Sunday, March 18, 2007

Something I just remembered recently...

I like to listen to things while I drive. Music is good, but when I'm on a long car trip, what helps keep me stimulated is a conversation. Usually when I'm making a long car trip, though, I'm either alone or the other person/people in the car are sleeping. They tend to make poor conversationalists. So, I make do with talk radio, it's the next best thing. Back home I nearly always have access to a great talk-radio station: KFI AM 640 (More Stimulating Talk Radio). Recently (like..4 years ago) they started broadcasting their shows over the internet allowing me to listen any time I'm at a computer that's connected to a decent internet connection. (That doesn't include my connection from school).

Anyway, last week and this week I found myself alone in a car driving from or to Dallas respectively. That's about 2 hours of time - perfect to cram in a podcasted radio show. So I pulled up the most interesting one I knew of and dropped it on the iPod. It's different...it seems wrong in so many ways...and the first reaction I get from most people that I tell about it is something along the lines of, "Are you serious?"

Anyway, the premise of the show is that it's hosted by Jesus. It's strange that a secular radio station known mostly for having idiot (though entertaining) hosts whose major vocations are standing outside the governor's office and yelling at him with a megaphone (I'm talking about you, John & Ken) would produce a show like this...and it's even stranger that it's actually taken seriously by many Christians. What it is not is religiously fluffy, obtuse, or impractical. What it is is down to earth, realistic, practical, and tasteful. It's the Jesus Christ show on KFI (6am to 9am on Sunday mornings Pacific time), and it's also available via podcast. I have modified the KFI Sunday podcast to only list the Jesus Christ shows. The link is on the right. I'll try to keep that file updated, though sometimes I may forget.

But back to the show itself, it's a 3 hour segment of time (which works out to just under 2 hours of actual show-time thanks to commercials) where callers can ask Jesus (okay, it's actually just an ordinary guy who is playing the role of Jesus) any question at all. Some of the callers are Christians wanting some insight into a theological issue. Some of the callers aren't Christian but would like to know what Jesus actually thinks about something.

Is the host perfect? Of course not. If you talked to him outside the context of the show I'm certain that he'd agree with that statement. Within the show, though, he never breaks character, is always portraying the role of a loving God trying to help his children make sense of the world they're in. If you find yourself looking for a way to kill a couple of hours and you could stand to listen to some talk-radio, I'd heartily recommend listening to this. No matter what, everything he has to say is quite reasonable, logical, sensible, and practical.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a Podcast, know that it's simply an RSS feed that contains at its essence a series of links to MP3 files that you can download. The name stems from the fact that it integrates easily with the iPod, but you certainly don't need one to listen to them. If you like to use iTunes, you can easily use that to retrieve podcasts by copying the URL for the Podcast to the clipboard, then in iTunes go to Advanced->Subscribe to Podcast. Just paste the URL there and it'll download the files, keep track of your place listening to them, and keep track of which ones you've already listened to for you.

Alternatively, you can use just about any other RSS reader. For example, if you use Firefox 2 (or later), it includes the concept of a "Live Bookmark" built in. Just clicking on the link will prompt you to create a Live Bookmark which you can then use in your Bookmarks section like any ordinary bookmark folder. The difference is that the Live Bookmark will automatically update itself as the file you used to subscribe to it is updated. In other words, new content will automatically be added. The biggest downside to this feature (in my mind, at least) is that it doesn't keep track of which ones you've already read/listened to.

Finally, I would like to report my progress on my Mountain Dew can structure thing. You can view said progress here.

1 comment:

Spaulding Lab said...

Hmmm, odd, I may have to check that out some time.