Podcasty Goodness

I just spent a lovely afternoon working on a new design while watching a whole bunch 'o videocasts from "The Fat Squirrel".   I actually started with her last night and for the first episode, I was thinking, "This could go either way....this lady could be intelligent and hilarious or she could be a total poser who will annoy me."  (This feeling may have been exacerbated by the fact that the first episode I downloaded was entitled "Don't Knit Angry, Yo!" and she exclaimed "Yo!" at the end of sentences far more than I am used to any grown woman doing.  But, as it turns out, her enthusiasm is real and her exuberant manner grew on me.  I''m all for excitement and exuberance, as long as it is genuine, and after watching about 6 of her videocasts, she appears to be the real deal!

Her podcast is a fun mix of silly stories, mommy talk, knitting show & tell, and some other random odd bits.  But it's all fun and if your attention is pulled away for a could moments while you are knitting, you can easily pick back up with whatever she is talking about.

She was actually looking extra-good by the time I stumbled across her podcast because I had spent the better part of yesterday looking for new podcasts and failing miserably.  Note to podcasters - here are some things I do not want to listen to (but had the unfortunate experience of hearing from various podcasting sources yesterday):

People eating while podcasting (seriously, even if you are doing this and making fun of it at the same time, it is gross to listen to.  I don't want to get up close and personal to the sound of other people chewing.)

Podcasts that record at such a low volume that in order to hear it at all you have to turn your volume up crazy high and therefore get a ton of hissing that pretty much covers up the sound of the voices anyway.

Podcasters that sound like a sixth grader reading the essay they wrote in front of the class.  There was one knitting podcast that seemed like it might be good - nice sound quality, pleasant-sounding host, started with a fun story about an old lady that gave her an unwanted work-in-progress.....but as the story went on, it became apparent that she was reading it word-for-word.  It ended up really formal sounding and not fun or spontaneous at all.  I like a little spontaneity in my podcasts.  If I want to read a perfectly worded story, I'll read it myself, thankyouverymuch.

Husband and wife podcasting teams that either actually fight while recording or pretend to fight while recording, resulting in an awkward 5-minute segment where the husband is refusing to talk and the wife is apologizing over & over.  I don't want to know that couple in real life and I don't want to listen to them on iTunes, either.

"Inside jokes" with your fellow podcasters.  I'm sure they're hilarious to you, but the people listening have no idea what you're talking about and have to sit there for the 90 seconds it takes all of you to recover from your fit of laughter.  Just jokes we're gonna understand, please.

So....yeah.  I tried on about ten different podcasts and came up with only The Fat Squirrel Speaks as a winner.  I already listen to the Knitting Pipeline, but since there was no episode out this week, I decided to expand my knitting repertoire.  I also - whoops, almost forgot this! - watched a few episodes of "Mommy Needs Yarn" earlier in the week and liked that one a lot, too.  Finding that video cast was another kick in the pants for me to see if I was missing out on other "cast"-ing goodness. 

Anyway, having some fun stuff to watch/listen to while I was working yesterday and today made it extra-enjoyable, so thanks to all you lovely podcasters who keep us entertained!  (Except the guy eating the bag of chips on the mic.  That was G-to-the-ross.)