On Demand Lazy

(I had this radio, in mint green - LOVED it.)

It's true... On-demand programming is making us even more lazy than we've already become, and I know lazy - it was my major in college.

The other day I tweeted that I was waiting for Click & Clack to start on NPR when someone responded that I should just download the podcast. I have, when I used to commute into the city. I loved listening to Ricky Gervais's podcasts on Bart - made it fun, and Bart is never fun.

But now I rarely have 30 minutes of uninterrupted time I can devote to hovering near my computer and I don't use my iPod anymore. I suppose I could while vacuuming or something, but see above re. lazy. I vacuum about as often as I churn butter.

When I'm driving all over the Bay Area for work, I'm always tuned in to (or tuning back to) KCBS for traffic updates. With an older car that uses an older iPod adapter, I couldn't negotiate between that and the radio without driving off the road. Just too much trouble.

I grew up listening to the radio. It was always on when I was wee - Mom listened to KCBS at home and in the car she listened to a classical station. (KKHI?)

I got a transistor radio for my sixth birthday and ran down the battery every night listening to KFRC. Before too long I upgraded to an AC model I could leave on 24/7, which I did. My brothers and I made cassette tapes from radio broadcasts, some of which I still have.

Through high school and college I was always tuned in to KFOG, KQAK, KITS and sometimes KFJC and KSCU. Not a lot of variety in the Bay Area, but I grew to love DJs on every station - friendly voices connected to the big wide world beyond my little neighborhood.

What I loved most was finally hearing my favorite song come on after listening to a bunch of stuff I didn't like. Enduring 45 minutes of mediocre stuff just to get to the best 3 minutes of the hour teaches one patience, and you can do other things during that time.

Listening to a podcast means devoting a solid half hour to active listening, without any convenient commercial breaks. Forget pausing - where's the sport in pausing any time you want? In MY day, we had to learn how to pee, make a sandwich and get a drink all within 3 minutes' time.

Not only that, but you can learn lots of fun info from a good DJ. Trivia about bands, upcoming tour dates, who's in rehab, etc. Stuff I'm sure is all over the internet today, but who has time to go look up all that random crap?

Plus, if you knew a certain show was going to be on, you made a date to listen. If you missed it, you missed it. No downloading the program later like a lazy ass. You had to care about showing up to tune in.

You kids can keep your on-demand podcasts. As Elvis Costello said, Radio! Radio!

Boobcast

This week I got to be a guest on a friend's podcast on the topic of boobs. I thought I could be helpful. Brought to you by Alan Home on UGTV.org.

• Boobcast
  
• UGTV.org podcasts

Too Much Karl

I love the Ricky Gervais Podcasts - love them. It's great when something makes Ricky laugh so hard it sounds like he must be wetting his pants.

Throughout the first season, Karl was somewhat quiet except for his Monkey News. Monkey News consists of fantastic tales of monkeys (actually chimpanzees) performing incredible feats normally handled by humans (like controlling a rocket into space, landing an airplane, performing surgery, etc.), and during the telling of these tales, Ricky becomes very angry at Karl for broadcasting total bullshit.

There were some gems from the first season. Karl's translation of Ben Franklin's "waste not want not": "Don't be chuckin' that out, you might need it later." Or when discussing the proverb about people who live in glass houses...: "People who live in glass houses have to answer the door. "

But these doses of Karl were small and well spaced throughout each show, and I was downloading and listening to shows only once a week. With Season 2, I may have made a mistake.

With the second season, I downloaded them all at once and put them on my Nano. This week I've been listening to shows back-to-back and I think I've overloaded on Karl.

It's too much weirdness at once. When asked how he would spend the day with or what he'd do if he encountered his doppelganger: "How would I know which one was me?"

Today I listened to the show where he was supposed to report what he'd learned about Freud. About Freud's theory on the stages of life, he thought Freud was saying "you should drink milk because it's good for you."

It gets to the point where it's too much, but I can't stop listening. In the future, I think I have to go back to listening only once a week, otherwise I'm afraid I could end up actually understanding some of the shit Karl says.

Some Karl Pilkington Fansites/Info:
http://www.rickygervais.com/karlpilkington.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Pilkington
http://www.karl-pilkington.com/