My Various Random Ramblings

I enjoyed reading short science fiction stories by Phillip K Dick, Issac Asimov, etc. Over the years, I’ve found some podcasts that release short fiction (often weekly) under a creative commons license (i.e. free for anyone to listen to). The ones I enjoy the most are The Drabblecast, “strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners, such as yourself” produced weekly by the wonderful voice actor Norm Sherman, and The Escape Pod, weekly science-fiction stories hosted by Steve Eley. The Drabblecast is typically 20 minutes or less, but Escape Pod episodes can run up to 30-45 minutes or more.

I also enjoy the podiobook Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty, a story about a society with super heros, super villians, and some not-so-super Third Wavers, who still have minor powers. I enjoy How to Succeed in Evil, about an evil efficiency consultant so depressed by inept villians that he turns to being a villian himself, but it doesn’t come out frequently enough for me. Other podcasts I know of but don’t really listent to often are The X-1 Podcast, The Great Beyond, Well Told Tales, and Voices of Tomorrow.

I listen to the Pseudonews The Onionin podcast form, and really enjoy this as well.

Office 2007 is a major improvement over the old office. With the ribbon interface, you can now find what you want and can work much quicker. File sizes are now cut in half with the new XML format. It runs smoothly on all systems, and still retains its power features while exposing them more and making them easier to use. I recomend with no reservations Office 2007, and consider it worth upgrading to from an old version.