God Bless the Podcast

I've been a big fan of podcasting for some time now. When I was working 65 miles from home, in a different radio market, my iPod (not necessary for podcasts*) was a real blessing. I would get about 40 miles from home and the radio stations would start to cut out – since I tend to listen to a lot of talk, which is mostly on AM. The smaller market that I worked in wouldn't broadcast further than about 10-15 miles, so there was always a dead spot in between. However, when you're listening to an MP3-cast on a portable player (lined into the car stereo), there is never a dead spot. On top of that, if there are commercials, it is easy to fast forward through them!

Fast forward to my current job, which is 9 miles from home and in the same radio market. No my trouble is that the building I work in is quite hostile to radio signals, both FM and AM. I have tried with multiple radios, and can't get a clean radio signal, especially on the stations I would choose to listen to. To make matters worse, the company I work for has increased the internet filtration that they do, so streaming has become practically impossible. That brings me back to the Podcast. Without it, the quiet of the office drags the day out in mundane monotony.

So what am I listening to? My favorite podcasts include: This Week in Tech (Technology), Security Now (Computer security), The Way of the Master Radio (Christian Evangelism), Search the Scriptures Daily (which is actually a weekly show – Christian Worldview), Stand to Reason (Christian Apologetics), Understanding the Times (Christian Worldview), and The Finer Points (Aviation); and now that I can't stream radio at work: Jason Lewis (local Conservative politics – the podcast doesn't seem to be working quite yet), Garage Logic (Local talk with Common Sense as the main theme, but talks some politics), and Dennis Prager (Judeo-Christian/Conservative worldview).

If you're into podcasting, please share what you listen to, especially if it's free. I say this because a lot of national, and many local radio shows also podcast but most of them only offer that to those who shell out to subscribe to their website.

*Podcasting is a term that refers to an MP3 broadcast. A true podcast is merely an RSS news feed with MP3 files attached to it. Originally podcasts were called “Audio Blogs”. Because they are done in MP3 almost all of the time, any mp3 player, or even a computer, will do just fine to listen to a podcast. The “Pod” part of the name was only attached to it because the most common portable MP3 is the Apple iPod, but should not infer that they only work with the iPod.