iMurphy

I just listened to a very good sermon by C.J. Mahaney, former pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was very Baptist in his use of passion as a persuasive sermon technique, but nonetheless quite convincing and convicting. I recommend the sermon to everyone. (Oh, and thanks to Castle Church Popular Files podcast for the hook-up.)
Totally unrelated to anything serious, I kept thinking how my Mahaney’s voice sounded like a young Alec Baldwin’s! No one else seems to have made the connection, so I thought I’d mention it. Does anyone else hear it? (I think I must’ve heard some audio book Alec did since I clearly am able to divorce appearences from sounds.)

There are so many good podcasts, I don’t know what to do! I don’t have time to listen to all this great stuff! Here are som good ones and highlights:

5 Minutes with Wichita

No, I didn’t hear about this on Podfinder, I searched for bluegrass and found it! Ignoring the upcoming vlog entries about the gay, Elvis-impersonating, Ozzy-covering, bluegrass legend, this is a hilarious podcast featuring a hilarious interviewer talking casually with the biggest stars in bluegrass. Always short, sweet and funny.

Rip-n-Read

Charlie Quidnunc is from Seattle, but you’d never know it by his deeply conservative politics. He avidly trolls the blogosphere and C-SPAN for the glaringly obvious truth in the midst of the media blitz to the Left. He solid, hype-free take on the news is always sober and refreshing. Looking for a way through the fluff? Look no further.

The Signal

I’m sure all of you good Browncoats went and saw the movie 28 times in the theater, and are uncontrollably eager for the DVD, but you really should listen to this podcast to meet the true Firefly geeks. These guys mouth-breathe their way through several cool interviews with cast and crew and offer evangelistic tip for converting and hosting shindigs. The Chinese section is not to missed either.

The Bored Again Christian

I’m not 100% on this guys theology, but he finds great, Christian, podsafe, downloadable music from beyond the pale and makes wonderfully thematic podcasts out of them. I recommend this one and the music it contains to any one (as well as Dave’s Lounge).

    Rocketboom skiped their usual geek news read by hot chick routine the other day, and instead hosted a bizarre greyscale (not just black and white) animated video of birds attacking a British man in the bath. I’m seriously considering buying the album on iTunes. The song is “Bathtime in Clarkenville” by (The Real) Tuesday Weld, which samples “Sweeter than Sugah” by The Mills Brothers. It is playing over and over again in my mind; it’s an earworm.

    One of my favorite podcasts is IT Conversations. I subscribe to the ‘everything’ feed, and man is it diverse! If you want to hear about things you never knew you never knew, check them out. I can’t believe it’s free. Actually, they need donations, so if you’re wealthier than me, consider chipping in. And give to Wikipedia while you’re at it. Anyway, I heard a fantastic podcast unlike any other episode today.

    Normally, all the tech people who get interviewed on ITC are pretty liberal. I haven’t really come across any political shows, but there is the general, underlying assumption that you too hate the President and are embarassed to be an America. But today, I heard George Gilder’s politically charged interview on the ‘Larrys World’ section of ITC. He talked about China not being communist any more and about energy infrastructure in America. I could tell the interviewer was rubbed a little the wrong way with so much conservativism. The part that really gave me pause, however, was when they spoke of the media and entertainment.

    Two things must happen to reform our videocracy, accord to George Gilder. First, true broadband connectivity must become highly distributed so as to facilitate easy downloading of video. Such access is commonplace in Japan and Korea. Second, the purveyors and peddlers of television and video must wake up to what consumers really want. Mr. Gilder quotes Chris Anderson’s statistic: 60 percent of Amazon’s book sales are from items outside the top 150,000. People buy the book they want, not what the publisher is pushing. When TV and video get to this point, the fear-mongering, liberal media elite will find themselves out of the street!

    My summary is highly colored by my own opinion, so be sure to download the original show yourself. Enjoy!

I recently listened to a few of the following podcasts, but then decided to unsubscribe but right reviews as to why. I hope to blog about the podcasts I’ve decided to stick with individually in the near future.

Web Talk Radio

    I was impressed by how many of the podcasts I’ve found are made on the West Coast, and especially here in Washington state. I guess there are a lot of tech jobs in Seattle and Portland, but that was also the problem with this podcast: they have been borged by Bill Gates. Microsoft is not the world leader in technology, it’s just the biggest. You don’t call the most popular kid in school the smartest, nor the bully the most well known. These guys have the forgivable drone of broadcaster who are a little nerdy but are most interested in making technology known to the non-geeks, but they (unforgivably) have their head in the sand regarding Mac and any kind of wish for the future. Microsoft tells you the future and if you just accept theirs, there’s no reason to dream of your own.

The Infidel Guy Show

    I am determined to be the Christian who Leftist Liberal fruitcakes cannot say, “Yeah, well you’ve never seen Fahrenheit 9/11 so you can’t diss it.” I did watch and so I can tell you why it was evil. This podcast isn’t evil, it’s just unthinking. I can’t stand people who feel there cause is so obvious it doesn’t need explaining, let alone defending. This guy has a real laziness in regards to his position; he speaks assuming we’re as cynical, jaded and nihilistic as he is. I can live with snide comments, God hating and Christian make funs (the last one is almost necessary), but to never present a rational system behind it all leaves one empty and bitter.

True Knights Combat Training

    I guess by even admitting that I had some interest in this show that I am confessing a problem with pornography/purity. Fair enough. As to why I will not be continuing to take these good folk’s bandwidth, I have two concerns. Most importantly, this podcast is merely the generalized sermon-extracts from their ministry in Michigan. Since I don’t live there, I can’t meet one on one with anybody, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. This is because they’re Catholic and their theology is a little sketchy. It hasn’t entered into much of their discussions yet, but if I want vague homilies that don’t explicitly address the issue at hand, I can find some where I’m not furtively keeping an eye out for bad theology.

I’m so happy Dr. Williams reminded me to get into Podcasting. The Stevenote from the WWDC had a big schpiel about it too, so I think that got me looking for iTunes 4.9 early. In order to save time, I downloaded it while on the T3 at work, USB 2.0′d it to my NTFS formatted iPod and had it installed within 30 minutes of getting home. Unfortunately, the 30 MB download for the corresponding iPod update had to be done over the dial-up, so that took until the next day. But now that I’ve tried it, I’m so excited!

I have really listened to just a couple of Podcasts at this point, the longest being Inside Mac Radio. They were very geeky, but it was the kind of radio show I’ve wished existed in the past. I was always sure I’d never find such programming. They asked their guests amazingly specific questions, all about the use of their Macs. I haven’t enjoyed a radio show so much in years.

I also found a ER doctor with a Podcast. His name is Sammy on the Web and he’s kind of funny. His pictures reminds me how many kids from my graduating class at Seoul Foreign School went into the “accelerated seven year medical program” at Duke or Harvard. Man, am I glad I didn’t do that! His Podcasts start with some Top 20 song clip and end with a clinical question to be answered in the next Podcast. I’ll definitely stay subscribed.

iTunes has their own Podcast, of course, and it leads the way with artwork and chapter links to the web and the iTMS.

All this geeking-out made me at least curious about making my own Podcast, though not seriously. If I had friends and relatives who knew enough about technology, a Podcast might save time. We end up saying the same thing a dozen times on dozen long-distance phone. But, alas, I am the geekiest person I know by a long-shot. A biweekly audio exposé on our lives, complete with the latest words and sounds from Reason’s mouth would fall onto no one’s ears. Rapid Weaver may support Podcasting, but my acquaintances do not. *Sigh*. I can’t wait for the technology to trickle down!