Thursday, November 1, 2007

Podcasts--Week 9--Thing 21

Wow, I feel like I was body snatched. I lost four hours on this puppy. How does one loose four hours when even Fall Back has been postponed? Simple. Podcasts. And I don't mean the obvious, that I was so enraptured, amused, or horrified by what I was hearing/seeing that I could not escape. No, I'm not talking about a deer-in-the-headlights experience, but rather a frustrating one of not being able to kick my mule of a computer to faster speeds. I assume it's my home PC. (I don't do Things at work) I swear Windows Media Player laughed at me when I threatened it with the riding quirk and spurs. Sometimes I long for the good ole days when fixing a glitch merely warranted a swift boot to the engine. And, Teacher, the podcasts I tried to access stuck their virtual tongues out at me (the rotten cyber bullys), all because I didn't have their favorite plug-in. Wahh. Obviously, I could have tried to download the plug in, but really, why give the prima dona podcasts the satisfaction? No, kidding. I just didn't want to risk a manual install without my Techie hubby present. Plus, there's enough garbage on my PC as it is. Probably why it's so darned slow!

On the positive side, I did get to enjoy "If Britney Was My Mom," a heartwarming parental instructional video. And I found a great episodic podcast called, Blast the Right (see RSS feed on side), 'cause I'm such a staunch, Steven Colbert-type conservative.

What else? Well, using the recommended sites for podcast searching wasn't always successful. While I couldn't access any on Podcast.net (every one I checked required that dratted, ratsa, fratsa plug-in), I found tons of what appeared to be interesting podcasts fitting my search. The only difficulty I had is when I got ornery and started searching for topics too off-the-wall or out-of-the-mainstream to merit keywords in the menu. Yahoo Podcasts and Podcast.net
turned up only a few children's craft podcasts.

PodcastAlley.com did me up good, though. Using the search box returned dozens of hits--ones I could actually access, too. None turned up a tutorial on how to shoot milk out my tear ducts (a useful skill for a mom of five-year olds, I figured), though Yahoo Podcasts landed a neat recipe for Bloodshot Eyeballs.

One absolutely wonderful stand out site-- August House. I found it through Denver Public Library: Sites for Kids on the Merlin podcasting learning link
Unfortunately, Denver Public Library is busy now and I can't get the URL link at the moment. Sorry. But it's worth looking at, especially the animated books on August House.

Well, bye for now:)

No comments: