On Podcasts

I listen to podcasts. Don't know what those are? This link should help you out. Get up to speed, then head on back; I got lots to share.

For those of you in the know, you should know I'm something of a podcast addict. I say "something" because I really only follow six or seven of them, but I say "addict" because I spend whatever free time I can muster listening to them. It all started when I used to frequent a little site known as Gamespot. It was my site for all my gaming news at the time, and it offered a regular, serialized audio recording of news peppered with spontaneous humour and engaging conversation. You could really say that Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, Vinnie Carravello, Brad Shoemaker, and Alex Navarro got me into podcasts. Their show was awesome; so awesome that I would spend a good twenty minutes each week uploading the new 'cast to my shitty phone via low-bandwidth Bluetooth. When I got my first iPod, the 80Gb Classic, I jumped to iTunes for my podcasting needs. What shit that was. iTunes ran slow, it would lock up for no reason, it ran slow, I had to coax it to finish downloads, it ran slow, it hogged memory, and it ran fucking slow. There were good points to iTunes, but none of them related to podcasts. Still, it was the only thing that really worked right with the iPod, so I never had much choice. Regardless of how it handled by 'casts, it allowed me to expand my 'cast horizons. I found dozens of new podcasts thanks in part to iTunes. I still listen to many of them today.

When I switched to Linux, I killed my iPod. I'm still not sure how. After trying to sync it with about four other programs, I managed to permanently damage the file structure and possibly even the firmware (which, as I understand the inner structure of the 80Gb Classic, is impossible). My regular podcast machine was dead, and I went back to my phone for a while. It was pretty terrible. I experimented with using Rythymbox, the default media player in my Linux distro (Ubuntu), as well as gPodder. They were all right, but they lacked features I had become accustomed to with my iPod: audio bookmarks, automatic syncing of new episodes, and automatic cleansing of episodes once they had been listened to. gPodder at least got the syncing part right. I managed to pick up a Sansa Clip 2Gb on the cheap, and that worked well for a down-and-dirty podcast machine.

Up to this point, podcast listening had always required two devices: the mp3 player (to listen to the podcasts) and the computer (to subscribe to, download, and manage the podcasts). Then I acquired a Playsation Portable system (a 2000 model, again on the cheap). I got it just for gaming. Turns out it's the perfect podcast machine.

The PSP has an RSS channel. I think it was intended for websites and video content, but it works really well for podcasts. Using the PSP's web browser, you can click any podcast RSS feed link to automatically subscribe to the feed in the PSP's RSS Channel. From there, you can either stream the audio (that's right, streaming!) or save it to the memory card to listen to it on the go. Or, you can just set the channel up to automatically check the feeds at a set time and download any new episodes. Every night at 3am, my PSP wakes up, checks for new episodes, downloads any new ones, and goes back to sleep.The process is seamless. With the PSP, I don't need a computer to manage my podcasts at all. The only downside is that the PSP isn't a particularly pocket-sized device. The upcoming PSPgo, however, is definitely pocket-sized.

The PSP: perfect podcast machine. Whodathunkit?

What's this, then?

I already keep another blog which is meant to relate my stories from retail (and which I intend to keep distinct from this one, hence no link). This is my personal blog, focusing on my creative endeavors and random musings. The best kind of blog, right? Right?