[FoRK] Re: Media Roundup

[Tom Higgins]

>  How do you get your media and how do you consume it (devices, places, times) ?
>
>  Episodic and scheduled shows (used to be called tv/radio)

MIro (rss + bit torrent + player application) to get and watch kids
shows (pbs stuff, wubbcast, they might be giants Friday night vidoes,
old episodes shows via youtube) lots of the free legit shows being put
up (nasa tv stuff, pbs shows, various cookings shows, TED talks, etc)
and of course various tvrss feeds (mythbusters, heroes, etc etc) These
are watched either on the new 32inch HDtv with a pc input in the
fmaily room or on the 20 inch lcd I have hanging in the master bedroom
on nights when the kids either crash in our bed or pile in on weekend
mornings. Oh yeah and on rare occasion i get to use it to watch my
stuff.

Many of those files get moved over to my laptop or my lifedrive for
when i want to watch stuff without kids around or in non home
locations. The lifedrive is a great tool fit for me.

Audio episodic stuff (podcasts etc) mainly gets directly grabbed on
the lifedrive via wifi and an app called Quicknews.  Car rides and
late night listening .

We recently got an HDTV and have begun to rediscover over the air
offerings. The local PBS station has 5 channels. There is a kids
channel called Qubo that the kinder  have been enjoying.

I did not get in on the Hulu beta, I will be knocking on the door
tomorrow. Imagine, all the old Partridge Family's in one
sitting....JOY
>
>  Movies, documentaries, toons/anime

Still lots of bought or rented DVDs. For docs and off the beaten path
stuff it is mostly torrents and most of them found on
http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/ Toons and the like for kids see above.
Theaters....once in a very blue moon.

>
>  Music

Band web sites, Pandora, Soma.fm, various mp3blogs, coworkers at the
coffee shop, cds  and sometimes  that other popular mehtod. More often
than not though in recent years its been more about streams and cds ;
more of the bands my kids and I listen to are ones we want to support.

I tried Amazon's mp3 once..sure it was nice but it never stuck.
iTunes? My daughter has/had an iPod and she hated the experience so
much she is switch over to a creative labs player as soon as she can
sucker one of her parents to buy her one.

We still have a Sirius radio but it has become my wives way to listen
to classic country. I tried to listen to other stations, mostly I
drifted away after a few weeks. Even Stern has gone unlistened to for
nearly a year now. Is he doing a Painting O'Green again this year?


>
>  Reading

Moving back to Portland means being closer to zine shops. The
Multnomah library is amazing as is Powells bookstore. Having Powells
in town is like being a crack monkey living on the foothills of Mount
VonCracken. I still read some stuff on the lifedrive via webpages or
plucker. I tried to read comics on the lifedrive...not so great.
There is a nice comic reader for linux.

-tom