Thing 19: Podcasts

Right off the bat, I can tell you that my favorite discovery about podcasts is that they can be downloaded. My connectivity issues haven't improved noticeably in the past twenty-four hours, so I was picturing staying after work trying to find very short podcasts to listen to so that I could go home at a reasonable hour. And then I learned that they could be saved to disk and the light bulb went on. This is what large capacity flash drives are for. A bit of post-work downloading and I headed home laden with podcasts to sample at my leisure.

I haven't bonded with the podcast directory sites yet. Yahoo Podcasts just seemed to be an open search box, fine if I knew what I was interested in listening to, but not much help for someone who needed a few suggestions. Podcast.net never came up when I clicked on it. Podcast.com was more promising, but when I clicked on interesting-looking titles, I repeatedly got warnings that there might be explicit content in my selection. Either I have an undiscovered instinct for homing in on naughty podcasts, Podcast.com has way too many of them, or they err on the side of overcaution in their warnings. Whatever the case, after about four of these warnings in a row, I moved on to other things (since I was downloading off my work computer, I couldn't take the risk that these really were offensive podcasts).

For my first baby steps into the world of podcasts though, I didn't really need a directory. I've been told about a variety of podcasts just in the normal course of life, and so I went off and visited them. I listened to a couple of Grammar Grater podcasts from Minnesota Public Radio plus an interview with the Yarn Harlot from the KnitPicks site, and I have plans to delve into PodCastle.net ("the fantasy fiction podcast") when I have more time. (Which may not be for a while. Must pass classes. Must get MLIS. Must not set up RSS feeds to constant sources of distraction. 23 distractions are more than sufficient.)