2 posts tagged “podcasts”

Do you listen to podcasts?  Are there any you'd recommend? 

I am totally grooving on podcasts lately. I posted about them a bit before, but here are some of my favorites. All of them are available on iTunes:

• The Writer's Almanac: Garrison Keillor's five minutes every day on writers and poetry. It's the first thing I listen to every morning on the bus. When I remember to dock my iPod the night before, that is.
• Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me!: The podcast version of the hour-long NPR news quiz goes up sometime on Sunday, I think. Beware listening in public, or just get used to people wondering what the crazy person is giggling about.
• This American Life: Finally! Available as a podcast! Now, it's only a free podcast for the first week, and then it goes into the archives for 95 cents, so make sure to download it every week. I took it off of the auot-delete-once-listened-to-thingy because it's TAL. I want it to be easy to keep if I want.
• The Acapodcast: I don't know how I wound up finding this. I think I might have gone crazy and searched for "barbershop". All a cappella all the time, and sometimes Chad even plays barbershop and I keel over, ded from hot chords.
  
• A Cappella U: Chad plugged this on the Acapodcast. It's really awesome all-collegiate a cappella. With this as with the Acapodcast, the show notes are really great for tracking down more by the artists.
• 4cast: The barbershop podcast which I haven't listened to quite as much as the other a cappella podcasts, for all I love barbershop, but I would like to say I frightened myself by recognizing the speaking voices of Metropolis during interviews at internationals.
• Science Friday: I don't listen to all of the stories every week, but they're well-labelled so I can pick and choose. Recently I listened to great stories on genetic testing and improving school lunches. Well, I was interested anyway.
• NPR Movies: Round-up of film reviews and interviews every Friday, for those who like to keep on top of that sort of thing.
  
• Senator Barack Obama: Yes, really. Not a regular podcast by any means, but a treat when a new one appears.

I've been downloading a few others, and there are some I have yet to test run. Too many podcasts, too little time! Are there any you think I should be listening to? Drop a comment. I'm particularly interested in one on Seattle politics and issues, but I'm not sure that one exists. A good one, anyway. And is anyone listening to the Boing Boing podcast?

Earlier this week I finally joined the 21st century and started downloading podcasts. It's a good place to be, I tell you what. You all are ahead of me and know that it's like the "good parts" version of radio and the Internet so I don't have to sell you on it. I'm especially pleased because it's so rare the programs do everything I want them to do right off the bat, so it's a treat that iTunes will autoupdate to my iPod, that it will automatically delete podcasts I've listened to, and that I can select certain podcasts to -not- autodelete. And! That it will give me the titles of the available back episodes so I can choose to catch up.

Podcasts that I am particularly enjoying so far include Senator Barack Obama, The Writer's Almanac, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. (I was laughing so hard on the bus today over the slip-up "drunk tank clown" that I thought they might kick me off.)

The podcasts I've listed as "do not autodelete", though, are the ones I find most exciting: podcasts for learning Spanish. I hunted a few of those down yesterday, timely, as I had had one of those days at work again where several times knowing even a little bit of Spanish would have helped me provide better service to our participants. There are a few out there, which means I'll get a few different perspectives and teaching styles. The best way to learn, of course, is by speaking & listening, and that I can get at work. So,   we'll see how it goes. I am hopeful, though.