Thursday

3/29/2007


Office assistance, originally uploaded by spcummings.

For years, if get a chance to catch up on work in my office, I stream radio shows I enjoy. At least it's legal for the time being.

6 comments:

Pat said...

I'm a big fan of This American Life. I have not seen the TV version yet, though I believe it's streamable as well.

I have a number of NPR shows that I get the podcasts of, listening to them on walks with the dog - in between CMC listens of course.

Stephen Cummings said...

The local cable operator (Mediacom) had a special where I could a premium service for free for three months. I requested Showtime to get TAL. The first show was okay. I don't by the Ira Glass sitting at a desk out in the middle of nowhere motif; I hope they lose that.

The first show rehashed one of my favorite radio stories, one about a group of peformance artists who arranged the "Best Gig Ever" for a new band. They found a band's website, learned the songs that were available for free downloads, then proceeded to go to a show and act like rabid fans of the group.

I found the premise of the group's goals-- distort reality by acting a certain way publicly-- to be entertaining, but with sticky moral reprocussions.

Pat said...

The desk in the middle of nowhere thing is a total Monty Python rip-off. I can't imagine why they would do that. Hopefully he doesn't say, "Now for something completely different."

I remember that one. Good.

Ones that come to mind:

Guy infiltrates the mob run garbage collection industry in New York - hilarious and completely fitting most of the stereotypes.

Guy tells a story of meeting a woman at a restaurant that he, as a young man, had had a tryst with. She was 20 years older and I think had been his first sexual partner. Beautifully told story - amazingly sweet.

Lots of funny stuff with Sarah Vowel and David Sedaris.

Recent one about a girl whose father was saved from the Holocaust by a family in the Ukraine. She returns and gets embroiled in a property dispute stretching across space, time and languages.

Truly a great hour of entertainment, no matter the theme.

Stephen Cummings said...

Here's the link to the page with the "Best Gig Ever" story link:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=286

Dan said...

I, too, stream (radio) at work. Stuff with talking makes it tough for me to concentrate, though. I've been streaming Accuradio jazz lately.

Aaron said...

Dan, any particular sub-channel on AccuJazz? Giving a listen tonight they seem to have a pretty good selection, compared to some of the jazz stations that come up in iTunes (trending mostly towards smooth jazz, blech). However, the audio quality seems iffy. I'm finding a fair amount of hiss, and lots of degradation that comes from poor compression. It doesn't help that the stream keeps re-buffering.