My daily, after-work schedule has changed in the past month or so.

Instead of:

1. Glass of wine
2. How was your day, honey?
3. Supper

It now looks something like this:

1. Description of latest theme of This American Life podcast
2. Re-explanation of how This American Life podcast is organized (ie: it uses themes, and ‘acts’ around these themes)
3. Glass of wine
4. Rundown of Act 1
5. Rundown of Act 2
6. Rundown of Act 3 (if exists)
7. [Typically longwinded] monologue about how these acts relate to the show’s particular theme
8. Lengthy discussion and debate
9. How was your day, honey?
10. Supper

This American Life is a ‘podcast’. If you don’t even know what a podcast is, that’s ok. It is nothing more than a radio show where they tell stories. Some stories are happy, some are sad, some give explanations, some try and find them. The common bond holding these stories together is that they’re all compelling and masterfully told. The ‘podcast’ part is where you can download the radio show and play it on your computer or iPod. Hence the pod-part.

As I recently tweeted: if there’s better radio out there, I haven’t heard it. If you still haven’t had a listen, please give it a try. Download a single podcast and just give yourself an hour to listen—I can almost guarantee that you’ll be glad you did.