Podcasts are fantastic. I don\u2019t like media that isn\u2019t on demand, like traditional television and radio. I don\u2019t know why I let theatre off, maybe because it\u2019s more of a conscious decision to consume theatre.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t like the content (although most of it is garbage) – I love DVDs and own a few television series on DVD so that I can watch it when it\u2019s convenient (and pause it when the kids wake up), and I listen to a lot of podcasts. Since I started a new job in Cardiff and hence do a lot of commuting, I\u2019ve been listening to even more – and here they are.<\/p>\n
This is a good one to start with \u2013 it\u2019s one I\u2019m thinking of giving up. I started listening to it a few years ago as one of the first podcasts I picked up. It\u2019s a technology podcast about .NET stuff, programming stuff and related fields. Unfortunately, it\u2019s a pretty heavy schedule and puts out two shows a week of about an hour, and not all of the topics are relevant to me as it\u2019s quite a broad range of subjects. They also seem to have quite a heavy bias towards Agile methodologies, and I\u2019m not a fan of those yet. Although one episode did seem a little sceptical about them, so maybe they\u2019re just playing up to whatever guest they have. I don\u2019t think the value I get out of it is worth it.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, it is good to put on in the background and mostly ignore when I am working from home \u2013 I\u2019ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n
The D6 Generation is a mammoth show about games – mostly board games, though they are familiar with (and less fanboyish than) tabletop wargames. There\u2019s always a quiz, usually a guest, and the most in-depth reviews I\u2019ve ever heard to give you an idea of playing a game. I\u2019ve picked up a couple of suggestions for future additions to Games Night<\/a> from this show, but so far not tested their reviews. I also love that they don\u2019t blindly review things, they actually give negative opinions if they don\u2019t like a game.<\/p>\n This is another one I listened to many years ago and dropped, because each episode is over 3 hours long and come out every 3-4 weeks. Now that I\u2019m commuting over 5 hours a week, I have the time for this show again and I get an awful lot out of it.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve only recently picked this one up but gone back through the archive as far as the RSS feed goes. This took me back as far as an episode on the Age of Exploration and the whole of the Death of the Roman Republic series. It\u2019s a fantastic podcast, although each episode is a few hours long they only come out every couple of months and I still have the whole Wrath of the Khans series to get through to keep me going. I try and keep these episodes as a treat to myself for having finished listening to everything else on the list, else I would just blow through them all in no time at all.<\/p>\n I think this is the only podcast that I\u2019ve been listening to since the very start. It\u2019s another .NET technology podcast, but occasionally branches into other areas like organisational skills, diabetes and disability, fitness and hobbies, but Scott Hanselman is an excellent host and as it\u2019s only a half-hour show it\u2019s very easy to fit in to the daily commute and learn a little bit about a range of subjects.<\/p>\n I realised how long I had been listening to this show when I met up with some developer friends, mentioned a Hanselminutes show about something we were discussing, and when I went to the archives to find it for them found it had been over three years before!<\/p>\n Technically, this is another one that I\u2019ve been listening to since I started listening to podcasts – it may even have been the first podcast I listened to. But it stopped being weekly, then it stopped being\u2026 then it came back for a few episodes and disappeared again. It\u2019s still on the RSS reader if it ever updates again, but I\u2019m not holding my breath.<\/p>\n This is the first Warhammer<\/a> podcast I subscribed to, and I thought it was fantastic. Unfortunately it\u2019s ceased recording now, but at least (unlike Webcomics Weekly) they officially announced their end. Ironically, it was after a week where they joked about finishing up the show.<\/p>\n While writing this, however, they have announced that after a nine month hiatus, they are coming back in the middle of March! Hooray!<\/p>\n The second Warhammer podcast I started listening to, I almost quit this one immediately. The first episode I listened to had three guests, and one didn\u2019t play Warhammer and was just being a snarky, rude and extremely annoying twerp. The following week, it was announced that he and another of the guests would be co-hosts going forward, and he was marginally less annoying.<\/p>\n I stuck it out, and over the past year Gareth has been getting better and better and made the podcast really enjoyable. He\u2019s an excellent counterpoint to the tournament-heavy bent of the other hosts, asking simple questions and getting used to things slowly just like people who don\u2019t play Warhammer at least once a week. I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t quit on it back in the beginning.<\/p>\n This is a spin-off from the Bad Dice podcast (the clue is in the name) where the main host (Ben Curry) talks for 15-20 minutes each day on a different subject. I don\u2019t sync episodes on my phone every day, so I normally end up with a few to listen to all at once. It\u2019s an excellent show, short enough to not get annoying if the subject is dull (most tournament results or White Dwarf news, for me) but long enough to impart useful knowledge such as the \u201cHow to Paint Black\u201d or \u201cHow to Paint White\u201d episodes.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve become a big Mantic fan in the last year – their Kings of War ruleset is interesting and if I had more time to play, I\u2019d love to give it a go, and I\u2019ve mentioned Dreadball<\/a> on this blog a few<\/a> times<\/a> already<\/a>. They put out an infrequent podcast also hosted by Ben Curry and since most of these recently have been about Dreadball, I\u2019ve been listening avidly.<\/p>\n I picked this one up when Ben Curry of Bad Dice was a guest on it talking about Dark Elves (my favourite army), their tactics, and the rest. I added it to the regular subscription list and figured I\u2019d see how I liked it – and I did! They are more hobby focussed than Bad Dice, and they\u2019re not serial tournament champions. Since Heelanhammer finished, they\u2019ve definitely filled a void that Bad Dice doesn\u2019t quite fit. Some of their best and worst episodes are their playthrough battle reports – during a game, they take breaks to describe the turn. It might be just that sometimes I\u2019m not paying complete attention to the podcast (something I make sure to do with shows like Hardcore Histories), but I can\u2019t always visualise the game and lose the thread of things, and at that point I just want it to be over and skip to the next bit.<\/p>\n When I used to drive to work on my own, I got used to listening to the radio. I eventually gravitated to Radio 4 because Radio 1 is not for me, Radio 2 was hit and miss with the DJs, and every other station has adverts and I can\u2019t stand adverts. Jack FM<\/a> is best of a bad bunch, but I found that at the same time every Wednesday evening there would be Steve Harley Come Up and See Me<\/em>, and that was the nail in the repetitive playlist coffin. Then we removed the car radio but didn\u2019t replace it so that was the end of the radio for me.<\/p>\n These podcasts are (usually) hilarious and give me something that amateur comedy podcasts don\u2019t usually do and in a British accent. Listening to too many American accents can get irritating and most of my podcasts now (or at least the longest podcasts) are American.<\/p>\n This podcast is put out by the LoadingReadyRun team and has changed over the last year – they used to go into some detail on how their videos are made, but since this is now handled by the Loading Time video series, they\u2019ve reduced that content. The Ask LRR<\/em> section is a bit hit and miss – sometimes it\u2019s really interesting and other times it\u2019s \u201cwhat Magic card would you be if you were the opposite gender\u201d. After a long hiatus, they\u2019ve also come back with a new format – regular LRRCast once a month, a Magic podcast once a month, and a games podcast once a month. This is nice, because if I don\u2019t feel like listening to a bunch of Magic: The Gathering stuff (and why would I? I don\u2019t play!) I can just skip it. Similarly, I\u2019m just not into computer games as much as I used to be, so that one is skipped too.<\/p>\n Penn Jillette, the noisy part of Penn & Teller, puts up a libertarian, atheist music-loving podcast. <\/p>\n This is another podcast I almost dropped – before I had a big catch-up a couple of weeks ago, it was always the one I passed over for other things. The big problem was an episode a fair while ago that just had so many adverts it bored me – especially since most of the adverts were for American berry supplies, American postage stuff, etc. It\u2019s just not relevant or interesting. I usually catch up on it to get to an interesting guest interview – the last catch-up was to get to an episode with Teller, and before that to get to one with George Takei. I won\u2019t just skip to the interviews I want though, because that would mean missing things like an interview with Peter Noone. I had never heard of him before, but it\u2019s one of the best episodes of Penn\u2019s Sunday School they\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n I listened to a couple of episodes of this that discussed Dreadball \u2013 obviously – and decided it\u2019s not really meant for me. I liked the podcast, but it was a bit long and didn\u2019t really click for me. But apparently, the guys behind Meeples and Miniatures are going to be making a Dreadball podcast<\/a> soon! That\u2019ll be going straight onto the list. Since I can\u2019t actually think of a reason why I didn\u2019t pick this up (they\u2019re like a calm, quiet, relaxing D6 Generation) as a regular cast, maybe I\u2019ll give it another go.<\/p>\n Shamus Young of Twenty Sided is experimenting with a podcast – I haven\u2019t listened yet, but I\u2019ll try it out. I didn\u2019t like the Spoiler Warning series (I barely got five minutes in), although I normally like commentaries and MST3K style things, I just found it annoying more than anything else. But the podcast will be worth a listen to see if I can add it to my list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Podcasts are fantastic. I don\u2019t like media that isn\u2019t on demand, like traditional television and radio. I don\u2019t know why I let theatre off, maybe because it\u2019s more of a conscious decision to consume theatre. That doesn\u2019t mean that I don\u2019t like the content (although most of it is garbage) – I love DVDs and … <\/p>\nDan Carlin\u2019s Hardcore History<\/a><\/h2>\n
Hanselminutes<\/a><\/h2>\n
Webcomics Weekly<\/a><\/h2>\n
Heelanhammer<\/a><\/h2>\n
Bad Dice<\/a><\/h2>\n
Bad Dice Daily<\/a><\/h2>\n
Mantic Podcast<\/a><\/h2>\n
Garagehammer<\/a><\/h2>\n
Radio 4 Friday Night Comedy and Comedy of the Week<\/a><\/h2>\n
LRRCast<\/a><\/h2>\n
Penn\u2019s Sunday School<\/a><\/h2>\n
Meeples & Miniatures<\/a><\/h2>\n
The Diecast<\/a><\/h2>\n