Podcast 666

I love my iPod. Mine is like the orange one to the right.

I got the original Shuffle, that one that looks like a white jump drive, soon after giving one to my wife for Christmas a couple of years ago. Since then, I've been listening continuously.

Commercial radio is just horrible. Ever since the GOP brainiacs passed the law that allowed for media consolidation into the hands of a few big companies, like Clearchannel, quality disappeared. This seemed to coincide with the big music industry fighting Napster to prevent people from getting direct access to their music. In the old days, a good radio station was like the friend that you had with an excellent music collection (I'm talkin' vinyl here youngsters!). Everybody knows someone that qualifies as a musical taste guide. They always knew about good music before everyone else and a really good musicguidefriend is one that will even make a mix tape for you from time to time. A good radio station was like that, they had excellent music. You could tune in and just leave it there because it was good most of the time. When I was in junior high, KYYS formed in Kansas City. I remember the format, very quiet soft spoken DJs, very mellow commercials, and music played from silent whispery needle on vinyl beginning to end. Disturbing trends developed over the years, obnoxious loud DJs that couldn't shut the f*** up and talked well into the songs, cut the beginning and end off, never announced what they were playing, and seemed to be having a love affair with annoying commercials. Eventually, the trend culminated to the point where you can no longer hear actual music in the morning. From one end of the dial to the other, it's just the guys that took too much drugs in high school trying to show how close you can get to having the FCC yank your license. When you did hear music, it was studio synthesized drivel with no more appeal than a sack of stale potato chips without any salt on them. I started listening to NPR and books on tape years ago.

So what does a 44 year old science geek do with an iPod? You've seen the commercials with the silhouette dancing to cool music? Yeah. That's not me. The cool thing about an iPod is that you can listen to geeky books and programming ANYWHERE!

I currently subscribe to 60 podcasts. Already being an NPR junkie, there's about 7 or 8 feeds they provide which are mostly excellent. And then there's NASA. Some of their podcasts are video only, so don't expect too much portability with that. I also have lots of science. There's Nature, Science, and Scientific American, which are all very cool.

I go to my local public library and check out books, and load them onto my iPod and drive, work out, or work in the yard while polishing off 5 or 6 books a month. I think an audio book actually feeds faster than I read. I've found the Teaching Company, which has college courses available on audiofile. This is like being in school all the time! (By the way - that's a good thing.)

I called the links at the bottom of my blog (and this posting) "Podcast 666" for a reason. I've got a ghost in the machine. My iTunes screen shows how many individual podcasts are downloaded into my computer. For some reason, it keeps coming back to 666. I download AP network news, which will put 24 podcasts a day on there if I let it. I delete all but the noon broadcast. I also try podcasts out and then delete them if they are drivel. I did the negative review for the Federalist Society on iTunes. There was this poor little girl that did a podcast on ancient and medieval history - very interesting subject, but horribly presented. I didn't do a slamming review because she sounds so nice and sweet and enthusiastic, but it's a waste of time trying to listen to her. I also tried to listen to Princeton University's podcast, but anything over an hour that can't ever get to any point is so painful to listen to that it's best you spend what time you have in life on something else.

My nephew is in a rock band. He's 15 and likes the same music I like. He's my current music guide. He sent me his playlist, which I haven't worked on yet. I do like music, but I've gotten into the habit of consuming information rather than music and I don't know when I'll ever go back.