and the podcast posts begin

If you know me, you know I love podcasts.
I listen to podcasts constantly while doing any housework, yardwork, making breakfast in the morning, while on airplanes, as bedtime listening in my hotel room, as morning listening while getting ready in hotel rooms, on car trips, etc.
I love the fact that I am getting knowledge constantly. and I can queue up the knowledge on topics I want. None of this random morning NPR show topic. nope, I can pick the stories of interest.
Note - I do use my iPod for music, and I do tune into WPR for the random discussion topics, I have found lots of great things that way too.

So, why not share my oldies but goodies, my new passions, and the ones that I don't listen to regularly, but still subscribe to. - note: this list does not include all of the podcasts that I have tried and deleted. All of the ones listed below I subscribe to and consistently listen to.

Oldies but goodies

1) NPR Driveway moments - this are stories that listeners responded to very favorably. they are typically 5-10 minutes long.
2) NPR books - collecting all of the book related stories to one show. sweet. - very nice for going to sleep or something you can wander in and out of.
3) Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing - brief spots all about grammar topics. Good if you want short bursts of knowledge, but you do really have to pay attention for that 5 minutes
- also on this topic is Mr Manners Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Polite Life - brief as well, easier to listen to though. If you hang out with me on a regular basis you don't have to listen to this podcast, I will bring it up and educate you myself. :)
4) 7th Son podiobooks - I didn't find podiobooks until about January, but now I can't stop. Free audiobooks. If you want to donate to the writers you can and a very large portion goes to them, which is a great thing. the best ones are the 7th Son trilogy (the 3rd book eagerly anticipated soon) by JC Hutchins. He even reads it.
5) Big Ideas - this is a lecture series from Ontario public television. it is audio only, and since this lecture is on TV that sort of omits some important stuff. However, you find that commonly with the lecture podcasts. Anyhow, these are long, and often the people have accents. I don't really listen to accents very well (meaning I can't understand what they say), and you have to really concentrate for longer periods of time... I can't muster that concentration all the time, so they aren't frequently listened to any more, but there are more lecture ones that have taken the place of this.
[Important Note here - I have a video ipod. But I don't really like video podcasts although I do subscribe to one - Tiki Bar TV]
6) The Thomas Jefferson Hour - a guy who is a Thomas Jefferson historian pretends to be him and gets interviewed each week about a different topic. My favorite episode was on his relationship to Alexander Hamilton. This was followed a couple months later by a PBS show of some sort on Hamilton and the views were significantly different on Hamilton. Very interesting. Almost makes me want to read a biography of Hamilton. almost.
7) This American Life - popular radio show. good kitchen cleaning/cooking on a Sunday listening.
8) NPR - Wait Wait Don't tell me - this is just a consistent fave. I listen to all of each one of them. My favorite time for this is a boring airplane ride. I am not saying that I listen to my iPod on take off and landing. I may or may not get motion sickness and this show may or may not decrease my symptoms...
9) Tiki Bar TV - afore mentioned Video podcast. funny, but mostly I just think Lala is hot.

New favorites

1) couple new podiobooks -
-Earthcore by Scott Sigler - this was gory but I really enjoyed it. Sci Fi.
-Billibub Baddings - stupid name, but I am sort of into it now. if a dwarf from another dimension that gets teleported to 1920's Chicago and becomes a private dick and investigates crimes that relate to Al Capone is Sci-Fi, then Sci-Fi
-Ancestor - another Scott Sigler one - I am into it fully already and can't wait to find out what sort of chaos awaits these people. :) Sci - Fi
-The Secret World Chronicle - I read it all. I don't know what it all meant and I don't know if it was good. but I will download the next book when it comes out.
2) Cato Daily Podcast - I love this. little think tank tidbits. it is very cool. How does this person feel about the minimum wage, or someone else about trade agreements with China, someone else about Google's K street program (K street is the DC lingo for the lobbying row I think - anyhow it was about Google setting up a lobbying shop in DC) This is great hotel room ironing listening.
3) Lectures from college classes - this has been great - you can find lectures from entire semesters of classes! my favorites that I have tried so far:
- Geo 10 - World Regions, Peoples, and States - from UCBerkeley - I didn't realize that Geography was so cool. nifty!
- History 132 - US since 1865 - from Univ of Alaska - I fell in love with the instructor. I was just getting up the courage to, oh I don't know, fly to Anchorage or something, when, in the last class he says that his child is with him during the lecture. sigh. good info though - lot of info I didn't know about WW1 (not my favorite war anyhow) and progressivism. even a little shout out to Fightin Bob LaFollette. nice.
4) Science - I love science. And I love staying up on the latest. so these two do nicely:
- Nature - for times I really want to get my brain moving about the latest published research. I wish that Science had a podcast like this one.
- Science Talk: the Podcast of Scientific American - I subscribe to SciAm, but this is nice too. much lighter material than Nature (make sense given the readership of the two magazines) and so nice for different times.

umm, There are a bunch more but I am tired. I will continue another day. plus there are some new ones that I am trying out - newest winner - KnitPicks (suprising, who wants to listen to people talk about knitting... could a bowling podcast be any more boring?) any how, I will get those in future posts too.