I think having podcasts in my life is making me a bit over-stimulated. At work I’ve become a sort of defacto entertainment director. I hook up the super-cheap media player to the super-cheap boombox in the corner of the bakery, and for the next seven hours or so it’s just non-stop background entertainment. In the course of the shift we can chew through about a quarter of the player’s memory capacity. When I punch out, I have to stand staring into space in complete silence until I can wrap my mind around my own brain again.
So in order to keep up with this entertainment demand I’ve been scrounging for new podcasts. I appropriated several of the links that Joe offered up, and used them as a springboard for new sources.
UC Berkeley Astronomy Courses — It’s apparently not uncommon for University’s to post lectures from intro-level courses online. The main disadvantage of this course is that I’ve already taken the material back when I was in college, but it’s a not-too-bad review for all that.
SETI presents Are We Alone?— Dude, this totally rocks. I’ve only listened to two of their podcasts so far, but one covered the end of the world and the other covered the singularity. The hosts conduct interesting interviews with experts in the field, and link the interviews with silly skits. Looking down the list of their podcasts, it’s pretty much all cutting-edge and dramatic subjects.
Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? — This is a radio program produced by Wisconsin Public Radio. It’s sort of like a less-funny "Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me" with the regionalism of "A Prairie Home Companion." There’s a separate podcast that only has Michael Feldman’s opening monologue, a recitation of fake news headlines that has the awesome unfunnyness of a Jay Leno monologue. This podcast stream has bits of the show proper, an audience quiz where the host interviews people in the audience and insults their reasons for wanting to compete in the quiz. It’s really the strongest part of the show. For three years I lived within two-hundred feet of where they broadcast this free radio program, yet I never bothered to attend a show, so that kinda illustrates my hometown apathy toward "Whad’Ya Know?" Or as my co-worker Johnny Motard put it: "He seems like a nice-enough guy. It’s good for a sympathy listen."
NPR’s Science Friday — I have an Ira Flatow mask that I pull out whenever I need a costume on short notice. People in Austin know this show as the perfect example of what we could be listening to if that bastard John Aielli weren’t hogging up the bandwidth with all his hot air.
To the Best of Our Knowledge — Probably the best thing available from Wisconsin Public Radio other than their stellar state politics reporting. This is a weekly program that interviews people who have written books about the subjects of their books. Sometimes it gets a little crackpot, but most of the time the subjects are pretty interesting.
Star Trek: Lost Frontier — This audio drama has no business being as awesome as it is. It is probably far better than any of the actual series or movies with the obvious exception of the Wrath of Khan. It’s performed by Darker Projects, the same folks who did the Dr. Who series I mentioned earlier. This has translated to audio far better. Which is only to be expected, since as you will recall if you think about it, nearly all the Star Trek series and movies (with the exception of Khan) were all about people explaining things to each other ("Sir! We’ve been hit!" "How bad is it?" "It’s 30% bad!"). This series takes place in a near-future far-future where the entire federation has been fragmented by plague and civil war. The remaining vestiges of Star Fleet put together a new Enterprise to put everything back together.
The Byron Chronicles — Also done by Darker Projects, this audio drama is about an immortal in Portland who fights vampires and zombies. Sort of an "Angel" meets "Dr.Who" meets "Sandman." The main character is the strength of the series, responding to most every situation with a deliciously droll disdain.
Best of Natural History Radio — A BBC podcast that’s currently only playing a program that only features migrating animals. You have no idea how dull this is. I keep expecting the calm British correspondent to start narrating something far more interesting than what they’re actually mumbling on about: "The osprey is flying overhead right now, I can see its white underbelly. Quite the majestic bird. Now it’s diving. It seems to have attached itself to my face. Oh, my. It’s remarkably painful the way it’s digging its beak into my eyeball. It has it’s talons locked now. It’s actually picking my eyeball out of my face. This is extremely remarkable behavior for osprey, which we normally think of as fish-eaters."
Best of Friday Night Comedy — The BBC "comedy" podcast directory has a number of feeds that describe themselves as comedy or as hosted by standup comedians. The vast majority of these are clones of those American "morning zoo" style radio programs. You know, the ones where two obnoxious dumb-asses yell a series of unfunny vulgarities. The British seem to have the same institution, only they have a different version for each of their major incomprehensible accents. Now, the Friday Night Comedy podcast is actually funny. Two weeks ago they had a quiz show with droll Brits being genuinely droll. Now they’re featuring the "Now Show", a topical news sketch program with Goon Show humor sensibilities, and it’s every bit as entertaining as it sounds.
The Archers — In a throwback to the golden age of radio, the BBC still has two daily radio soap operas. This one is about a Brit family with a farm. At the moment there’s tension about who gets the farm when the dad dies, tension that has resulted in the premature birth of a grandaughter.
Silver Street — is the more interesting of the two soap operas. It’ advertised as an urban and multi-cultural soap, which is to say that most of the characters are foreigners (that’s why the soap airs on the BBC Asian network). It’s an interesting premise to have an ethnically diverse cast on a radio program, because you can’t tell that they are ethnically diverse until they say things like "So I was wondering if, you know, if before we got married, if you would like to see me without, you know, my headscarf?"
Science with Dr. Karl — A BBC program where people call up and ask questions of Dr. Karl, a man who apparently knows everything.
Love Bollywood — If this interview/gossip show were about Hollywood I would hate it. But it isn’t.
News from Lake Wobegan — I grew up on A Prairie Home Companion, and even as a small child I thought, "If only there were some way to only listen to the monologue so I wouldn’t have to suffer through this crappy baby-boomer music." Well there is a way to do that now. I’ve found that listening to four of these monologues back-to-back elicits a nearly debilitating feeling of sentimentality. I spent the first four years of my life in Minnesota and I have no real memory of them, but when I listen to Garrison Keillor, it brings me back.
Pretty soon I will have worked through all the back-casts of Escapepod and the like. My podcast downloader ("Juice" it’s called) promises to erase old podcasts if so instructed, so I have this plan of listening only to new and topical podcasts. Not sure if I’ll ever get to the point of having no backlog, but it would be neat to have my podcast entertainment totally automated.