Do Not Cross

I’ve been a big fan of the Post Secret blog for a long time. Now they’ve made a short video showcasing some more of their snail-mail secrets. The site and the video are moving and touching and sometimes funny and disturbing. But it is one of the best things on the internet.

Here’s one good reason why you shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a reliable source for any kind of research:

In the Wikipedia entry for “Melody,” someone obviously added their own take on “what melody does.” I’m sure it will be changed soon, but how many others will visit the entry before it will? Because of this, no one should ever use Wikipedia entries as sources for research. It can be a good jumping off point, but it should never be cited in academic papers at all. Yet people still do it.

Lately I’ve entered the world of podcasts. No, I’m not making a podcast, but merely just listening to some. When podcasts first came out I tried out a bunch but I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to listen to week-in and week-out. But recently I’ve dived back into it and have found some very entertaining podcasts. I would recommend any of the following podcasts. They are great and really do a good job of making the daily commute go by quicker.

Never Not Funny: The Jimmy Pardo Podcast

I’ve seen the comedian Jimmy Pardo on sporadic television appearances and have always enjoyed his comedy. While perusing the comedy category of the podcast section in the iTunes music store, I found this lovely gem. Its a weekly, hour-long podcast featuring comedian Jimmy Pardo, comedian Mike Schmidt and producer Matt Belknap. The show has a simple format. The three of them sit around the kitchen table in Jimmy’s house and banter for an hour. They tell stories from their lives, make fun of people, and make humorous observations about everyday things. Its kind of like you and a group of your buddies sitting around shooting the breeze. And it happens that you and your buddies are really funny.

The Relevant Magazine Podcast

I’ve been a fan of Relevant Magazine for a few years now. I was introduced to it by my wife, Cheri, while she was working at a Christian bookstore. It is a great magazine that observes popular culture through the lens of christianity. The greatest thing about the magazine is that it doesn’t try to pander to the ultra right-wing conservative view of Christianity that, unfortunately, is what dominates much of the Christian culture. But instead takes an honest look at culture and the Christian faith.

In the same manner, the podcast accomplishes this as well. It has a very similar format to Never Not Funny. It is a roundtable discussion between four editors of the magazine and website. They discuss the week’s new releases in music and film. Then they proceed to “the weekly slices.” This is where the editors each pick an news story from the week and give their opinions on the subjects. Mostly the stories are strange, off-beat, and hilarious. The show typically then has either an interview or some other type of non-standard bit related to the magazine. Then the show ends with a discussion of listener feedback followed by the editorial question of the week (and yes, there is a little jingle that goes with that). This is a great podcast to listen to and it makes me feel like that there are people out there just like me.

The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack

If you couldn’t tell by now, I love the TV series Lost on ABC. It should be quite easy to understand that I would listen to a podcast about the show. The only reason I listen to a podcast about Lost rather than other TV shows I watch is because of the geekdom that is associated with the show. There are people that take notes while watching the show. They create theories and look for easter eggs that will help explain what the heck is going on. This podcast is dedicated to discussing these things.

The podcast typically has two episodes a week, each an hour long. One episode is recorded right after Lost airs on television. This episode recounts what happens in the show and then discusses it. Then the other episode looks forward to the next airing of Lost and discusses theories on what will happen, takes listener calls, and discusses other things Lost related. The podcast is full of great discussion and is very entertaining.

All Songs Considered

This podcast is NPR’s online music show. It is hosted by Bob Boilen (who has a very soothing voice) and usually runs between thirty and sixty minutes. The show features music from all genres–and I mean all genres. Boilen will introduce new music from around the country and the world. If you love good music and are willing to open your ears to something you typically wouldn’t listen to, then this is a great show for you. It has given me a lot of new artists to look for when it comes to finding new music. The show also allows you to submit your own music to be considered for the show. There are submission guidelines on the website.

Technorati: podcasts, jimmy pardo, never not funny, relevant magazine, lost, all songs considered

I’ve been getting a serious amount of spam comments lately on this blog. Most of them have been one-link comments that have just contained links to various websites that look suspicious. As of yesterday, I was flooded with about 50 spam comments. I temporarily had to set up a moderation so that I could catch them all. But now I set it that if a comment contains any links, it will be placed in the moderation queue for me to approve before it shows up here. I have Akismet turned on for this blog and yet it didn’t catch all the spam that came through this weekend. I guess posting one-link comments is a way to get around it. Akismet seems to mainly look for comments that use certain language (such as Viagra, Cialis, Nigeria, and Stocks) and since these comments only contained a link so another website it was able to filter through.

I wonder how some of this spamming works sometimes too. Checking my blog stats, I notice that these past couple days my traffic hasn’t increased dramatically at all. So that means that the spammers were somehow posting these comments remotely–without having to actually visit my site. My guess is that they were using some sort of robot that searches out blogs for spamming purposes.