Author: austinfey

Podcast Madness: Midwest, Round 1

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Recap: 40 podcasts, single-elimination brackets — 1 winner will emerge!

Read the first post here, then come back for the results.

Midwest, Game 1: Presidential vs. More Perfect

Presidential is a podcast hosted by Washington Post journalist Lillian Cunningham with an episode on each U.S. President. Naturally, I listened to episode 1 on George Washington. Cunningham interviews journalists and historians to briefly recap the character and legacy of the presidents, looking for lesser-known details and interesting facts to share.

While the first episode was interesting, there was a lot of “this is the thesis statement of my project” and not quite enough actual G. Washington facts. Maybe I’ve just already absorbed a lot of information about Washington? Now that I look at the timestamp, I see the episode was 48 minutes long, which is pretty short to cover Washington’s life. I think I also wasn’t crazy about some of the background sound effects and found them a little distracting. Maybe I should listen to an episode on a president I know nothing about. Like Benjamin Harrison. I know nothing about that guy.

More Perfect is an offshoot of the popular Radiolab podcast. It covers the Supreme Court and some of the consequences of decisions made there that ripple out into society. I listened to episode 1: Cruel and Unusual, which discussed the death penalty. You know, to start with something light.

It was fascinating, and I appreciated that they laid out some dissenting opinions. It made me think more about the death penalty and lethal injection, but without making me feel completely crushed by the conversation.

Winner: More Perfect

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Midwest, Game 2: Common Sense with Dan Carlin vs. the Tom Woods Show

I listened to episode 314: Unhealthy Numbers of Common Sense with Dan Carlin, in which Carlin talked about U.S. healthcare. Whew. What a mess (not Carlin — the system)! He talked about how the U.S. stacks up against other comparable countries like Canada and the UK and guys, as we all suspected, it’s not great. We spend more on healthcare and we don’t get proportionally better results, and most average Americans completely hate the way the system works. The numbers are fairly dire.

While I appreciated his rant and agreed that the system is terrible, I felt kind of hopeless at the end. I’m a tiny person with no ability to change the mess and it feels like we should scrap everything and start over, which is ridiculous. We can’t do that. So I don’t know the answer… it’s probably good to talk about it though.

For the Tom Woods Show, I listened to episode 874: Snappy Answers to Anti-Libertarian Questions. Woods, the host, and his guest answered common questions about why one might be a Libertarian and addressed questions like:

  • do libertarians think the state is a force for good?
  • …but we can’t trust a free economy — don’t we need monopoly laws?
  • are you pro-business or pro-consumer?
  • this is not going to work — there are no examples of libertarian society

As someone who leans at least economically toward libertarianism (we can fight about politics later), I appreciated his answers. I think there are some problems with libertarian political philosophy, just like I think there are problems with Republican and Democratic political philosophy, but I appreciated the clarity of answers and addressing some common questions.

While I enjoyed/ became slightly depressed by both shows, I’m going to have to give the Tom Woods show a slight edge because I like having multiple voices to listen to. It could also have been that the healthcare mess was more depressing than rebuttals to economic questions.

Winner: The Tom Woods Show

Next time: the West.

Photo from Unsplash.

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Podcast Madness: East, Round 1

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Recap: 40 podcasts, single-elimination brackets — 1 winner will emerge!

Read the first post here, then come back for the first round.

East, Game 1:

In the East (top left of my podcast bracket),  I have the Truth & Justice Podcast vs. the Tim Ferriss Show. These are totally different types of shows, so it may be a bit of an unfair matchup.

However, we press on (or press play?)! Truth & Justice is a show where the host finds crimes where he’s convinced the authorities have the wrong guy, then deconstructs the crime and asks listeners for help in their areas of expertise. I listened to season 3, episode 1, about the murder of a Japanese-American woman (actually, I’m not 100% sure if she was American or just married to an American?). The crime was laid out for the audience in the first episode, and even from one episode I can see the puzzle. But I’ve only listened to the one episode so far.

While interesting, I’m not sure the presentation is quite my style. I wished they could have put the ads at the beginning and/or end, and not interrupted the tale of a brutal stabbing with an ad for Blue Apron. That was a little jarring. Plus, the narrator at the beginning sounded like he might be about to announce a wrestling match. So I’m not sure it’s for me.

The Tim Ferriss Show episode I listened to was episode 221: Mr. Money Mustache. Because, of course (in case you don’t know, in my day job I’m a wealth manager). Tim Ferriss had interesting questions to ask Mr. M. Mustache (Pete Adeney) about the way he lives his life, how he got where he is today, and tips for achieving early retirement. The short story is that Pete and his wife started out saving incredibly aggressively while they were young (at good steady jobs), retired when they had their son, and are living life, not working for pay to this day.

Tim and Pete talked a lot about “optimizing” their lives and how the key to retiring young really is to spend a fraction of what you make and to keep your goal in mind. The Mustache family lives simply, rarely drives, and are very DIY, but they aren’t tied to working for pay. They invested the money they saved, and now they’re doing quite well.

The interview was interesting, and I liked hearing about their philosophy of what the “good life” is, but there were a few times they veered into self-congratulatory “bro club” territory. I’m guessing their main audience is male?

Winner: The Tim Ferriss Show

East, game 2:

Next up was Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! vs. the NPR TED Hour.

Wait Wait is a current events quiz show, with a short interview segment with a guest of the week, as well as a panel. I listened to the March 4 episode with Jordan Peele. Some of the questions were easy, as I was familiar with the story they were referencing (hooray! I’m up on current events!) and others I had no idea about (boo, I’m ignorant about current events!). So maybe a good mixture.

Since it’s NPR, production value was high, and the hosts were clever, but I’m not sure that a quiz show is my thing, exactly. At least, I’d probably do better on geeky trivia than on some of these current events. There’s only so much time/ energy I can devote to keeping up, and I think I’d want to keep up too much if I kept listening.

The TED Hour seems to aggregate a few TED talks on the same topic and play clips of them while giving some backstory and connecting threads. I listened to the March 3 episode “Decisions Decisions Decisions,” which I thought appropriate to the podcast bracket exercise.

They told me decisions can be hard, and I should cut down on the number I need to make. Also, that marketers are geniuses who probably rule my life through product placement, and the way questions are framed can determine which answers are usually chosen.

In the end, I think I’m going to come down on the side of…

Winner: the TED Hour

This was fun! I’m looking forward to the Midwest next.

March (Spring) Podcast Madness

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A couple weeks ago, in search of new podcasts to listen to while on the way to work, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, etc. I asked friends on Facebook to recommend podcasts to listen to. They responded enthusiastically, with 43 discrete suggestions. Thanks, everyone!

I decided that such enthusiasm be met with enthusiasm, and my brother (facetiously, I think) suggested I review them all and announce a “winner.” While I probably won’t write in-depth reviews of that many podcasts, I thought it would be fun to start a March Madness bracket to find a winner.  I know it’s April, but I started in March, and the alliteration and allusion to the NCAA basketball tournament is too good to pass up.

Of course, I expect that I’ll end up enjoying far more than 1 new podcast, but who doesn’t love a little competition??

Here are the details:

First, there were only 42 suggestions when I started the project (now there are 43), so the last suggestion didn’t make it into my bracket. I’m sorry. I also removed Radiolab and Invisibilia from the bracket because I already listen to them and love them, so I thought it might give them an unfair advantage, plus, it would make the bracket system more difficult.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do already listen to The West Wing Weekly, but I needed an even number, so it stays in.  I suppose I could replace it with the 43rd suggestion, but I want the West Wing Weekly vs. Pod4Ham matchup to stay.

Next, I downloaded a blank bracket and entered the 40 podcasts into the spaces. I tried pairing up similar themed podcasts for the first rounds. Not every podcast will compete against a similar genre in the first round, but there were a surprising number of crime and history podcasts, so I think it will work out well.

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Then I created a “Podcast Brackets!” playlist on Overcast, my podcast listening app of choice (sadly, I am not being paid to mention them), and started downloading podcasts and adding two at a time to the playlist for a head-to-head listening experience.

Expect to hear results of the first round soon!

 

*I realized later that I misspelled “Ferriss” on my original bracket. No need to let me know. 🙂

Always Listening

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For a long time I held off and wanted to just go see Hamilton and hear the music for the first time that way. But since we probably won’t get to go until 2030….

Me: I broke down today and listened to Hamilton. Which was the song were you talking about?

Him: *opens Spotify and scrolls through the open Hamilton soundtrack*

Me: Were you already listening to Hamilton?

Him: I’m always listening to Hamilton.

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Dracula

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I thought the winter would be a great time to dive into the adventures of the original vampire. The story was somewhat familiar, not least because of the popularity of horror-story creatures in movies and tv shows these days. I think these stories have just about reached saturation, but I thought I’d visit the original tale before enthusiasm completely dies out (see what I did there?).

Since it was published in 1897 by Bram Stoker, the style of writing occasionally meandered a bit more than I’d like, but for the most part the story moves along at a good clip.

The book also consists mostly of diary entries and letters of the protagonists, with very little other narration — an interesting frame to the story. The reader only sees Dracula through the narrative eyes of other characters, which I think heightens the sense of mystery around him.

The Story

The story starts with Jonathan Harker, a solicitor’s clerk, who goes to visit his client, Count Dracula, in Transylvania to inform him of the purchase of a home for the Count in England. After arriving, Harker is trapped in the Count’s Castle and eventually left there for the three vampire women who live with the Count to feast on once the Count has left for England and fresh blood. Fortunately for Harker, he’s clever and escapes.

Meanwhile, his fiancee, Mina, is in England with her best friend Lucy. Dracula is on board a ship that happens to land at the seaside town where Mina and Lucy are staying, which is a huge coincidence. Later Mina notices that Lucy is growing pale and is sleepwalking a lot.

If Mina had watched more tv, she’d have recognized the signs, but alas….

Anyway, adventures ensue, with vampire-hunter Van Helsing arriving midway through the book to help track down and destroy the evil Un-Dead before he can claim more victims. He brings a lot of garlic and a lot of vampire knowledge, which is good for the protagonists and bad for Dracula.

Other Thoughts

Since this story was written by a male author in the 19th century, there were a few times I rolled my eyes at the depiction of Mina and Lucy. When the vampire hunting is in full force, the men decide that although Mina has been super helpful and transcribed all their notes and organized them (to be fair, Jonathan helps her some), for her protection they stop telling her what’s going on and keep her in the dark. Because…she’s a woman and should be spared the worry. They respect her though, because she has a brain that’s shockingly almost as smart as a man’s. Cool cool.

So this awesome plan of protection backfires when the next morning she turns up pale and somewhat blood-drained…. Good job, guys. Never leave someone out of your plans if you’re in a horror story! So other than a few eye-rolling remarks about men vs. women, I enjoyed the tale of suspense.

Also of interest were the abilities Dracula possessed and his weaknesses when compared to other vampires in pop culture. The one thing I didn’t quite understand was that Dracula couldn’t cross flowing water on his own, unless it was at low or high tide? I’m not really sure about the symbolism of flowing water as it relates to vampires, so if anyone knows, pass that along.

All in all, a pretty good horror tale.

Also, at no point does Dracula say, “I vant to suck your blood!” That’s a relief.

Rating

★ ★ ★ ★