Thursday, June 30, 2005

Brave New Podcasting

Who else has downloaded iTunes 4.9?

So far I've decided that I don't like the lack of a clear "unsubscribe" feature. And I've messed around with the program enough to see that in order to download a podcast (as opposed to listening to it on the computer then and there) you need to subscribe.

So far my favorite podcast is "Five Minutes with Wichita Rutherford," which is short and sweet and pretty darn funny. Another short one is the "Queer Eye Hip Tips" which should be familiar to anyone who has seen the show — that part at the end with the white backgrounds and the prop comedy, that'd be the hip tips. Anyway, abstracted from the prop comedy, the seven-minute or so podcast sounds like a gay Orwellian nightmare. "Your skin will never look better than it does right now, so TAKE CARE OF IT." "Freezers are your friend. Use frozen vegetables." "Pleated pants" (hasn't the world learned about pleated pants yet? Do I really have to hear this tip for the millionth time since the first episode of QE?) "are not more roomy."

There's an element of the schoolmarm in the Queer Eye tips, but mostly it just sounds like contextless authoritarian rules for living. In other words, it's not a gay old time.

But I recommend Wichita and am now wondering how I could do my own five-minute podcast. This is a pretty sweet little tool.

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