsea Stevens Daniel Lissing as Cooper James BRAN'S MOVIE SYNOPSIS We are dropped right into an episode of Renovating Romance. Chelsea hosts this show that renovates a house & helps a couple at the same time. She hosts the show with her boyfriend Jake. The season just ended and they go to this wrap party and then they're off on a little vacation. But uh oh - there's an opportunity in New Hampshire for a special - hosted by her. Chelsea really wants the time off but Jake is like this would be big for us! She is gonna say no but the executive Dan is like I'll make a big donation to your charity and she's in.  Off to New Hampshire they go to meet the unhappy couple Cooper and Janice. They can not agree on what to do with their house. He's a country mouse. She's a big city girl. And they just have different ideas. So they're talking about that country mouse all the way to the house. Turns out that country mouse was their driver! Whoopsies. They get to the first day of shooting and Janice is immediately uncomfortable with talking about her and Cooper's relationship on national tv. He's like that's the whole point of the show. She decides to go to New York for a couple days to clear her head. Jake says he could go with her and film some stuff there and say it's for the show and Chelsea will stay there and film with Cooper.  And the chemistry between Cooper and Chelsea is off the charts. Everyone is talking about it. They just keep flirting and having fun time.  To make matters worse, the tabloids are about to run a story about Chelsea and Jake having relationship problems.  Janice makes it back and her and cooper talk and decide to really give their relationship a shot. They tell that to Chelsea and Jake and Chelsea is kinda sad.  It's almost time for the live Christmas Eve special and Chelsea decides now is the right time to dump Jake. Jake takes it ok but then we see that he was going to propose.  On the show, Cooper and Janice are talking about how they saved their relationship but then they asked Janice if she's ready to leave the big city for good and she cries and says no and breaks up with cooper. Tough break bud.  Jake still proposes to Chelsea on TV but tells her it's just for the show. Chelsea looks at Cooper and then says no. She gives a long speech about how America doesn't need to see everything tied up in a perfect bow.  Watch the show on Youtube - www.deckthehallmark.com/youtubeInterested in advertising on the show? Email bran@deckthehallmark.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom is a fascinating conversation with Simon Winchester, a renowned author of nonfiction, about his latest book, The Men Who United the States. As we delve into the stories of America's explorers, inventors, eccentrics, and mavericks, we discover the unsung heroes who shaped the country's history. Simon Winchester's book is a love letter to America, highlighting the individuals who, despite their flaws and imperfections, played a crucial role in uniting the nation. From the early explorers who braved the wilderness to the inventors who revolutionized communication, these men and women left an indelible mark on American history. We discuss the importance of the Land Ordinance of 1785, which allowed Americans to own land for the first time, and the story of Clarence King, a geologist who lived a double life as a black man and a white man. We also explore the story of Samuel Morse, a failed painter who invented the telegraph, and Reginald Fessenden, who transmitted the first voice message by radio on Christmas Eve in 1906. These stories are a testament to the power of human ingenuity and creativity, and how they can bring people together. Follow on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timeless-wisdom-with-dennis-prager/id1517302239 Follow us on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4SZEYeH4tuLr2FvG4ok1rl Learn more about Dennis Prager: https://pragertopia.com/ Follow Dennis on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DennisPrager Follow Dennis on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedennisprager/ Follow Dennis on X: https://x.com/DennisPrager Learn more about the Salem Podcast Network: https://salempodcastnetwork.com/ Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Story Submissions: Letsnotmeetstories@gmail.com  Stories in this episode: Camping Trip with Miley Cyrus' Official Stalker | Kenzoe420 (0:42)My House was Broken into on Christmas Eve | gwenielew (11:26) Childhood Memory | designerxjerry (17:43) The Worst First Day of a New Job | SPR (23:10) A Parent May Have Tried to Drug Me | -opathy (28:05) The Truck with the Wooden Cage | MasKabronaaKBonitaa (32:30) Strangled On My Way Home From School | StrayCatDiaries (37:25) Extended Patreon Content: The Mother-in-Law Who Continues to Terrorize Me | Tinley99The Inmate | ReneeJust Friends | VanessaMy Grandfather | Lola  Due to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Want Bonus Weekly Stories? Hate Ads? Join our Patreon for only $5 a month for over 100 hours of bonus content, and it's all ad-free! Join the Discord:https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gEFollow LNM:- Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty- Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/- Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. The stories shared on this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team.