Podcasts

Back in June I got a 30 GB video iPod for father’s day. My daughter, Chaos, and my dear wife both had iPod nanos and they love them. I didn’t think I really needed one, until I got to noticing that most of the other soft walled container denizens that I share an office with use some sort of personal music player and headphones while working in their cubicals.

Once I got this newest toy I loaded most of my CD collection onto m iPod. Then I got some cables and adapters so I could play it through the speakers in my truck or the family van. This meant that I no longer had to select which CDs to take with me in the car. I grab the iPod and I have all my music in the car with me. I love this!

Then several weeks ago I discovered podcasts. Podcasts are essentially radio talk shows that you download onto your mp3 player (iPod or other) and listen to them at your convience. You can even subscribe to a podcast so that each new episode is automatically downloaded onto your computer, and then loaded onto your iPod everytime you connect it to your computer. It took about one week for me to be officially hooked.

The podcasts that I have been listening to are:

7th Son
This is a podcast novel. Written and read by the author, J. C. Hutchins, this is a story of suspense, murder, intrige, cloning, mind downloads and uploads. The story which is a trilogy has just finished book one and I’m hooked. Warning: this podcast carried an explicit language warning, which means that some of the characters in the story swear - a lot.

Bearscast
This podcast has been on my delete list since I first subscribed to it. However it is still on my iPod because it is the only podcast I can find that talks about one of my favorite football teams – the Chicago Bears. However the clowns that do this broadcast are some of the most sophmoric, idiotic, loud, obnoxious, morons broadcasting on the web. Now I could deal with their meandering talk and giggling at their own jokes if the production quality of this podcast wasn’t so bad. One guy sounds like he swallowed the microphone, the others sound like they are yelling into theirs from across the room. This means that you alternate between not being able to hear anything and having your eardrums blasted. As soon as anyone else comes up with an alternative Bears podcast this one is history.

Dragon Page – Cover to Cover
This was actually the first podcast I ever listened to. I was searching online for information about some science fiction books and stumbled onto the webpage for Cover to Cover. So I downloaded one episode and I was hooked. Even worse is this podcast led me to several others that are produced by the same crew at Far Point Media.

Escape Pod
This podcast reads science fiction short stories. This isn’t the first podcast I listen to each week. But it is the one I regularly enjoy the best. Steve Eley does a great job of getting some really entertaining short fiction. There are two feeds for this podcast. The regular feed with stories that occasionally carry explicit language warnings. And the Escape Pod Classics feed that contains stories suitable for most ages.

Miami Dolphins on the Run
This podcast is an extension of the Miami Herald so it is a very professionally produced podcast, which is a nice way of saying it has commercials in it. But between the commercials sports caster, Phil Latzman, does a pretty good job of covering what the Dolphins are doing each week. While it is short, it is worlds better than the crap that Bearscast turns out.

Michael and Evo’s Winging It
This is another Far Point Media podcast. This is the podcast where Michael and Evo talk about anything they want to that doesn’t fit into all their other podcasts. The language and subject matter often get rather crude. So do the jokes. This is the one podcast that may eventually get me in trouble at work. Several times I have almost choked to death trying not to laugh out loud at some of the jokes. I just don’t want to try and explain to my coworkers why the music I am listening to is funnier than what they are listening to.

Open Spaces
This is a weekly NPR news feed from the State of Wyoming. Often kind of boring, but it does keep me informed about what is going on back home.

Slice of Sci-fi
After Dragon Page Cover to Cover, this was my second podcast. Produced by the same guys this podcast covers all things Sci-fi – books, movies, tv, rumors, etc.

Sonic Society Weekly Meetings
I just subscribed to this podcast this week when they started carrying a fan fiction show called Firefly: Old Wounds. This is a radio play about previous adventures of the best Sci-fi TV show ever – Firefly.

The Babylon Podcast
This is another new podcast for me this week. It deals with discussion of the old TV series Babylon 5. You have to be a fan to want to listen to people talk about canceled TV shows. I guess I am. But I do try not to be an overly enthusiastic fan. This podcast is also produced by Far Point Media and is hosted by Summer Brooks who is a regular on several other podcasts I listen to.

The Genealogy Guys Podcast
Two Guys, George C. Morgan and Drew Smith discuss genealogy research. If you are not into genealogy, this podcast will cure your insomnia. I do find a lot of this podcast to be boring, but I have learned something new in each episode. But these two guys do a good job of covering a wide range of genealogy research issues.

The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas
This is another Far Point Media podcast. Summer, Joe and David discuss classic Sci-fi. They pick a old movie, book or tv show and pick it to pieces. These discussions sometimes get into far much more detail that I care for. But they are usually entertaining. This podcast is sporatic in its releases, which means that sometimes weeks go by without a new episode.

Mannerscast
This podcast isn’t about which fork to use for which part of your meal. It’s about how to get along with the rest of the slobs we have to share this planet with. I like that these guys are trying to teach us to be polite while plotting to take over the world.

The Signal
This blog is about all things Firefly and Serenity. I seem to have this attaction for podcasts about canceled TV shows…