I've about had it with NPR low talkers

I listen to the NPR podcasts while doing my morning Sudoku and I've about had it with:

MEE-shell Norris
Sarah Fishko
Joanne Silberner
Scott Simon (except when he laughs and then he's loud)
That chick with the thick, plummy Irish-y accent on "On The Media." Blow your nose, you horrible woman. (I don't think she works there any more, but man I hate her voice)
Melissa Block
Lakshmi Singh
Bob Boilen

The worst thing about low-talking is not just that these horrible people let their voices trail off into nothing at the end of a sentence, but that their mumblemouth ways get grafted onto the people they are interviewing! Especially when they are interviewing the naturally quiet, such as museum curators, artists, musicians and librarians, who get a lot more NPR time than most professions. More horrifying, Scott Simon and MEE-shell Norris are about the worst of all, and they're hosts! The only thing Simon does with any volume or distinction is laugh at dumb jokes, often his own. And when I hear Michelle Norris mumble her way through and interview, her voice sliding down as if it were slipping away underwater, I feel like she's playing hide and seek with the listener. I can only crank up the volume so much on my Mac. It is the opposite of soothing. Melissa Block is her voice clone. Joanne Silberner sounds like she needs to blow her nose, too.

I guess they can't all be Liane Hansen. I don't know why she's religated to the Puzzle Patrol with Will Shortz, who has a fine voice himself for announcing.

Other good voices:

Brooke Gladstone
Bob Garfield
Sylvia Poggioli
Jim Zarroli
Don Gonyea
Ann Taylor
Steve Inskeep
Daniel Schorr, even if he has old-man-screamy voice on occasion and is kind of nuts

I just couldn't hold it in any longer. Norris and Simon are horrible talkers who drag their interviewees down into the sonic netherworld with them — their questions trail off into nothingness and their interviewees kind of tend to talk way the hell down at the unintelligible range with them. This is a shame. I demand they be dosed with caffeine. Otherwise people should quit emailing their stories so they don't make the podcast. They sound like they're jockeying for positions on the Ketchup Advisory Board. Maybe I'm just saying this because of my auditory processing disability.

In other inadequately functioning sense organ news, I finished reading my first large print book. It was unintentional; I put a hold on Robert Baer's "See No Evil" (after watching "Syriana," which was good, but not satisfying or particularly coherent) and apparently the library only carries this book oldie-style. You really feel like you're zipping right through since there aren't more than 200 words per page. Also, large print books are refreshingly free of a dust jacket, making them easy to handle. However, I have to hold the book about as far as my arms will stretch to approximate a text size approaching normal. Someone should work on developing a readable large print font. That sounds silly but I'm serious — at a certain size all the round bits look alike. You know those fifth grade girls with the bubble writing? It's like that. Or maybe that's just because I can see.