Audio Overload

As I write this, my wife and I are listening to one of the 80 unplayed podcasts on my computer, while even now iTunes is downloading more. This is after I've gone through and unsubscribed to many podcasts, some of which I miss already, complete with twinges of guilt. The "fat," so to speak, has been "trimmed."

I would feel like I'm treading water here, but with over a day's worth of audio (not even counting the video, mind you...), It's more like I'm in way over my head.

[Insert a few paragraphs where I whine a bit more, here. I wrote them, then deleted them in a moment of temporary sanity.]

As I see it there are three reasons why I have this problem:

1. Some people are releasing daily content and others seem to have turned podcasting into a full time job. And alas, practice makes perfect. The daily episodes I listen to are very, very good.


2. Believe it or not, I have a life outside of the edu-blogo-podcasto-sphere. I know, I know, even I find that comment to be suspicious. But still, not every activity allows me to listen to podcasts while I'm doing it. Teaching, reading, and sleeping are among these activities. (And I'm too old to cut back any more on my sleep.)


3. We moved back in August, cutting over 15 minutes off of my commute. That half an hour (counting the round trip) of prime podcast listening time every school day adds up pretty fast.

I'm not the only one who's had this problem, either. Steve Dembo and Doug Belshaw went so far as to wipe their RSS feeds clean and start over. I don't think I'm ready to go that far, as I'm too attached to the ones to which I'm still subscribed. (Note: My Bloglines.com account has zero unread blog posts, and no, I didn't just click "Mark All Read.")

I'm sure there's a solution to this, but I'm not going to come up with it this late on a school night. I guess I'll sleep on it.