On Friday, May 25th, 2015, 31 year old Ross Ulbricht, aka the Dread Pirate Roberts, was sentenced to life in prison for money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, "drug kingpin" charges, and he narrowly avoided "procurement of murder" charges. All for running the online, dark web marketplace, The Silk Road. What is the "dark web", should we keep it around, and are online marketplaces for vice, like the Silk Road, actually a good idea? Today's episode is sponsored by Mac...
May 15, 2017•1 hr 25 min
The most insane suck yet, Timesuckers. How did a pastor and political activist convince nearly 1,000 people to move from California to a communist jungle compound in Guyana and then kill themselves by drinking poisoned Flavor Aid? Listen, find out, and take advantage of some great deals from this episode's sponsors! *** Turn your commute into something more with a free trial at Audible. Go to Audible.com/timesuck to start sucking their many audiobooks right now. *** Timesuckers can also join the...
May 08, 2017•1 hr 27 min
What exactly are designer babies? What plants and animals have scientists already genetically modified? Have any humans been genetically modified? How will genetic modification affect the future of the human race? Find out and get 20% off any purchase at Mackweldon.com by using the promo code TIMESUCK
May 01, 2017•1 hr 1 min
How do you rise from being so poor your parents can't afford to buy you shoes for school to being the 7th richest man in the entire world? If you're Pablo Escobar you do it through violence, intimidation, and selling a crazy amount of cocaine. Eighty percent of America's 80's coke came from Pablo and at the height of his power it made him 420 million dollars... A WEEK. He had a fleet of yachts, hundreds of homes, even a personal zoo, but he still ended up dying essentially poor and alone with a ...
Apr 28, 2017•1 hr 35 min
What do you know about Marilyn Monroe? Did you know it took years after she being "discovered" for her to "make it"? That she spent part of her childhood in an orphanage? That she never knew who her father was? Or that her mother spent most of Marilyn's childhood committed to various mental institutions? Or that she took on the Hollywood studio contract system and won, paving the way for modern actors and actresses to also become producers and control their careers more than she ever could? She ...
Apr 24, 2017•1 hr 28 min
The Mandela Effect: a large group of people remembering an event that never happened or remembering an alternate version of an event that did happen in the same, incorrect way. Is this proof that there are parallel dimensions some of us are slipping in and out of? Is it the perfectly explainable result of false memory creation? Or, is it a glitch in some futuristic computer simulation we're all currently (virtually) living in? We go full Twilight Zone on today's Timesuck! And please, if you have...
Apr 17, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Special guest episode! The hosts of the wildly entertaining Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder podcasts, James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman, ride along for today's suck on ancient Rome and one of the tyrants it created, Caligula. Was Caligula a debaucherous madman? Or, just product of the times he lived in? Was he both? Find out for yourself on the most torturous, sex-crazed, over-the-top Timesuck yet. And PLEASE, help keep Timesuck keep going by filling one a 30 second survey at http://po...
Apr 10, 2017•1 hr 30 min
On February 1st, 2013, 21 year old Canadian college student Elisa Lam vanished while staying at the Cecil hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Her nude, decomposing body isn't found until the morning of February 19th, after hotel residents complain of foul-tasting water. A strange, four minute hotel elevator camera video capturing the last moments she's ever seen alive goes viral, and a murder mystery is born that has the internet obsessed to this day over what really happened. Find out what conclusio...
Apr 03, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Scientology. What do they believe? How did it begin? Who, exactly, was L Ron Hubbard? What appeal does it have for Tom Cruise? So much crazy revealed on this OT9, beyond clear, Sea Org edition of Timesuck.
Mar 31, 2017•1 hr 27 min
In just a year as captain of his own fleet of pirates, Blackbeard made one hell of a name for himself. A name that's lasted to this day. Pistols, cutlasses, looting, plundering - even the lawless Buccaneer island of Tortuga and pirate city of Nassau explored on this swashbuckling edition of Timesuck!
Mar 27, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Yup. ISIS. We're talking about them Timesuckers! A brief explanation of Islam, what's going on in Syria, and how President Assad may be even worse than ISIS (and they're pretty bad). An intense, controversial, and entertaining edition of Timesuck!
Mar 20, 2017•1 hr 11 min
It's the Skunk Ape from Shreveport, the Bigfoot from Bremerton squaring off against the Sea Creature from Scotland, the dinosaur of Drumnadrochit. Sasquatch versus The Loch Ness Monster! Which legend do you believe? Which creature’s believers are more insane? Two of the world's most famous mythological creatures get sucked… today on Timesuck!
Mar 13, 2017•1 hr 8 min
How did Hitler and his Nazi Party ever gain political power in 1930s Germany? Why didn't the German people revolt? Why didn't America or any other countries intervene? How did the Jewish persecution begin? The foundation for Hitler and WWII examined and explained on this bonus episode of Timesuck!
Mar 10, 2017•1 hr 12 min
Who has a murder castle!?! 19th century serial killer H.H. Holmes, that's who. Dubbed "America's first serial killer", Holmes' terrorized Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair, killing an estimated 200 women in his literal house of horror. Trap doors, a gas chamber, and a cellar full of torture devices awaited young women tricked into staying in Holmes' evil lair. A truly terrifying edition of Timesuck!
Mar 06, 2017•1 hr 6 min
William Bonney aka Billy the Kid killed several men while still a teenager and shot his way out of a New Mexico jail when he was 21. He shot a man for insulting him, gunned down another in a saloon, and was shot dead himself before reaching his 22nd birthday. He stole cattle and killed a sheriff and several deputies. But was he really a bad guy? Or just a product of circumstance and the time he lived in? Find out in this wild west edition of Timesuck! www.theveteransmc.com
Feb 27, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Ever wondered who's sending you those crazy emails from someone claiming to want share a large sum of money with you or be tracking you down for a huge inheritance? Why are they almost always supposedly from Nigeria? Why are they so poorly written? Find out who these scammers are, why the scam became popular in Nigeria, how much money they're making, who they're making it from, why they word them the way they do, and when the scam originated in this eye-opening edition of Timesuck.
Feb 20, 2017•47 min
On Feb. 14th, 1929, seven men were found dead in a North Side Chicago garage. The scene was grisly - each man had been shot anywhere from nine to fifteen times, mowed down with shotguns and Thompson "Tommy Gun" sub-machine guns. Who were they? Why did it happen? What did Al Capone have to do with it? Learn about the history of organized crime in Chicago and so much more in this underworld edition of Timesuck!
Feb 13, 2017•1 hr 5 min
When did humans first claim to be contacted by extraterrestrials? What really happened at Roswell? What is going on at Area 51? Why do aliens want to stick things in our butts? Is it all made up!?! Take a listen to a thoroughly researched (and very sarcastic) investigation into whether or not we've made contact with outer space.
Feb 10, 2017•1 hr 31 min
In the early 1920s, world renown escape artist and master magician, Harry Houdini, became obsessed with exposing seance-holding mediums as frauds and imposters, sometimes cancelling his own shows to attend their performances and debunk them. Who was Houdini and what drove him to discredit all who claimed they could speak with the dead? Find out in the biggest Timesuck so far!
Feb 06, 2017•1 hr 25 min
What started off as a listener suggested look into the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia became a disturbing timesuck into the dark history of mental health patient mistreatment, especially in late 19th century America. A diagnosis of reading too many novels or being prone to day dreaming could end up getting you an "icepick lobotomy". Seriously. All this and so much more in this completely insane episode. Pics at www.timesuckpodcast.com
Jan 30, 2017•54 min
Welcome to a Flat Earth Society edition of Timesuck! Think the Earth is a floating disc being propelled upwards by something you can't define? Think gravity is a myth? Do you have no respect for science in general and/or empirical evidence? Well, then I hope you have a thick skin because I take a big factual dump all over your silly beliefs. Find out why your world only makes sense when it's round in this chock-full of mockery episode of Timesuck!
Jan 23, 2017•49 min
In 1969 Charles Manson convinced Tex Watson and several young women to brutally murder seven innocent people in Los Angeles, including rising star/model Sharon Tate. Why did he do it and how did he become the crazy guy we see now with a swastika on his forehead talking nonsense in prison? How could this obvious maniac convince anyone into giving him a ride down the street let alone into murdering on his behalf? Find out all this and more in my favorite Timesuck so far!
Jan 16, 2017•1 hr 5 min
Is Walmart destroying middle class America? Is it the problem or merely a symptom of a larger economic disease? Find out who's bending over working class Americans and how hard they're sticking it to the them in this ear-opening edition of Timesuck!
Jan 09, 2017•58 min
What happened to the good old days when dumb, lazy fucks used to just die in the pre-industrialized, non-welfare state world of yesteryear? It’s never been easier for the least motivated members of society to stay alive and procreate. Is our gene pool getting shallower as a result? Find out as I try to answer one of society's most important questions: IS we getting dumberest!?!
Jan 02, 2017•40 min
Old porcelain dolls weird me out. Especially the kind whose eyes blink when you move them around. Those all too realistic looking glass eyes that seem to be truly watching you. Just thinking about it gives me the chills. Certain dolls are just creepy. And one of the creepiest of those dolls is named Robert. He talks, he trashes your house, he might kill your aunt in her sleep, and he’s probably the real life inspiration for Child's Play's Chucky. Let’s finish 2016 with some fear on a bonus, than...
Dec 30, 2016•42 min
It was a crazy time in America in the 1960s. JFK was assassinated in Dallas, we were entrenched in Vietnam - a war that deeply divided the nation, the civil rights movement was in full swing, and, from 1963 - 1969, our 36th president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was apparently showing his big, "Jumbo" dick to just about everyone who set foot in the White House. Get ready for a rock hard, fully erect edition, of Timesuck.
Dec 26, 2016•37 min
In the mountains of central Europe, jolly old St. Nick doesn’t work alone. He leaves the handling of the naughty list to Krampus - a horned, goat-legged, split tongued, whip holding, Christmas demon draped in chains who beats and sometimes kidnaps wicked children. Krampus throws kids in the sack on his back and takes them to Hell and occasionally even eats them. Yup. This is a real tale that has been told to children. Buckle up for this dark holiday edition of Timesuck and get ready to learn all...
Dec 19, 2016•44 min
Timesucker and British archaeologist Rebecca Pridmore sent me some fascinating articles on what we’ve learned from the excavation of various ancient tombs and incredibly well preserved corpses. Bog people, a 12,000 year old funeral, and more on this rotten, decaying, and totally dead episode of Timesuck.
Dec 12, 2016•31 min
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk wants to have a million people living on Mars by 2070 and wants to send the first 100 people to permanently live on Mars by 2024. Can he make this happen? And would you really want to live on that cold, red, dusty shithole of a planet? Find out on this interplanetary episode of Timesuck!
Dec 05, 2016•35 min
Ted Bundy is perhaps the most disturbing serial killer of the 20th century. Why? For starters, he didn’t look like a serial killer, so you can’t convince yourself you would’ve seen him coming. He was well-educated, well-liked, charismatic, and handsome. And evil to the core. And unlike most sociopathic killers, Ted knew he was evil. He described himself as the “the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you’ll ever meet,” and after listening, I think you’ll agree.
Nov 28, 2016•43 min
