Confessions of an iPod junkie

I heart my iPod. Really. Not only can I listen to any of my CDs anywhere, anytime, but I am in LOVE with podcasts. It's like a portable education, and I learn so much every day from them.

Some of my favorite educational podcasts:
NPR's Planet Money. This was very recently started by the producers of This American Life in order to explain what the heck is going on with the economy to lay people.
The Naked Scientists. Awesome British dudes talking about cool current science.
Left, Right, and Center, a balanced debate show about politics, free from rhetoric and screaming.
A French-speaking radio podcast to keep up my fluency.
NPR's Books podcast
NPR's Intelligence Squared debate series--they debate really interesting questions such as, "Should the market for human organs be legalized?"
NPR's Science Friday

(can you tell I like NPR?)

And for sheer entertainment value:
Real Time with Bill Maher
NPR's Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! quiz show
Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac. His voice is so soothing and he reads a poem every day.
My friend B's podcast Chicago Bites, about her dining adventures in Chicago.

It's so refreshing to be doing something like getting out or putting away lab supplies and learning about super bacteria at the same time. I feel like I've been losing some of my ability to use my brain since college; perhaps this is part of the cure?