Funk Babblings

I've been a fan of podcasts for nearly four years now. If you don't already know, those are online radio shows with subscription feeds. I add the RSS/XML feed URL to my "podcatching" program, and my computer automatically downloads MP3s of shows as they're released; then I periodically copy them over to whatever is the most convenient player. Over the past few years the medium has become more well-known (mostly thanks to support in iTunes), and the selection of shows has changed, mostly increasing but of course some of my old favorites have either stopped or severely curtailed their frequency.

At first I tried to grab the latest shows every morning, and listen to them at work. Now I have a better system, partly thanks to working at home. I first separate the podcasts into two major categories, music and talk (there are some gray areas though, as seen below). For the music podcasts, I grab up to two weeks' worth of shows at a time (depending on how far behind I am), and mix those in with random songs from my personal collection so that I never go more than about 60-90 minutes without getting a few songs I already know I like; this way I get a good mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Then with the talk podcasts, every Monday I update a CD-RW with the new shows from the past week, then listen to those in the car throughout the week. Often I'll add a few episodes of a new show, to check out in any extra time at the end of the week.

• 14:16 Net connection down, which may mean the noisy line is being fixed. #
• 15:57 just may have a clear phone line again! #