Tuesday, June 06, 2006

iPod, Take Me Away!

After all that bitching and moaning yesterday, I have to say, my iPod is absolutely saving my sanity while I desperately wait to start my vacation. I've been downloading a lot of podcasts lately, and having a good science fiction story and some fanboys geeking entertainingly about Doctor Who to listen to today while I was working really helped the time pass relatively painlessly.

10 comments:

  1. I keep meaning to listen to Escape Pod, and the podcasts I've downloaded from them. But I listen to my iPod mostly during my morning and evening commute. When I'm on the train, I'm reading, so if I want music at all, it's just to drown out the noise of fellow travelers and better concentrate on my book. When I'm walking, I find it harder to concentrate on an audio story -- not least of all because of the street noise in midtown Manhattan.

    I love audio books in theory, but I almost never get around to listening to them.

    I've been trying to expand my podcast selections recently, so any suggestions are definitely welcome. I slowly seem to be turning into a Doctor Who fan -- I rented Genesis of the Daleks, but somehow wound up with Disc 2, so I'll have to wait 'til I've seen the eps on Disc 1 -- but I think a podcast devoted to it might be too much at this stage.

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  2. Escape Pod is really good. I've listened to three stories from them now, and have greatly enjoyed all three of them.

    I know what you mean, though. I'm not generally that big on audiobooks and such, myself. If there's something I want to read, I'd rather just read it; it's faster, and I get to imagine the characters' voices for myself. And most of the time if I'm going to listen to the iPod, it's under circumstances where I'd have trouble concentrating on spoken words, or they'd distract me from whatever else I'm doing. But I find that it's absolutely ideal for the more routine and mindless parts of my workday, when I can't actually read a book. And the cool thing about Escape Pod is that it's bringing me stories I'd probably never actually get around to otherwise.

    Yay for "Genesis of the Daleks," and for being a budding Who fan! But, yeah, Podshock probably isn't something that'd necessarily have a lot of appeal for you. It's very long (something like 2 hours!), and pretty hardcore, geek-wise. They also talk about episodes that are currently being aired in the UK, although they always do preface those with spoiler warnings.

    I don't know if I have podcast recommendations... I've just been sort of surfing around iTunes, trying out things that look interesting, but what's interesting to me may bore the pants off of someone else.

    This week, besides the ones mentioned above, I've been listening to The Word Nerds, which is mostly a few guys chatting about language and word origins and varies in interest level for me, Planetary Radio, which is put out by the Planetary Society and has lots of space-related news, and The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, which features much laughing at quacks and conspiracy theorists. I'd actually recommend any one of those if the subject matter is interesting to you and, well, not if it isn't.

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  3. Janice wont let me use her ipod. Aint she bad

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  4. Clearly you need His and Hers iPods.

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  5. I cant figue out what has tobe done to downloadsome of these topics.

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  6. Well, there are a couple of ways, usually. If you have iTunes, you can go into the iTunes store and search for them under "podcasts" and download them from there. (All the ones I've mentioned are available for free.) Or if you go to the podcast website, there's usually a link where you can download mp3s of the shows.

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  7. And on Escape Pod in particular, you can also click on the big "Listen" icon on the left side, which will open up a Flash player for you to listen live.

    (Thanks, Betty! I'm very glad you're enjoying the stories.) >8->

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  8. Very much so! Thank you very much for doing them. And for dropping by to comment!

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  9. Thanks for the help, much appreciated.


    Thanks to you Steve, I guess you have something to do with the website?

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  10. If you need any specific advice on anything, let me know!


    And he's the host of the show. :)

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