Podcasts and listening in today's world

I don't know about you, but it seems to be harder and harder for me to be somewhere I can listen or watch something at an appointed time. Maybe I'm alone in that regard, but I don't think so.

Podcasts of favorite shows are saving my mind, allowing me to catch the shows any time I want to. I now hang an FM transmitter in my Prius' cigar lighter jack, wrap the external audio cord over the rear-view mirror (it is used as the antenna to communicate with the vehicle FM radio), and slap the plug into my Sansa 4 Gb e260 earphone jack. When I turn up the sound, it will let me travel for miles and miles that I have to go to get anywhere significant in Texas without getting sleepy or succumbing to highway hypnosis. Before I travel, I fill up a 2 Gb micro-SD card with podcasts.

While I sit here at my computer, I keep from getting in the way of other things I might want to use the sound card for by plugging the e260 into an inMotion player and listening to those same podcasts.

Some programs I like to catch are these:
Mountain Stage
http://www.mountainstage.org/mtnstagepodcast.aspx

Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour
[I just wish the emcee wouldn't talk so darned much.]
http://www.woodsongs.com/showlist.asp

WHYY's Fresh Air
[Again, I just never seem to be in front of a radio at the right time.]
http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=13

NPR All Songs Considered
http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=37&date=07-27-2009

NPR Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz
http://www.npr.org/templates/archives/archive.php?thingId=24&date=08-07-2009

And, since I'm an inveterate short-wave radio listener, I like things like
Radio Australia podcasts
[you can choose from the large selection of programs at]
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/

BBC podcasts
[again, a huge choice at]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/

Deutsche Welle
[a smaller set in English from the main German broadcaster at]
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1719252,00.html

As you can see from this small slice of the world's offerings, you can find enough audio to entertain you, even if you were a NYC cabbie doing 20 hours shifts for the rest of your (much shortened) life! This piece doesn't mention how to get these automatically sent to your machine. If there's interest, I can do another piece on that.

Comments welcomed.