It is, in a word, phenomenal. It is also going on hiatus for a bit. You can listen to archived shows though, and I highly recommend them. You can also have it queued up in your podcast manager thinger so that when shows start turning up again, you’ll be the first to know.

Not having to search out content, but to let it tell you when there is something to consume frees up more time for consumption. I used to read blogs by clicking through all of my bookmarks, reading to remember where I last left off, and then reading onward until I’d consumed all the new postings. I could waste hours a day doing this and not really gain a whole lot of new information. I don’t think I’ve clicked on a blog bookmark in years now. I just follow links from my RSS reader.

Podcasting has made my life as a commuter so much more enjoyable. I currently timeshift about 15 radio shows from four continents on a variety of subjects. I no longer chafe under the constraints of what limited variety the local over-the-air radio provides. Podcasting also provides a platform for niche programming. You’d never get a weekly half-hour program featuring mashups that pull from classical, martial, and pop music on any corporate run radio station. I have two of these in my queue and when the mood strikes on a given drive, I can groove away.

Historically I’ve always subscribed to feeds for the long haul. A website I enjoy has a feed? Subscribe! I never did much pruning because I liked what they had to offer over time. There are some that changed in tone (or maybe I’ve changed a bit too) and I’ve deleted them. Some blogs are no longer active, much to my great disappointment. The subscribe/delete process tended to keep things at a pretty even level with my ability to keep up.

Lately, as in maybe the past six months or so, I’ve been using RSS a bit differently. Google provides a number of interesting ways to combine its search algorithms with the technology and it is easy enough to set up a feed and get news of a particular subject without having to go looking for it. For example, when Google comes across news matching the filter “Council Bluffs levee” I get a notice and link to the article. I’m following three general news stories this way. Google + RSS has become my own private clipping service.

Most online newspapers and discussion forums now allow you to subscribe to feeds on comment threads for news stories. This lets me track a discussion on the latest outrage to hit Metafilter, chuckle over the frothing masses huddled over the latest local crime sensation, keep up on discussions about the various ham radios I own, etc etc etc.

All of this flows through my email/RSS reader. The Web is clamoring at my doorstep, providing endless opportunities to wallow in a glut of signal (and noise) surrounding something that interests me. It is Vannevar Bush’s Memex realized. Using my reader’s indexing and searching functions, I can retrieve details and discussion history at levels that continually amaze.

The problem, and there’s always a problem, is that my reader/email client is becoming unwieldy. There are so many feeds I’ve subscribed to in the past half year that no longer bear fruit and should be pruned. The size on my filesystem of this vast amount of text and audio is starting to strain my ability to capture and properly manage backups for. I dread migration my primary platform so much that I have a hard time envisioning not using my current laptop for the rest of my life.

Still, there’s no way I’m going back. You can pry my collection of feeds from my cold, dead fingers. Something so simple as a standardized, machine-readable, XML format has enabled us to unleash the scouring power of software agents on the monstrosity that is the WorldWideWeb. This is the kind of thing that gave me shivers when playing with the building blocks in grad school. It’s almost AI, but it’s most like Memex…and we’re really only beginning here.

Looking forward, RSS-like applications are being bundled into the next generation of browsers. Visit a web site with a feed and the browser can remember the state of the site when you visit. Come back and it will jump to the place where you last were, or maybe even filter out the old and only show you the new, or maybe just highlight new content. Or maybe do all three and allow you the option to pick how you want it to behave. The money-making future of the Web is in aggregation + digestion + presentation + personalization + connecting similar datasets/profiles/people. Do this seamlessly and people will pay–either those who want this level of service or those who want to harvest the audiences these silos present.

At any rate, here’s what I had to say about this broadcast back then:

Gal Friday joins me in studio for the second consecutive week. Many interesting finds are played. Gal Friday runs the board for half an hour or so. Oh, and someone turned off the tuner that was hooked in to my soundcard before we left for the show, so no live podcast. As a supplicatory gift, I did convert most of the raw files to mp3 and created a pseudo podcast for you enjoyment [ Podcast | Direct MP3 Link ]. You get to miss my velvet fog voice and the brilliant weather analysis of Gal Friday, but, on the other hand, you will get to hear the Erotic Aerobics track.

So, without further ado, here’s the playlist: [songs not included on the podcast have been grayed out]

But that’s enough for me. Grab it via the podcast or download the file directly off the Holiday desk-side server. Either way, enjoy yourself and the others with whom you elect to bring in to your proximity.

So taking the piss, as it were, I tried to get a slight handle on things. The show is completely silly and irreverent. There’s a noticeable lack of technical glitches and I was able to drag out some tunes I’d been sitting on for nearly a year.

Here’s what I had to say about things at the time:

Fezboy! is on a mission to take the holiday season back from the commercial interests and bring it home to the silly, goofy, festive folks who make the season bright. To that end I bring you intriguing recorded oddities for your holiday listening pleasure. I hesitate to call it good, but I will call it interesting tossed in with a bit of fun.

As most of this was procurred from on-line sources, I offer links with this playlist. You can download your own copies, download the audio file of this show, or load up the podcast in your favorite podcasting application.

Playlist after the jump…

Anyway, this week’s adventure runs about 24:30 and touches on themes near and dear to my heart. Breasts. And perverts. And double entendré. And found music.

So have at it or subscribe to the podcast. I hope it isn’t too offensive. And if you like it, please let me know.

Playlist after the jump…

A really fun show this week where we hear all sorts of novelty oddities with just enough beats to tie it all together. Particularly rare gems include rap from Strawberry Shortcake, an excerpt from Devastating Dave the Turntable Slave, and a few thrift store home-made cassette finds. Oh, you better believe this is goodbad stuff. You’ll also notice either:

1. A lack of announcing and PSAs in the first half of the program; or
2. A sudden loss of audio quality in the second half of the show.

Again the stream capture gremlins were out in force and I dropped the first half of the program. However, this time I was able to recreate it from the audio master files on the laptop thus you get the full show this week. Lucky you. . . Speaking of the show, you can either nab it using the podcast link on the right or grab the direct link to the audio file.

Playlist after the jump

Podcasting too hep for an anti-hipster like you? Go ahead and use this direct link to download the audio file.

Got yer tunes lined up now? Good. Here’s what’s on tap for you this week:

Playlist after the break…