Monday, March 14, 2005

Getting off your ass is the new staying on your ass

First of all: mark it. Today's the day where I've been drinking diet Pepsi for long enough that it's starting to taste like real Pepsi. And it feels good to be killing my brain with aspartame instead of rotting my teeth with sugar. The only thing is, that little warning at the end of the ingredients ("PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE") kind of freaks me out. Because I'm sure the day will come when I'm seeing my doctor and he just casually says something like "Oh, by the way, you haven't been consuming any phenylalanine lately, have you? You better not; you're a phenylketonuric. That stuff will totally make you break out in hives and give you Joe Eszterhas' writing career." And I'm like, "But he didn't do so bad... I mean, he's rich and he got a novel published after people stopped buying his scripts, right?" And the doctor says, "No, not the good parts with the hookers and coke and three-million dollar specs; just the bad parts with the paranoia and withdrawal and death threats from Michael Ovitz." So on account of all that, I'm trying to keep it down to about two or three diet Pepsis per week.

Anyway, on to the point, which is that Podcasting rocks. It's like Tivo for the iPod, sort of. The idea of it is that people do radio shows (mostly talk shows or entertainment shows, occasionally music shows), which they record as MP3s. You use a program called iPodder (created by former Dial MTV host Adam Curry, I shit you not) to let you know when there are new shows you're interested in and download them to your iPod. Most of the shows are super-indie, but KCRW has started putting most of their shows into Podcast form -- and not just the boring shows like To The Point, but also cool shows like The Treatment, The Business, and Harry Shearer's intermittently funny Le Show. Then there's Adam Curry's own show, The Daily Source Code, which is only about 75% as geeky as it sounds.

With a bunch of good Podcasted shows on my iPod, it's almost like being able to watch TV while I'm out walking. The gap between exercise and sloth is steadily closing.

5 comments:

Jessica said...

well, you seem to be very addicted to caffeine and i am one of those one in a million(chinese people) who don't and a lot of people think i'm crazy because of that and i wouldn't be surprised if you do. so i guess you think i'm pretty boring now because i have nothing else to say about your blog except that it was interestin so..........bye now!;)

Elizabeth said...

diet pepsi is nasty..well even regular Pepsi is pretty ass-tastic. I, myself, enjoy the quality of Diet Dr. Pepper (or if it's a rough mouth, diet dr. thunder a la kroger)

Myasorubka said...

Dude - diet or regular or 1/2 carb or 1/2 goat - it's PEPSI. It's not exactly a health drink. Lemme see you trade in the carbonated sugar-poison for some organic buckwheat-infused shark-fin extract. Now we're talkin!

Nick said...

Ooh, good idea. I may have trouble paying the rent and my car insurance every month, but I just HAVE to budget another $15 a week for some of that citrus-flavored shark fin juice from Steve's Naturals in Alhambra.

Eddo said...

Pepsi? Who actually drinks Pepsi? I am a diet caffeine free man myself - I used to be ADDICTED to Dr. Pepper- 5-6 A DAY! How is it possible that I am STILL ALIVE?

AND - I am LIVID because I can't afford an IPOD and here you go bragging about pod casting and making me even more envious - I am thinking about working a second job at starbucks just so I can afford new gadgets - I already have a blackberry 7100t, but I WANT AN IPOD!!!