One of the things that came with moving back to the west was the distance between us and one of the greatest NPR stations KUNC. Always a joy to listen to KUNC did not go for the all talk format, nor did they assume that the folks listening wanted a monoculture of classical music. Instead they have a great variety of music and an outstanding collection of shows from National Public Radio and American Public Media.

Enter Podcasting and the ability to get top notch programming delivered to my desktop and then to the iPod or CD. Combine this with iTunes Music Store and there's little reason one need leave the house, ever. But alas things are not perfect. Apple excludes Podcasts from the playlist in the iTunes Party Shuffle so the best way to play a somewhat random mix of music back throughout the day excludes podcasts. There are some scripts like this one that plays NPR's Hourly News reports. What we really need now in iTunes is a good way of scheduling our own semi-automatic quasi-radio schedules with a mix of music and talk that meets our needs. Read more about Podcast playback