Chatterbox Cafe

Yesterday on the commute home from work, yesterday here in Japan being a Sunday and unfortunately an eight hour work day, in the car and by some odd chance listening to the local AFN radio station, which I don't normally do because to be honest they have too much variety and not enough good sense to reduce the amount of R&B and Country Western that they play-- anyway, I happened to hear a radio program that seemed something of an oddity--not odd in that it was a radio program or the observant fact that a program happened to be on the radio, mind you, but rather that it was say 40 years past it's expiration date, even though the topics and comments were certainly of a germane nature to today, or at least this year. Not my usual radio fare, though not at all unenjoyable, I kept it playing as I meandered across the base at the obligatory 25 kilometers per decade. Upon arrival at my intermediary destination, I was intending to get out of the car for a trip into the Naval Exchange to gather toiletries and not much else, yet I settled a moment in my parking space to listen and to try to learn what exactly I was enjoying so much.

Of course, I did not know until later when I Googled a phrase I'd heard during the course of the show that what I was listening to was A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media. And maybe if you're more of my generation and less of, oh say, FDR's, you're still not sure what exactly that is, but I will tell you that The News from Lake Wobegon is now, bar none, my favorite podcast. Mind you, the folks sitting in the Chatterbox Cafe may not know they're on a Podcast or even what a podcast is, and if they did they may not much care for that type of thing. But, that's neither here nor there.

The point of the day is that should you find yourself interested in trying something new, which if you haven't caught on by now is really rather something old, then I am donating a personal recommendation: try out The News from Lake Wobegon podcast and see what you think. If you use iTunes, click this link; if you use another podcast client, click this link. This particular segment is only a small 10 minute or so portion of the larger A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) show and if you're into public radio maybe you'll enjoy the entire ensemble on a weekly basis; but according to the APHC website (aren't they all tech-no-logical) the rest cannot be podcasted because of the varying legalities and so-on and so-forths... I digress.