Listen at your own Leisure



I used to have a roommate (who is still one of my best friends) whose life revolved around television, and still does. If you wanted to hang out on Wednesday evening, his excuse would be (and I'm not kidding) "I can't...'Everybody Loves Raymond' is on that night". Sometimes we'd be chillin' at home and someone would call and he'd answer "90210 is on right now, so this better be fucking important!" (I didn't make that one up either). He was halfway joking and half-way serious when he would say things like that. There was no compromise either. Thank goodness for TiVo. Those days are now over (Yo bro, you can catch up on "Top Model" over the weekend).

Which brings me to NPR. There are tones of great show's I'd like to listen to, but they are never on when I can listen to them, and I can't listen to talk radio at work...my brain just doesnt work that way. I'm glad "This American Life" finally got a clue and is now releasing a (free) podcast of all the new episodes every week. Since they've accepted that format, I've listened to more episodes in the last month while walking the dog and driving to work than I had over the past year! I think if shows like "Fresh Air" (which are available in streaming Real Audio format...I know..I know) would just bite the bullet and podcast, they'd get more listenership.

The reality is that getting all my favorite NPR shows to podcast is like pulling teeth, since the reality is that local NPR stations PAY for these shows, which gets listeners to support public radio.

I can still whine though, right? What else are blogs for?