lensblog

I thought I’d take this chance to share with you some podcasts that have kept me going the last few months… music to relax to. Be it when you’ve just gotten home, sitting stuck in traffic, lying in the bath, listening to your iPod, etc…

My first discovery was Dave’s Lounge. (Subscription details to be found here.)

Dave Warner introduced me to the likes of Natalie Walker, Lovespirals, Dive Index, Raul Ramirez, Bitstream Dream, Karmacoda and Endless Blue.

His shows aren’t long, averaging 30 minutes or so, but there is very little talking in between the tracks and what is great is that he keeps his show notes up to date with links to artist sites and free downloads where applicable.

My only gripe is that we cannot buy from the iTunes store as there are a few songs he’s played that I would love to download.

Through Dave, I discovered, quite by accident, Miss Anji Bee, vocalist of the group, Lovespirals, and hostess of her own shows, the main one I follow being The Chillcast.

Anji also does an all female vocals show called Lovely Ladies and is one of the 7 hosts of the Showgirls podcast, along with Cali Lewis from Geekbrief TV, Share from Rock and Roll TV, KFC from the Podchick podcast, SoccerGirl from SoccerGirl Incorporated and Karla and Karen from Rumor Girls. Check them out…

Last, but not by any means least, I found Mark Smith’s Ambient Falls podcast, which has some of the music that Dave and Anji play and more.

Again, his shows aren’t long, averaging 30 minutes, but there is no speech, no preamble and the tracks flow smoothly from one into another. Perfect for iPod queuing for a long trip or to fall asleep to.

Funny how things work out…

You get up in the mornings, get ready for the day, get started along what you think will be a series of events for the day, then get sideswiped by real life.

I was supposed to go on MailMarshall training today in Sandton… got up early to try and miss the traffic on the freeway, though it took me about 30 minutes to get onto it in any case… busy listening to my music on my headset… then I get an SMS alert. Look around for Metro Police goonsquad… no-one nearby, so let’s check the phone…

The SMS is from my technical director. A change in plans. My colleague that was supposed to stand in for another colleague at one of our onsite posts in the CBD, has called in, with what we eventually found out was kidney stones… poor bugger. I know how he feels, as I was in the same position this time last year.

So I now need to go through to town… if anyone knows Johannesburg well, you know that trying to get anywhere in traffic after 7:30am is a nightmare… William Nicol is a gauntlet, Jan Smuts is worse…

At least I remembered the route. The last time I had to do this, it’d had been my first time venturing into the CBD and if I hadn’t had Rozz (who works in the CBD) to follow, I would have gotten hopelessly lost.

The day itself has been pretty quiet. Ran into some old colleagues and friends from my time as a contractor at SecureData so I had someone to chat to. Other than that, just been answering the phone and checking mail for tasks. And remoting into the main office and updating my tickets.

Now to try get home in one piece. Already dreading the return traffic.