Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Current Joys: Podcasts | Life




While I'm still trying to figure out how I want this blog to be, I decided to try and add a kind of new feature: Current Joys. It'll be something that's highlighting something that I've gotten interested in or somewhat obsessed with. 

Currently I've been listening to a lot of podcasts. I have this weird thing where when I'm doing something that has any sort of concentration or mild focus (this can be from studying for finals to cleaning the house) I have to have some kind of background noise and usually that falls into just idle chatter. This is the reason why I go to cafes and such to study sometimes. There's idle music and chatter going about so it's really easy to let my mind focus. I know, I know. It's weird.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite podcasts so far:

 Explain Things to Me is a podcast by Anna Akana (if you haven't checked out her YouTube, I highly recommend) and her, I believe, current boyfriend. They bring in people from different professions and essentially ask them to explain what they do. It's very interesting and I love hearing about these different kinds of careers and what actually goes on in their field. 

Favorite Episodes: Criminal Lawyer Hart Levin, Paleontologist Nathan Caroll, Entemologist Phil Torres


The Black Tapes is a documentary like podcast that talks about the paranormal with Alex Reagan. It kind of starts off with one case and spirals into more and more mystery and intrigue. If you're into ghost stories, demons, and anything paranormal I highly recommend this podcast. I've been listening to it nonstop. 

Favorite Episodes: All of them. Lol I can't really pick a favorite.





Let's Make Mistakes Together is a podcast created by Philip Defranco who has a channel on YouTube where he reports the news with his little bit of commentary and also has some fun videos on the weekends. LMMT is a podcast where he invites his friends who also do YouTube and just general great people from YouTube and they talk while playing some games and sometimes they drink too.
I love listening to people conversing, so I have a lot of fun listening to this.

Favorite Episode: 5 Stitches & A Chipped Tooth w/ Hardcore Henry's Sharlto Copley!


 Most Notorious with Erik Rivenes is a podcast that documents most notorious killers and criminals in American history (at least the ones I've listened to have to deal with American history). He brings on experts who've written books and done huge amounts of research. It's a great history podcast if you're into it and plus, it gives you great material for characters in your writing!

Favorite Episodes: "Count" Victor Lustig, 1920s and 30s Con Man and Public Enemy w/ Jeff Maysh
Stuff You Missed in History Class is kind of self explanatory, but it's an amazing podcast to listen for trivia or just general obscure history hosted by Tracy V. Wilson and Holly Frey. Each episode is only about thirty minutes, but they squeeze in a lot of information. It's super fun and the ladies are really fun to listen to (and again, great material for writing). 

Favorite Episodes: A Brief History of the "White Wedding", Oliver Haugh, Serial Killer Pt. 1 & 2




Again, if you're into listening to people talk about cool things and scary things, I would recommend listening to these or any podcasts. They're fun and I've only gotten into them recently. I highly recommend. They're great for relaxing or when you have a particularly long flight or drive. 

Do you listen to podcasts? What would you recommend?