3 posts tagged “podcast”
One of my favorite podcasts is NPR's Planet Money. The show was spawned from a story on This America Life last fall during the height of the economic meltdown. It has since morphed into a trice weekly podcast that looks at the financial predicament from differing angels, it tries to provide some context and sanity. Every show starts off with the 'Planet Money Indicator' of how well the economy is doing. They range from techinical economic indicators like the TED Spread to how many scoops of sawdust someone is using in their chemical toilet. I love these folksy indicators they are so much more interesting than the Dow. In fact I love them so much that I have started coming up with my own, and this week my indicator is 32.
32 being the number of cable channels we lost when Alex downgraded our cable package today. Bye bye Showtime, HBO and a bunch of movie channels we barely watched. When we did the math (dear gods I am sounding so American these days, well I have been here nearly 7 years) it made so much sense. For some reason we don't really watch movies on cable, I'll watch the occasional one when I am meant to be studying but in general if we are vegging and at a loose end we'll watch 'Bear vs Wild' or Food Network marathons (love the cake challenges). We do enjoy a few HBO and Showtime original series: Dexter, Weeds, This American Life and TrueBlood. But, these shows alone don't warrant $70 a month for premium cable. In fact it would cost a fraction of the annual saving to buy them all on DVD (plus Flight of the Concords for good measure) or rent them through Netflixs.
So there you go a mini-sacrifice on the way to becoming Lean, and let's be honest I am really a basic cable type of a gal.
I've just listened to the latest episode of This American Life which was about cryogenics, and making mistakes. It was a truly disturbing glimpse at what went on in the 60s. I'll just say that the story involved a cryogenic chamber and blow torch, and leave it to your imaginations. At the end of the segment they read a poem by William Carlos Williams:
This is just to say
I have eaten the plums
that were in the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
They then read spoofs of this poem, and I just couldn't resist...
This is just to say
I am saving my potential
for something else
so at this time
I have
no objectivesForgive me
for being
serenely indifferent
to my current
situation
Catching up with the Archers and testing out the Cornell note taking system. The verdict is that I love it because it streamlines my note taking and forces me to think about the bigger themes of each topic. Man those peeps Cornellians really know a thing or two! I have Alex to thank for introducing me to it as he heard about it in a pod cast, and I would love to spend the summer converting my notes from the first year of my course into the Cornell format, but we'll see if I actually get round to that because I am planning on trying to learn Latin come summer. There has been a little bit of a bruohaha over the Cambridge Latin course. Personally I think it sounds like a great place to start and I intend to order the first book after my May exams. It looks like a more holistic (and fun) approach to the language and it comes with DVDs! Can't think of a better way to spend my summer Fridays.
I guess I better go take a shower as we are finally venturing out of the apartment for dinner at Lupa. I foolishly made the reservation a month ago (such is New York life) without checking the all important return of Jack Bauer - bless DVR! Oh and my Mum drew my attention to this article in the Sunday Times and it is oh so true.
