Podcasts are my sanity-savers

Sometimes my job consists of sitting amongst a bunch of equipment scanning page after page after page. I’m not going to lie, this gets pretty mind-numbing. In order to save my sanity, I listen to podcasts and I thought I would share with you what’s going through my head as I try to keep 150 year old pages of Dickens texts aligned on the scanner. For the hell of it, I’ve put them in alphabetical order:

All Things Considered — long-running NPR show, like some of the other radio shows I listen to, is all over the map in its topics, which helps keep me coming back. I particularly like to pick-and-choose clips from previous shows, building a playlist like filling a shopping cart.

Crap from the Past — this radio show goes out live over the air from a radio station far away from me (KFAI in Minneapolis), but I found it on the Internet Archive in all its craptacular glory. Crap from the past  is “a pop music radio show for people who already know plenty about pop music, hosted by Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber.” I listen because I can hear not only the one-hit wonders I love so much but also versions of songs I’ve never even imagined existing.

DNTO (aka Definitely Not the Opera) — another radio show, this time closer to home on CBC, hosted by Sook-Yin Lee who is quite a character herself. I listen to the show because, like its host, it’s quirky.

Dyscultured — Billing itself as “a weekly review of everything dystinguished and dysfunctional in Canadian culture” the three hosts discuss — or rather, “dyscuss” — everything from mobile phone releases to film festivals to Justin Bieber. They regularly make me laugh as they trash talk each other in the process of getting to the point and it works best when all three hosts are on deck. I usually show up for the livecast of this show on Wednesdays, but if I miss it, I’ll tune in on Thursday.

Film Junk — I only recently found this long-running podcast about film — everything from mainstream to indie darlings to underground cult stuff — but it’s Canadian and the guys are sarcastic, so really, it’s full of win.

LoveHateThings — host Anthony Marco rants and rambles about all sorts of things — really there is neither rhyme nor reason to what he selects — but the podcasts are short so even though he might record three or more in a week, I can catch up a bunch all at once.

Pirate Party Radio — keeping up to date on issues, legislation, and so on; this is the glitzy face of the party — and it does well, too.

Q — another CBC show, this one is hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, runs five days a week so I tend to pick and choose depending on the guests lined up. I also find it’s pretty easy to get over-exposed to the show so if I’ve listened to a bunch of episodes over a week, I may not listen to any for the next two weeks.

Rebound — Spencer and Lisa Ashby work through life after foreclosure — they discuss debt recovery from a real-world, albeit American, perspective. I found them when looking for something frugal (meal planning maybe?) and the two of them are entertaining enough that I go back from time to time.

TV, Eh? — I discovered this podcast through Dyscultured when host Diane Wild was a guest there (and now one of the Dyscultured hosts also co-hosts TV, Eh?). It’s an amazing little niche obsession over Canadian television. I realize I don’t watch a lot of Canadian TV (and what I do watch tends to be the reality-style stuff like Dragon’s Den, Canada’s Worst Handyman and Restaurant Makeover) but it’s an entertaining look inside a subject that lives on my periphery.

Wow, that’s 10 right off the top of my head — there are others I pick at from time to time on topics from science to history to music, though I try not to listen to anything too intense at work ( I do have to focus!) and I don’t listen to all of these in any given week. However, if you aren’t listening to podcasts, this is where I suggest you start. Most of these can be downloaded from iTunes if that’s your thing, and all of them can be streamed online which is a great way to “taste test” and decide whether a host will annoy you or not.

Do you have any favourite podcasts? Tell me about em… my sanity is on the line!