Just a Thought - I like Podcasts, Honest! || The Mac Observer

"It is always the best policy to speak the truth-- unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."

- Author: Jerome K Jerome

I've got a few things I need to get off my chest; I need to set the record straight. I try to be an honest man. The operative word being 'try', but sometimes you tell a convenient lie and the next thing you know the pit bull next door ate your homework, you were delayed because a UFO landed on the northbound freeway, and the lipstick on your collar is from the grateful woman you saved from a burning building (don't let on how grateful she was).

For years now, I've been passing myself off as and average guy; the truth is, I'm a geek. I get a kick out of technology. I'm always looking for new stuff to poke at. I get headaches if a week goes by without me discovering some new gadget, software, or process. And even if I can't get my hands on a sample of that new thing, I will at least read up on it, just to have a working knowledge of whatever it is.

Other guys want court-side tickets to pro basketball games and really fast cars, and they can argue sports stats with finesse and aplomb; I want a really good telescope, a car that gets decent gas mileage and can carry stuff, and I can get in heated debates over how many megapixels a good consumer camera should have (3 is minimum, 5 MP and more than a 3x optical zoom is best).

That's what card-carrying geeks do, it is part of what makes me, me. I can accept that.

So, you would think that I'd be all over podcasts, right? The truth is, I got to the podcast party late and woefully under dressed. Of course, I'd heard about podcasting, and knew what it was about in general, but I was just plain slow to give it a go. For such an offense I may have to turn in my geek card.

I could claim that I've been so busy lately that I just have not had the time to take a serious look at this new and rapidly growing phenomenon. Yeah, I could claim that, and it would be partially true, but the other part is that I was lazy. The last thing I want to do when I get home from a hard day of dealing with Microsoft apps and the people who use them is to surf the Web for something else to distract me from the constantly changing list of stuff I gotta do at home.

Two things happened recently, however, that got me to take a long, hard look at podcasting, and got me to thinking about its potential: TMO started podcasting, and I took a road trip.

A few weeks back, Dave Hamilton, my boss here in TMO Towers, came up to me and said, "Vern, we are going to be doing podcasts; I want you to take a listen and tell me what you think."

The truth is, I thought to myself, "OooKaaaa. TMO Podcasts. What, the heck, do we have to talk about? Are we going to regurgitate the news in audio format? Are we going to bare our technological souls, like some sort of strange audio reality show, for anyone with an MP3 player to review?"

I could almost hear Dave sniffing as the mic closes in for a full bodied stereo recording of him crying, someone tells him in a sympathetic voice, "Take your time, Dave, and tell us how you feel."

" I...I never wanted to be a geek. (sniff!) And now... I can't help myself! (sniff! sniff!) I've always wanted to be a Wall Street stock broker. (sniff!) I look good in a suit, dammit!"

"That 's what this show is all about, Dave. The Gentleman Geek is about getting you to see the true gentleman inside you. But to bring out that gentleman, you'll have to give up something. You have to give me the pocket protector, Dave."

"It's alright, Dave, we're all here with you, and we support you. Now, give us the pocket protector."

"Do you know how rare this protector is? It's from Sperry-Univac! It's a collector's item!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've set fire to the pocket protector. Dave has withdrawn into a fetal position. Join us next time when we attempt to make Dave give up the pennies in his penny loafers."

Dave sobbing is bad enough, but I also didn't want to listen to the verbal equivalent of the mental diarrhea that passes for many of the blogs that can be found around the Web. Slapping a TMO logo on it won't help.

So, I put it off. Sad, isn't it? I couldn't even muster the courtesy to take a listen to my boss's own podcast. (After he reads this I suspect I'll be looking for a new job. Please send job offers to me via my iChat account. I will work for food, but I don't do Windows.)

Well, as cosmic forces are wont to do from time to time, they aligned in such a fashion that I found myself preparing for a long (12 hour) drive. While creating a new playlist for the trip I saw the podcast logo in iTunes Music Store, and I remembered Dave's request, so I downloaded TMO's podcasts, Mac Geek Gab, along with several others that looked interesting, and I was set.

I like to travel very early in the morning, around 1AM; the roads have less traffic, and I'm usually the only one awake in the car, so I take the time to think. At least, that's what I like to tell myself. The truth is that when I start out that early, there's a period of time where my body insists that it is tired and should be sleeping. It takes me about an hour and 2 cans of Sobe Adrenalin Rush to convince my body that sleeping while behind the wheel of a large vehicle moving at 70 mph is not a good thing. That morning when I set out on my half day trek my body and mind started complaining in unison, So, I downed a can of Rush, got behind the wheel, and fired up my iPod.

To my surprised, I liked what I was hearing. Of course, I'm suppose to say that about TMO's podcasts, but as I clicked-in other podcasts I found that I had been missing some really good stuff.

For instance, I've played around with learning Spanish off and on since my Spanish class in junior high. It was something that I've always wanted to do, and can do to a small extent, but I've always wanted to learn more. While picking through the lists of podcasts in the iTunes Music Store, I found a podcast called Really Learn Spanish that has gotten me interested in learning the language all over again.

When I was done with all of the podcasts I had loaded I found that I wanted to listen to more. I looked around and discovered that more than 3 hours out of my 12 hour drive had passed, and I was wide awake, and I hadn't opened the second can of Adrenalin Rush.

I started thinking about all of the cool things that can be done with podcasts, which led to some interesting vignettes. I'll be exploring some of those ideas in future articles.

For now, if you haven't looked into podcasting, I urge you to give it a try. Even if you don't own an iPod, or any MP3 player at all, listening to podcasts on your computer really frees you. And with the support podcasts have in the iTunes Music Store, finding a podcast that suits your taste has never been easier. There's literally something for everyone, with more high quality podcasts appearing daily.

As for what I really thought of our own Mac Geek Gab podcasts; Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun are doing a magnificent job making technology approachable with their informative and lighthearted banter. Their breadth of knowledge and their finely honed sense of wit makes Mac Geek Gab the best podcast found anywhere on the Web. People would pay good money to listen. Keep up the good work, guys!