JCC Where's the Subscribe Button? A Podcast Discussion Thread!

I don't want to seem like I am soliciting, I'm not! However my friends and I run a podcast. Any chance you can take a look at it see if you like it? Yes? OH OKAY!

 

Hurrah, the search function works. I've just got onto this and am starting with the Khans, as it was the oldest free one available. It's riveting stuff.

 

Post back with your thoughts. I know I post a lot of personal reviews in here, but I'd also like the thread to just be a place where we all just talk about whatever we're currently listening to.




DecodeDC
Studio: The Scripps Washington Bureau
Category: News & Politics

What It Is
Former NPR reporter Andrea Seabrook heads up a program that attempts to make issues in Washington accessible to laypeople.

Technical Details
This show comes out every week, with an occasional bonus episode thrown in. It’s got around 115 episodes and the entire archive is available on iTunes. Episodes run around half an hour or so and usually revolve around a single topic or interviewee.

What About It
This is a solid show. Seabrook is good enough at what she does to make the show generally interesting, if somewhat bland. It isn’t a show that has a strong vision of itself or a particularly unique lens on anything. There’s an interesting hook in the idea of taking kind of obtuse or arcane elements of Washington and explaining them in layman’s terms, but quite honestly, I didn’t really feel like the show actually stuck with that idea. So, it ended up basically just being another bland news & politics commentary show. Seabrook is, like I said, good at interviewing and at reading copy, but she doesn’t have much of a personality. I guess, bland is really just the watchword here. It’s never a show that’s annoying or stupid, but it’s never insightful or really engaging or anything like that either. It’s just . . . kinda there, you know?

2 stars.

Essential If
You think political commentary comes best with personality left to the side.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You already listen to other, better political shows.

Best Entry Point
The show does have some good episodes. I think I enjoyed an early one I listened to the most: Episode 18, The Paperwork Reduction Act. It’s a great episode that plays to the premise of the show; it takes an arcane piece of law and explains how it affects every citizen and, hilariously, how it’s a law that has had exactly the opposite of the intended effect. It’s a good one.

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iTunes website seems to be down at the moment. Links should work once they come back up.

 

Decoder Ring Theatre
Studio: Decoder Ring Theatre
Category: Performing Arts

What It Is
A modern take on old time radio adventure serials.

Technical Details
The show has changed schedules a lot; currently, it’s at a painfully slow pace: one new episode every month. But the sound quality is phenomenal, so if that’s what it requires, so be it. Each episode runs around half an hour. The entire archive of more than 240 episodes is available on iTunes.

What About It
I’ve always like a lot of old time radio drama, like Suspense or Escape, and comedy, like Jack Benny or Lum & Abner, so it wasn’t a hard sell for this show. The show’s flagship series are Black Jack Justice and The Red Panda. The Red Panda, with trusty sidekick, The Flying Squirrel, fights crime and espionage during (and now after) World War II. Black Jack Justice revolves around Jack Justice & Trixie Dixon, a pair of wise-cracking private detectives solving cases both ridiculous and entertaining. I really love this stuff. The Red Panda is an old-fashioned serial for those interested in lengthy story arcs; characters recur, sometimes years after they last appeared; plot-lines carry over, sometimes for several episodes. Black Jack Justice is the funnier of the two shows; it really nails the hard-boiled patter and I typically laugh out loud a few times an episode. This is really entertaining stuff, just good clean fun. It’s purposely for the whole family (though with zombies, possessed robots, aliens and machine gun wielding villains, The Red Panda Adventures can get kind of intense from time to time), but adults will love it as well.

3 stars.

Essential If
You’re tired of modern radio drama, ie. call-in shows.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You haven’t spoken of pandas since the Washington Zoo Incident of 2006.

Best Entry Point
Black Jack Justice, season one. Give it a try.

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Democracy Now! Audio
Studio: Democracy Now!
Category: News & Politics

What It Is
Amy Goodman heads up an in-depth, intelligent look at the news and issues facing the world.

Technical Details
The show drops a fresh hour every single day, consisting of short news pieces and long-form interviews. Sometimes, there’s bonus content, like extended interviews or broadcasts of speeches. The most recent fifteen episodes or so are available on iTunes. For the entire archive, hit up the website.

What About It
There’s still at least one chance to save America. There are hopefully others, but if we have exhausted all other options, there is still this podcast. If everyone in America would listen to this show, we could most certainly turn things around. It’s all the news that matters treated with all the seriousness it deserves. If it’s a significant issue, you’ll find this show covering it and covering it the way you’ve always wanted the serious issues of the day to be covered. The show gets in deep and delivers all the things the mainstream media doesn’t: context, facts, pragmatism. It has none of the hyper-active editing or fancy holograms or splashy headlines of other news programs. It has something more important: the heart of the matter, whatever that matter might be. I’ll never really trust anyone enough to say they’re giving you the pure truth, and what a sad commentary that is, but this show . . . it comes as close as anything has to making me believe again.

4 stars.

Essential If
You still give even the tiniest **** about fixing our world.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You own CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS . . . you get the picture.

Best Entry Point
Subscribe, for the love of God.

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DH Unplugged
Studio: Dvorak/Horowitz
Category: Business News

What It Is
Tech writer John Dvorak and financial advisor Andrew Horowitz discuss business and financial news and issues.

Technical Details
New episode every week; episodes run around an hour or so. iTunes has the most recent ten episodes. For more, go to the website.

What About It
I have heard a lot of boring shows. This is one of them. Is this the most boring show I’ve ever heard? It’s possible. I mean, it’s painful. The information is probably good, but this isn’t a show for the layperson. A lot of the lingo goes right over my head. But even worse, both of the hosts speak in the most painfully dull monotone imaginable. Occasionally one of them will say something that is apparently supposed to be funny as they will then both emit one of the dullest chuckles imaginable. It sounds as if they literally just say “heh heh heh” in a monotone. Apparently these “wacky hijinks” are part of the show’s “unplugged” charm (they mean unscripted, I think). This show is one of the worst I’ve encountered. Pull the plug on this one.

0 stars.

Essential If
*sigh*

Avoid Like the Plague If
You have a soul.

Best Entry Point
*sigh*

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Dining with Doug & Karen
Studio: Nerdist Industries
Category: Comedy

What It Is
Comedians Doug Benson & Karen Anderson, along with various guests, sample diverse foods.

Technical Details
The show is quite sporadic. Benson and Anderson stay busy (Benson, in particular, seems to have about half a dozen other podcasts, including what is perhaps my favorite podcast of all time, Doug Loves Movies). Sometimes you’ll go a few months without an episode; other times, they’ll stick to a fairly regular every couple weeks schedule. Shows run an hour to an hour and a half. Explicit rating is fairly earned, but nothing is ever gratuitous and the show has substantially less language than most other comedy podcasts since Karen Anderson lets her young son listen to parts of the show. iTunes has the entire archive of nearly sixty episodes. Also, is this our first Nerdist podcast? I think so. Won’t be our last.

What About It
Doug Benson is the force behind one of my two or three favorite podcasts, Doug Loves Movies. This one isn’t as good as that one is, but it’s still a real winner in my book. Doug and Karen invite a local chef or caterer or food truck to come by and provide them with a meal, usually samples of several items. They chow down, talk about the food and crack wise with whoever their comedian guest is. It’s a consistently funny show; I like Benson’s laid back sense of humor and Karen Anderson’s wacky personality is the perfect balance. The discussion of the food is always interesting and fun. It’s a solid podcast, recommended even if you’re not a foodie. Of course, Doug does always ask his guests where they stand on food. You can guess the rest.

3 ½ stars.

Essential If
You’re a fan of both comedy and cuisine.

Avoid Like the Plague If
The sound of people chewing initiates a seizure.

Best Entry Point
Several good ones here, but there are a couple I just really need to recommend. The first is a potluck at Cinefamily, a seemingly really amazing theater in Los Angeles. The potluck takes place right after Doug and a few other comedians have done a live riffing of Now You See Me, the 2013 film about con-job, master thief magicians. (That’s something Doug does fairly often at Cinefamily). Unbeknownst to them, the director of the film, Louis Letterier, happened to be in attendance. So, the live recording of Dining with Doug & Karen gets a surprise walk-on when the director of the film they just spent two hours ripping to shreds arrives. The movie geek in me loves this one. That’s episode #27.

But probably the best episode is #39, an episode I’ve listened to more than once. Guest chef Elyse Lain and guest comedian Wayne Federman do, well, let’s just say, they do not get along, based in large part on the fact that Federman pulls no punches in his negative assessments of Lain’s prepared food. This episode really takes the awkward cringe comedy up a notch or two. “Wayne’ll be lucky if I ever speak to him again,” Benson growls in the following episode when Anderson jokingly asks when Federman will be back as a guest. Yeah, it’s that bad. It’s even burned into my brain where I was when I first heard it; I’ll never forget blasting through the Kansas plains during an amazing windstorm, heading from Wichita to Abilene, just laughing out loud over and over. This episode is unbelievably funny, painfully awkward and a real classic.

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Distorted View Daily
Studio: Tim Henson
Category: Comedy

What It Is
Host Tim Henson plays “bizarre, twisted & ******-up” sound clips from the internet and discusses similar news stories.

Technical Details
Henson’s a dedicated content creator, no question. A new thirty to forty minute episode drops every couple of days; you might think a schedule this punishing would deplete the weirdness of the internet. Oh, no, you are incorrect about that. This is probably the most deserving of the Explicit rating of any show I’ve encountered yet, I should say. A ton of profanity and explicit sexual content and . . . well, let’s just say it . . . some downright disgusting stuff. The iTunes archive features the one hundred most recent episodes. For the entire archive (going back more than ten years!), hit up the website, though you do have to be a subscriber.

What About It
This show is one of the most offensive I’ve yet encountered. Nothing is off limits on this show. Henson plays clips of Pentecostals speaking in tongues, clearly mentally-disturbed individuals losing their ****, and, just for fun, the occasional clip of someone retching during oral sex or screaming during anal sex. This show is not one to restore your faith in humanity, I’ll tell you that; it turns over a rock and lets all the most disgusting, bizarre, brainless and ridiculous people scurry out of their internet holes. And I have to say that I love this show.

Now, this is definitely a Your Mileage May Vary kind of show. Some will find Henson’s schtick obnoxious and others will find the clips played offensive or disturbing. But there’s something about the absurdity of some of this stuff that provokes genuine laughter in me most of the time. Now, I feel like I’ve talked about the Heebie Jeebies episode of After Hours with Heidi & Frank; it’s the one where a listener shares a story that literally made me dry heave. Well, right off the top of my head, I can think of three times DV Daily has made me dry heave. Why is this entertaining to me? Wish I could tell you. All I know is that there are clips from this show that still make me double over with laughter just thinking about them. This is a show with multiple belly-laughs per episode. Maybe that means I’m “bizarre, twisted & ******-up.” Well, somebody’s gotta be. I guess.

4 stars.

Essential If
You laugh only after your gag reflex has been triggered.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You love that Robin Williams, but Flubber was just too nasty!

Best Entry Point
Well, here it comes. You knew it was going to happen. It’s one of the episodes that made me heave. Every Tuesday, Henson finds a poorly written, typically disgusting piece of online erotica and reads it to the audience. In the episode in question, Henson plays an old clip that’s apparently an audience favorite and it deserves to be. Henson reads a piece of erotic fiction involving Natalie Portman engaging in some heavy scat porn. If you don’t know what scat porn is, just step away and keep your innocence. But, anyway, Henson just loses his **** (fittingly) on this one and he can barely read the story he’s laughing so hard. It’s disgusting, hilarious and utterly destructive to any faith in humanity. A must listen, in other words. Unfortunately, research has just revealed that this episode is behind the paywall now. So, go download a few of the new ones, I guess.

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DIY Musician Podcast
Studio: CD Baby
Category: Music

What It Is
Folks in the industry talk about how to succeed as an indie musician.

Technical Details
Episodes run forty-five minutes to an hour typically. Wacky release schedule. This year, they released three episodes in June, one in July, none in August, two in September, one in October, etc. Entire archive of more than 150 episodes is available on iTunes.

What About It
I feel like this isn’t a bad podcast. It’s just about the least interesting parts of being a musician, as far as I’m concerned. It’s about the booking and the tuning and the best way to use studio time and all that stuff, which just isn’t stuff I’ve ever had to deal with myself. I’m a musician, but I’ve never attempted to be a working one. It is refreshing to hear a podcast so focused on the fringes; guests are selling CDs out of the trunk of their car or something like that sometimes. This is explicitly not a show about super professional successful musicians and I like that about it. But it’s mostly just uninteresting to me.

½ star.

Essential If
You are, in fact, right now, selling CDs out of the trunk of your car.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You have never in your life tuned a guitar and done stage banter at the same time.

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Doodie Calls with Doug Mand
Studio: Doug Mand
Category: Comedy

What It Is
Comedian Doug Mand, with co-host Jack Dolgen, brings on a guest to tell embarrassing, bathroom related stories.

Technical Details
Episodes are sporadic, so a subscription is recommended. Episodes run half an hour to 45 minutes or so. Explicit tag is . . . you know, it’s a show about poop. Entire archive is available on iTunes.

What About It
Yes, it’s an entire podcast, at over a hundred episodes now, dedicated entirely to people telling embarrassing stories about poop. Mand rationalizes it quite compellingly. He talks about how this is one of our last societal taboos and the idea of “having an accident” regarding poop is surrounded by a lot of shame. When, he says, we’ve all had those experiences, at one time or another. He brings these comedians on to tell their stories and it’s freeing; it frees them of their shame and it frees us, the listening audience, of our shame. Okay, that’s compelling, but let’s get to where the rubber meets the road: this show is ******* hilarious. Okay, I said it. Yes, I’m well-educated, well-read, a devotee of high culture, a devoted Christian. But, come on, a story about ******** your pants while babysitting three kids at a movie is just ******* hilarious. These people, both the hosts and the guests, are clever and funny. Some stories are better than others, of course, so some episodes are just going to be better than others. But the show is just a real winner. It’s made me laugh until I cried in the past. It’s a masterwork, a thrillingly bizarre high-concept that lands perfectly. A show undeniably juvenile, but charmingly so, hilariously so. May I never be so cultured that the image of a college student in a bunny costume pooping in a stranger’s back yard at midnight fails to move me deeply.

4 stars.

Essential If
So many disgusting puns, so little time.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You dry heave every time you try to eat a chocolate M&M.

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Encouraging Others Through Christ – gspn.tv
Studio: Cliff J. Ravenscraft
Category: Christianity

What It Is
Ravenscraft hosts the show, a free-ranging discussion with his guest about various issues related to Christianity.

Technical Details
Episodes come out whenever the host feels like at this point, which isn’t very often. The show officially wrapped in 2012, but there was a new episode about a year ago and another just a couple of months ago. The show used to be known as About the Church. The most recent fifty episodes are on iTunes. For more, hit up the show’s website.

What About It
My experience with Christian podcasts has been pretty negative really and I will tell you that the early episodes of this show fall into that category as well. Most of the Christian podcasts I’ve listened to reflect a pretty shallow vision of Christianity, not at all the thoughtful take that I prefer and practice. Early in this show’s run, it was pretty typical, but around the time of the title change things changed on the show as well. I will say that I still dislike the title of the series, which makes it sound like an “inspirational” show. It’s not, not anymore. It’s a thoughtful look at interesting issues surrounding faith, mostly focused on working toward a spiritual way of life, rather than a strict adherence to a particular set of dogma. The show is still explicitly Christian, but it’s a show that engages with people pushing at the structures of religion in order to get at the heart of spirituality that those structures were built on. The most recent episode is an interview with Wayne Jacobson, the mind behind The Jesus Lens, a powerful way of recontextualizing the difficult passages of the Bible through the character of Jesus and redefining the Word of God, not as the Bible, but as it is written in the Bible as Jesus Himself. The one before that was a lengthy, thought-provoking discussion of the role of church in the lives of believers. Before that, it was a discussion with Steve Brown, the guy behind the idea of Three Free Sins, a really meaningful way to look at forgiveness and grace in a way both more expansive and yet more compelling. It’s a podcast I really like a lot. But steer clear of the old episodes.

3 ½ stars.

Essential If
You’re extremely “religious.”

Avoid Like the Plague If
You’re extremely “religious,” and want to stay that way.

Best Entry Point
Talked about this one already, but I’d recommend Faith Still Strong One Year Later, the episode in which Ravenscraft and guest Wayne Jacobson discuss faith outside the realm of attending church. It’s a thoughtful, thought-provoking episode.

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So, but what is a "Christian podcast?" I mean, shouldn't that just be a preacher playing recorded sermons and Bible studies via radio? Are there any of those you listen to or like?

I'm having trouble grasping what this one means.

 

The essence is that Jesus Himself is the Word, as it says in John; the Bible is also called the Word of God, but Jesus is the original and complete Word of God. So, any passage in the Bible should be viewed through the lens of the words/actions of Jesus. Ultimately, it's just another way of saying that Jesus supersedes anything else in the Bible as far as principles or morality goes. If there's a conflict between some passage in the Bible, say an Old Testament scripture that seems to encourage genocide, and the teachings of Jesus, then the teachings of Jesus are of more importance and override the principles of the other passages. It's a compelling way of looking at the Scriptures, I think.

 

This is where I wish we had an actual thread to discuss religion, instead of some place where there are idiotic alternations between "Zombie Jesus" photos and complaints about Pat Robertson's last broadcast.

The view you're laying out seems incredibly difficult to apply. After all, think of how widely divergent biographical readings of the same figure--or even the same event in a single person's life--can be. How, then can we reliably come to an answer about what represents the behavior Jesus would want from his followers? For instance, assume one designs an event or activity with the intent of proselytizing. Someone subsequently redesigns it for some personal purpose (profit, self-aggrandizement, etc). What is the appropriate response? Does one feel free to ruin it, as Jesus over-turned the money changers table in the Temple, because what they are doing is offensive? Publicly denounce them? Say nothing, and endure silently, because they have merely wronged you and this is one more occasion to "turn the other cheek?" I would say no answer is immediately clear just from studying Jesus's actions and teachings. How doesn't this just become a vehicle for justifying whatever one would like to do at the moment?

If anything, shouldn't the formulation be the other way around? Because Jesus is the Word of God, can't an understanding of scripture be used to gain insight into his actions at moments when they may not be crystal clear from the text alone?

 

No, I mean, it's certainly up to interpretation just like all the other methods of explicating scripture/morality. But you've picked a pretty difficult example. I mean, this would be easier to apply in larger areas, say, the idea of Israel carrying out genocide in the Old Testament. Look at a scripture that indicates someone should be stoned for some offense; how do we rationalize not stoning them? Well, we look at that scripture through the lens of Jesus. We interpret the Scripture through the Word. This is admittedly a very easy one; there's a story in the gospels explicitly about Jesus being faced with the situation of a sinner being stoned. It is, in some way, a way to rationalize what we want to do at the moment, I'll admit, just like in that situation. But that can be used in a positive way.

And surely there are broader principles that we can take from the actions and teachings of Jesus that transcend battles of interpretation. Surely, Jesus valued people from sections of society that many devalued; surely, Jesus saw great value in assuaging suffering; surely Jesus taught of a personal relationship with God and not a hypocritical religious show. I mean, I don't know; maybe you can find ways to argue against those things, but I feel that those things are clearly evident as principles that should guide our lives and any attempt to argue that, no, Jesus actually meant that we should not feel compassion for the suffering would be of such a logical stretch as to be a little silly.

But I have another "Christian" podcast that I'm going to be posting about shortly. I'll be interested to see how you react to that one.

 

I am looking forward to it, too.

But just to clarify my position, I am not solely concerned about getting into the weeds of exegetical conflicts. I don't think that everyone--or even most people--will try to use things in a way that is cynical or self-serving. Rather, my concern with a "broad principles" approach is that it is insufficiently detailed. Life is extremely difficult, with granular details. Sometimes, it's not always clear how we should behave. Especially when one tries to be conscious of their own biases, and the way more justifications tend to pop up for the course of action we already want to take. For people really looking for guidance, they want--and deserve--some method more sure. The level of extrapolation here just makes me sort of uncomfortable, if I tried to think about the times I was truly in a dilemma.

And it's not so much that my answers at those moments were always perfect. Rather, I could take comfort in the fact that I tried to do something rigorous to investigate the problem and came out with something I could live with. The vague offer of "What would Jesus do?" just isn't the same.

 

I definitely see what you're saying there and there are certainly going to be issues with any "system" put in place to attempt to figure out morality, which refuses to cohere into any simple system of rules and regulations.




Ending Human Trafficking Podcast
Studio: Sandra Morgan & Dave Stachowiak
Category: Higher Education

What It Is
The Global Center for Women & Justice at Vanguard University in California discuss issues surrounding human trafficking of all kinds with experts in the field and discuss pragmatic ways listeners can get involved in the fight.

Technical Details
A new episode comes out every two weeks. They run from thirty to forty-five minutes typically. The most recent hundred episodes are available on iTunes. For the rest (which isn’t many) visit the show’s website.

What About It
I think this podcast is an essential listen. Morgan and Stachowiak are great hosts; they talk about the issues surrounding human trafficking in a serious way, passionate but never hysterical or manipulative. They’re interested in facts, not in tugging at the heartstrings, though many of the episodes do that as well, just by virtue of the situations and circumstances the show explores. The show is dedicated to clearing up misconceptions, putting forward the real facts and motivating the listener to make changes in their own lives. Vanguard is a Christian university and these people are motivated by their faith, but it’s rarely brought up. You could listen to several episodes without getting any idea about the Christian faith of these folks at the GCWJ. I suppose they’d say that they’re too busy living their faith by serving others to spend much time talking about it and I’d bet anyone can respect that. It’s not always the most comfortable listening, though, as I said, the show isn’t about exploiting victims or shocking the listener, but it’s a serious issue facing the world today, one I think everyone should be aware of and informed about. The act of human trafficking is, to my mind, one of the most purely evil things going on in the world today and one that every right-thinking human being should want to see ended. And that, after all, is the mission here. The best episode of this show . . . well, it’ll be the last one.

4 stars.

Essential If
You want to understand the harsh truths and take action against them.

Avoid Like the Plague If
I was totally going to make a joke about “if you’re a human trafficker” or something right here, but I just don’t even feel like it.

Best Entry Point
I’m going to recommend a really good two-parter from a couple of years ago. The show did a great pair of episodes called A Dozen Myths About Human Trafficking that really got to the heart of a lot of misinformation surrounding the issues and how it’s best to help. Here’s part one & part two. If you think this issue is relevant mainly to those half a world away, check out Human Trafficking in American Schools to get the truth about just how close to home this issue actually is. And if you think you’re up for it, check out an episode that you won’t soon forget and you’ll be able to tell why from the title: Victims with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities. Yeah, I know. I know.

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Eardrop
Studio: Earwolf
Category: Comedy

What It Is
Earwolf Studios puts an answering machine on a special phone line. Comedians are asked to call in and leave short messages, messages of thirty seconds or less. Every day, a sequence of those messages is released as a podcast.

Technical Details
Episodes run pretty short. The longest I’ve seen is around fifteen minutes, but they typically run five minutes or so. There’s an Explicit tag; a fair amount of language. Episodes came out every day for a few months and then dropped off to coming out every few days. The show’s went dead after about five months; the last episode was back in July of 2011. The entire run of the show can still be found on iTunes.

What About It
It’s not a bad concept, but it’s a really bad show. I’m not at all surprised it lasted less than six months. It’s a rare misstep for Earwolf. They typically put out amazingly funny shows. There’s a couple of reasons this show doesn’t work. I think the main reason is that the technical aspect of the show is pretty awful. The phone line sounds pretty crappy, to the degree that you often can’t even understand what the callers are saying, which defeats the purpose entirely. If the caller is doing some kind of accent/impression, just forget it. There’s a guy who calls in and does a Gollum impression and I understood about zero words that he ever frigging said. Secondly, unfortunately, the show just isn’t funny even when you can understand it. It seems that most of the humor on comedy podcasts comes from riffing and callbacks and the structure of this show just doesn’t allow for those things.

½ star.

Essential If
You’re just not getting enough horrible phone connections from your AT&T contract.

Avoid Like the Plague If
Comprehensibility is something you value in a podcast.

Best Entry Point
Well, hmm, I’m going to say the last episode, ironically. Doug Benson calls in and says he’ll give a special prize to the first person to come up to him at a specific comedy convention and call Samm Levine (aka Lil’ Wolverine) a ****head. He then muses that no one’s listening, so he’ll get to keep his prize. That’s the whole episode. That’s a nice ignominious ending.

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Engadget
Studio: Terrence O’Brien & Ben Gilbert
Category: Gadgets

What It Is
The editors of the online magazine/blog Engadget from AOL and a group of rotating guests discuss the newest tech gadgets.

Technical Details
Episodes are typically around an hour; special episodes around events like CES might go as long as two hours or more. The online magazine and the podcast have been around since 2004 and the show has an archive of around 400 episodes, but it went defunct last year. The nine most recent episodes can be found on the show’s iTunes page. I don’t think the rest of the archive is available even on the Engadget website.

What About It
This is a show about gadgets, so it’s not exactly in my wheelhouse. I like some of the TWiT tech podcasts because they’re high energy and the hosts and editors are generally pretty silly and funny. This show is much more serious and sedate. If you’re more serious about gadgets, you might like this one more than the TWiT podcasts. But it’s not for me. Plus, it’s a show about keeping up to date on technology. Owned by AOL.

½ star.
Essential If
You’re sticking with AOL until they’re back on top.

Avoid Like the Plague If
You had no idea what CES stood for when I mentioned it earlier.

Best Entry Point
Eh, I listened to a few episodes, but I don’t really know enough to talk about the expertise and none of them were particularly more entertaining or interesting than any of the others. And there’s kind of no reason to listen to the archives of a show about new developments in tech.

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how do you have time to listen to all this ****, man? do you sleep at all???

 

Well, a lot of these shows I don't listen to anymore. I'll download five episodes and listen to them; if it's a good to great show, I'll subscribe and keep listening (though the shows that put out like an episode every day . . . I mean, there's no way to even come close to keeping up, so I'll usually just pick a time and grab a few of the most recent ones every once in a while). The others, I'll just drop. I mean, I feel like if a show hasn't done anything interesting in five episodes, it's time to ditch it. It's arbitrary, but it's just the way I do it. And even at that, yeah, I have archives stacking up on my computer of a lot of shows. If I subscribe, that's usually the way I do it, just let some episodes build up and then just listen to several episodes in a row and then move on to the next show's archive. I do listen at work a lot; I'm basically shackled to my desk all day, so that's a solid eight hours, more if I do overtime, which I have been lately. So, you know, it adds up. But long story short, I don't add many shows to my rotation and I can't even really keep up with the ones that I do.




Around the Horn
Studio: ESPN
Category: Professional

What It Is
Sportscasters go head-to-head in a freewheeling discussion/game dealing with the sports stories of the day.

Technical Details
This is, of course, the audio from the television show. Around the Horn can be viewed on ESPN, but if you’re too busy, the audio comes out as a podcast. There’s a new episode five days a week; they run twenty-two minutes or so. iTunes has the twenty most recent episodes; for more go to the website, though the archive there only goes back a couple of months further than the iTunes archive.

What About It
This is a high energy, often very funny podcast; host Tony Reali is an appealing, sharp presence and the sportswriters on the show are typically on top of their game. Reali will throw out a topic and go around the horn with each guest giving a quick summary of their feelings. This continues, with slight variations, as Reali adds and subtracts points in a fast-paced, completely arbitrary fashion. At the end of the episode, only one sportswriter is left the winner. It’s a pretty chaotic show, much more understandable in its visual format. In a purely audio format, it’s easy to lose the thread of who’s saying what in the constant wisecracking, shouting and overtalking. Reali has a mute button and he uses it for great comic effect, but it typically doesn’t help. Perhaps the best thing about the show is the fact that Reali as host/moderator/scorekeeper gets to openly call the writers on their BS. It’s incredibly satisfying to hear a sportswriter spout off some utter nonsense that even a sports novice like me can see the holes in and then hear Reali bark “Oh, come on!” or some variation on that. Of course, it’s also quite frustrating when someone spouts off some utter nonsense and Reali agrees with them. But this is the price of opinion journalism. It’s a good-natured, high-energy, funny show.

2 ½ stars.

Essential If
At Midnight just isn’t quite scratching your “arbitrary point system” itch.

Avoid Like the Plague If
Hell is other people . . . five other people all talking at once.

Best Entry Point
Don’t think I’ve ever heard a particularly bad episode of this show or a particularly outstanding one. Just download the most recent one.

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but i'm talking about this plus all the music you listen to and write reviews about, all the movies you watch and write reviews about, all the places you go out to eat at and write reviews about....

 

Podcasts I listen to so you should also listen to them:

Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
Self X-Planatory. An oral history of all things X-Men and X-Men related, but mostly the comics and mostly the main books. I'm only on Episode 5, so I'm still in the Silver Age. Informative if you want to know more about X-Men, which I did.

Lore
Aaron Mahnke hosts Lore, a "bi-weekly podcast about true life scary stories. The people, places, and things of our darkest nightmares all have real facts at their core. Each episode of Lore looks into a uniquely scary tale and uncovers the truth behind it."

Aaron gives a spiel about something spooky, say ghosts, then talks about a specific time when a real life spooky thing happened involving ghosts. More informative than scary, thanks to Aaron's dulcet tone.

Slumber Party With Alie and Georgia
Two best friends talk about what they learned this week, what they love and hate this week, and ask guests their best ghost stories among other "slumber party games" such as "It was my birthday" where the guest is asked to describe their best, worst, or last birthday, or "kill a benjamin" where the guest is asked what they would do right now with 100 dollars that they had to spend on something frivolous. Most of the guests have amazing ghost stories, and recently they had an entire episode dedicated to reading listener ghost stories.

Your Stupid Minds
Two guys talk about bad movies they--and presumably the audience-- just watched. Sometimes they have guests. Mostly they don't.

How Did This Get Made?
Same as above, but hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas. Often they have guests. Sometimes they have a live show with audience participation.

Uhh Yeah Dude
"America through the eyes of two American Americans." Two aging hipsters talk about the news and episodes of Celebrity Name Game.

 

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I dunno.

That's a brilliant show. I love Jason Mantzoukas; he's always great on Scott Aukerman's Comedy Bang Bang podcast as well. But yeah, How Did This Get Made? is wonderful. The episode on The Devil's Advocate is a place I recommend people start. So funny.



Fantasy Focus Baseball
Studio: ESPN
Category: Professional

What It Is
Fantasy experts from ESPN provide up to date information on baseball and delve into strategy.

Technical Details
Believe it or not, an hour or so drops basically every day; a day gets missed here and there and off-seasons aren’t as reliable, but typically you’ll get a new one in your feed every day if you subscribe. Episodes run about an hour and are very technical in nature. Twenty most recent episodes are on iTunes.

What About It
I’m not hugely into sports, but I do listen to some sports podcasts and I do find them interesting in the aggregate even if I’ll never be a fanatic. A level below regular sports: fantasy sports. I’m even less interested. To the degree I knew anything about fantasy sports, it was fantasy football. So a fantasy baseball podcast is about three layers below anything I care about in the realm of sports. The show is really technical, lots of stats and calendars and strategy charts and I understood very little of this show frankly. I mean . . . I just don’t know.

0 stars.

Essential If
You know.

Avoid Like the Plague If
Everybody else.

Best Entry Point
lol

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Has anyone here ever listened to Star Wars Action News or Now Playing Podcast?


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